TOPICS OF THE DAY:
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND THE SLAVONIC PROBLEM.
IT is curious to note how little attention is at present being paid to the influence of the Slavonic question on the Near Eastern crisis. Yet no close observer of the facts can fail to realise that sooner or later this problem must play a large, perhaps a predominant, part. It is not merely the question of the future development of Turkey that is at stake, but the future political development of the Slays. Those Powers who take this fact into consideration, and shape their policy wisely in view of it, may expect to find their way out of the labyrinth. Those who ignore, or, what is worse, misread, the problem, may land themselves in untold difficulties and dangers. It is hardly necessary to point out that our words apply with special force to Austria-Hungary. Since some forty per cent. of the population of the dominions of Austria-Hungary are Slays, and since the Kingdom of Hungary may at this moment be said to be a "seething pot" of Slavonic aspirations, and further, since Austria- Hungary has raised the Slavonic problem in its acutest form by the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina— their population is almost wholly Slavonic—it is of vital importance to her to make no -false step. Yet she has roused Slavonic animosities in a very acute form both within her own dominions and outside them. Not only is the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina deeply moved, but Servia and Montenegro have been driven to adopt an attitude of anger and suspicion. No doubt both these Powers are weak, but owing to their geographical position, and the possibility of their mating common cause with Turkey, the situation she has created on her south- eastern frontier is by no means pleasant for Austria- Hungary. Next, she has touched Russia at a very vital point, and given that Power grave reason for an enmity which cannot but be a source of anxiety. The most remarkable fact about Russia since the close of the war with Japan and the establishment of Constitutionalism has been the reawakenine. of Pan-Slavonic feeling. Russia is once more getting baclf into the position of the champion of the Slav races, and therefore has been greatly stirred by. the action of Austria-Hungary. In a word, Austria has set the whole Slavonic world by the ears, and yet she is the Power which could least afford to do so.
It may perhaps be said that those who hold the views which we have just expressed fail to realise the inner nature of the policy which is inspiring the political advisers of the Emperor Francis Joseph. Though for the moment Austria-Hungary may seem to have got at loggerheads with the Slays, this is a merely temporary inconvenience. It is well known that it is the aspiration of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the future Emperor of Austria-Hungary, to make Austria the leading Slavonic Power of South Europe, and to create under his sceptre a Slavonic State or States in which the Slays of South-Eastern Europe may be able to work out their destiny and fulfil their aspirations. If this is the aim of the heir to the Austrian throne, and if be has persuaded the aged Emperor and his Ministers to fix their eyes upon such an ideal, all we can say is that no wilder enterprise was ever entered upon by dynast or politician. To adopt such a policy as we have outlined is to throw the apple of discord into the heterogeneous Empire of the Hapsburgs, and must, short of a miracle, produce its ruin. The more Slays are added to Austria-Hungary, and the more the balance inclines to the Slavonic side, the more certain it is that the German population in the Austrian half of the Dual Monarchy will become discontented, nay, disloyal. Even. as it is, Austrian Pau-Germanism, or, to give it a clearer if longer description, the desire of a large portion of the Germans of Austria to cut themselves adrift from a mixed State which they are no longer allowed to dominate, and to join the rest of the German race, has a great hold on the Teutonic subjects of the Emperor Francis Joseph. It would not take much to make these Teutonic subjects adopt as a whole the point of view lately expressed to the present writer by an Austrian German :—" If the Austrian State is to move much further in the Slavonic direction, there is but one course open to us. We may not love the Prussians, but we would far rather have a Prussian domination than a Slavonic domination. We . are , Germans first, and subjects of the house of Hapsburg . second. Already we Germans have been too much sacri- ficed to the mere dynastic interests of the Emperor." If Austria stood alone, here would be danger enough. But she does not stand alone. The peril caused by the policy of Slavonicising their dominions which, it is suggested, is now to be indulged in by the Hapsburgs is even more acute in the case of Hungary. The Magyars, who have hitherto held much the same place relatively to the other nationalities of the Hungarian Kingdom that the Germans have held in Austria, feel that if the Slavonic ambitions of the Hapsburgs are to be pushed any further, they too may be 'swamped in what they would regard as a Slav quagmire. It is doubtful whether they can hold their own even as it is without immense concessions _ to the Slays. If the Transleitha,n side of the Empire is to be ultimately increased by the inclusion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the task would be impossible. Yet the Hungarians feel that they must demand their pound of flesh in this respect and exact the fulfilment of the promise made to them in 1868,—the promise that if the Hapsburgs should in the future acquire any portions of the old dominions of the Crown of Hungary, such new acquisitions should be added to the Hungarian Kingdom. The Hungarians could not bear to see the new provinces included, contrary to this agreement, in Austria, nor would they like the present situation to be continued by turning Bosnia and Herzegovina into a Reichsland, and thus converting the Austro-Hungarian State into a Triple instead of a Dual Monarchy. That would be too much like the beginnings of that federalism which the Hungarians dread as, in effect, the loss of their national independence. What makes the situation the more perplexing and difficult for the Magyars is the fact that, unlike the Germans, they have no last resort. They have no kindred race across the border among whom they can seek absorption should the worst come to .the worst. Again, their whole history would forbid them making common cause with the Germans in order to ensure their respective racial domina- tions over the Slays and other nationalities. But out of this difficulty comes yet another danger for Austria- Hungary. The Magyars are great politicians, and if they find themselves driven to the wall, it is just possible that they might be induced—indeed, from many points of view it would be their wisest move—to put themselves at the head of the Slavonic populations, and. to trust to those populations being content to let them exercise the leader- ship which falls naturally to those in whom the political instinct is strongly developed. For ourselves, we belie,ve that if they chose to make the plunge, and honestly to give equality of political opportunity to the Slavonic races, the Magyars, though they might go through, a somewhat troublous period, would ultimately emerge, if not as a race then as individuals, as the guides and leaders of South-Eastern Europe.
