Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/49

 What was that position? Since the disastrous war of 1859 Francis Joseph had felt some kind of constitutional reform to be necessary, if only to appease Hungarian resentment. In October, 1860, he issued a Diploma, or Constitutional Decree, that provided for the reform of the Monarchy on a fed eral basis with approximately equal rights for the various Austrian peoples and large representation for the Hungarians. This Decree, if adhered to, might have proved to be one of the few wise acts of his reign. It would have promoted the development of Austria-Hungary into something like its true character, which has been accurately described as “a Slav house with a German facade”. But the Germans of Austria, influenced doubtless by Prussia, clamored for its abrogation; and in February, 1861, Francis Joseph substituted for it a Centralist Patent or Decree calculated to establish German mastery over all the other Hapsburg races. Magyar, Bohemian and Polish opposition to this Decree was strong; and had the Hapsburg dynasty ever considered the welfare of its peoples, it would have seen in that opposition a warning and an admonition. The Bohemians, Poles and Magyars had no liking for the prospect of being eternally sacrificed to a hopeless attempt to place the crown of Charlemagne once more upon a Hapsburg brow. They were overruled, and the Germanizing constitution was introduced. It failed; but before it failed it had destroyed Francis Joseph’s only hope of holding his own against Prussia. Thus he drifted towards Sadowa, only to find himself after defeat obliged to cede the province of Venetia to the Italians, whom his arms had defeated, and to negotiate in haste a settlement with the Magyars that made them and the Germans of Austria the masters of his destiny, while each and both exercised their control in accordance with Prussian dictation.

Thus came the compromise of 1867 between the Crown and Hungary, which is known as the Dual settlement. By it Austria-Hungary in its present dual form, that is to say, the Dual Monarchy, was created. Up to that moment Hungary, though technically and historically entitled to constitutional autonomy, had been practically a province of Austria, except during the Revolution of 1848–49. Into the history of Hungary and of her ancient constitution, her glories and her disasters, her struggle against the Turks and her final acceptance of the Hapsburg dynasty after her overthrow by the Turks at Mohacs in 1526, it is not now my purpose to enter. Hungary really becomes an important factor in modern European history only after her settlement with her king, i. e., the Emperor of Austria, in 1867. It must not be supposed that in making this settlement Francis Joseph was actuated by love for Magyar liberties, or that he was thinking of organizing his “dynastic estate” on a modern or liberal basis. He was thinking chiefly of a renewal of the struggle against Prussia for mastery over Germany, and was striving at once to neutralize Magyar opposition and to remove the lukewarmness of the Austrian-German Liberals. He was working to undo the consequences of the defeat of Sadowa by effecting a kind of moral mobilization of the most recalcitrant elements among his peoples.

Like the other constitutional experiments under taken by Francis Joseph, the Dual Settlement of 1867 was an improvization hastily conceived for immediate dynastic ends and bearing no real relationship to the needs of his peoples. He doubtless imagined that, when he should have defeated Prussia, it would be subject to drastic revision or even to total abrogation. But he forgot Bismarck. He hastily gave to the Magyars a separate government in regard to all affairs of the “Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen”, that is to say, Hungary proper, together with Transylvania and Croatia-Slavonia. He left the Croats, who in the past had been his most loyal supporters, to make what arrangements they could with the Magyars; and the Magyars proceeded to exploit and oppress them unscrupulously. Except in regard to military and foreign affairs, the Dual Settlement of 1867 made the Magyars supreme in Hungary, and, through Hungary, all but supreme in the Monarchy. The settlement created a joint Austro-Hungarian War Office; a joint Foreign Office and a department for the administration of joint revenues; and as the Magyars insisted that they could only enter into relations with a completely constitutional Austria, Francis Joseph, King of Hungary, in his capacity as Emperor of Austria, bedizened Austria with a constitutional robe cut to please the Austrian-German Liberals. This Austrian “Fundamental Law” of December, 1867, was, in fact, designed to assure the predominance of the German over the non-German elements in Austria, just as the parallel settlement between the Crown and Hungary was designed to assure the mastery of the Magyar over the non-Magyar elements in the Hungarian half of the Monarchy.

The point to be remembered is that while the Germans of Austria and the Magyars of Hungary are each the strongest race-nucleus in their respective halves of the Monarchy, they are each in a minority as compared with the non-German races of Austria, and the non-Magyar races of Hungary. In Austria the Germans now number some 10,000,000 out of a total population of more than 30,000,000; while in Hungary proper the Magyars number some 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 out of a total population of, roughly, 20,000,000. The Dual System thus consists of an arrangement under which a minority rules a majority in each half of the Monarchy, and is dependent for its privileged position nominally upon the support of the Crown, but really, as we shall see, upon the support of Prussia.

As soon as Francis Joseph had assented to this Dual Settlement, he seems to have seen that he had committed himself to an arrangement likely to curtail his dynastic freedom of action. He knew that both the Magyars and the Austrian-German Liberals were in sympathy with Berlin, and therefore he cast about for some other support for his dynastic