I had been in Vienna, and each time I had thought that the most
wonderful and exquisite things were the Viennese officers. They have
always seemed to me like dainty paper dolls which had just stepped out
of a fashion plate. I had imagined that in war time they would look
less spick and span--but no indeed, they looked just the same, real war
having made no difference.
The Austrian officer is of only one type. He is very tall, very slender
and very graceful, and he is mostly rather dark than light. He has
a small head and face, a straight nose, curved lips and a short but
square chin. He may have eyes of any color, but he is clean shaven--a
mustache is no longer the fashion. His nails are polished and his
manners are delightful. He is generally well educated and very clever.
But he does not look substantial. He seems to have no inner power.
[Illustration: _Franz Josef in Uniform._]
The uniform of the Austrian army from the commonest soldiers to the
highest official is away ahead of the German uniforms. The German
uniforms have the tendency to make the men look wide and squatty, and
the ugly little stiff flat caps of the Germans only emphasize this
fact. The Austrian uniform on the other hand makes the men look tall
and slender. The belt of the coat is high, and this makes the legs look
longer, and the straight cap adds more to the height.
Most of the officers' coats are of field-gray color, but not all as in
Germany. The artillery men, for instance, wear a coat of dark reddish
brown that is very stunning in color. The Hussars wear a short gray
coat of very heavy cloth and black trousers. Around their neck they
wear a fur collar and over the fur a heavy gold braid is tied. Other
officers wear white broadcloth uniforms, and although Vienna is by no
means a clean city these white suits are always spotless. Most of the
officers wear white kid gloves and their boots shine like a mirror. The
streets of Vienna are full of these officers. One wonders who is at the
front.
Nearly all the Austrian officers and many of the Viennese policemen
wear corsets, and you can see the corsets displayed in the men's
furnishings windows. They are not as long as a woman's corset and
are generally made of fancy silk, yellow and black--the Austrian
colors--preferred. All the officers wear such long swords that they
drag on the ground.
[Illustration: _Emperor Carl Franz Josef and His Family._]
They do not have shoulder straps to denote rank as they have in
Germany, but stars on the collar are used instead. A single star
made out of any kind of cloth denotes a common soldier; two stars
an _Unteroffizier_, or a corporal; three stars a _Feldwebel_, or a
sergeant; a silver star means a _Leutnant_, or a lieutenant; two silver
stars an _Oberleutnant_, or a first lieutenant; three silver stars
means a _Hauptmann_, or a captain; one gold star means a _Major_, and
so on up the list.
All the uniforms are very practical and very well made. The overcoats
of the common soldiers are lined all the way down, and the gray caps
are not stiff but are made out of a soft cloth. The legs are bound in
strips of heavy cloth which wind round and round.
All the common soldiers have their hats stuck full of fancy pins of
all kinds, and the soldiers from Tyrol have _Edelweiss_ pins stuck in
their hats, for that is the flower of the mountains. The Viennese Red
Cross girls also wear many pins. They wear a gray suit and a hat that
is trimmed with bright red and is very becoming.
If Vienna is full of officers the country around is full of common
soldiers. I saw them from the train windows. Some of them were farming,
others were fishing, and still others were walking along the country
roads, perhaps going home on a furlough.
[Illustration: _Soldiers at the Prater Park in Vienna._]
One day I went to the Central Cemetery in Vienna where Mozart, Gluck,
Beethoven, Schubert, Johann Strauss and Brahms lie buried in a little
plot of ground. Just before you come to the cemetery there is a
barracks. It had only a barbed wire fence around it and we could see
into the place. It was made up of small frame houses and looked like
a western mining town that had sprung up in a single night. Before
the door of a house near the fence a soldier was doing a good-sized
washing. He seemed to be very much worried for fear he was not getting
the things clean. I am sure he was rubbing everything full of holes.
When he saw us watching him, he first wiped the perspiration from his
brow, then he laughed. "_Sehr schwer_," (very hard), he said sighing.
The Central Cemetery is so large that nearly every one who dies in
Vienna is buried in it. When a funeral comes in at the gate the bells
are tolled, and the funerals came in one after another the day I was
there. The hearses of the soldiers were draped with the Austrian flag.
