Up to 1867 the Hapsburg Monarchy was, outwardly at least, a Teutonic
state. But in 1866, having been decisively beaten by Prussia at Sadova,
it found itself facing a new destiny. Expelled from the Germanic
Bund of which it had been a leading member, the championship wrested
from it by victorious Hohenzollerns, rent by internal discord, its
statesmen concurred in the opinion that reconstruction of some kind
was inevitable. But what course of action should be pursued? Should
the government again have recourse to the shop-worn policy of rigid
centralization and Germanization which had been tried by Austrian
Premiers time and time again and invariably found wanting?
That Hungary should be given back her autonomy was conceded beforehand.
Weakened by war, its military prestige shattered, its finances at a
low ebb, the government was in no condition to resist the Magyars, who
had assumed a threatening attitude. But what about the Bohemians, who
also clamored for recognition? Bohemia, Hungary, and Austria, it will
be remembered, had formed a union in 1526-1527 on terms of equality.
And then how should the larger Slavic questions be settled? Numerically
the Slavs were the strongest element in the monarchy. If allowed to
elect representatives to one central parliament, these discontented
Bohemians, Poles, Slovaks, and Croatians might one day, uniting
politically, control the country. Tacitly Vienna and Budapest agreed
that, whatever the terms of the settlement with Hungary, the disaster
of Slavic majority must be averted.
“The Slavs must be pressed to the wall” (Man wird die Slaven an die
Wand drücken), declared a statesman who participated actively in the
plan of reconstruction. “You,” addressing the Magyars, “will take care
of your hosts [meaning the Slavs] and we shall take care of ours.”
In the parliament the cause of the Slavic federalists was lost
beforehand; a German-made constitution and German-made electoral law
rendered futile every opposition. Besides, the government would brook
no interference with its plan of reconstruction as outlined by Count
Beust.[12] This plan contemplated a dual government, one in Vienna,
the other in Budapest, and three parliaments, one to sit in Vienna
for the Austrian half, one to meet in Budapest for the Hungarian
half, and a third one to be called the “Delegations” and to convene
alternately at both capitals to deliberate on matters common to the
empire as a whole, such as foreign relations, the army, navy, finances,
and so forth. In other words, Beust’s plan provided for two seats of
centralization instead of one. From a German state that it had been
before 1867 Austria became a German-Magyar state--an organization
without precedent or analogy.
The several kingdoms, crown-lands, etc., were divided under Beust’s
plan; and, upon the consummation of the deal, were allotted to the
contracting parties to the dualism as follows: Austria received
Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Bukovina, Dalmatia, Galicia, Carinthia,
Carniola, Trieste and vicinity, Goritz and Gradiska, Istria, Lower
Austria, Upper Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Tyrol, Voralberg. Hungary
secured as her part of the bargain Hungary Proper, Transylvania, Fiume,
Croatia, Slavonia, and the Military Frontier.
Figures, better than anything else, will explain why the Slavs were
opposed to dualism and presently became its irreconcilable enemies.
Under the Austrian roof Beust put these Slavic groups (quoting from the
census of 1910):
Bohemians 6,435,983
Poles 4,967,984
Slovenes 1,252,940
Serbo-Croatians 783,334
Little Russians 3,608,844
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Total 17,049,085
Under the Magyar domination fell the following Slavs:
Slovaks 1,967,970
Croatians 1,833,167
Serbs 1,106,471
Little Russians 472,587
-----------
5,380,195
Beust’s scheme was audaciously clever. By dividing the monarchy in
two he divided the Slavs; and, separated and isolated, they were made
easier victims of Magyarization in Hungary and of Germanization in
Austria. A crying injustice of this shameful bargain was that the “high
contracting parties” tore apart peoples of the same race, setting
up a political barrier where nature intended that none should exist.
Austria, for instance, had been awarded Dalmatia, the population of
which is almost wholly Croatian; yet Slavonia and Croatia, which
is also Croatian to the core (or Serbo-Croatian), went to Hungary.
Bohemians of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia were lodged under the
Austrian roof; the Slovaks, on the other side, who are almost one
with the Bohemian race, were put under the guardianship of Hungary.
