IS 
 
 AUSTRIA 
 
 COUNTESS ZANARDi LAND 
 
 AUTHOR Of 
 
 'THE SECRET QF AN EMPRESS
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 FROM THE LIBRARY 
 OF F. VON BOSCHAN
 
 IS AUSTRIA DOOMED?
 
 IS AUSTRIA DOOMED? 
 
 BY 
 
 THE COUNTESS ZANARDI LANDI 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE SECRET OF AN EMPRESS " 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 
 LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO 
 
 MCMXVI
 
 Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson &■ Viniy, Ld., 
 London and Aylesbury.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 WHO is it? What is it? Whence does 
 this evil, this destructive power 
 take its origin, this power which 
 makes the Austrians, the Austrians of varying 
 religions, of differing nationalities, the most 
 wronged, the most suppressed nation on 
 earth ? 
 
 It is a question that cannot be answered 
 in a few words. To get to the bottom of it, 
 one must dissect, one must collect details, 
 one must analyse like the surgeon who probes 
 to the depth of a wound, cutting away the 
 proud flesh ; one must go to the very heart 
 of the matter. 
 
 The beautiful old house, shaking to its 
 very foundations, yet to be preserved for its 
 fine historical significance — its ancestry, its 
 tradition — must be restored stone by stone. 
 So must we investigate the Austrian question. 
 
 9
 
 Preface 
 
 It must be carefully handled lest the house 
 founder in a lamentable heap of ruins. That 
 is the object which 1 have set before myself 
 in this book. 
 
 The moment has come when facts can 
 prove that what I am saying is true. It is 
 not to slur over matters, not to retail gossip 
 that I write this little volume. Always I 
 hold in front of me the conviction that I am 
 speaking in the name of the Austrians — those 
 millions of oppressed ones who, crushed by 
 an invisible power, are not allowed to speak 
 for themselves. They must raise their voices 
 in shouts of enthusiasm while their hearts 
 are heavy with sadness and images of death 
 darken their imagination. 
 
 To speak in their name is not only my 
 wish, but my sacred duty, for, unlike them, I 
 enjoy the privilege of living on the sheltering 
 soil where Freedom reigns supreme ! 
 
 10
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 PREFACE . 
 
 9 
 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 • 13 
 
 CHAPTEB 
 
 
 
 I. 
 
 THE PARASITES 
 
 19 
 
 II. 
 
 THE UPPER TEN 
 
 33 
 
 III. 
 
 MILITARISM . 
 
 50 
 
 IV. 
 
 POLITICAL AUSTRIA . 
 
 . 82 
 
 V. 
 
 CHURCHES AND JESUITS 
 
 . 99 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE CHILDREN OF SHEM . 
 
 . 108 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE PEOPLE 
 
 . 129 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A FEW WORDS ON EDUCATION 
 
 . 148 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE PEASANTRY 
 
 . 160 
 
 X. 
 
 THE AUSTRIAN COURT 
 
 II 
 
 • 175
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 CAN we really allege that William of 
 Hohenzollern, one man alone, is the 
 cause of this terrific upheaval that 
 has plunged the world into a war which 
 has already lasted two years ? Shall we do 
 any single man so much honour as to deem 
 him in possession of such a dominating power 
 that he is able to impose his will, his ideas 
 on a whole nation, and provoke in conse- 
 quence all the ghastly ferocities which have 
 taken place and are still of almost daily 
 occurrence ? 
 
 Perhaps it would be nearer the truth if 
 we regarded him as a scourge inflicted on 
 us by a greater Power, a Power but dimly 
 apprehended by humanity. A scourge which 
 was needed in Germany, even more in Austria 
 and in many other parts of this planet, to 
 make an end of institutions, of tendencies 
 
 13
 
 Introduction 
 
 which had gradually devoured all that is 
 really worth living for, all that is noble and 
 all that stands for real progress — that is, 
 progress in the spiritual part of our existence. 
 The world which was absorbed in the 
 worship of Mammon had forgotten that any 
 other God existed. The minority who still 
 cared for the higher needs of humanity were 
 laughed at, and the vulture of materialism, 
 improperly called civilisation, was permitted 
 to gnaw at the heart of true national exist- 
 ence everywhere. Nobody can contest this 
 fact ; but at the same time nobody realised 
 that this germ of materialism was imported 
 from Germany, who was busily engaged in 
 dumping it, with her other " Made in Ger- 
 many " goods, into all the markets of the 
 world. Only a terrific upheaval such as we 
 are experiencing now could check the pro- 
 gress of this universal disease ; the surgeon's 
 knife was needed : it came in the form of 
 a European war, and while materially we 
 are losing daily in blood and wealth, spiritu- 
 ally, to an extent never seen on earth before, 
 we are progressing towards the comprehen- 
 
 14
 
 Introduction 
 
 sion of the immaterial — towards an ideal of 
 perfection. Dreams that seemed idle before 
 1914 will be accomplished facts after this 
 war. The improvement of the conditions 
 of humanity, the raising of mankind to 
 a higher plane will result from the terrible 
 ordeal through which we are passing. 
 
