The Tragic Hapsburgs
The Reign of the Emperor Francis Joseph. By Karl Tschuppik. (Bell. 21s.) The Empress Elizabeth - of Austria. By Karl Tschuppik. (Constable. 12s.) The Life of the Crown Prince Rudolph. By Baron von Mitis (Skeffington. 21s.) Fragments of a Political Diary. By Joseph M. Baernreither. Edited by Joseph Redlich. (Macmillan. 168.)
Wirt Francis Joseph died in November, 1916, after a reign of sixty-eight years, the Hapsburg monarchy was obviously doomed. Two short years under the weak and helpless EMperor Charles sufficed to bring the end that had long seemed inevitable and that was only hastened by the War.
Herr Tschuppik, an Austrian journalist of liberal tendencies, has done a useful piece of work in describing the old Emperor and narrating clearly the main events of his reign. Foi his book should dispose finally of the idea that somehow the Dual Monarchy might be reconstituted and that its
appearance is a matter for regret. It endured so long as a European war was postponed and the Emperor lived ; but with the lapse of time its fate became more and more certain. For Francis Joseph's guiding principle was to stand fast in the old ways, and to ignore as far as possible the rising tides of nationalism and democracy. He was rigidly conservative in his private life, lived by the clock like a mechanical man, never read a book, and seemed to be devoid of ordinary human feeling. He took his duties as ruler very seriously and exercised a rigid control over his officials and generals as over his family. He was shrewd enough to see that he could not permanently dragoon the Magyars, and in 1867, after the loss of the Italian provinces, he made terms with Hungary. He also gave up his old anti-Prussian policy, and from 1872 co-operated with Germany. But with these exceptions Francis Joseph's main policy was unaffected by changing circumstances, and all the efforts of intelligent Austrians to avert the disaster that they foresaw were foiled.
The late Joseph Baernreither's diaries of 1908-14, which Professor Redlich has edited, are of exceptional interest as showing that Austrian Liberals at least were not blind to the Southern Slav peril. Baernreither, who died in 1925, was a German-speaking native of Prague, and thus understood the significance of the Czech revival. He took an active part in Austrian politics for many years, promoting education and social reforms and striving to make the Ministry realise the necessity of conciliating the several nationalities within the Empire and their respective kinsmen outside it. In these diaries he was of course absorbed in the question of Serbia. Austria had flouted treaties and annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. To make her position secure she must either conquer Serbia or make a friend of her. But while the Dual Monarchy hesitated to attack the Serbs, for fear of war with Russia, it was also unwilling to be friendly because the Hungarian magnates feared the competition of Serbian pigs, cattle and grain. The diarist . was convinced that Serbia would gladly ally herself with Austria, even after the Balkan wars of 1912-13, but Hungary always
blocked the way, refusing, for instance, to allow a railway to be built from Serbia through Bosnia to the Adriatic. Further- more,, he found that the Austrian Government was mis- informed about the condition of the Serbian army, because it would not listen to independent enquirers on the spot. Baernreither's day-to-day comments on what he heard from Ministers and others reveal the hopeless confusion into which the Dual Monarchy had drifted. The provinces and peoples were held together by a traditional respect for the person of the aged Emperor, who for his part made genuine reforms impossible. The War released nationalist passions ; respect for the Emperor did not prevent his Czech, Serb and Italian soldiers from deserting by the thousand ; from then onwards the Dual Monarchy was doomed.
• Francis Joseph, with the best intentions, brought disaster in his house and his country. He did not spare himself or his family. Herr Tschuppik's picturesque memoir of Empress Elizabeth and the rather ponderous memoir, by Baron von Mitis, of the Emperor's only son, Rudolph, show two unhappy people who might in humbler circumstances have done better with their lives. The Emperor in his youth was human enough to prefer the lively Elizabeth to her sedate elder sister Helen, whom he was expected to marry. Moreover, he gave his wife as much freedom from Court regulations as seemed possible to his military mind. But so dull and formal a man was no husband for the romantic Bavarian princess, and it is not surprising that after seven years they agreed to live apart. The Empress went where she would. But her son Rudolph, who resembled her in temperament, was kept chained to his military and official duties and treated as a cipher. He had ideas and consorted with intelligent men ; he contributed occasionally to a leading Vienna journal, whose editor was his friend. Had his father died in middle age, Rudolph might possibly have put new vigour into the decaying Empire. Baron von Mitis prints extracts from Rudolph's papers that show a real interest in politics. But he was doomed to die at thirty, and his father lived on for a full generation longer. On January 30, 1889, at the hunting lodge of Mayerling, the Crown Prince was found dead beside the body of his mistress, the Baroness Marie Vecsera. He had killed her and committed suicide. Baron von Mitis professes his inability to assign a motive for the deed, and hints at grave reasons of State. Herr Tschuppik, on the other hand, finds no difficulty at all. The Emperor, he says, had ordered his son to give up the girl or lose his position as heir to the throne. Rudolph, thrown off his balance by the abrupt command, evaded the choice of two evils by. accepting a third in death. Much nonsense has been written about Mayerling, but this simple explanation is probably the right one. The Empress Elizabeth, already upset by the suicide of her cousin, the mad King Ludwig of Bavaria, was overwhelmed by the loss of her son. Death came to her by an assassin's hand at Geneva in September, 1897. Fate seemed to pursue the Hapsburgs, save only Francis Joseph, but the prolongation of his unintelligent rule was making the ultimate disaster more certain and more complete.
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