Page:The History of The Great European War Vol 1.pdf/42

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the Hapsburgs—to be governed. Government, so far as it takes a State form, expresses itself through two independent States, Austria and Hungary. Austria, which contains a population of 30 millions, of whom only 10 millions are German or Austrian in the real sense of the word, is divided into seventeen Provinces or Crown Lands, of which only five, namely, Lower and Upper Austria, Salzburg, Styria, and Carinthia, constitute the German territories, an area of about 27,000 square miles out of a total of 250,000 square miles, comprising Austria-Hungary. To these seventeen provinces should be added the two former Slavic Provinces of Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, which were in 1878, after the Russo-Turkish War, placed by the Treaty of Berlin in the official occupation of the Dual Monarchy, but which have since been seized by the Hapsburgs in defiance of the Powers and added to their possessions. Of the population of Hungary less than a half are Magyars or Hungarians.

The monarchy possesses as a mere appearance of constitutional government a Parliament for Austria, another for Hungary, and a Diet, for local affairs, for Croatia-Slavonia.

The beginnings of the Dual Monarchy are to be found in Austria, or more strictly that limited part that lies below the Ems. In the thirteenth century the Duchies of Austria, Styria, and Carinthia came into and have since remained in the Hapsburg family. From that period this family has increased its territories and dominions until we find the empire as now constituted. During the ages that have intervened, however, the Hapsburgs, always by ruthless wars of greed and aggression, have at various times acquired and possessed an Austrian Empire more or less extensive—at one time limited to the duchies already mentioned, at other and varying times extending to and possessing Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Servia, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, Switzerland, Tyrol, Sardinia, and other countries. To-day the Hapsburgs possess the territories and the peoples already described.

The settled policy throughout the history of the House of Hapsburg has been that that House, or Family, or Dynasty—call it what you will—shall possess all the countries it possibly can and dominate also as many as possible of the nations and peoples who are not, for the time being, its chattels. The peoples of Austria are the peoples of the Emperor almost in a feudal sense. Count Andrassy very truthfully said, "The key to the Hapsburg heart lies in the words ' More acres.' " Crudely put, the Hapsburg family are, and always have been, traders in territories and peoples —in lands and flesh and blood. The aim of this trade has always