 And if there were one part of the world 
 which needed so drastic an operation more 
 than any other it was Austria. 
 
 During this war Austria has invariably 
 been called the cat's paw of Germany — or 
 rather of Berlin. Now no one can hate 
 Prussia, Prussians, and Prussianism more 
 than I do myself, and millions of Austrians 
 share this aversion with me, but when it 
 comes to a conscientious answer to the 
 question " Is Austria the cat's paw of Ger- 
 many ? " one cannot give an unqualified 
 " Yes." Individuals as well as nations may 
 be used as cat's paws in one transaction, 
 but not for years — not in a succession, a 
 series of negotiations. Why has Belgium not 
 been the cat's paw of Germany ? Why not 
 Italy ? Why not even Greece ? 
 
 15
 
 Introduction 
 
 Now, Austria, listen to what I am going 
 to say, and take it from me as from one 
 who was reared in Austria, from one who 
 longs to see Austria happy, and from one 
 who has the deepest love for her marvellous 
 people. It is your boundless frivolity, your 
 entire lack of seriousness which has made 
 of you what you are to-day. Were you not 
 so volatile, so lacking in all that would make 
 you realise the significance of life, you would 
 not be in your present position. It was your 
 frivolity that made you endure for so long the 
 yoke of the Hapsburg absolutism, it was your 
 frivolity which has made your Parliament 
 the jest of the whole world, it is your frivolity 
 which has allowed your Government to keep 
 you in a state of constant squabbling over 
 trifles in order that they may gain an advan- 
 tage over you. 
 
 But all is not lost. Free yourselves from 
 the fetters of that power which would keep 
 you in a pleasant ignorance, do not squander 
 your splendid energies any longer over objects 
 which are not really your own, do not permit 
 the interference of outsiders in matters which 
 
 16
 
 Introduction 
 
 concern you alone, unite yourselves again 
 into one force, one power — which can have 
 but one aim and one result, namely, Freedom. 
 Down with the intriguers who constantly 
 succeed in sowing dissension among you ! 
 Down with the seducers who lure you into 
 the paths of carelessness and of ease. As a 
 nation you are on the decline, and nothing — 
 nobody — can stop you but yourselves. Re- 
 fuse to recognise the dominion of selfish 
 rulers. Away with your ingrained senti- 
 mentality ! Sentimentality is weakness — the 
 result of too much wine, of too much song. 
 The song will make the drunkard weep ; tears 
 will come into his sentimental eyes when he 
 hears of the sufferings of others, but he will 
 go home and ill-treat his wife and children 
 a moment after. 
 
 The Prussian is a prey to this kind of senti- 
 mentality. It is his characteristic — don't 
 mistake it for kindness, for refinement. For 
 it is not. A thin veneer of so-called culture 
 covers the brute in him. Do not mistake 
 this veneer for the real Prussian. 
 
 No, the Prussian is innately coarse ; but 
 
 2 17
 
 Introduction 
 
 you Austrians, your instincts are refined, you 
 are perhaps the most gifted people in the 
 world — the most capable of conceiving all 
 that is really great, all that helps towards 
 the improvement and elevation of mankind. 
 But it is time for you to eschew your national 
 frivolity. 
 
 18
 
 I. THE PARASITES 
 
 " S'ist mir allesein, s'ist mir alleseins 
 Hab' ich Geld, oder hab ich keins ! " 
 
 THESE are the first lines of a song 
 attributed to a man known only 
 as " Der Hebe Augustin " (" dear 
 Augustine"), who is supposed to have lived 
 during the time of the Plague in Vienna at 
 the end of the seventeenth century. The 
 words are immortal, and the tune to which 
 they are set is well known in every country 
 of the world. Nevertheless, they embody 
 for ever the character of the Austrian as he 
 was then and as he is to-day — always gay at 
 heart, free from care, heedless of the morrow. 
 The literal translation is " It's the same to 
 me, it's the same to me if I have money or if 
 I have none." And it continues : " If I have 
 money I can go to the theatre, have I none I 
 play the fool at home ; if I have money I can 
 
 19
 
 The Parasites 
 
 eat oysters, if I have none I devour potatoes," 
 and so on. 
 
