AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
_In the same series_
ENGLAND
FRANCE
ITALY
SWITZERLAND
[Illustration: THE WACHAU: AGGSTEIN]
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
BY
G. E. MITTON
WITH 32 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1915
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
THE DUAL MONARCHY 1
CHAPTER II
THE MAKING OF MODERN AUSTRIA 17
CHAPTER III
THE EMPEROR 31
CHAPTER IV
THE COUNTRY OF HUNGARY 40
CHAPTER V
THE PEOPLE 62
CHAPTER VI
THE AUSTRIAN DANUBE 82
CHAPTER VII
VIENNA AND THE VIENNESE 92
CHAPTER VIII
A MIGHTY QUARTETTE 102
CHAPTER IX
VIENNA TO BUDAPEST 112
CHAPTER X
THE DANUBE BELOW BUDAPEST 124
CHAPTER XI
BOHEMIA AND OTHER LANDS 131
CHAPTER XII
THE TYROL AND ITS HEROES 154
CHAPTER XIII
THE MOUNTAIN PASSES 166
CHAPTER XIV
THE DOLOMITES 175
CHAPTER XV
THE ILLYRIAN STATE 184
CHAPTER XVI
TRANSYLVANIA AND GALICIA 199
INDEX 211
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
IN COLOUR
1. The Wachau, Aggstein _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
2. Hohensalzburg 18
3. A Pine Forest in the Tátra 41
4. A Road in the Carpathians 48
5. A Young Magyar Csikós 51
6. Magyar Shepherds 54
7. The Ortler Spitze 57
8. A Paprika-Seller, Kalocsa 64
9. Woman’s Work-day Costume in Kalocsa 75
10. Sunday Costume, Zsdjar 78
11. Roumanian Children bringing Water to be blessed in the
Greek Church, Desze 89
12. Vienna: Castle Schönbrunn 96
13. Vienna: Mozart’s House 105
14. The Houses of Parliament and Margit Bridge, Budapest 112
15. Cottages in the Alföld 123
16. Waste Lands near Kalocsa 126
17. Prague: The Hradschin from Wallensteinstrasse 137
18. Prague: Carl’s Bridge 144
19. Carinthia: Maria-Wörth on the Wörthersee 147
20. Styria: The Grimming, from Pürgg 150
21. Innsbruck 161
22. Kufstein 168
23. Inn Valley in Winter 171
24. Cortina and Mte. Cristallo 174
25. King Laurin’s Rose-Garden, from the Schlern 177
26. Marmolata, from very high above Canazei 179
27. The Drei Zinnen, from the Highest Ridge 182
28. Clissa: A Study in Grey Rock 184
29. Spalato: A Door in Diocletian’s Palace 195
30. Ragusa: The Ploče Road from San Giacomo: Morning 198
31. Harvest-time in Transylvania 201
32. Cracow: Barbarakapelle 208
_Sketch Map at End of Volume._
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
CHAPTER I
THE DUAL MONARCHY
No one can rightly enjoy a visit to a country unless he knows something
of its history and its heroes; otherwise much that is seen remains
meaningless. It is a common saying among oculists that we see with the
brain and not with the eye, and the saying is fulfilled when we pass
by, as without meaning, this or that magnificent statue embodying in
concrete marble or bronze an epoch of vital action in the history of a
nation.
But besides what we miss from want of that observation whose roots are
embedded in knowledge, there are other things duly noted, and but half
comprehended, with a vagueness that is irritating. Especially is this
the case in a country of such an amalgamate nature as Austria-Hungary,
where at every turn something unexpected challenges query. How comes
it, for instance, that having left behind a Parliament House in Vienna
we find another in Budapest though both own allegiance to the same
sovereign? Why should Hungarians be so much exasperated if their
country is spoken of as part of an empire when they acknowledge an
Emperor as their ruler?
To gain some grip of these matters a short historical introduction is
undoubtedly necessary. I do not think, however, that history should
always begin at the beginning, though many people have a passion for
delving into the past and groping after the roots of a subject, which
often prove, when unearthed, to be exceedingly dry. The same tendency
may be observed in writers of biography, who are rarely content to
begin with the man or woman whose life they are undertaking, or even
with their parents, but frequently go back through many centuries,
dwelling at dreary length upon tedious details which occupy half the
book before the pith and core of the matter is reached.