People follow the hearse walking. An old woman dressed in black and
with a black shawl tied over her head was holding on to the back of one
of these soldier hearses. It seemed as though she could not bear to be
parted from her dead. She was not weeping but had a strange grim look
on her face, a face in which all hope was gone.
From the cemetery we went to the Prater to see the less dismal side of
soldier life. The Prater is the great park of Vienna. It has splendid
drives, but one end is like a Coney Island or a Luna Park. It is
a very gay place even now in war time; there are merry-go-rounds,
roller-coasters and all kinds of side shows. The crowd was very much
mixed, but most of the men were soldiers, privates, and they looked
like men from the country. I saw one old Austrian general getting on
the loop-the-loop with a little boy. He was showing his grandson a good
time.
[Illustration: _Kaiser Carl of Austria on a Visit to Berlin._]
Along the streets one could buy roasted peanuts, roasted chestnuts,
roasted apples, and roasted potatoes. I bought a potato. It was served
to me in a newspaper, and I had to eat the thing without the aid of a
knife or a fork. It tasted fine to me.
One morning we went to the art gallery, but it was closed. Now it is
open only one day a week. When we came out of the gallery a common
soldier came up and spoke to us. He asked us what there was to see in
Vienna. He said he only had until six o'clock that night, and he did
not know what to go to see, as he had never been in Vienna before.
He was a young man with light hair and very gentle manners. He was
dressed in field gray but I noticed something queer about him. All
German and Austrian privates wear pieces of gray linen around their
necks instead of collars, but this man had on a white collar with a
black border. Was he a priest? He asked me a lot of questions as to
whether this church or that church was open or not and then I said to
him, "Are you a priest?"
"Yes," he answered, "I am the village priest of the little town of
X.... I am a volunteer in this war, and now after a year I am returning
on my first furlough to my little parish. My people will be very glad
to see me, but in two weeks I must be back to the front again. An old
man is taking my place. He was too old to go, but I am young and my
country needed me." He walked along with us a little way and when he
left us, he raised his hands over our heads and gave us his blessing.
[Illustration: _Austrian Soldiers in Winter Uniform._]
The guard change in the court of the city palace in Vienna is a great
spectacle. It takes about a half an hour and is much more elaborate
than the one in Berlin. I can't begin to tell all that takes place.
Soldiers stand in rows, then they come out and salute, and then they
go back again. The officers must stand without moving, they don't seem
to breathe, and this standing is so strenuous that three times in that
half hour they must be relieved. When the Austrian flag is brought out
all the men lift their hats and salute it with drawn swords. In between
the military band plays, and when the playing is over a major comes out
and congratulates the officers on their performance. It is like a piece
on the stage.
The opera in Vienna is always crowded with soldiers, and they make a
very gay assembly, officers with their gay uniforms and Viennese ladies
in their low-necked gowns. The customs in Vienna are not the same as
in America, and a real lady can take an officer to the theater or to
dinner, paying his way.
One night we were seated in a restaurant when a first lieutenant, a
tall fellow dressed in black and gold, came in with a lady. They sat
down at the table next to us. He was very polite, hanging up her coat,
taking a spot of dirt off her face, and then he read over the bill
of fare and asked her what she wanted. They were not married to each
other, for they used _Sie_ and not the familiar _Du_. He wanted her to
have either roast duck or roast goose, but she said no, that they were
too expensive, and she modestly took two "wienies" and some sauerkraut
at sixty cents a plate. "What a considerate lady," I thought, "she
doesn't want to be too hard on that poor officer." When the waiter came
around I nearly fell over to see her foot the bill, and then she gave
the officer five crowns to pay for the cab.
Another day I was in a shop buying cheese. A young lady came in with
three officers--two artillery officers and a hussar. First she bought
several dollars' worth of cakes, and then she bought each of the men
a bottle of fancy liqueur. Her bill was over thirteen dollars. She
carried the cakes and the bottle for the hussar, because he had on
white gloves and had no pockets. It is a great thing to be a Viennese
officer.