 This ditty provides an answer to the 
 question, " Is the vice of Austria material- 
 ism ? " In a certain way perhaps the refrain 
 suggests materialism, for at the first glance 
 no idealistic theory of life is contained in the 
 words. But on examining it more closely 
 the song offers consolation for a dearth of 
 material comforts — Death puts everything 
 right in the end, why bother ? Such is the 
 attitude of the Austrian to-day. He despises 
 materialism to such an extent that he has lost 
 all sense of proportion. All monetary con- 
 siderations are repulsive to him, he feels that 
 it is almost degrading to worry about money. 
 
 But while the people at large have kept 
 this idea, their leaders in the upper classes 
 have realised that money to-day (let us hope 
 that to-day will soon be yesterday !) means 
 power, and that is why the population has 
 become their dupe to such an amazing degree. 
 The frivolity of the Austrian of the lower 
 classes, and of the poorer middle classes does 
 not display itself in the heedless expenditure 
 
 20
 
 The Parasites 
 
 of his last penny on amusements and the 
 craving for enjoyments which are beyond 
 his means. For the Austrians are poor, and 
 they cannot afford to spend the few nickels 
 they have entirely on distractions. But it 
 is manifested in the carelessness with which 
 he accepts his poverty ; he does not take the 
 trouble to investigate whence it arises and 
 the means by which it might be remedied. 
 In exactly the same way he accepts the laws 
 and all the other impositions of the hateful, 
 unconscientious people who take advantage 
 of his easy kind-heartedness. 
 
 It is a kind of noble pride which prevents 
 the Austrian from " scrapping " over things 
 which appear trivial and mean to him. In 
 consequence of this disposition of his a much 
 worse community of exploiters exists to-day 
 in Austria than even that of the Junkers in 
 Prussia. This party is known as the " Agra- 
 rier " or " Gross Grund Besitzer " and con- 
 sists of the owners of large properties which 
 have been handed down from one generation 
 of the family to another for centuries. These 
 properties are called " Fidei Commiss." The 
 
 21
 
 The Parasites 
 
 owner, as in England, is the eldest son, and 
 can only spend the income arising from his 
 estates. The result of this system in England 
 has been that generations of landlords have 
 turned land that might have been used for 
 agricultural purposes into parks, thus using 
 their power to beautify their grounds. But 
 in Austria and Hungary the estate owners 
 have cultivated their property with utilitarian 
 ends alone in view. Hence while English 
 and Scotch landlords have spent a great part 
 of their incomes, mainly derived from rents, 
 in maintaining the old traditions (often a 
 burdensome charge), the Austro-Hungarian 
 nobles, like the Junkers, have become com- 
 mercialised and have formed themselves into 
 a kind of Trust, which has pressed heavily 
 on the other classes, particularly the poor. 
 The Austro-Hungarians, I repeat, are worse 
 in this respect than the Junkers, for they have 
 a firmer hold over the law and can go farther 
 with an Austrian population than would be 
 possible with the Germans. 
 
 For instance, the importation of frozen 
 meat has always been forbidden in the dual 
 
 22
 
 The Parasites 
 
 monarchy. The price of stock was therefore 
 regulated by those who held the greater part 
 of it in their possession ; consequently, some 
 years ago the price of meat had reached a 
 height that was prohibitive even for people 
 of moderate means — that is a family of four 
 or five with an income of £300 a year. In 
 1904 meat cost as much in Austria as it 
 does in England to-day after a two years' 
 war ; it was naturally much higher in 191 4. 
 The same conditions hold with regard to 
 other commodities. Sugar is a monopoly, 
 its price varying from fivepence to seven- 
 pence halfpenny a pound ; the dairies are in 
 the possession of the great ones of the land — 
 nay, not merely the great, but the greatest, 
 who even go so far as to hold them under 
 their own names. Thus there is an " Erzher- 
 zog Friederich" dairy, whose proprietor is 
 the Archduke Friederich, Field Marshal and 
 unsuccessful leader of the first campaign 
 against Serbia ; there is also an " Erzherzog 
 Franz von Ferdinand " dairy, owned by the 
 late Archduke Franz Ferdinand. (I know of a 
 large dairy-owner in London whose daughter 
 
