The Slovenes may be considered as laggards among the Slavic immigrants who followed Avar invasions. They would probably have occupied the fertile plains of Hungary had they not been driven to their elevated home by the pressure of Magyar and Turkish advances. Confinement in the upland prevented their fusion with any of the successive occupants of the eastern plains below their mountain habitations. Racial distinctiveness, characterized by language no less than by a highly developed attachment to tradition, resulted from this seclusion.
Starting from the Adriatic Sea in the vicinity of Triest the boundary of Slovene territory, according to Niederle, extends to Duino, Montefalcone, Gradisca and Cormons. From the last locality it heads for Italian territory, within which it cuts off the districts east of Tarcento and Resia from the area of Italian speech. At Kanin the line is once more on Austrian soil. It now proceeds to Pontafel, Saint-Hermagoras, Dobrac and Villach, the latter city being mainly German. Beyond the Drave, the linguistic frontier passes close to Woerther Lake and thence by Kostenberg and Moosburg. From this town the divide is prolonged to Gurk and extends towards Diex, Greutschach, Griffen and St. Pancrace. It next attains Arnfels. Fifty years ago, according to the same authority, the environs of this village were inhabited by Slovene populations. The district has since then been reclaimed by German speech. The same is true of the right bank of the Mur in the vicinity of Radkersburg.
At Radgona, the Slovene boundary crosses the Mur once more and extends northward into Hungary as far as the German village of St. Gotthard, which it leaves to the north. Thence it turns southward at the Raab and heads for the Mur, which it crosses at Gornia Bistrica. The line then runs close to the provincial boundaries of Croatia and Carniola before attaining the sea again in Istria. The Slovene area thus delimited comprises the duchy of Carniola, excepting the Gottschee enclave, northern Istria, the Udine region, southeastern Karinthia, southern Styria and part of the Hungarian “comitats” of Vas and Zala. This Slovene land is now but a dwindled remnant of its former extension. At one time the Slovenes extended as far west as the Pusterthal in Tyrol, while their settlements even reached the Danube (at Linz and Vienna).
Contact between languages on the Italo-Austrian frontier has influenced the political relations between the two countries. The whole foreign policy of the Austrian Empire, in fact, may be said to have been stimulated mainly by the necessity of keeping its mixed population in subjection. The central position of Austria-Hungary had made it the meeting-place of every important race in Europe. The mountain-girt monarchy is a seething reservoir of nationalities. Germans from the west flow into it. Czechs and Slovaks press in from the northwest, Poles and Ruthenians from the north and northeast. A Rumanian drive proceeds from the southeast. Croats, Serbians and Slovenes are steadily pushing northward. Italians, advancing from the southwest, complete the ring. Facing these racial swarms a central mass of Hungarians are striving to expand against them.
Fig. 31—The area of Slovene speech in Austria and adjacent parts of Italy.
For more than twelve centuries Austria’s geographical position has made her the protectress of Europe from successive onslaughts of barbarian hordes pressing from the east. The German-speaking nucleus of the present Dual Monarchy was founded, at the end of the eighth century, by Charles the Great as a bulwark against the Avars. A little later the rôle of stemming the tide of Hungarian attacks also devolved upon it. Fighting incessantly and on the whole successfully against eastern invaders, the Austrians gradually extended their territory towards the Orient. The valley of the Danube provided them with settling-land and passage-way. War and marriages brought their share of added territory to the Hapsburg reigning family. By 1526 Moravia, Bohemia, Silesia and Hungary had been added to the Empire. Transylvania was conquered in the seventeenth century, Galicia and Bukovina in the eighteenth. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Austria was the leader among German-speaking states. Prussian shot and shell ousted her from this position at the battle of Sadowa in 1866. But the task undertaken over a thousand years ago is still being performed. Austrians today are engaged in another effort to check the westward Slavic flow.
The country is ill-prepared to meet its hereditary foe. The sovereign existence of Austria-Hungary to this day can be regarded only as an exceedingly marvelous feat of political jugglery. Its weakness lies in the presence of strong contingents of dissimilar races in its population. Struggle between the component masses is as unending as it is passionate. To the lack of linguistic or racial affinity must be added the want of a liberal form of government in the strictly representative or federative sense. Representative government, in the absence of everything else, might have provided the required bond of political cohesion. Of the total population of Austria only 11,000,000, or 24 per cent, are Germans. These Teutons pay allegiance to the Hapsburg emperor along with 9,000,000 Hungarians, 3,000,000 Rumanians and about 1,000,000 Italians. The Slavic race, however, outnumbers every other element in the Empire. Its 21,000,000 members constitute 44 per cent of the subjects of Charles I.