VIENNA
If you ask an educated, reflecting Austrian under what form of
Government he lives, he will reply, “The Emperor of Austria and King
of Hungary is an absolute monarch; we live under a despotism tempered
by carelessness.” And he will laugh flippantly. “So long as one man,
the Emperor, has the right to decide whether there will be peace or
war, without appealing to his Ministers, the Constitution is a mere
mockery. We owe the only liberties we enjoy to the slackness in the
administration of the laws of the realm; we have no rights.” “How is
it that the country has never demanded its rights?” “Those who ask
awkward questions in this country are hanged or exiled.... Those who
wish to remain here keep a still tongue in their heads.... We are
talking treason now, and there are spies everywhere.” Other Austrians
belonging to the intellectual class explain that the men in power
encourage frivolity systematically, and provide amusement for the
people to prevent their thinking or reflecting. Certain it is that
Vienna before the war was the chief centre of gaiety in Europe.
In spite of the sombre shadow cast over the Court, the city lived for
amusement. It was the only thing that the Viennese really understood.
In Advent things are relatively quiet; there is the same round of
gaiety as later in the year, but the toilettes are sombre, and
everything is on a less magnificent scale than in Fasching, the time
between the Court Ball--when the Emperor opens the real season--and the
beginning of Lent. The winter of 1908 was particularly gay. There was
skating all day and dancing all night. Light sleds carried the girls to
balls when the snow had frozen hard and horses, in their spiked shoes,
could not get any grip on the slippery paving-stones. Others went in
the electric tramway, which ran even when the temperature was far below
freezing-point, and the drivers were provided with astrachan masks and
goggles, to prevent their eyelids freezing to their cheeks. There were
balls every night given by different societies and corporations of all
grades and degrees, from the artists’ ball to the chimney-sweeps’
dance. No one ever dreamt of staying at home during Fasching. Such
details as lack of dress, money or chaperones made no difference. If
you had no dress you borrowed a domino and went to a masked ball. The
balls often lasted far into the next day, sometimes only closing at
four in the afternoon. Everyone can dance, and did dance through the
festive season, except small children, who were learning their steps
at the dancing-school. Many began to dance and skate before they were
firm on their feet, their parents so dreaded their not being skilled
in the things that “really mattered.” Old men did not stay at home;
they sat in a favourite café, where a table was reserved for them, ever
since they had been saluted as “Herr Doctor” for the first time by the
waiter who judged that they had reached manhood. The rule universally
accepted, and put into practice by rich and poor alike, was: “Enjoy
yourself while you can, you never know what the morrow may bring.” In
the case of the Viennese it only brought new varieties of enjoyment.
No considerate employer expected his staff to turn up in full numbers
after a _redoute_. Sleep was rare in the season. Many young men never
went to bed at all night after night; they left the ball-room at dawn,
took an ice-cold dip, and repaired to the next café, where they drank
cup after cup of strong black coffee, to enable them to keep awake
during office hours. The employer said nothing so long as the work was
done.
After the ball it was the rule to visit the music-halls and night
cafés, and this continual gaiety left no time or inclination to discuss
politics or criticise rulers. Everyone was contented and satisfied
with things as they were. They made no excuse for their frivolity. In
fact a man who showed no disposition to join in the round of gaiety
immediately became “suspect.” An officer had more chances of making a
career for himself if he were a good dancer and could pirouette his
way into the good graces of the commander’s aged wife than if he spent
hours over maps and plans. His brother officers wondered why he wished
to investigate things.... Was he selling information to Russia?
At this epoch winter sports were beginning to become a factor in the
life of the Austrians. Some girls asked their fathers to give them the
money ear-marked for balls to spend on ski and a winter outfit. In
the middle classes the innovation was not regarded as an advantage.
Winter sports cost more than balls. The girls were inclined to become
too emancipated, and their mothers spent anxious hours wondering
whether they had not taken cold or met with accidents. In the upper
classes winter sports and dancing were combined. The Austro-Hungarian
aristocrat is accustomed to an outdoor life, and the lower classes,
too, went ski-ing in the mountains just outside Vienna. The Government,
quick to see that it would be an advantage to have soldiers trained to
use skis for the army, encouraged winter sports, put on cheap trains
and extra trams to enable the people to go in for it thoroughly.
The army of dressmakers, shoemakers, florists, and others who live by
manufacturing articles for the ball season naturally disapproved of
winter sports; but it is doubtful whether the new fashion really made
much difference to them, for the ball-rooms seemed as full as ever.
There were large numbers of strangers in both Vienna and Budapesth;
curiously enough they were almost without exception people from within
the Empire or from the Balkans. Vienna was always the capital of the
Balkans. The women came to shop there, girls were sent to finishing
schools in the capital, and it was a kind of Mecca to which men from
far-off places in Rumania dreamed of coming once in their lives. The
Balkan kings visited Vienna, and reaped credit with their peoples
from having sat side by side with the Emperor, the great stickler for
etiquette, the arbiter of rank for the East.
Such was Vienna, and such were to a lesser degree the provincial cities
of Austria-Hungary, which all modelled themselves on the capital, when
Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and the heir to the throne, Archduke Francis
Ferdinand, decided to embark upon an aggressive policy. The Archduke
fondly believed that the idea originated with himself, and that he was
right in taking advantage of the temporary disablement of the aged
Emperor to strike a blow for his country’s aggrandisement. He did not
see that he was doing an unwise thing in listening to the counsels of
a neighbouring monarch, whose interests were by no means identical
with those of his own country, and acting on these promptings, without
consulting the Emperor. Count Aehrenthal, the Foreign Minister, was
a creature of the new _régime_, and he took his instructions from
the coming man. Changes of policy for the Dual Monarchy are usually
announced at the meeting of the Delegations, an assembly of members
of the Austrian and of the Hungarian Parliaments, who are delegated
by their fellows to represent them at the meeting. The Delegations,
which sit in Vienna and in Budapesth alternatively, vote supplies for
all objects common to the two countries, such as the army and navy.
The small check that the Austrian and Hungarian Parliaments can put on
their rulers lies here. The members of the Delegations, however, were
men who had axes to grind and seldom interfered with the programme
announced by the Foreign Minister.
It was at a meeting of the Delegations in Vienna, in the winter of
1908, that Baron Aehrenthal announced the fact that Austria-Hungary had
embarked upon an aggressive policy. The days of quiet and tranquillity
were over; the country intended to join in the march forward. It only
sought commercial expansion, it is true, but it was prepared to face
all and any consequences.