 23
 
 The Parasites 
 
 was refused admission to a certain school. 
 This I find rather harsh and unfair, and I 
 mention it only for the sake of comparison.) 
 Let us call this whole business by its right 
 name. The high Austro-Hungarian nobility 
 are nothing but detestable sharks, and while 
 I sit and write here I feel like shouting " Down 
 with them ! " It is idle to contend that the 
 Austrian nobility are such charming people 
 with such easy-going manners, that they are 
 the ne plus ultra of breeding and refinement. 
 I am the last person to question the value of 
 breeding and good blood ; a real aristocracy 
 confers an inestimable benefit on a country, 
 it gives the people a high standard of manners 
 and propriety. But in Austria this is not 
 the case ; the aristocracy are degenerate, 
 not so much physically as morally. They 
 imagine that a nonchalant smile, a little jest, 
 a few affable words, make up the sum of their 
 social duties. They are perfect entertainers ; 
 but so far as they are concerned, mankind 
 ceases to exist below the rank of Baron, all 
 other classes are " crapule," " la canaille." 
 Yet they will not hesitate to snatch the bread 
 
 24
 
 The Parasites 
 
 out of the mouths of the "canaille" — to 
 recognise them when it is a question of 
 grabbing their money. 
 
 Yes, while the Austrian man of the people 
 is incontestably frivolous, but with a frivolity 
 that could be easily cured by a wise reorganisa- 
 tion of social conditions, the innate frivolity 
 of the upper classes has degenerated into 
 perverse depravity. 
 
 In very few instances do the aristocratic 
 land- and factory-owners look after their 
 business themselves ; as a rule they have 
 managers who share in their profits, taking 
 advantage of the wealth that has been accu- 
 mulating for long centuries. To be quite 
 just, some of the heads of these properties 
 are hard-working speculators — such as Prince 
 Fiirstenberg, who is one of the Austrian 
 Agrarier as well as a German Junker (what 
 a combination !). He is a true type of the 
 aristocratic blood-sucker of modern times. 
 Not satisfied with the advantages which accrue 
 to him from his high birth and rank, together 
 with the possession of enormous wealth 
 gathered from his agricultural lands in Ger- 
 
 25
 
 The Parasites 
 
 many and Austria, he set out to amass as 
 much gold as possible and threw himself into 
 every branch of commerce — mining, shipping, 
 (he is the principal shareholder of the North 
 German Lloyd), factories of allkinds, breweries, 
 distilleries, etc. He too, is a degenerate ; he 
 has deteriorated from a man of race and 
 breeding into a greedy vampire, more dan- 
 gerous than the Jewish usurer of Whitechapel, 
 for naturally his commercial undertakings 
 have proved highly detrimental to hard- 
 working business men of limited capital. 
 
 Is it not outrageously unfair to the masses 
 that such a man should be allowed to snatch 
 everything for himself ? What has become 
 of the old tradition " Noblesse oblige " if a 
 prince of the royal blood, equal in rank to the 
 ruler of his country, is permitted to become 
 a shoe manufacturer or any other description 
 of tradesman, while he would refuse to receive 
 the ordinary shoemaker and never dream of 
 acknowledging him as his equal ? What right 
 has such a man to the title of aristocrat ? 
 
 Such, more or less, are all the heads of the 
 Austrian nobility — the Schwartzenbergs, the 
 
 26
 
 The Parasites 
 
 Liechtensteins, and so on. Those who have 
 not been defiled by greed relax in other 
 directions — to my mind their degeneration 
 is less repulsive. They belong to a type 
 which is, unfortunately, common in all 
 countries ; compare the " grand seigneur " — 
 the spendthrift of the old French regime. 
 Men of this kind are specially renowned for 
 their affability and the refinement of their 
 manners, a refinement which is only too often 
 merely superficial. Their code of honour is 
 strictly limited, they have lost all sense of 
 proportion as to right and wrong, they labour 
 under the delusion that all things are lawful 
 to men of their rank. 
 
 Take, for example, the case of old Prince 
 Trauttmansdorff. He must be a man well 
 on in the seventies, if not more. When he 
 inherited his father's estates he possessed 
 revenues amounting to nearly sixty thousand 
 pounds ; he succeeded in contracting debts 
 to such an extent that his income was 
 sequestered by the creditors for seventy 
 years, since the principal could not be touched. 
 He had a family of five children, but his 
 
 27
 
 The Parasites 
 
 paternity did not enforce morality upon him, 
 and it is a well-known fact that on an average 
 every tenth child in the villages belonging 
 to his estates bore a striking resemblance to 
 the august master, who was renowned, even 
 as an old man, for his habit of running after 
 every good-looking peasant girl. 
 
