A number of emigration agents were hastily clapped into prison, travelling offices were closed, and a minute investigation was begun.
Archduke Francis Ferdinand, who undertook the task himself, soon discovered that Austria-Hungary had been drained of its best fighting material by Germany. Cheap passages had been offered to emigrants by the Hamburg and Bremen lines. They were no doubt anxious to make substantial profits. He went into the figures and was startled to find that the heavy Government subsidies enabled them to carry emigrants at a loss. He immediately detected the hand of Kaiser Wilhelm behind this. Germany had robbed her Poles of their land in order to colonise German Poland with Teutons. The Kaiser was now trying to drain Austria-Hungary of its Slav population and to replace them by German emigrants. That was the meaning of the great emigrant traffic and of the secrecy with which it had been carried on.
Francis Ferdinand was furious when he discovered the truth. Men of military age were not allowed to cross the frontier without explaining where they were going.
The emigrants, however, got away in hundreds every week, in spite of all restrictions. The trouble that had been made about recruits leaving the country convinced people on the frontiers and at the sea coast that a great war was coming. The Slavs and the Italians, who were determined not to be involved, took train to the nearest frontier station and simply walked across without passports. It was soon discovered that as the German emigration figures fell, the numbers of young men of military age leaving Russia and Italy for the States increased. Emigration had not been stopped; it had only been diverted to other channels. This discovery enraged the Austrian Government.
Sentinels were posted on the frontiers to watch for young men, but as the sentinels belonged to the disaffected races the men got past all the same.
The restriction upon emigration pressed particularly hardly upon the Bosnian Slavs. The seething discontent that had increased every year since the annexation would never have become dangerous had the restless spirits been allowed to leave for the States. Families would have felt that their sons were safe from the bad treatment in the army and would have waited patiently until they had enough money to join them in the States. The sudden checking of all these hopes, the shutting of the only door of escape, brought the discontent to a head. There were rumours of disaffection among the subject-races everywhere. Sure of a warm welcome from their fellow-countrymen on the other side should trouble force them to leave, the people along the frontiers became very restless. There was every indication that the Austro-Hungarian conglomeration of nationalities and States could not be kept together much longer. Archduke Francis Ferdinand was pleased at these indications. He, in common with the remainder of the military party, was looking for an excuse for a war. Thus he and the army put more pressure upon the Serbs in Hungary instead of relieving them from some of the grosser forms of oppression. Kaiser Wilhelm encouraged the Archduke in this policy. He wished Austria-Hungary to realise that it had reached a crisis in its history that could only be solved by a war.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE AGRARIANS AND THE SHORTAGE OF FOOD
The Agrarians, or great landowners, both in Austria and Hungary were largely responsible for the Great War. If commercial relations between Austria and the Balkans had been satisfactory there would have been no discontent. The Balkans are agricultural lands; large crops of corn, vegetable products, and meat were produced. Hungary is also a rich agricultural country, and supplies its own needs entirely, with a surplus for Austria. Austria and Germany cannot exist on the produce of their land. Both countries have densely populated manufacturing districts that must be supplied with food. Hungary wished to obtain the best prices for her commodities. She therefore objected to Balkan products being imported. The goods had to enter over her railways. She prevented their coming in by imposing vexatious restrictions and refusing cargoes on all kinds of grounds. Austria would not forbid the import of meat and other products directly. This would have prejudiced her political relations with the Balkans. Nor did she wish to discourage the Balkan peoples from breeding cattle. The shortage of meat in Austria might force the Government to import it at any time. So she took a most unworthy course. She allowed the Agrarians to carry on their nefarious methods and thus earned the bitter hatred of the Balkan peoples, especially of Servia and Montenegro. For some years cattle-breeders in the Balkan countries did not realise why their products were returned so frequently. Finally, discovering that they were simply the playthings of the Agrarians, they ceased to breed cattle and turned their vast pastures into corn land. The Agrarians, men who travelled but little and had no grasp of the speed with which innovations are introduced and new plans adopted in this century, were sadly surprised and not a little dismayed when they discovered that the Serbs and other Balkan countries had no more meat for sale. Every summer there was a considerable shortage of meat in Austria and the cities of Hungary. This was due to a number of causes insignificant in themselves, but far-reaching as regards the history of Europe. The butchers said the regular annual shortage was largely owing to supplies being sent to Germany, to Bohemia, and the Tyrol in the tourist season, when large quantities of meat were required for the foreigners who came into the country. The real reason was that the country was being drained of its best blood by emigration. Farmers were forced to kill off their cattle because there were no shepherds to care for it. The day of the small peasant-proprietor was over. He had left for the States. It was found more profitable to grow corn than to keep cattle for the market on the immense farms on the great Hungarian plains. No one had realised that the Balkan States had rendered themselves independent of Austria-Hungary, and that no supply would be forthcoming even when the frontiers were thrown open. The Agrarians, when they heard of the shortage, suggested that the people should do without meat. Riots ensued, and violent scenes occurred in Vienna. The military was brought out to disperse the crowd. Hungarian hussars were brought from Budapesth to shoot on a crowd chiefly made up of Germans and Slavs. As the soldiers rode forward to charge the people in front of the Vienna Rathhaus, women climbed into their saddles, and, rendered desperate by fear for their husbands and children, wound themselves round the waists of the hussars, thus effectually preventing them from using their swords. Some men had four women hanging from their waists as they charged upon the crowd. The horses, trained for show and parade, were very careful not to dislodge the extra riders and advanced at an amble. The Hungarian officers who