Our Embassy at Vienna was greatly overworked at this time, owing to the illness of two of the staff, and some fresh developments of the perennial "Eastern Question." I was accordingly "lent" to the Vienna Embassy for as long as was necessary, and left at once for the Austrian capital.
At the frontier station of Tetschen the transition from cast-iron, dictatorial, overbearing Prussian efficiency to the good-natured, easy-going, slipshod methods of the "ramshackle Empire" was immediately apparent.
The change from Berlin to Vienna was refreshing. The straight, monotonous, well-kept streets of the Northern capital lacked life and animation. It was a very fine frame enclosing no picture. The Vienna streets were as gay as those of Paris, and one was conscious of being in a city with centuries of traditions. The Inner Town of Vienna with its narrow winding streets is extraordinarily picturesque. The demolisher has not been given the free hand he has been allowed in Paris, and the fine baroque houses still remaining give an air of great distinction to this part of the town, with its many highly-decorative, if somewhat florid, fountains and columns. One was no longer in the "pushful" atmosphere of Prussia. These cheery, easy-going Viennese loved music and dancing, eating and drinking, laughter and fun. They were quite content to drift lazily down the stream of life, with as much enjoyment and as little trouble as possible. They might be a decadent race, but they were essentially gemüthliche Leute. The untranslatable epithet gemüthlich implies something at once "comfortable," "sociable," "cosy," and "pleasant."
The Austrian aristocracy were most charming people. They had all intermarried for centuries, and if they did not trouble their intellect much, there may have been physical difficulties connected with the process for which they were not responsible. The degree of warmth of their reception of foreigners was largely dependent upon whether he, or she, could show the indispensable sechzehn Ahnen (the "sixteen quarterings"). Once satisfied (or the reverse) as to this point, to which they attach immense importance, the situation became easier. As the whole of these people were interrelated, they were all on Christian names terms, and the various "Mitzis," "Kitzis," "Fritzis," and other characteristically Austrian abbreviations were a little difficult to place at times.
It was impossible not to realise that the whole nation was living on the traditions of their splendid past. It must be remembered that in the sixteenth century the Hapsburgs ruled the whole of Europe with the exception of France, England, Russia, and the Scandinavian countries. For centuries after Charlemagne assumed the Imperial Crown there had been only one Emperor in Europe, the "Holy Roman Emperor," the "Heiliger Römischer Kaiser," the fiction being, of course, that he was the descendant of the Cæsars. The word "Kaiser" is only the German variant of Cæsar. France and England had always consistently refused to acknowledge the overlordship of the Emperor, but the prestige of the title in German-speaking lands was immense, though the Holy Roman Empire itself was a mere simulacrum of power. In theory the Emperor was elected; in practice the title came to be a hereditary appanage of the proud Hapsburgs. It was, I think, Talleyrand who said "L'Autrice a la Fächeuse habitude d'être toujours battue," and this was absolutely true. Austria was defeated with unfailing regularity in almost every campaign, and the Hapsburgs saw their immense dominions gradually slipping from their grasp. It was on May 14, 1804, that Napoleon was crowned Emperor of the French in Paris, and Francis II, the last of the Holy Roman Emperors, was fully aware that Napoleon's next move would be to supplant him and get himself elected as "Roman Emperor." This Napoleon would have been able to achieve, as he had bribed the Electors of Bavaria, Württemberg, and Saxony by creating them kings. For once a Hapsburg acted with promptitude. On August 11, 1804, Francis proclaimed himself hereditary Emperor of Austria, and two years later he abolished the title of Holy Roman Emperor. The Empire, after a thousand years of existence, flickered out ingloriously in 1806. The pride of the Hapsburgs had received a hundred years previously a rude shock. Peter the Great, after consolidating Russia, abolished the title of Tsar of Muscovy, and proclaimed himself Emperor of All the Russias; purposely using the same term "Imperator" as that employed by the Roman Emperor, and thus putting himself on an equality with him.
