Page:The New Europe, volume 1.pdf/214

 character could I fairly form? The dilemma was all the greater in that I had hardly heard a good word said of him, either in Austria or in Hungary, since entering his dominions. Austrian Germans, Czechs, Poles and Italians all criticised him bitterly from their own points of view. The Magyars of all parties were even less favourable. Things seemed to be going badly. "It is all the Emperor's fault," said the Austrians. "He lacks energy, he lets the Magyars have everything their own way; he cares nothing for anything; he is too old—in fact he has been Emperor far too long." "The King is not only badly advised, but he is German at heart," said the Magyars. "He is old, and though we may put up with him while he lives, we will not stand his successor. After all, we have nothing to expect from the Habsburgs, who have always betrayed us, and always will. Francis Joseph is no exception to the rule."

Amid these various but uniformly unfavourable opinions of Francis Joseph's personality I thought I saw—as an impartial outsider responsible for the representation of Austro-Hungarian affairs to an important section of the British public—a way to make known the truth without appearing to judge too harshly, at the moment of his demise, the venerable sovereign who, wrongly as it appeared, enjoyed the respect and esteem of the civilised world. I would ask each of the leading Austrian and Hungarian writers and public men who had spoken to me thus frankly of their ruler to write, under the seal of secrecy and in return for generous remuneration, a reasoned account of the Emperor Francis Joseph's personality and political record from the point of view of their own nationality or party. The understanding would be that these statements should only be published anonymously after the Emperor's death. Thus The Times would be able to supplement its usual "memoir" with a series of reasoned judgments carefully passed upon the late monarch by representative men among his own subjects. If the effect of these judgments were to destroy his reputation for exalted wisdom and mature statemanship, so much the worse for the reputation and so much the better for the truth!

Filled with this idea, I applied to leading politicians and writers of all the principal races of Austria and all the chief parties of Hungary. Not one refused my offer. Each was asked to complete his contribution within six months.