THE AMBITION OF KINGS.
ENGLISHMEN, say many foreign thinkers with some truth, rarely apprehend accurately the trend of Continental politics. They are not directly interested in them, they know little of the persons who guide them, and they have a trick of missing the points which to all who observe more closely causes uneasiness. Just now, for instance, they fail to perceive why the life of the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria is considered by most statesmen outside England of such supreme importance. They recognise, it is conceded, that on his death a difficult time might arise for Austria, but do not recognise that on its occurrence ambitions may spring up which, unless the Kings set themselves resolutely against them, may once mere throw Europe into the melting-pot, and produce a strife which would put the whole Continent back for a century. We have not much belief in cataclysms, espe- cially cataclysms which are to shake Europe out of forms that have been slowly crystallising for many centuries, but as there is no doubt that these fears are sincere, and are entertained in France and Germany as well as Austria, it may be worth while to state briefly in what they consist. Briefly, then, the idea is that should the present Emperor pass away, or become for any reason unable to retain his position as ultimate referee of all his subjects, the Haps- burg Dominion may be, not broken up as many Englishmen expect, but partitioned. The attraction for all Germans of the new Germany, with its splendid prestige, its commercial activity, and its vivid Emperor, is, they say, underrated.. The Germans of Austria feel that they have an alternative, and rather than lose their old ascendency or be governed by clerically minded statesmen with Slav proclivities, they may accept it. They may, that is, invite the German Empire to receive Bohemia and the German States of Austria into its fold, probably on Bavarian terms. Then the fat would be in the fire. The Germans would. be unable to resist a temptation so great to become the strongest people in the world, Russia would demand "com- pensation " in Poland, and the French, unable to endure an aggrandisement of Germany which would for ever re- duce themselves to a second-rate position, would ally them- selves with the house of Hapsburg for a great war, which would end, whatever its result, in a remodelled. Europe. In all probability the house of Hapsburg, as Prince Bis- marck once predicted, would be thrown violently eastward, finding its centre in Buda-Pesth, France would be still further diminished, and Germany and Russia would be left standing face to face as the two grand military Empires of the world, one Teutonic, the other Slav, with the future in their hands.
To us, who have seen " Austria " survive so many dangers and defeats in the field, all that seems, we confess, a little visionary; but we will not deny that if a new Emperor of Austria broke away from the Triple Alliance, while irritating his German subjects either by too much complaisance for the ideas of the Vatican or too grievous an antagonism to the German claim to be the upper crust of the composite Empire. the Austrian Germans might secede, and the keys of the situation would then be placed in the hands of the Kings. Unless they strongly forbade war, there would be war, and war which would prostrate whole nations. They would all, Romanoff, Hohenzollern, or Savoyard, be exposed to a. terrible temptation, the one temptation which through- out history has overmastered the prudence of Sovereigns. Why they are overmastered, why, that is, they thirst for subjects who at first cannot be eagerly loyal, and for pro- vinces which may be encumbrances, it is hard to say, but that they do is the first lesson of history. There never was a saner Sovereign than the German Emperor William, yet Prince Bismarck had after Sadowa to struggle with him for hours, and threaten resignation, before he would give up his desire to annex Bohemia, which, with its Catholic population and its special history, might have proved an exasperating nuisance, not to mention that such an aggrandisement would have brought Napoleon III. into the field at once. We suppose there is a double influence at work, the desire for completeness, which makes a great land- lord who knows that land does not pay give twice its value for an enclave which rounds off his estate, and a desire for larger resources in conscripts and revenue akin to that which tempts a millionaire into speculative business. They like a broad basis for their power, and cannot help measuring their own position by the number of " souls " whom they govern, as all the Kings did at the Congress of Vienna. That a Hohenzollern with scarcely five millions of subjects and a pretension to be a Great Power should want Silesia, even to the extent of risking destruction for its sake, is intelligible, but that Francis Joseph with his great and undeveloped Empire should run the risk involved in suffering Russia to seize Constantinople for the sake of Bosnia indicates a land hunger like that of the little American freeholder who said : " I ain't got no land hunger, I only want what jines mine." At all events, the hunger is very keen, and it might overcome the very strong motives which would tempt Kaiser and Czar alike to drive the Austrian Germans back within the Hapsburg fold. Neither would rejoice to see so fatal a precedent successful, for if Germans may secede, so may Poles, with at least as much excuse. Kings do not love rebels even when they profit by rebellion. The Czar does not want too many Polish subjects, for though they are Slays they are not Orthodox Slays, and they seem unable to identify themselves either with Russians or with the house of Romanoff. Nor could a Hohenzollern be altogether content to see the Centre party made the permanent arbiter of the German Parliament, or to find the Social-Democrats of his dominions strengthened by at least a million of fresh and fiery voters. Neither potentate, moreover, can look without apprehension on such a war, for if Hungary resented the German secession, or feared to stand alone in the world, the Hapsburgs would, with a French alliance, still control a great mass of soldiers, from the midst of whom might emerge a man with military genius. The chances of war are not always " happy," as Napoleon 111. said they were, but they are very varied, and odds even greater than those which would be against the Hapsburgs have been successfully overcome. Frederick the Great at one moment in his career—just before Zorndorff—had eight millions of taxable subjects, including the Saxons, against nearly a hundred millions of his enemies. Still, the Kings would, we fear, thirst for the derelict provinces, and if they did a great war would, in the suggested contingency, be inevitable. We wonder whether any Prince now dreams of acquiring the dominion of the world. Louis XIV. probably did after his grandson had acquired. the Spanish throne, and Napoleon certainly did when he invaded Russia, but we suspect the dream is too directly opposed to modern conditions. The empire of the seas is too difficult to acquire, yet must be acquired before anything really grandiose can be achieved by any potentate, and there is America in the road too. It would seem incredible that any man should hope for such a combination of force, ability, and good fortune as would give him perpetual victory, complete enough to chain conquered nations to his chariot as Napoleon, for instance, chained Italy. The ambition of Kings, however, nurtured. as they are on flattery and intoxicated with praise, is some- times of a far-reaching kind, and if ever a great King appears again who is also a great soldier, we would not guarantee that after a victory or two he would not begin to pursue the ignis fatuus which lured. Napoleon to his doom. A great Emperor of Russia who had mastered China would have the physical means at his disposal, and might crave for a name that, were he successful or defeated, would, if a world-Empire were his object, last as long as history. This planet is becoming very small, and we can conceive contingencies not so very far off in which the world might recall with acute pleasure the ancient belief that no evil spirit, however great, can cross a running stream.
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