The New Map of Europe (1911-1914) / The Story of the Recent European Diplomatic Crises and Wars and of Europe's Present Catastrophe

by Herbert Adams Gibbons

It has often been predicted in recent years that the union between Austria and Hungary would be broken by internal troubles. Hungary has been credited with desiring to cut loose from Austria. The frequent and serious quarrels between the members of the Dual Monarchy have caused many a wiseacre to shake his head and say, "The union will not outlive Franz Josef!" But the Austro-Hungarian Empire has been founded upon sound political and economic principles, which far transcend a single life or a dynasty. Austrians and Hungarians may be unwilling yoke-fellows. But they know that if they do not pull together, they cannot pull at all. They have too many Slavs around them.

The principle upon which Austrians and Hungarians have founded a Dual Monarchy is the old Latin proverb, divide et impera. In the Empire, Austrians and Hungarians are in the minority. In each kingdom, by dividing the Slavs cleverly between them, they hold the upper hand. The German race is, therefore, the dominant race in Austria, and the Hungarian race is the dominant race in Hungary.

If one looks at the map, and studies the division of the Empire, he will readily see that it is much more durably constructed than he would have reason to believe from statistics of the population. The Slavic question in the Dual Monarchy is not how many Slavs of kindred races are to be found in Austria-Hungary, but how they are placed in relationship to each other and to neighbouring states. It is a question of geography rather than of census. The student needs a map instead of columns of figures.

In only one place is the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy very weak, and that is in the south. The sole port for the thirty millions of Austria is Trieste. To reach Trieste one passes through a belt of Slavic territory, and Trieste itself is more Italian than German. The sole port of Hungary is Fiume. To reach Fiume one passes through a belt of Slavic territory, and there are hardly any Hungarians in Fiume itself. The Slavs which cut off Fiume from Hungary and the Slavs of the Dalmatian coast and of all Bosnia and Herzegovina belong to the same family. They speak practically the same language as the Servians and Montenegrins.

The Hungarians, then, have exactly the same interest as the Austrians in every move that has been made since the proclamation of the constitution of Turkey to prevent the foundation of a strong independent Servian State on the confines of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and to prevent the Slavs from reaching the Adriatic Sea.

Austria has not been necessarily influenced in her attitude towards the Balkan problem by Germany. Although her Drang nach Osten is frequently interpreted as a part of the Pan-Germanic movement, the Germans of Austria have needed no German sentiment and no German prompting to arrive at their point of view in regard to the Balkan nationalities. It must be clearly kept in mind that the Convention of Reichstadt in 1876, which was the beginning of Austria's consistent policy towards the Balkan peninsula, was signed before the alliance with Germany; that it was the conception of a Hungarian statesman, and that the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina had nothing whatever to do with Pan-Germanism. It was a measure of self-protection to prevent these remote provinces of Turkey from forming a political union with Servia, should the Russian arms, intervening on behalf of the south Slavs against Turkey, prove successful. The extension of sovereignty over Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908 was to prevent the constitutional régime from trying to weaken the hold of Austria-Hungary upon these provinces. Austria-Hungary certainly would have preferred the more comfortable status of an occupation to the legal adoption of a Reichsland. But she could take no chances with the Young Turks. Her military occupation of the Sandjak of Novi Bazar was inspired as much by the necessity of preventing the union of Montenegro and Servia as by the desire to provide for a future railway extension to Salonika.

Hungary has had to grapple with two Balkan problems, the rise of Rumania and the rise of Servia. She has had within her kingdom several million Rumanian subjects and several million South Slavic subjects. Most of her Rumanians, however, have been separated from Rumania from the natural barrier of the Carpathian mountains, and have not found their union with Hungary to their disadvantage. For the Rumanians of Hungary enjoy through Buda-Pesth and Fiume a better outlet to the markets of the world, and a cheaper haul, than they would find through Rumania. They have benefited greatly by their economic union with Hungary. It is not the same with the Croatians. They are situated between Buda-Pesth and the Adriatic. They have a natural river outlet to the Danube. They are not separated by physical barriers from their brothers of race and language in Servia, Bosnia, and Dalmatia. Were they to separate from Hungary, they would not find their economic position in any way jeopardized.

Many South Slavs have advocated a trialism to replace the present dualism. They have claimed that the most critical problems of the Austro-Hungarian Empire could be solved in this way. Added to Hungary and Austria, there could be a Servian kingdom, perhaps enlarged by the inclusion of independent Servia and Montenegro, whose crown could be worn by the Hapsburg ruler.

But this solution has never found favour, simple and attractive though it sounds on first sight, with either Hungarians or Austrians. For it would mean the cutting off of both kingdoms from the sea. The Hungarians would be altogether land-locked, and surrounded on all sides by alien races. Austria would be forced into hopeless economic dependence upon Germany. The Germans of Austria and the Hungarians of Hungary have felt that their national existence depended upon keeping in political subjection the South Slavs, and upon repressing mercilessly any evidences of Italian irredentism upon the littoral of the Adriatic. Italian irredentism is treated in another place. The repression of national aspirations among the South Slavs, which interests us here, has been the corner-stone of Austro-Hungarian policy in the Balkans. For Hungary it has also been an internal question in her relationship with Croatia.