Nations and races were moved on the Austrian chess-board like so many
pawns--exactly the same way as at the Vienna Congress in 1814 and at
the Berlin Conference in 1878.
“No people in the monarchy were more unjustly prejudiced by dualism
than the Bohemians,” is the opinion of Denis. “Every article of the
Settlement affected their interests most adversely. Their kinsmen,
the Croatians and Serbs, and particularly the Slovaks--the latter
always confidently looked upon as a reserve force of the nation--were
handed out to merciless and unfeeling masters. The crown of St. Václav
(St. Václav is honored as patron saint of Bohemia) was reduced by
Vienna to a position of semi-vassalage and given equal rank with a
medley of outlying and insignificant provinces. Dualism condemned
the Slavs to be the unwilling tools of a policy to which they had
been opposed. Bohemia, the richest and most productive land in the
empire, was made to bear the heaviest quota of the burden with which
statesmen had saddled the Austrian half of the monarchy.” Condemning
dualism, Dr. Edward Grégr, in a famous speech delivered in parliament,
declared “that it would be wisest to tear down to its foundations the
ramshackle building that made every tenant dissatisfied, that lacked
light and air, that neither expense nor labor could make habitable,
and to build upon the ruins an edifice answering the manifold needs
of its inhabitants. In the judgment of Dr. Menger” (a German deputy),
thundered Grégr, “this would be a treason and I confess that it would
be a treason. Yet, is not dualism a treason on the rights and liberties
of the peoples of this state and particularly on the rights and
liberties of our Bohemian nation?”
And because the settlement between Austria and Hungary had been
effected without the co-operation, much less the consent of the
Bohemians, whose claims were utterly disregarded--it will be remembered
that at that time, 1867, they were boycotting the parliament--a series
of political duels were fought between Vienna and Prague, which in the
end resulted in the defeat of the weaker antagonist, that is, Prague.
In the spring of 1867 the Prague Diet was summoned to elect deputies
to the parliament which was to vote on the settlement with Hungary.
The Bohemians refused to elect such deputies and entered instead a
vigorous protest against being incorporated in Austria-Hungary, then in
process of formation. The only state they recognized was the Bohemian
Kingdom and this had as much right to autonomy as Hungary. Promptly
the government dissolved the diet and ordered new elections. At these
elections, thanks to the ingenious electoral law, the Bohemians were
defeated and the German minority, now master in the diet, proceeded to
elect delegates to the Vienna Parliament. The Bohemians declared this
election unconstitutional and fraudulent. Deputies so elected, they
maintained, were not true representatives of the people and could not,
therefore, legally or morally bind the nation in parliament. Having
issued this protest, the Bohemians left the diet, and the next year,
instead of returning, issued their memorable Declaration of Rights,
bearing date August 22, 1868. They continued to boycott the Land Diet
until 1870.
The government was by no means tardy in making the rebels feel that
they needed to be disciplined for their refusal to participate in the
labors of the parliament. The Director of Police in Prague received
orders to see to it “that Bohemian newspapers moderate their tone.”
That, of course, meant the inevitable lawsuits, police chicanery,
confiscation, fines, jail.
To break the rebellious spirit of the Bohemians the government sent
Baron Koller to Prague, as Military Governor,--a soldier of the Radecký
type of Austrian generals--brutal, violent. One of his first acts was
to place the capital under martial law (1868). Koller suspended the
publication of nearly every Bohemian newspaper. Arrests for political
crimes became so numerous that the jail of the New Town (one of the
Boroughs of Prague) held at one time 400 prisoners, though there was
room only for 250 persons. During 1868 in Prague alone Koller sent
to jail 144 persons who were convicted of political misdemeanors and
crimes. The total penalties aggregated 81 years. How many prisoners
there were in the provincial towns in Bohemia and Moravia is only
conjectured, but it was asserted afterwards that there had been five
times as many as in Prague, so that the total number of political
prisoners in Bohemia in 1868 was about 700.
When the Premier tried to placate the Bohemian opposition by suspending
martial law (April, 1869) in Prague, the centralists became furious.
Bohemian autonomy, declared their organ, the Vienna “Neue Freie
Presse,” is an issue that only force can solve; the unification of the
Bohemian Crown may be of vital moment to the Bohemians, but the Germans
will never give their consent.