Hence in this very cursory sketch of the Dual Monarchy only so much
as is essential to give colour and life to the whole book in all its
aspects shall be dealt with.
At the present time Austria and Hungary are governed by Francis
Joseph, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. The two countries are
united for the purposes of Defence, Foreign Affairs, and Finance,
including the Post Office, but have separate Houses of Parliament, an
Upper and a Lower, in each capital, namely Vienna and Budapest. The
respective Houses of Parliament are for common purposes represented by
two Delegations, each composed of sixty members, and convened by the
Emperor once a year alternately at Vienna and Budapest. These members,
of which twenty are chosen from each Upper House and forty from each
Lower one, are only appointed for one year.
As a composite State, Austria-Hungary plays a forceful part in the
concert of the great European nations and wields authority which
neither half could achieve alone. The very first necessity of power
among modern nations is preparedness for war, and in spite of the
curiously differing races and nationalities represented in the
Austro-Hungarian army with its two and a half millions of soldiers, the
army owns solidarity and force enough to make itself respected.
Hungary is the inner part of this composite country, the core, so to
speak, and she lies in the arms of Austria somewhat after the fashion
that the “old” moon may be seen lying in the arms of the “new” one; for
the provinces included in the Empire ring her round on the north and
west in what is more or less a semicircle.
In some particulars we may draw a parallel between the Dual Monarchy
and the United Kingdom of Great Britain, for in both cases the union
was effected by the fact of the countries concerned having the same
reigning house. The differences, however, are manifold. It was by
inheritance that the Scottish Stuarts came to the English throne on
the dying out of the elder branches; it was by election the Austrian
Hapsburgs were chosen for the Hungarian monarchy. Again there has been
between Austria and Hungary no Act of Union, though the Pragmatic
Sanction of 1723 formed a more “personal” union than before. It is the
tie of the Royal House alone which unites them, and it is expediency
only which dictates the amalgamation of the military power and finance
in the two countries. Even here there are sore jealousies. It is
obviously necessary that the same words of command should be used for
the whole army, or disaster would result on the field of battle. These
words are given in German, a foreign language to the rawly-joined
Hungarian recruit, and Hungarian national pride is sorely wounded
thereby. The dilemma is a difficult one, and this question remains ever
an open wound. The Hungarians have besought the King that their own
language might supersede German, but though he has proved kindly to his
Hungarian subjects in many other ways, he remains adamant on this.
The greatest difference, however, between the Dual Monarchy and the
United Kingdom is the difference brought into high relief by the above
point, namely the racial and linguistic diversity between Austria
and Hungary. The inhabitants of the two countries are not men of one
blood and one tongue as the English and Scots are, but are separated
by lines of deep cleavage. And this main cleavage is repeated in
numerous smaller fractures, so that the kingdom is split and cracked
in many directions. Fiercely as the Hungarians demand full play for
their own nationality, yet they would stamp it out in the lesser races
within their borders, who just as eagerly demand their own rights.
Never was any country so split up and divided, and the difficulty is
increased by the fact that the political boundaries are not coterminous
with the national ones, but in many cases the frontiers run through
the middle of the same race, so that half of it lies within and half
without the territory owning Francis Joseph as sovereign! Insurrections
outside the borders naturally set aflame the sympathies of those of
similar blood within, and disturbances are chronic. It is natural
enough therefore that, even setting aside her own desire to snatch an
outlet to the sea as the result of the resettling occasioned by the
Balkan War, Austria-Hungary should be aroused and shaken to the core
by the fighting between races to whom many of her own subjects are
blood-brothers.
The Hungarian, Dr. Julius de Vargha, thus sums up the situation; he
says:
However strong the specially Austrian traditions may be,
the Germans (in Austria-Hungary) stand under the alluring
influence of the splendour and power of the great German
Empire. The Italians long to join Italy; the Slovenians,
Croatians and Servians dream of the establishment of a great
southern Slav Empire; the Roumanians are drawn toward the
independent kingdom of Roumania. The Hungarians alone (Magyars)
are possessed of no dreams of disintegration; their past,
present and future binds them to their present home; and they
are consequently the firmest pillar in the monarchy of the
Hapsburg.
