The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 1/The Ramshackle Empire
The Bohemian Review | ||
Jaroslav F. Smetanka, Editor, 2324 S. Central Park Ave., Chicago. | ||
| Vol. I, No. 6. | JULY 1917 | 10 cents a Copy |
The Ramshackle Empire.
By Joseph Tvrzický
Secretary, Bohemian National Alliance of America.
Recent news from Vienna proved once more the truth of the famous definition of Austria: “It is a government but not a nation”. The “Fortwurshtlungspolitik” of the Hapsburgs, the policy of pottering along any old way and ignoring disagreeable problems, apparently will not work any longer, for the diseased condition of the Austrian body politic has broken out into dangerous open sores that cannot be hidden before the eyes of the world.
The Empire of the Hapsburgs has existed so long and has overcome so many dangers that the inherent conservatism of mankind can only with difficulty realize that the end of this ancient ,but far from honorable, monarchy is now in sight. It is foolish to count with it as a possible rival of Germany. Napoleon III. went to war with Germany confidently, because he figured that Austria, defeated by Prussia four short years ago, would back him. France fell and lost Alsace-Lorraine because of this miscalculation. And today there are men who imagine that after three years of close partnership, or rather of entire subordination, Austria under the Hapsburgs is capable of playing a part against Germany, which three times saved it from defeat, which controls its armies and enjoys the devotion of the ruling elements of the Dual Monarchy. In France some of the old royalists, in England a few diplomats of the old aristocratic school, even in America ill-informed publicists raise their voices in favor of saving for the Hapsburgs their inheritance.
There are many currents of influence and intrigue that work for the preservation of Austria. Empress Zita is a Bourbon, of the family that never learns anything new and never forgets the old. She has relatives and admirers in the aristocratic circles of France, Italy and Spain. Again, information of the real state of affairs inside the black and yellow boundary posts is very scanty. Items that come out are in most cases such as the Vienna government permits to come out. And above all the Magyar oligarchy which controls Hungary is working feverishly to make friends in the Entente circles and in America. Hungarian noblemen with English and American wives and Jewish bankers of Budapest with connections all over the world talk of the knightly Magyar nation, of Kossuth and his revolt against the Hapsburgs, of the Hungarian democratic constitution that is supposed to be modeled on English lines. And all this time the cry of the oppressed races of Austria-Hungary declares that no compromise is possible with the ramshackle empire of the Hapsburgs.
What is the actual situation today in the Dual monarchy? Is a separate peace possible? And how would it affect the Allies?
The Austrian parliament has recently approved the budget submitted by the government. It would seem at first sight that the representatives of the races of Austria voted confidence in the government. But when the situation is analyzed, a different conclusion follows.
Out of 510 deputies to the Vienna Reichsrat fifty, all of them of the opposition, have not taken a part in the sitting. Ten of these are Czechs. Leader of the independent Czech deputies, Prof. Masaryk, is in exile, condemned to death in his absence. Kramář, Rašín, Klofáč, the latter being chairman of the United Bohemian Club, all three leaders of the Czech delegation, are in jail charged with high treason. Other deputies under arrest or sentence are Soukup, Netolický, Choc, Buřival, Vojna. One, deputy Fresl, committed suicide in jail. Out of 105 Bohemian representatives only 95 could be present. For the budget were cast the votes of 230 Germans. Poles, with their 80 deputies, abstained from voting. Against the budget voted the Czechs, Jugoslavs (Serbians, Croatians and Slovenians), Roumanians and Italians. The total opposition vote was 150, representing a numerically larger population than that voting for the government.
The fact is that the Austrian government is supported solely by the German minority of the Hapsburg subjects, and even this element will stand back of Emperor Charles only in so far as he stands back of Germany. The attitude of the rest of the people is best expressed in certain public pronunciamentos of the Czech people which are given herewith.
Bohemian deputies of all parties, combining in the United Czech Club, addressed the Reichsrat upon its opening in these words: “Relying in this historical moment upon the natural right of each nation to self-determination and free development, fortified further by irrevocable historical rights and state papers of undoubted validity, we shall demand at the head of our people the union of all branches of the Czecho-Slovak people into one democratic Bohemian State, which shall include the Slovak branch connected geographically with the historical Bohemian fatherland”. In addition to this general and common demand a separate declaration was made on behalf of the independent Czech deputies. Their leader before the war was Professor Masaryk, who is at present at the head of the movement laboring in the Allied countries for the independence of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Slovakland. This declaration states: “The elected representatives of the Bohemian people reject emphatically all responsibility for this war. . . . The government calls together only now, after three years, that parliament which the Bohemians never recognized as legal and against which, as well as against the so-called constitution, they once more enter a protest. The splendid Russian revolution compels the government and the men in power to create an appearance of constitutional life. The Bohemian people welcome with boundless admiration and enthusiasm the liberation of the entire Eastern Europe which has been accomplished by victory of the Russian nation. The leading principles of this ever memorable revolution are closely akin to our own ancient traditions, namely the principle of liberty, equality and fraternity of all nations. Bohemia is a free country. In the days of its liberty it did not accept laws from foreigners or its neighbors, however powerful they might have been. Liberty of men, liberty of nations, is again our rallying cry, the same cry that the Hussites victoriously sounded over all Europe. At the historical moment, when from the blood of battlefields new Europe arises and the idea of sovereignty of all nations and nationalities marches triumphantly through the world, the Bohemian nation declares solemnly before all world its determination to have the liberty and independence enjoyed by the ancient Bohemian crown. While demanding political independence, the Bohemian nation in accordance with the new democracy postulates for the entire Czecho-Slovak race the right of self-determination.”
