VIENNA
_Vienna, Saturday, December 19th._ I remained in Berlin only one day
and started this morning for Vienna with dispatches, arriving late in
the evening after an uneventful fourteen-hour journey.
* * * * *
_Sunday, December 20th._ I presented myself at the American Embassy
this morning, delivered my dispatches, and had a conference with Mr.
Grant-Smith, the First Secretary. At luncheon I met Colonel Biddle, an
officer in the Engineer Corps of the United States Army, who has
recently arrived in Austria in order to go to the front as a military
observer. The afternoon and evening I spent with Captain Briggs,
Military Attaché at the Embassy, studying and comparing the military
methods of the eastern and western fronts. Captain Briggs has
collected, with an energy and intelligence that can fairly be called
amazing, an immense quantity of valuable military information
relative to the operations and practices of the Russian, German,
Austro-Hungarian, and Serbian armies.
* * * * *
The Austrian army officers and privates suffer by comparison with the
Germans. The soldiers one sees in the streets of Berlin are big,
husky, strong, healthy creatures, with jowls hanging over their
collars. The officers are clean-cut, keen-eyed, and in splendid health
and training. Austria seems distraught and unready for emergencies,
the people are not as keen for the war as the Germans and appear to be
more indifferent as to its results. I am predicting that the end of
the war will see Japan, Italy, and Roumania gainers, and Belgium,
Turkey, and Austria losers, while Germany and England will be
approximately in the same positions as before the war. Russia has
relatively little to gain or lose.
* * * * *
_Monday, December 21st._ I had a walk and talk with Ambassador
Penfield this morning; took luncheon with Mr. Grant-Smith and went
afterward to the Embassy. Later in the afternoon I went with Count
Colloredo von Mansfeld to the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office and then
called on the Countess Potatka to whom I had brought letters of
introduction.
* * * * *
_Tuesday, December 22d._ After luncheon today Mr. Grant-Smith
presented me to Wilhelm Prince zu Stollberg Wering Rode, Conseiller of
the German Embassy in Vienna, who made an appointment with me for
Thursday.
I am meeting many officials, American, German, and Austrian, but at
present I cannot, without indiscretion, state just what they discuss.
I went today to the Wiener Bank Verein with Mr. Grant-Smith who wished
to arrange some safe deposit boxes for the Embassy. The building is
said to be the most beautiful bank building in the world, and I can
easily believe it. Knowing my professional interest in architecture,
Mr. Grant-Smith asked the Director to show me the building, which he
most kindly did, taking me from top to bottom--a privilege I am told
seldom granted to anyone, and for which I was very grateful.
Austria-Hungary is an extraordinary country. I doubt if anything like
it exists in this our day and generation. The Emperor-King is
everything. He could well say without exaggeration "L'État c'est Moi!"
The common people really look upon the king as divine. Socialism and
democracy do not exist,--the words seem to have no real meaning for
his subjects; and Parliaments are but his dutiful servants.
Lese-majesty is almost unheard of because the idea of questioning the
Emperor-King or anything he does would no more occur to his subjects
than to doubt the Immaculate Conception would occur to a devout
Catholic.
And what an extraordinary old man--what a relic of past ages this
Emperor-King Franz Josef is! He ascended the throne at the epoch of
our war with Mexico, he had reigned nearly two decades at the
termination of our Civil War. He refutes and blights the theories of
Dr. Osler. Two successive heirs to the throne have died or been killed
off, but he "goes on forever." He is personally a very devout
Catholic, but apparently has seldom or never allowed himself to be
politically dictated to by the Vatican. When he learned of the recent
ignominious defeat of his armies by the Serbians and of the retaking
of Belgrade, the old man first burst into a furious rage and then sat
down with elbows on the table, his head in his hands, and prayed for
forgiveness and future successes.
In Austria's history one discovers no victories. She is an unusual and
pliant State to survive so many defeats. One finds her the easy prey
of Frederick the Great, the pet victim of Louis XIV., the foe against
whom Napoleon made his first youthful efforts and the vanquished of
his prime, the defeated foe of Napoleon III., the vanquished tyrant of
Italy united, the loser in Prussia's Thirty Days' War of 1867, and now
the gradual loser against Russia's wild, numberless hordes. She has
already lost all of Galicia and stands with her back to the
Carpathians and has been held off on equal terms by Serbia these four
months past. A supine State, she is always defeated, and yet always
remains and ever grows.
Austrian money is now greatly depreciated. In ordinary times one gets
about 487 crowns for $100, while today one obtains 575. American money
has at present the highest rate of exchange.
* * * * *
_Wednesday, December 23d._ This morning I had a most interesting
interview with Count Szecsen, the Austrian ex-Ambassador to France,
and spent the afternoon in conference with Captain Briggs.
* * * * *
_Thursday, December 24th._ I made a verbal report to Prince zu
Stollberg this morning on the situation of German subjects in France.
After luncheon I had a most interesting talk with Mr. Nelson
O'Shaughnessy, of Mexican fame, who is Conseiller at the Embassy.
Later I went for a most delightful automobile ride with Ambassador
Penfield, who showed me the Prater, the Danube, the Basin, the
Exposition Building, and the Ring. Afterward Mr. Thomas Hinckley, the
second secretary, took me to see the Christmas tree in the American
Hospital, all ready for tomorrow's fête for the wounded soldiers.
* * * * *
_Friday, December 25th._ It seems very triste to be way off next to
Asia on Christmas Day, on the day when one most wants to be at home.
However, I had two Christmas feasts and a warm welcome into two
American homes. I took luncheon with Mr. and Mrs. Nelson O'Shaughnessy
and dinner with Captain and Mrs. Briggs, enjoyable visits that made a
happy day out of what would otherwise have been a very sad one.
In Vienna, as in Berlin, the fashionable hours are very late and one
is more or less forced to follow them. Nothing happens before noon and
evening entertainments end somewhere in the early morning hours.
* * * * *
_Sunday, December 27th._ This morning I was allowed by special
permission to visit the Imperial Museum, which is closed to the public
on account of the war. I took luncheon with Mr. Cardeza, Attaché to
the Embassy, and dined with Mr. O'Shaughnessy. The American diplomats
in Vienna and Berlin generally have been very much isolated since the
war began, and in each place the corps has become much like a big
family whose members see a great deal of one another.
* * * * *
Count Berchtold, whom I have seen on several occasions, is a wiry man
of medium height, always grave, intent and all-observing under a mask
of stolidity. He never "talks" and seldom speaks. When he does he is
terse and speaks out of one corner of his mouth as if reluctant to let
the words escape. He is, however, noted for the most unfailing and
perfect manners. It is said he can hear perfectly every separate
conversation that may be carried on in any room where he happens to be
present, and not only hears what is spoken but catches every little
motion or hint of important matters. Such is the man whose hand struck
the match that lit the long-prepared conflagration in which the total
military casualties alone already far exceed five million.
* * * * *
_Monday, December 28th._ I went again to the Imperial Museum this
morning and later took luncheon with the Count Colloredo von Mansfeld,
to meet Conseiller Black Pasha of the Turkish Embassy. Conferences at
the Embassy with Captain Briggs, Mr. Grant-Smith, and Mr. Hinckley.
* * * * *
The man who did as much to bring about this war as any single agency
was the German Ambassador to Vienna, Heinrich von Tschirski und
Bögendorff.
I sent home today by cable our code-word "greetings" as a New Year's
message. It goes through the Embassy here in Vienna and the State
Department at Washington. It cost me eighteen crowns, but I know it
will be worth many times that to my family, as it must be some weeks
now since they have had news from me.