He further says that the Magyar nation stands between the Germanic and
Slav worlds “like an insulator between two opposing electric currents.”
This is of course a bit of special pleading, and we fancy the Austrian
would hotly disclaim any leaning toward Germany; but it is interesting
as showing how the matter appears to the Hungarian mind.
The Dual Monarchy is split into numerous small territories, each
with its own history and its own importance. There are no less than
eleven languages in this polyglot country, and over all rules the one
German-speaking monarch. Part of the Tyrol, one of the best known of
the European playgrounds, lies in Austria, but part is in Italy. Bosnia
and Herzegovina, the latest acquisitions, do not seem, geographically
speaking, to belong to Austria at all, yet they are now included in her
territory. Dalmatia, with its Italian population, is another outlying
district, and it is vitally important because of its sea-coast. The
smaller districts of Carinthia, Carniola, and Moravia lie northward,
and above them again is Bohemia, once a kingdom by itself, with a
stirring history. North of Hungary is the huge and little known
Galicia, not to be confounded with Galicia in the north-west corner of
Spain, though the name is spelt precisely in the same way. To the east
of Hungary is Transylvania, and south of it Slavonia and Croatia. Still
we have only named the best-known divisions.
The whole comprises an immense area; a line drawn round it runs to
over 5000 miles and encloses a territory larger than that of any other
European country except Russia.
One quarter of the population is German, another quarter Magyar (or
Hungarian) and Roumanian, whilst the remaining half is made up of
Italians together with Slavs, namely Poles, Croatians, Czechs, Slovaks.
The Magyars, a wild and interesting gipsy race, live in the centre
of Hungary, more or less, while the Slavs, of the same blood as the
Servians, are ringed round to the north and south, and outside them
again on the German side come the Germans.
How did such diverse elements come to be included in one empire?
As might be supposed the centre of Europe took long to settle down.
In the case of a country so happily situated as Great Britain the
boundaries are natural ones. As for Spain (including Portugal) any
child could rule off a line across the Pyrenees and say that the
territory beyond would make a compact kingdom. France again is favoured
by nature, though on one side she lies open. But when you come to the
middle part of Europe there is nothing to indicate where one country
should end and another begin, and the friction over boundaries never
dies down; as a fact, it seems pure chance that the matter for the
moment remains as it is. It might just as well have been the Austrian
Empire which comprised the whole of the middle of Europe as the German
one, had not the “luck” of the Austrian Emperor been adverse when the
moment was ripe. Indeed, it is but a short time since the map gained
its present outlines, and who can say it will remain stable?
The Holy Roman Empire included the present Austria-Hungary, with all
that is now Germany. It was only about the beginning of our era that
the name Austria arose, meaning the Ost-land or East-land; before that
time the country was a dependency of Bavaria. About the same date
Hungary emerged into a recognised kingdom under St. Stephen (997–1038),
who was to that nation what King Alfred was to England. He endowed the
church with great liberality, and was cultured far beyond the measure
of his contemporaries. He advanced civilisation and trade, and was
one of those enlightened souls which are now and then born out of due
time to give light and leading to their fellows. The 20th of August is
consecrated to him, and on that day a great procession is formed to
carry through the capital his right hand embalmed and enclosed in a
golden casket. To this day the Kings of Hungary are crowned with the
crown presented by the Pope to the first King of Hungary. This forms
the upper part of the present diadem, which stands on a new base. Once
at least in its history this glorious and ancient crown was lost in
the mud! When Otto the Bavarian came to be King of Hungary in 1301 he
brought with him the sacred crown, which had before been taken away by
the Germans, his allies. But the crown, in the confusion of the entry,
was lost, and was only found at length in the deep mud of the hill
tracks through which the party had passed.
In 1301 Stephen’s dynasty, the House of Arpad, became extinct, after
giving to the nation many good kings, besides the two canonised, St.
Stephen and St. Ladislas. Hungary had later as well good kings of other
blood, including Louis the Great (1342–82), King of Poland also, when
it was for a while the most powerful nation in central Europe.[1]
[1] The national poet Bajza says that at this epoch “the shores
of three seas formed the frontiers of the kingdom.”