 If the heads of the noble families are so 
 depraved one can imagine what the sons and 
 nephews of the younger line are likely to be. 
 As a rule they possess all the vices without 
 the means of gratifying them ; their allow- 
 ances are generally too small to supply their 
 needs, much less to satisfy their extravagant 
 desires. Even for the few who are sufficiently 
 moral it is not easy to make both ends meet. 
 All the members of a noble house, however 
 far removed, inherit the title, bear the same 
 name, and are required to fulfil the obligations 
 of their rank. The eldest son takes the money 
 and the estates, the youngest — who has 
 practically no income of his own — is obliged 
 to live up almost to the state of his eldest 
 brother. The same obligation falls upon his 
 children, who are constantly forced into a 
 
 28
 
 The Parasites 
 
 position which they cannot afford to main- 
 tain. Hence arises a class of poverty-stricken 
 aristocrats, whose financial difficulties seem 
 only to increase their arrogance. 
 
 The consequence of this law of precedent 
 is that the sober-minded as well as the 
 frivolous fall into the clutches of exploiters. 
 The well-conducted, poor, younger son or 
 nephew with a supposed aptitude for business 
 makes use of his great name to secure a 
 footing in the circle of the " haute finance," 
 while his light-minded brother aims at being 
 on friendly terms with the financiers in order 
 that he may borrow money from them ; in 
 return he lends them his name with the object 
 of inducing a credulous public to invest their 
 money in the doubtful transactions engineered 
 by these sharks. 
 
 Austria swarms with " verkrachte Aristo- 
 kraten " as the impecunious nobility are 
 called. The young men are often so pressed 
 for money that no resource is left them but 
 to sell their title by marrying into the family 
 of a rich financier. These people are almost 
 without exception Jews, or at least of Jewish 
 
 29
 
 The Parasites 
 
 origin. It would be laughable, were it not 
 so tragic, to observe how the one despises 
 the other. The aristocrat hates the money- 
 lender in his social disguise of gentleman, 
 and makes no effort to conceal his disdain ; 
 the Jew on his side smiles, rubs his hands, 
 and shrugs his shoulders in contempt of this 
 moral cr6tin, who has not enough sound 
 marrow in his bones or brains in his skull to 
 be a man. 
 
 But it is only during the last twenty-five 
 years that this state of things has grown 
 apparent. In Austria it used to be regarded 
 with horror as the democratising of the 
 aristocracy. Would to God it were ! But 
 one has only to talk with one of these so- 
 called aristocrats to realise that it is rather a 
 symptom of an all-pervading decadence. The 
 young nobleman is effeminate to a degree that 
 can hardly be conceived of by the foreigner. 
 He prides himself on the fact that he is in- 
 capable of even fastening his own shoes, he 
 stammers and lisps a little in his speech — in 
 fact all the aristocracy affect a nonchalant, 
 nasal kind of intonation even in familiar 
 
 30
 
 The Parasites 
 
 intercourse. Such snobbery is repulsive to 
 any person of common sense, but unfortun- 
 ately the world is largely peopled with snobs 
 to whom these ludicrous affectations appear 
 the very hall-mark of high-breeding. 
 
 However, times are changing at last ; let 
 us hope that the day is not far distant when 
 a man's rank will no longer be judged by the 
 looseness of his morals or the pretentiousness 
 of his manners, but by his genuine worth. 
 Socialism, the socialism which declares that 
 all human beings can be equal and remain so, 
 is a Utopian dream, but every individual 
 should have the same chances at the start. 
 Under such conditions those who arrive first 
 at the heights would constitute the real 
 nobility — for the time that they live on this 
 earth— but their sons should be obliged to 
 experience the same tests as their fathers 
 before they could rank themselves among the 
 noblest in the land. In all countries, whether 
 titles are distributed or not, distinctions in 
 rank are bound to spring up in spite of the 
 most democratic provisions, for it is a rule 
 of life, not for a time but for ever, that this 
 
 31
 
 The Parasites 
 
 should be so. In a properly regulated State 
 the harder-working, more enduring citizens 
 would gain the upper hand, leaving idlers and 
 slackers at the bottom of the ladder ; but as 
 things are to-day, the opposite rule prevails. 
 The conscientious high-souled worker has to 
 stand aside while high-born wastrels, squander- 
 ing their inherited advantages, are allowed 
 to demoralise the world. 
 
 Nowhere is this state of affairs more highly 
 developed as a system than in Austria. A 
 country whose worst slackers bear such 
 names as Fiirstenberg, Schwartzenberg, and 
 Liechtenstein, can no longer pretend to 
 cherish the maxim " Noblesse oblige." 
 
