If there is one thing deeply rooted in the minds of the Bohemian
people it is the belief, or rather the conviction, that the Hapsburgs,
beginning with Ferdinand II. and ending with Francis Josef, the present
sovereign, one and all planned the Germanization of the nation. Vienna
newspapers make much of the fact that Bohemia has advanced under
the rule of Francis Josef as under no other Hapsburg--and they seek
to convey the impression that this remarkable renascence should be
credited to his reign. If Francis Josef had had his way, Bohemians
argue, they would to-day be like the Slavs along the Elbe who have
succumbed to Germanization, and Prague would be as German as Leipzig
or Vienna. Their own determination to live saved them from extinction.
All that the nation is and all that it has attained it has accomplished
through its own effort, without help from Vienna, often in the face
of the bitterest opposition from that quarter. Deny it as much as you
will, the truth remains that Bohemians, remembering their experience
with Ferdinand II., have always distrusted the Hapsburgs; and Francis
Josef has done nothing, despite the splendid opportunities of his
remarkably long reign, to dispel that feeling of distrust. For, who was
it but a Hapsburg who, in the first half of the seventeenth century,
turned their fatherland into a waste, driving into exile the flower
of the nation? Who but a Hapsburg put a tombstone on the sepulchre of
the nation, and who but a Hapsburg tried to smother its spirit under
that tombstone? Who but a Hapsburg caused the persecution and jailing
of the revivalists who undertook the task of awakening the nation? And
who but a Hapsburg twice violated, twice broke his solemn promise to
the nation, first in 1861, and again in 1871? Who but a Hapsburg, by
approving of the dualistic system of government in 1867, intrigued to
barter them away, with the rest of the Slavs, into political bondage?