The Turks were always a thorn in the side of their northern neighbours,
and their endless incursions and alarms were shared almost equally
by Austria and Hungary, and in the end were the means of uniting the
two countries. In his warfare with the Turks the great general,
Janos Hunyadi, proved amazingly valiant and gained victories against
desperate odds. Unluckily in one such combat the reigning King,
Ladislas, was slain, and his head, raised aloft by his enemies,
inspired panic among his own people and ensured their defeat. Nothing
daunted, Hunyadi pursued his successes in the reign of the next King,
and in 1456 scattered a Turkish host under the walls of Belgrade. It
is said that 40,000 of his men were killed, and just in the hour of
victory the great commander himself died. Besides being a notable
general he was a wise statesman and a strong unselfish man.
His son, Matthias Corvinus Hunyadi (1458–1490), who was only fifteen,
was afterwards elected King, and his name is one of the most remarkable
in the whole roll of the Hungarians. From his youth up he had been
accustomed to take care of himself in the midst of danger, and he
developed into a resolute and strong soldier; what was perhaps more
remarkable was that he was a patron of the arts and learning. His
library was his chief pride, and in an age when reading was scorned he
spent hours daily in this favourite resort. Here is a description of it
taken from _Hungary_ by Arminius Vambery (_The Story of the Nations_).
The library was in the castle of Buda, and the place assigned
to it comprised two large halls, provided with windows of
artistically stained glass opening into each other. The
entrance consisted of a semi-circular hall commanding a
magnificent view of the Danube. Both halls were provided with
rich furniture. One of them contained the king’s couch, covered
with tapestry embroidered with pearls, upon which he spent
his leisure hours reading. Tripod-shaped chairs, covered with
carpet, were placed about, recalling the Delphian Apollo.
Richly carved shelves ran along the walls and were curtained
with purple velvet tapestry, interwoven with gold. It would be
difficult to describe properly the magnificence of the books
themselves. They were all written on white vellum and bound
in coloured skins, ornamented with rose diamonds and precious
stones, and with the king’s portrait or his arms. The pages
are illuminated with miniature paintings and ornaments, vying
with each other in excellence, and the work of some of the most
famous illuminators of the age.
The palace of Matthias was enriched by the work of the best sculptors
of the time, and his library was continually increased by the labour
of copyists, whom he employed to transcribe manuscripts in Italy. It
was the Golden Age in Hungary, and the chivalrous and strong monarch
attracted to himself poets, painters, and literary men from all the
civilised countries of Europe. Among other things he founded an academy
of letters. These indications of a scholarly mind would have been of no
avail in that rude age unless there had been strong physical prowess
behind them; a weakling, whatever his intellectual calibre, would have
been scorned. King Matthias, however, was one of those unusual men who
combine mental and physical qualities of the highest order. He was as
much a soldier as a scholar, and he asked no luxury in the camp or on
the battlefield, content to share in all the hardships imposed upon
his men. His courage was proverbial, and his heedlessness of danger
so great that he was supposed to bear a charmed life, though not
invulnerable, as numerous scars testified.
In person Matthias was tall and broad, with a massive head and keen
eyes. He gave the most scrupulous and impartial justice to all his
people alike, so that he was surnamed “The Just,” and when he died
there was a current saying, “King Matthias is dead and justice is no
more.” His death was due to apoplexy, and he left no legitimate son to
succeed him.
By this time the House of Hapsburg had come to the fore. They had
originally held possessions in Switzerland and later gained position
and power as Dukes of Austria, Styria, Carniola, etc. When the German
Emperor Conrad died in 1254 there was no successor until Rudolph of
Hapsburg was elected to fill the vacant place. The German Emperor, or
“King of the Romans,” as he was called, was always elected, and the
honour was not hereditary, hence it did not pass of right to Rudolph’s
descendants, though some of them were subsequently chosen for the
position.
While Matthias was on the throne of Hungary Frederick III. of Hapsburg
was ruling in Austria. Matthias attacked him and drove him out of
Vienna; but Matthias was short-lived, dying at the age of forty-seven,
and his successors were feeble and unable to hold what he had gained.