 32
 
 II. THE UPPER TEN 
 
 IT is an extraordinary fact that the 
 Austrian woman, high and low, has a 
 much stronger character than the man. 
 This is probably accounted for to a great 
 extent by the presence of the Slav element in 
 her blood. For in the Slav family the mother 
 is the dominating personality, and frivolity 
 and light-heartedness are the characteristic 
 traits of the father. The baby boy is required 
 to submit without question to an energetic 
 mother whose actions are dictated by her 
 stern sense of duty, and her sway becomes 
 more relentless as his years increase. 
 
 Yet the Austrian woman is one of the finest 
 types in the world. I have spoken very 
 severely in the preceding chapter of the 
 Austrian aristocracy, but I must admit that in 
 this rank, as in the classes below it, the women 
 contrast most favourably with the men. 
 
 3 33
 
 The Upper Ten 
 
 They do their best to remedy the mistakes of 
 their husbands and sons, yet too often they 
 are obliged to suffer the indignities of a false 
 position lest by showing their resentment 
 they should precipitate some crisis. While 
 the man is in many instances a conceited, 
 arrogant ne'er-do-well, the woman is often 
 distinguished by a noble pride, and tries 
 with all her might to uphold the honour 
 of her name. She will reject the offer of 
 luxury rather than consent to swallow her 
 pride and mix with people of a lower class ; 
 it is only when her husband's resources are 
 at their lowest ebb that she will condescend 
 to join him in his intrigues of expediency. 
 
 On the other hand, a certain section of 
 women of the higher middle class form a 
 most mischievous element in society. They 
 are, for the most part, the daughters of up- 
 starts. Their mothers, who have shared in 
 their husbands' struggle for existence, do not 
 so easily lose their balance ; the memory of 
 the poverty from which they emerged stands 
 them in good stead. Moreover they have 
 been poorly educated, and their lack of ac- 
 
 34 

 
 The Upper Ten 
 
 quaintance with foreign tongues is the greatest 
 possible hindrance to their social career. In 
 Austria, a woman who cannot write and 
 converse fluently in English and French is at 
 once branded as a member of the bourgeoisie. 
 Hence the wife of a nouveau riche has many 
 difficulties with which to contend and rarely 
 attempts to achieve distinction by an un- 
 bridled display of extravagance and folly. 
 
 The case of her daughters is very different, 
 for she will naturally take care that their 
 education shall not be marred by any such 
 defects. The daughter grows up surrounded 
 by luxury from her chil.dhood, and speedily 
 discovers her mother's intellectual short- 
 comings. The mother in consequence loses 
 much of her influence, which might have had 
 a restraining effect upon the girl's increasing 
 inclination towards frivolity. The daughter 
 being well endowed, the fortune-hunters are 
 soon at her heels ; among them are to be 
 found officers of aristocratic regiments, and 
 perhaps also attaches to some of the em- 
 bassies. The conduct of these men cannot 
 be called correct by whatever standard of 
 
 35
 
 The Upper Ten 
 
 manners it is judged ; they treat the heiress 
 with a lightness which they would not dare 
 to exhibit were they courting a woman of 
 their own social sphere. The girl, however, , 
 flattered by the idea of hob-nobbing with the 
 aristocracy, imagines that this is genuine 
 good-breeding ; her parents are no less 
 ignorant. Not only do the young men behave 
 very badly, but they amuse themselves by 
 boasting of their feats to their friends and at 
 their clubs. 
 
 Gradually this code of manners has been 
 adopted by an entire section of Austrian 
 society — the most depraved, probably, in the 
 world. It has made Vienna the centre of a 
 frivolity much lighter, much more all-per- 
 vading than that of Paris. For after all, 
 what is Paris regarded from the standpoint 
 of morals ? It is a goal for the foreigner of 
 all grades who is seeking amusement, and its 
 shady resorts are supported by the constant 
 stream of aliens who pour into it from every 
 quarter of the globe all the year round. Even 
 the notorious women of Paris are very seldom 
 French, they are cosmopolitan — they belong 
 
 36
 
 The Upper Ten 
 
 to all nationalities. The medinette is indeed 
 a true French product, but she is the fruit 
 of a foreign clientele. The French society 
 woman has nothing to do with the life of the 
 Montmartre ; she would never be seen at any 
 of the disreputable cafes or clubs, unless it 
 were for the purpose of giving an evening's 
 amusement to a guest who wished to visit 
 these world-renowned haunts. Certain dis- 
 tinct quarters of Paris are dedicated to the 
 goddess of Folly ; every one knows that they 
 exist, every one knows where they are, but 
 they can be and are avoided by the Parisian 
 man of good morals and good taste, and by 
 every self-respecting Parisian woman. 
 