led the men tried to incite them to show a different spirit, but although they charged the crowd not more than a hundred civilians were seriously injured. The men cut the air above their heads with their long sabres, and although they were Hungarians and Magyars, and were faced by a crowd they disliked and despised, humanitarian feelings were stronger than the commands of their officers. Many people in Vienna that day doubted whether conscripts would ever fight against the populace. Before night, however, the spirit of the troops changed. The people, desperate with hunger, put up barricades in some of the chief streets; they tore down the gas lamps and set fire to the stream of coal-gas thus released. They plundered the shops of unpopular tradesmen and distributed eatables among the crowd. When the troops appeared they were received by a shower of stones, while even the pavements were torn up to provide missiles. The soldiers, thoroughly enraged, turned a murderous fire upon the people. The city was put under martial law, and everyone who ventured through the streets was searched for weapons. Walking the streets was a dangerous pastime for strangers, as sentries only challenged once and shot if the command to halt were not complied with. Similar riots on a larger scale took place in Budapesth. They were suppressed in a more brutal manner than those in Vienna, while in Prague the situation became so alarming that a revolution was feared. It was then that the Agrarian party became alarmed, and agreed to a suggestion for the importation of frozen meat from Argentina. A committee of officials and experts was sent to Argentina to arrange for the sending of frozen meat to Trieste. The Argentine Government was ready to comply with all the very intricate demands and requirements of the Austrian Government, and, being unversed in the history of the Balkans, believed that Austria was capable of a perfectly straightforward deal. One party of the Government, seeing the gravity of the disturbances, really wished to alleviate the sufferings of the people by the importation of frozen meat. The Agrarians, on whose head the blood-guilt of the European war really rests, played the same unstatesmanlike trick upon Argentina as they had successfully carried out in the case of the Balkans. The first load of meat duly arrived. It was sold immediately. This did not suit the short-sighted Agrarians, who immediately began a plan for the defeat of the innovation. With the consent of the Government they began an agitation against frozen meat. Butchers circulated stories that it was unsound, and as it was sold at prices that corresponded very nearly with those of fresh meat, it naturally remained on their hands. This was seized upon as an excuse by the Government to stop the import of any more meat. Even then the Government could not act with common straightforwardness. The cargo was allowed to come, and turned back at Trieste. The boat ran over to an Italian port, where the meat was sold without difficulty. But Austrian credit had suffered largely. The political relations with Argentina were strained, and the country lost many a good customer through her dishonesty. This mattered little to the Agrarians, who got good prices for their meat.
Another attempt was made to introduce sea-fish for popular consumption. The Government put a quick goods train service on from the Adriatic, and with cars especially constructed for keeping fresh fish in ice through the hot nights. This did not suit the Agrarians, who had immense breeding-places for carp and who reared trout in their streams. As was to be expected, the trains were delayed, and the fish reached Vienna and Budapesth in a state unfit for food. No statesman in Austria-Hungary raised his voice against this trickery. No one cared whether the people starved or not, provided the Agrarians were satisfied. Archdukes, who might have raised their voices and have made them heard, were themselves engaged in trade. They had immense dairies and other establishments, where the produce of their lands was sold. Their interests were contrary to those of the people and to those of the country at large. They sided with the Agrarians in what was a crisis in their own history and that of their country. Meat riots were succeeded by disturbances about house accommodation. In order to keep up rents, regulations preventing the building of new blocks of flats were made in both Vienna and Budapesth. Similar enactments existed in many other large cities in Austria-Hungary, but they pressed hardest of all in the capitals. The landlords, freed from healthy competition, not only demanded high rents, but they refused to accept tenants with children. Men well able to pay high rents were forced to go from house to house begging the porter to show them flats, and were turned away time and time again simply because they had the misfortune to have a family consisting not of six healthy children, but of one quiet child of ten. At one period things were so bad that a workman with six children, who had been unable to get accommodation anywhere, camped out with his family on the Graben, the chief promenade in the very centre of the city. Others knocked up wooden shanties on Crown land near the mountains. At last the city decided to put up a number of sheds for the accommodation of persons who had been expelled from the flats because they had children. In Budapesth things were much worse. There were riots, and the effigies of unpopular landlords were burned. Troops were called out and rioters shot, but this brutal suppression of the working class only increased the irritation felt against the Government. It was clear even to the uninitiated that affairs were reaching a climax. The discontent that had begun in the working classes was quickly spreading to the small employé and even to the professional classes and officers in the army. This was due not only to lack of food or accommodation, but to the enormous increase in the cost of living, which had its root in the alarming rise in taxation. This taxation was due to the two mobilisations during the Annexation crisis and the Balkan wars, which had cost Austria-Hungary many millions. The discovery that many things essential to an army were lacking had led to reckless expenditure. Not only had money been spent on legitimate needs, but immense swindles had been perpetrated in connection with army supplies. Highly-placed personages had been connected with these incidents which consequently were never properly sifted, those most deeply implicated having the power to prevent investigation. Further, mistakes on a vast scale were made. The type of cannon recommended for the army, and supplied to all the regiments, proved to be quite useless when employed in frontier skirmishes. It was replaced by new weapons at enormous cost. Other occurrences of the same kind led to the Budget being far above the yearly income of the State. It became apparent to all responsible for the conduct of the State that something must happen. The strain was too great—a breakdown somewhere was inevitable.