The description of the relations of the various peoples and the "Unity-Machine" employed would fill a large book. Control of public opinion has been the first action of the rulers of the Dual Monarchy. In peace time, not only were the suppressed nations, such as the Czechs, Slovaks, Rumanians, Luthenians, Poles, Slovenes, Italians, but all the citizens of Austria-Hungary, denied the right of free speech and freedom of the Press. Some of the regulations by which the Government held absolute sway over its subjects are:
(1) No newspaper or other printing business could be established until a heavy deposit was made with the police for the payment of fines, such fines to be arbitrarily imposed by the police—in whom is vested extraordinary power—when anything political was written which did not please them. They are difficult to please, I may add.
(2) A complete copy of each edition must be sent to the police before it was put on sale. "Good" editors whose inspiration was of a nature to enable them to interpret the wishes of the Government, sometimes received a dispensation from this formality.
(3) No club might hold a private meeting. A representative of the police must be present. This rule was often extended even to friendly gatherings in private homes in such places as Bohemia.
(4) No political meeting might be held without a permit, and a representative of the police must be present. Often he sat on the platform. It is amusing for the visitor from a free country to attend a political meeting where the chairman, speaker and policeman file up on the stage to occupy the three chairs reserved for them. The policeman may be heard by those in the front rows continually cautioning the speaker. If he thinks the speaker is talking too freely he either intervenes through the chairman and asks him to be moderate or dismisses the meeting.
These regulations, I again remind the reader, were in force in peace time. It is easy to see how an extension of them effectually checks attempts of the Czechs (Bohemians) and other peoples to legislate themselves into a little freedom.
When I came to England early in the war from Austria-Hungary and Germany I heard many expressions of hope that the discontented races in the Empire of Francis Joseph would rebel, and later expressions of surprise that they did not. Englishmen held the opinion that such races would be decidedly averse from fighting for the Hapsburgs. The opinion was correct, and nobody knew this better than the Hapsburgs themselves.
Like the German Government in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, the Austrian Government has endeavoured to mislead public opinion in foreign countries as to the state of mind of the Czechs by false information and to conceal the true military and political situation from the population at home. Austria's first problem at the outbreak of war—a problem which has been worked out to the last detail—was rapidly to move the soldiers of the subjugated races from their native lands. Since the Bosnians, for example, are of the Serbian race, they were mobilised secretly in the middle of July and sent out of Bosnia. I saw 30,000 moved through Trieste several days before war was declared on Serbia. A German acquaintance, with great shipping interests, enthusiastically indiscreet at sight of them, exclaimed to the little group of which I was one: "A wonderful system—a wonderful system! The Bosnians could not be trusted to fight the Serbs. But we Germans can use them if they prove troublesome to Austria," he continued excitedly. "We can send them against the French. We will tell them that if they do not shoot the French, we will shoot them." I thought this a rather curious conversation for July 25th, 1914.
Less than fortnight later I saw two Bohemian regiments arrive at Prasso, Transylvania, the province farthest removed from their homes, to be garrisoned in a region, the population of which is Rumanian, Hungarian and Saxon. I was told later that the Rumanians who had left the garrisons at Prasso had gone to Bohemia. As I observed these initial steps in the great smooth-running Austro-Hungarian military machine, I was impressed with the impossibility of revolution. With the soldier element scientifically broken up and scattered all over the country, who could revolt—the women and children?
The Slav soldiers of Austria-Hungary desert to Russia at every opportunity. The fact that she now has upwards of 1,200,000 Austro-Hungarian prisoners is sufficient refutation of the sugar-coated propaganda describing how all the peoples who make up Austria-Hungary rushed loyally and enthusiastically to arms to the defence of their Emperor and common country. This is perfectly true of the politically dominant races, the Germans and the Magyars, but the "enthusiasm" I witnessed among the subjugated races consisted chiefly of sad-faced soldiers and weeping women.