 Let us turn to the Vienna of to-day. During 
 the last twenty years cabarets and cafes 
 chantants have sprung up like mushrooms ; 
 they are not maintained by aliens, for the 
 number of foreign visitors to Vienna is not 
 large enough to support the trade. Yet 
 they are crowded every night, and the 
 majority of their patrons are women of the 
 upper middle class — many of whom behave 
 in such a way that it would puzzle a stranger 
 
 37
 
 The Upper Ten 
 
 to distinguish between them and the demi- 
 mondaines. 
 
 It is all very well to assert that Paris is 
 renowned for its immorality. The leading 
 society of Paris preserves its standard of 
 decorum and good-breeding ; in Vienna this 
 is not the case. 
 
 About fifteen or twenty years ago a certain 
 place of entertainment, called " Bradi's 
 Wintergarden " was opened in Vienna. It 
 was one of the first of these establishments 
 and rapidly became popular. Originally its 
 chief attractions consisted of exquisite music, 
 the light Viennese song, and the waltz. It 
 was built in a basement ; the floors were of 
 Italian mosaic, the electric lights were con- 
 cealed in plants hanging from the ceiling, the 
 walls were adorned with palms and laurel 
 trees growing out of golden baskets. It was 
 in truth a delightful place, and all Vienna 
 made pilgrimages to it. But gradually its 
 tone changed, and from being merely a centre 
 of inoffensive amusement it became a haunt 
 of unprecedented vulgarity. To describe the 
 orgies which took place there would be a 
 
 38
 
 The Upper Ten 
 
 direct challenge to the censor of public 
 morals, I will therefore confine myself to 
 remarking that no public place in Paris, 
 unless it is one frequented by the lowest of 
 social outcasts — and that I doubt — has ever 
 seen anything to compare with the condition 
 of things that prevailed at Bradi's. 
 
 The inauguration of " Bradi's " might be 
 regarded as the starting-point of Austrian 
 social degradation. Since then many similar 
 establishments have competed in depravity 
 with the original institution, and unfortu- 
 nately they are not, as in Paris, confined to 
 a definite quarter. 
 
 Austrian society, and especially Viennese 
 society, is quite different from that of any 
 other country. The grades and shades are 
 much more distinct, the spirit of caste pre- 
 vails everywhere. In England, for instance, 
 there is an aristocracy which mixes on equal 
 terms with such people as the Government 
 officials. Quite recently a niece of the Prime 
 Minister was married to the only son and heir 
 of a duke, and this marriage was considered 
 one of the great events of the year, though 
 
 39
 
 The Upper Ten 
 
 the bride is really a daughter of a member of 
 the professional class. Indeed, most of the 
 Ministers in the British Government have once 
 been professional men, and the class to which 
 they belong is thus able to intermarry with 
 the highest in the land. 
 
 Again, these people are not ashamed to 
 associate with manufacturers and bankers, all 
 of whom form part of that large class which 
 in England is called " Society," and the 
 entrance to which depends nowadays partly 
 upon the manner in which one entertains, 
 but to an even greater extent upon personal 
 merit. 
 
 In Austria there is nothing of this kind. 
 And worse, if possible, than the domination of 
 caste is the all-pervading spirit of " clique." 
 At the top of the scale are the high nobility, 
 who, as long as their means are sufficient, will 
 have nothing to do with any Austrian or 
 Hungarian who cannot boast sixteen ancestors 
 — eight on his mother's and eight on his 
 father's side ! The marriage of the heir of one 
 of these princely families to the daughter of a 
 Prime Minister, however brilliant her father's 
 
 40
 
 The Upper Ten 
 
 career might have been, would be impossible, 
 unless he were also of noble birth. In fact 
 she could not even be received at Court 
 without the sixteen quarterings which really 
 constitute a ticket of admission. 
 
 This pettiness begins at the top and is kept 
 up by the lower strata of Society. Would it 
 be possible to find another country in which 
 the daughters of Cabinet Ministers are not 
 received at Court ? Is it not the climax of 
 arrogance and audacity for one section of 
 society to maintain such rules in the present 
 century ? And must there not be something 
 wanting in the people who can submit to 
 such a state of affairs ? 
 