To show that we are entering upon no mere visionary speculations, we may quote the very striking statement published in last Saturday's Times which was sent to its Vienna correspondent by a Hungarian politician, a politician, we are assured, whose patriotism and modera- tion are not open to doubt. After dealing with the point which we have noticed above—namely, that the Hungarian Coronation Oath and "Inaugural Diploma" subscribed to by the Emperor on his coronation expressly declared that any "least part of the lauds of St. Stephen's Crown that might be reacquired. during the reign of King Francis Joseph should be reincorporated with Hungary "=--he added :— " This, however, is not the greatest injury inflicted by the annexation, which, indeed, signifies nothing leas than the annihilation of the independent future of Hungary. The long and repeated conferences that took place between the Hungarian and the Austrian Premiers resulted only in excluding the possi- bility of a reincorporation of Bosnia and Herzegovina with Hungary, for the reason that the Slav majority in the Austrian Reichsrath would never consent to such a proposal. Thus Bosnia and Herzegovina must be regarded as the nucleus of a future Southern Slav kingdom and as a third part of the monarchy— namely, a foundation upon which 'Greater Austria,' the favourite scheme of the Heir Apparent, is to be erected. Every student of Austro-Hungarian politics will at once understand what such an outlook means for Hungary. The fact is simply that the equality of rights enjoyed by Hungary will obviously be curtailed when she will be compressed between the Slays of Bohemia in the North and the Slays in the South. Her rale will be that of a,
buffer State. Caught between the powerful German and Slav currents, she will have to compromise, and inch by inch to lose her ancient privileges. I regard the annexation as a second Mohacs (the battle at which the independent Hungarian kingdom was destroyed by the Turks in 1526), and I fear that this time the effect will be still more disastrous."
We think we have said enough to show the dangers and difficulties to which Austria-Hungary has exposed herself by her recent action. She has not gained the goodwill of the Slays, and yet she is in danger of sowing discord among her German and Magyar subjects. Further, it may be noted that she has, curiously enough, exposed herself to the possibility of the door being slammed in the face of - her Balkan or "Greater Austria" aspiration,—the - aspiration to reach Salonika and the Aegean. Suppose Turkish animosity, already very great against Austria-Hungary, were to grow even stronger, and that Turkish affairs were to be guided by a far-seeing and daring politician. Such a man may not arise, but if he did he might deal Hapsburg ambitions a deadly blow in the following way. Suppose he were to tell the Servians that if they liked to get rid of their present King and to choose the Prince of Montenegro to sueceed him, and were thus to join the Kingdom and the Principality into one State, Turkey would make such action physically possible by surrendering to the new Servian kingdom the Sand jak of Novi Bazar. If this were done, Austria's path to the cr would be absolutely barred, and Turkey would have between. her and Austria a strong buffer State, and a Serb State, with a port on the Mediterranean as well as on the Danube. Such a State would not merely cut off Austria from the Aegean, but might become a kingdom to which the Slays of &nue. and Herzegovina could look at any time when the internal difficulties of Austria-Hungary made them• think it possible to throw off the Hapsburg yoke. We do not suppose it is likely that a Turkish statesman will arise bold enough to take such a course. Still, the possibility is there, and it is one which Austria-Hungary may have to -fate.
We have written very frankly, but we trust that none of our readers will imagine that we view the difficulties and dangers with which Austria-Hungary is faced with any pleasure or satisfaction. On the contrary, in spite of Austria's recent cynical and selfish disrespect of Treaties, we retain our old and essentially friendly feeling towards the Dual Kingdom, and deplore beyond words the dangers to which she is exposing herself. We should be the last to suggest that because Austria-Hungary has made so false a step, therefore all the claims of ancient friendship between her and us should be forgotten. Our regard for Austria-Hungary, and our desire that she shall continue prosperous and united, cannot be effaced so quickly as that. In spite, however, of a natural inclination to make things as easy for Austria as is consistent with our duty to Turkey, to Russia, to France, and to Europe as a whole, we cannot blind ourselves to the facts, and the facts are that Austria-Hungary has not only done a very wrong thing, but a very foolish thing. Unless, indeed, she is far more lucky than she has any right to expect to be, she is only too likely to find that in the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina are contained the seeds of disruption,—seeds that will grow at a very rapid rate. •
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