47
“the master of Bohemia is the master of Europe”—the Pangerman politicians often quote this statement of Bismarck. Bohemia, with Slovakia, interferes with the Berlin–Bagdad plan; the shortest road from Berlin to Constantinople, to Salonika and Trieste leads through Prague or through Bohumin (Oderberg); to Vienna and Budapest, also, the shortest connection from Berlin is by way of Prague and Bohumin—Bohemia and Slovakia block the direct connection between Prussia and Austria and the Magyars.
The Czechs constitute the westernmost wedge driven into the German body; they constitute the furthest West in the zone of the small nations; they are the western outpost of the non-German nations in the East. The Czecho-Slovaks are not a Slav remnant like the Lusatians, for they have held their own against German aggression toward the East for more than a thousand years; the Czechs have opposed the Germans from the seventh century, from the original foundation of their State, up to the present day. The Slavs of the Elbe and Saal basins and of the Baltic shores have been Germanised or exterminated, the Czechs maintained their individuality. To be sure, they are surrounded by the Germans on three sides; toward the South they border on the Magyars, only in the East they border on the Poles and the Ukrainians: a very difficult position in a world of national struggles, resembling the position of the Germans, of which the Pangermans so loudly complain.
45a. The Czecho-Slovak nation has from its very beginning, manifested considerable strength in opposing Germany and Austria; the first Czech State (Samo in the seventh century) reached as far south as the territory of the Slovenes; and a great Moravian Empire also reached as far south as the Serbocroat lands. Later, the Czech State, as we have remarked, actually passed through a period of something like imperialism.
Bohemia did not unite with Austria and Hungary until 1526, in a personal union; from the seventh to the sixteenth century, for a full thousand years, it constituted an independent State. The union with Austria and Hungary was brought about by the Turkish danger; all three States had a common dynasty, otherwise remaining independent; but it is well to emphasise that Hungary, in 1526, was over-run by the Turks, only Slovakia remaining free, and being included in the union; Hungary had to be reconquered from the Turks by the united efforts of Bohemia, Slovakia and Austria, which was done after a struggle of nearly two hundred years.
The account of the development of the Bohemian-Austrian-Hungarian union is very interesting and instructive, if we study how the mighty position of the dynasty, judged by mediæval standards and reflecting the glory of the Roman Empire, led to absolutist centralisation and Germanising unification; it has already been pointed out that it is not correct to look upon Austria as an illustration of the principle that small nations and States must necessarily federate. The principle of federation was betrayed by Austria.
Legally, Bohemia is still an independent State. The union with Austria and Hungary, in 1526, gave it only a common sovereign; the Habsburgs centralised and partially Germanised Bohemia and Hungary only via facti, the legal foundation not being affected. The Habsburgs, as Bohemian kings, strengthened absolutism according to the Spanish example in the administrative sphere, but they did not dare to change the legal basis of the compact concluded between the kingdom and the dynasty. (The estates were at that time the representatives of the nation, and remained such until 1848.) The Bohemian State became absolutist, but remained a separate, independent State. The Habsburgs lent themselves as a tool to the counter-reformation, the Hussite movement was suppressed with the assistance of all Europe, the revolution of Protestant Bohemia in 1918 was overcome, and the emperor, with his German councillors, endeavoured in every way to weaken the Bohemian lands. In particular, they carried through an unique economic revolution; 30,000 families
