Reading the utterances of Austrian officials in the United States one
is almost persuaded to believe that the reports of mutinies in the
early stages of the war and of disaffection of Slavic troops were
pure inventions of a hostile press, that the nations in the Hapsburg
Monarchy were enthusiastic and united[15] on the question of war and
that stories of oppression of non-Germanic peoples were baseless,
lacking the foundation of truth. A member of one of the consular staffs
made a pretty speech before the New York Twilight Club in which he
tried to convince his hearers that it was an old-time policy of the
Austrian Government to treat justly and impartially all its subjects,
irrespective of race, for does not the Hofburg in Vienna, the residence
of the emperor, bear the proud legend, “Justice to all nations is the
fundament of Austria”?
Is it really true that the Austrian troops are and were loyal, that
none shot their officers and none surrendered to the Russians or to
the Serbians when an opportunity presented? Do not these very denials
of mutiny and disaffection sound suspicious? Mutiny of troops is
admittedly unknown in the German Army, and none have been, so far as we
know, reported from the French or English Armies. Neither the Germans,
nor the English, nor the French officials in this country have felt the
need to make public affirmation or denial where silence should have
been most eloquent. If the Austro-Hungarian officials are so sure of
their case, why do they make an exception and try to refute what in
the case of the other warring countries is understood as a matter of
course?
Before we could give unreserved credence to these official assurances,
we should like to hear the other side of the story. But, it so
happens that the other side cannot now be presented. Every newspaper
in Austria, without an exception (particularly opposition journals
printed in any of the Slavic languages), is edited by the government.
The government censor is editor of all journals published in the
empire, and the newspapers are given the choice either to print what
the Imperial Royal Press Bureau sends them or have the articles
promptly confiscated. As a result of this complete muzzling of the
press, there is now but one kind of public opinion in Austria--the
censor’s opinion. According to the Prague journals, which reach the
United States, Austrians are winning everywhere--on land, at sea,
and in the air. Police agents plan fraternal and loyal meetings of
Germans and Slavs, and the police agents’ faithful ally, the censor,
writes them up in the newspapers and the Imperial Royal Press Bureau
in Vienna sends broadcast glowing accounts of them. Again, many of the
leading men of the Bohemian nation are in jail or under strict police
surveillance and cannot speak. Are we to believe that all the Austrian
races fight enthusiastically? Precisely the opposite of this is true.
With the exception of a fraction of the Galician Poles, the Slavs were
entirely opposed to the war with Serbia.[16] Unfortunately they have
no voice in the foreign policy of the monarchy; if their warnings and
pleadings, as reflexed in their press, had been heeded, war against
Serbia would never have been undertaken. Slavs are battling under
the Austro-Hungarian standards because they cannot help themselves.
Yet their hearts are not in the fight. Even the dullest and least
informed mind will guess, notwithstanding the honeyed assurances of
consular officials, the way their sympathies incline. It should be
borne in mind that this is a war of Slavs against Slavs, of Slavic
Russia and Slavic Serbia against two-fifths Slavic Austria. Let us
place ourselves in the position of the Bohemians. For decades they have
worked for solidarity among the Slavs, so much so that their endeavors
in this direction have earned for them the title of the Apostles of
Pan-Slavism. Is it reasonable to suppose that they would suddenly
turn traitors to one of the most cherished traditions of their race
and shout enthusiastically for a war which, if successful for the two
Kaisers, would mean their certain obliteration? If Germany should win,
the eventual absorption by her of Austria would be probable, if not
inevitable. The Pan-German sentiment in the two neighboring empires
would become so overwhelmingly strong that nothing would stay its furor
and the millions of Austrian Slavs would find themselves face to face
with their doom. Plainly, Slavs have nothing to gain from the defeat
of the Allies, but everything to lose from the victory of the Hapsburgs
and the Hohenzollerns. They feel that nothing short of a decisive
defeat of Austria will liberate them from the thraldom of German-Magyar
domination. If Austria collapses in this war the Bohemians will be
among the first to profit thereby.[17]
Is it really true that the Slavs are loyal? Is it not rather a loyalty
wrung from them at the point of the bayonet? Besides, how can they
protest against a war which was neither of their choosing nor of their
making, when the military rule has made protests impossible? One must
respect and even admire the French and the Germans when they declare
that they are fighting for the existence of the fatherland. What are
the Austrian Slavs fighting for? To them, or rather to the majority
of them, Austrian fatherland conveys but an abstraction, for correctly
speaking, Austria is a government and not a fatherland in the sense
that a German or a Frenchman regards the country of his birth. Austria
may possibly be a fatherland to the inhabitants of the Archduchies
of Lower and Upper Austria, but not to a Bohemian, a Magyar, or a
Pole--certainly no more than England is the fatherland of an Irishman.
By allegiance a Bohemian is an Austrian subject, ethnically he belongs
to the country of his birth--Bohemia. While the national anthem “Kde
domov můj” (Where is my Home?) stirs deeply the emotions of a Bohemian,
the singing of the Austrian hymn “Gott erhalte” leaves him cold and
indifferent.