Not only on the floor of the parliament, but in the cities of Bohemia revolutionary declarations were issued. The national socialist party, the party whose leader Klofáč is in jail and most of whose deputies are charged with treason, published a statement on May 29th which defies the terrorism of the Austrian government. It says: “We greet with joy the liberation of the Russian nation which together with the great democracy of the United States and the democracies of the whole world desires the end of this terrible war and wants to construct universal peace on the basis of liberty and free self-development of all nations. The Bohemian National Socialist party expects of its deputies that in accordance with the principles of the party they will faithfully interpret the indestructible hopes of our suffering nation. It expects of the whole people, and of its deputies especially, that they realize that the honor of the Bohemian name and of the Bohemian flag is concerned and that by the convocation of parliament the time for passivity has gone by, that to be silent now would mean sharing the guilt.”
All these declarations have been correctly classed by the Austrian government, by Germans and Magyars as demands for the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary. The Frankfurter-Zeitung called on the German population of Vienna to silence Bohemian deputies by mob attacks and urged the Austrian government to treat all Czech deputies as traitors. In the Hungarian parliament the Czech attitude provoked a storm of hatred, and Prof. Kemety stated that by demanding the union of Czecho-Slovaks the Bohemians declared war upon Hungary.
VÁCLAV KLOFÁČ
leader of the Czech national socialist deputies.
Klofáč was arrested shortly after the outbreak of the war and has been kept in prison ever since, alhtough no court passed judgment on him and no charges against him were ever published. He was not released from custody even when the Austrian Parliament met on May 30. As the strongest protest against his unlawful imprisonment the Bohemian deputies chose Klofáč for their president. The picture shown here was taken in Chicago in 1913, when Klofáč was travelling in the United States. It was taken by Mally & Co.
Other Slavs of Austria made similar demands. The Jugoslavs declared their program to be the formation of a united Jugoslav state, the Poles urged their national program of an independent Poland with access to the Baltic, while the Little Russians also demanded their own state. Roumanians and Italians could say nothing, but every one knows, even Emperor Charles, that they hope to be joined to their free brothers of Roumania and Italy. Such is the present state of affairs in Austria. It really amounts to a revolution, even if a bloodless one. No other kind is possible. In Bohemia 90 per cent of men between the ages of 17 and 55 are in the army. Bohemian workingmen, like Belgians, have been deported in thousands to work in other Austrian lands, and the women, the children and the old men, without arms, cannot make an armed rebellion. If notwithstanding all this there have been great riots in Bohemian and Moravian cit ies, it is the final proof of the firm will of the Czechs to break away from Austria forever.
Is there anyone in Austria capable of making separate peace with the Allies? The present government is the so-called bureau-chiefs cabinet, because Charles was unable to form a real ministry acceptable to parliament. If the Allies should make peace with the emperor on conditions acceptable to him, sixty-five per cent of the population would feel that they were betrayed, and the thirty-five per cent of the Austrian Germans would approve of it only if separate peace would Austria would fall in with the plans of Germany.
But what sort of peace would that be? It is impossible to deny the Polish people the reunion of their three fragments. The Italian provinces of Austria with Trieste must go to Italy. Eastern Galicia and Bukovina with their Little Russian and Roumanian population is definitely lost to the Hapsburgs.
That would leave only the Germans and Magyars who would gravitate toward Germany, and against them the irreconcilable enemies of the Pangerman Central Europe plan, the Czecho-Slovaks and the Jugoslavs. Is it likely that tens of thousands of these men who fight today in every Allied army would peacefully submit once more to the yoke of Germans and Magyars? Bohemians and Slovaks, Serbians, Croatians and Slovenians will never rest, will keep Europe eternally in turmoil, until they also are free.
The empire of the Hapsburgs must go. Out of its ruins will be erected free democratic states, and then only will Europe and the world be in a state of stable equilibrium.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse