Europe Since 1918

by Herbert Adams Gibbons

In the middle of October, 1918, Marshal von Hindenburg telegraphed to Vienna that it would be impossible to hold the western front any longer unless Austrian reinforcements were immediately forthcoming. From a purely military point of view the appeal was reasonable. Although the June offensive had failed, the Austrians were still superior to the Italians; and there was no reason to believe that the Austro-Hungarian armies could not continue to hold their lines, even though they detached a considerable body of troops, until winter made an Italian offensive impossible. Because he was unaware of the moral factors in the situation, von Hindenburg was surprised when he received a refusal. It was at this moment that the handwriting upon the wall appeared before the eyes of the German General Staff.

But it had long been evident at Vienna that the war would be won or lost on the western front and by the Germans alone. With the composite and mutually antagonistic elements that composed the armies of the Hapsburg Empire, it was nothing short of a miracle that Austria-Hungary had held out so long. The authority of the Vienna Government was sustained only through the belief of the peoples of the Dual Monarchy that Germany was invincible. The collapse of Russia had come in time to check serious disloyalty in the non-German and non-Magyar portions of the Austro-Hungarian army. Until Germany appealed for aid, most of the Hapsburg subjects felt that they would be playing a losing game if they mutinied.

Study of the records shows that demoralization began in the rear, and that it was the result of news leaking through of disasters falling upon the coalition of the Central Empires. The capitulation of Bulgaria and Turkey came nearer home to Vienna than to Berlin. And yet, if the Germans had been successful on the western front, these events would not in themselves have led to the collapse of Austria-Hungary. It was the German appeal for aid that suddenly made the Vienna Government realize the hopelessness of the situation. There was a revolution at Prague. The Croats proclaimed their independence at Agram. Count Karolyi and Archduke Joseph called the Hungarian divisions back to defend their native land.

For some days the news was kept from the troops. In the fighting from October 24 to 28 the Italians had failed signally to achieve on their front results comparable to those of the French and British and Americans on the western front. The Austrian army group at Belluno fought wonderfully—even the Czechs, whose crack Prague regiment distinguished itself. The change came on the night of October 28, when the news of happenings in the rear reached the soldiers in the trenches and in reserve. Ordered to undertake a counter-offensive on the morning of October 29, the soldiers mutinied. The signal was given by the 26th Czech Rifles. The armies began to leave the front. The Hapsburg Empire collapsed in a few hours!

At the suggestion of Admiral Horthy, the imperial fleet was presented to the Jugoslav Government that had been formed at Agram. No opposition was made to the Prague revolution. The imperial authorities made no effort to prevent a revolt in Budapest.

When Austria asked for an armistice and signed the terms of the Entente Powers on November 3, 1918, there really was no longer any Austria. The Vienna Government was not in a position to accept the responsibility for the whole country. Czechs, Poles, and Jugoslavs were out of the empire and were dealing directly with the Allies. Under the armistice terms Italy occupied the territories that all the world knew had been definitely promised to her by the secret Treaty of London in 1915. Several million of her German-speaking population passed immediately under the control of the new Czech Government at Prague, and several hundred thousand Tyrolese came within the zone of military occupation of the Italian armies. Austria at the outbreak of the war had a population of about 30,000,000, of whom not more than 10,500,000 were Germans; the Czechs and Slovaks were 6,700,000; the Poles 5,000,000; the Ukrainians 3,700,000; and the Jugoslavs 3,000,000. Thus, while Austrians were more numerous than any other element, they comprised only a third of the population, and more than 3,000,000 of that third were in Bohemia. These figures show how radically different was the situation of Austria from that of Germany. Many of the leading generals and statesmen and a very large number of the functionaries of the Hapsburg Empire were from the non-Austrian and non-Magyar peoples. Throughout the war the army had been composed, officers and men, of the entire population, and the Austrians and Hungarians contributed only about 50 per cent—perhaps less than that—to the fighting forces that had invaded and imposed their will on Serbia and Rumania, had successfully withstood Italy and Russia, and had contributed to the success of Germany on the western front. The major part of the Austro-Hungarian artillery was manufactured in Bohemia.

And yet, when the Paris Conference assembled, all the Hapsburg peoples except Austrians and Hungarians were represented and were regarded as co-victors with the Entente Powers. On the other hand, the Austrian element in the Hapsburg Empire was held to be the culprit, responsible for the war, guilty of its excesses; and in the settlement all the sins of the Hapsburgs were visited upon the heads of less than 7,000,000 Austrians. The inconsistency in the attitude of the Peace Conference toward the Hohenzollern and Hapsburg Empires is amazing, and shows that neither logic nor a sense of justice inspired the victors, but simply the desire to impose treaties that would serve best their own interests. The Germans were told, when they protested against the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, that no government could have initiated and carried on the war without the consent and support of all the people; therefore, the inhabitants of Germany could not escape punishment by doing away with their government. Germany still remained a powerful nation; therefore prudence inspired guarantees for future good behavior, and a sense of justice demanded the payment of reparations and the punishment of war criminals.

Less than 7,000,000 Austrians, a third of whom lived in the city of Vienna, were indicted, tried, found guilty, and punished in the Treaty of St.-Germain for the misdeeds of the Hapsburg Empire. Nothing could have been more absurd than to suppose that these people were a super-race who had dominated for five centuries the peoples round about them, and that from 1914 to 1918 6,500,000 people could have held the other 23,000,000 inhabitants of Austria so completely at their mercy that the latter, bowing to force majeure, should have fought against their will for those who held them, terrorized, in complete subjection. In the great Austrian armies, according to this assumption, Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, Croatians, Dalmatians, Slovenes, and other peoples were no more than unwilling slaves, doing their master’s bidding. At the same time these non-Austrian elements were assumed to be so superior in culture and inhibitions to the Austrians that all the violations of the laws of warfare, all the crimes, were committed solely by German-speaking soldiers and officers!

If any one thinks I am exaggerating, let him read the Treaty of St.-Germain and bear in mind that this treaty was imposed upon less than one fourth of the inhabitants of pre-war Austria with about one fourth of the area of pre-war Austria, and that a third of the inhabitants of the new state live in one city, whose size and equipment for industry and commerce (Vienna is the fourth city of Europe) are the result of economic evolution as the center of a great nation. Read the Treaty of St.-Germain, I ask, and then judge for yourself what must have been the state of mind of the men who framed it.

The Hapsburg Empire was a governmental system, not a nation; and after the rise of the principle of nationality in the nineteenth century it had held together against powerful currents of disintegration because the ruling classes of its various elements believed their prosperity and security were better guaranteed by remaining in the empire than by separating from it. Irredentism became a powerful influence with peasants, when sufficiently worked upon, and with petty politicians, students, and a portion of the professional classes. Landowners, business men, manufacturers, and clergy among all the Hapsburg peoples supported the governmental system, indorsed its foreign policy, and worked as hard as the Austrians and Hungarians up to the very end for the success of the coalition of the Central Empires. The sinking ship was deserted when it was realized that Germany was going to lose.