For generations back the Turks had been a thorn in the side of Hungary
and had worried the kings by their constant incursions. They persecuted
the land much as the Danes harried Britain, and thirty-six years after
Matthias’ death the culmination came in a terrific battle fought at
Mohács, where the Turks, in prodigious force and fury, almost wiped the
Hungarian nation off the face of the map. The reigning King, Louis II.,
was but a boy, and his army of 25,000 men was practically annihilated
by one twelve times as great, under Suleiman the Turk. Seven
archbishops and bishops and thousands of nobles laid down their lives
on the field that day, and the defeat was to the nation as poignant
and humiliating as the battle of Flodden Field was to Scotland. The
Turk has always stood out conspicuously as the only Mussulman power in
Europe, and in our time we have seen slice after slice cut away from
his territory and set up as independent kingdoms. The time is surely
not far distant when the Ottoman power will be pushed across into Asia,
to which it so much more fitly belongs; in fact, only the jealousies of
the great nations adjacent have so long delayed this consummation.
The Hungarians, driven frantic by their disasters, appealed to the
Kings of the House of Hapsburg for help, and accepted them as rulers,
alien though they were in blood and race. The solution was accepted
loyally by the majority of the people, but it led to little relief, for
even the Hapsburgs could not hold back the savage Turks, who overran
the great plain of Hungary, and were accepted as suzerains by the
people of Transylvania. For a century and a half before the year 1686
the Hungarian capital was in the hands of the Turks. Such divisions and
dissensions tore the nation in pieces, and there was nothing but misery
for the people.
“But,” writes the distinguished Hungarian, Dr. Julius de
Vargha, already quoted, “it was the national disaster that
displayed the heroic valour and ardent patriotism of the
Hungarian nation. Such splendid instances of intrepid bravery,
undaunted self-sacrifice and chivalrous virtues brighten
these dark pages of our history, that we may justly call this
period the heroic age of the Hungarian nation. But it was not
only military prowess that preserved the national character
of this country, torn, as it was, to pieces and bleeding from
a thousand wounds. It is remarkable that just at this very
period a rich and flourishing national literature sprang into
being. During the reign of Matthias humanistic literature and
culture took deep root in the country; its tongue however
was not Hungarian but Latin. The intellectual movement of
the Reformation made the soil of Hungary, that had already
been cultivated, bring forth a national literature, which the
struggle evoked by the anti-Reformation succeeded in fostering
to a higher development.”
Successive rulers of the Austrian House of Hapsburg were chosen as
German Emperors too, and the effect of this was to make Hungary seem
to them insignificant, and they tried to incorporate it as a part of
their dominions without recognising the Hungarian people as a strong
nation which had freely invited them to rule.
However, when the Turks were driven out of Buda, and the nation had
time to settle her internal affairs, things began to look better. The
Hungarians voluntarily gave up their right of election in the case
of their kings, and settled the succession in the House of Hapsburg;
unfortunately, it was only a short time after this that the then
reigning monarch, Leopold I., treated them with such disdain that
they arose against him in fury, and made war on him, a struggle which
continued for eight years and was ended by an honourable peace in 1711,
when the constitutional independence of Hungary was fully confirmed.
In 1740 the Emperor, Charles VI., died, and left an only daughter, but
before his death he had done his best to secure her inheritance to
her by inducing the Pragmatic Sanction in 1723 to extend the right of
succession to the female line. She was only twenty-three at the time
of her accession, and had four years before married Francis Stephen of
Lorraine, who became Grand Duke of Tuscany. Though the way had been
cleared for her, yet on her father’s death a host of claimants for the
inheritance sprang up. The Prussian, Bavarian, French, Saxon, Spanish,
and Neapolitan rulers all wanted what she had got! The chivalry of
the Hungarians was called to the surface by her position, and when
she appeared at Pressburg (called by the Hungarians Pozsony), then the
capital, with her infant son in her arms she was greeted by the loyal
and splendid cry, “Moriamur pro reges, Maria Teresa,” which has rung
down the ages. Her accession welded the nations together as nothing
else could have done. She proved a popular monarch and conciliated
the Hungarians with womanly tact; she had sixteen children, of whom
her eldest son Joseph succeeded her as Joseph II. and became also
Emperor. One of her daughters was the beautiful and unfortunate Marie
Antoinette.