Mein Kampf
tional states began to form along the edge of the Monarchy. The people of these states, racially related or similar to the individual Austrian fragments, now began to exert a stronger attraction than the German-Austrian could. Even Vienna could not survive this struggle indefinitely.
Budapest’s development into a great city had given Vienna for the first time a rival whose task was not to hold together the whole Monarchy, but rather to strengthen one part of it. In a short time Prague was to follow this example, then Lemberg, Laibach, etc. The rise of these former provincial cities to national capitals of individual countries produced centers for a more and more independent cultural life. Only thus could popular political instincts find an intellectual footing and a new depth. The time was bound to come when these instinctive forces of the various peoples would be stronger than the force of common interest, and then Austria was done for.
The course of this development after the death of Joseph II was plainly to be seen. Its rapidity depended on a series of factors, partly inherent in the Monarchy itself, partly depending on the Empire’s position in foreign politics at the moment.
If the battle to preserve the state was to be seriously undertaken and fought to a finish, only a centralization as ruthless as it was persistent could possibly succeed. In that case it was necessary above all to establish a uniform state language, thus emphasizing the purely external community, but furnishing the government with a technical tool which no unified state can exist without. Only then, in the long run, could a uniform state consciousness be produced by the schools. This was not to be attained in ten or twenty years; it was a matter for centuries. In all questions of colonization a great purpose is more important than momentary efforts.
It scarcely needs mentioning that both administration and political leadership must then be conducted with rigid unity.
I found it infinitely instructive to discover why this did not happen, or rather why it was not done. The person guilty of this omission was alone guilty of the collapse of the Empire.
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