I know by experience that it is impossible to din into the heads of those unfamiliar with Russia that since Peter the Great's time there has never been a Tsar. The words "Tsar," "Tsarina," "Cesarevitch," beloved of journalists, exist only in their imagination; they are never heard in Russia. The Russians termed their Emperor "Gosudar Imperator," using either or both of the words. Empress is "Imperatritza"; Heir Apparent "Nadslyédnik." If you mentioned the words "Tsar" or "Tsarina" to any ordinary Russian peasant, I doubt if he would understand you, but I am well aware that it is no use repeating this, the other idea is too firmly ingrained. The Hapsburgs had yet another bitter pill to swallow. Down to the middle of the nineteenth century the ancient prestige of the title Kaiser and the glamour attached to it were maintained throughout the Germanic Confederation, but in 1871 a second brand-new Kaiser arose on the banks of the Spree, and the Hapsburgs were shorn of their long monopoly.
Franz Josef of Austria must have rued the day when Sigismund sold the sandy Mark of Brandenburg to Frederick Count of Hohenzollern in 1415, and regretted the acquiescence in 1701 of his direct ancestor, the Emperor Leopold I, in the Elector of Brandenburg's request that he might assume the title of King of Prussia. The Hohenzollerns were ever a grasping race. I think that it was Louis XIV of France who, whilst officially recognising the new King of Prussia, refused to speak of him as such, and always alluded to him as "Monsieur le Marquis de Brandenbourg."
No wonder that the feeling of bitterness against Prussia amongst the upper classes of Austria was very acute in the "'seventies." The events of 1866 were still too recent to have been forgotten. In my time the great Austrian ladies affected the broadest Vienna popular dialect, probably to emphasise the fact that they were not Prussians. Thus the sentence "ein Glas Wasser, bitte," became, written in phonetic English, "a' Glawss Vawsser beet." I myself was much rallied on my pedantic North-German pronunciation, and had in self-defence to adopt unfamiliar Austrian equivalents for many words.
The curious international families which seemed to abound in Vienna always puzzled me. Thus the princes d'Aremberg are Belgians, but there was one Prince d'Aremberg in the Austrian service, whilst his brother was in the Prussian Diplomatic Service, the remainder of the family being Belgians. There were, in the same way, many German-speaking Pourtales in Berlin in the German service, and more French-speaking ones in Paris in the French service. The Duc de Croy was both a Belgian and an Austrian subject. The Croys are one of the oldest families in Europe, and are ebenbürtig ("born on an equality") with all the German Royalties. They therefore show no signs of respect to Archdukes and Archduchesses when they meet them. Although I cannot vouch personally for them, never having myself seen them, I am told that there are two pictures in the Croy Palace at Brussels which reach the apogee of family pride. The first depicts Noah embarking on his ark. Although presumably anxious about the comfort of the extensive live-stock he has on board, Noah finds time to give a few parting instructions to his sons. On what is technically called a "bladder" issuing from his mouth are the words, "And whatever you do, don't forget to bring with you the family papers of the Croys." ("Et surtout ayez soin de ne pas oublier les papiers de la Maison de Croy!") The other picture represents the Madonna and Child, with the then Duke of Croy kneeling in adoration before them. Out of the Virgin Mary's mouth comes a "bladder" with the words "But please put on your hat, dear cousin." ("Mais couvrez vous donc, cher cousin.")
The whole of Viennese life is regulated by one exceedingly tiresome custom. After 10 or 10.15 p.m. the hall porter (known in Vienna as the "House-master") of every house in the city has the right of levying a small toll of threepence on each person entering or leaving the house. The whole life of the Vienna bourgeois is spent in trying to escape this tax, known as "Schlüssel-Geld." The theatres commence accordingly at 6 p.m. or 6.30, which entails dining about 5 p.m. A typical Viennese middle-class family will hurry out in the middle of the last act and scurry home breathlessly, as the fatal hour approaches. Arrived safely in their flat, in the last stages of exhaustion, they say triumphantly to each other. "We have missed the end of the play, and we are rather out of breath, but never mind, we have escaped the 'Schlüssel-Geld,' and as we are four, that makes a whole shilling saved!"