 While the nobility insist upon the strict 
 observance of this code, the other classes 
 manufacture systems for themselves. They 
 too are arranged in separate divisions. There 
 is, for example, a newly branded aristocracy 
 consisting of rich Christians. Its members are 
 for the most part large manufacturers of enor- 
 mous wealth who try their utmost, with more 
 or less success, to secure recognition from 
 the old nobility. They boast no higher titles 
 
 41
 
 The Upper Ten 
 
 than Baron or Knight, but they bear good 
 old Austrian names ; they are the best 
 yeoman stock and are more solid than any 
 other class in Austria. Their position is due 
 to the industry of their forefathers in the 
 businesses and professions which have be- 
 longed to them for generations. They have 
 not adopted their careers merely for the sake 
 of making money, they have not grabbed 
 at commercial enterprises with a view to 
 enriching themselves at the expense of the 
 " canaille," but from father to son they 
 have inherited and handed down the best 
 traditions of an honest, hard-working people. 
 It is upon them that Austria's future largely 
 rests. Their code of morals is more stringent 
 and their family pride endows them with 
 self-respect. They have not yet been tainted 
 with the prevailing decadence. Among them 
 one finds such names as Baron Leitenberger, 
 Baron Haas, Miiller, von Aichholz, and 
 Hardtmuth, of pencil fame, all of which con- 
 vey an impression of dignity little inferior to 
 those of princes of the blood, despite the fact 
 that they are not officially received. Often 
 
 42
 
 The Upper Ten 
 
 indeed they are held in greater esteem than 
 the high nobility who enjoy free entrance to 
 both Court and Palace. Their sons are the 
 only members of the upper classes who are 
 really serious men, brought up with the idea 
 of carrying on their father's business and the 
 traditions of his house. Unlike the great 
 nobility, they are all entitled to an equal share 
 in his estate, so that as a rule it is the father's 
 ambition to develop his business in order 
 that it may provide a sufficient income for 
 the various members of his family. The 
 women of this class are naturally of the very 
 best type. 
 
 Although these people rank next to the 
 aristocracy, yet it must not be supposed that 
 the manufacturing class in general is con- 
 sidered as elite. On the contrary these 
 princes of the commercial world would not 
 care to be on friendly terms with ordinary 
 manufacturers, who take a much lower rank. 
 
 The Bureaucrats have a circle of their own. 
 Not possessing the sixteen quarterings, they 
 are unable to mingle with the high nobility, 
 and are 'therefore thrown into contact with 
 
 43
 
 The Upper Ten 
 
 the high industrials — the class I have just 
 described. But the enormous difference be- 
 tween the incomes of the members of these 
 two classes forms a barrier to their inter- 
 course. While the high industrial can afford 
 to gratify all his expensive tastes and is the 
 happy possessor of mansions in town, castles 
 in the country, horses, motor cars, butlers, 
 and so forth, the high bureaucrat is a kind of 
 noble pauper. The pay of a Prime Minister 
 is about a thousand pounds a year ; that of 
 a General in Command the same ; an Under 
 Secretary has about six hundred pounds, 
 and the underlings proportionately less. 
 These salaries were arranged in the time of 
 Maria Theresa, and in spite of the subsequent 
 change in the value of money have never 
 been increased. 
 
 The high bureaucrat is obliged to live up 
 to his position, but not being able to compete 
 with the wealthier class he pretends to an 
 extreme exclusiveness. At a reception of 
 the Prime Minister the wives of members of 
 the high industrial class will all be present, 
 but the wife of an Under Secretary will never 
 
 44
 
 The Upper Ten 
 
 attempt to be on intimate terms with any one 
 of them. As a rule the high bureaucrat is a 
 titled person, but his title is seldom higher 
 than that of Knight or Baron. 
 
 Another very distinct class is composed of 
 the Jewish bankers. Rothschild is at the 
 head of them here as in other European 
 countries. They must not by any means be 
 confounded with the financiers whom I have 
 mentioned before ; they are a very proud 
 set of people and would never condescend to 
 have dealings with a penniless aristocrat, 
 much less give him one of their daughters in 
 marriage. Their marriages are arranged 
 among themselves, and under no circum- 
 stances would a Jew wed a Christian. They 
 form a very exclusive section of society, and 
 one of no little significance and repute. 
 
 The classes of the high industrials and the 
 high Jewish bankers are very small in number, 
 each consisting of not more than twenty 
 families. 
 
 The " Sodom and Gomorrah " comes 
 lower in the scale, and consists of a mixture 
 of individuals who might fall into any of 
 
 45
 
 The Upper Ten 
 
 the other three classes. It is a very large 
 clique, containing the loosest and most un- 
 desirable members of those classes. On the 
 whole it is quite the worst section of the 
 community. The leaders are upstarts, very 
 often of Jewish origin, but they are Jews who 
 desire to conceal their race, and many of 
 them profess to adopt the Protestant creed. 
 Nearly all the Protestants in Austria are 
 so-called baptized Jews. A Jew seldom or 
 never becomes a Roman Catholic ; doubtless 
 the change from Judaism to this form of 
 Catholicism is too drastic, it involves the 
 substitution of one strict set of dogmas for 
 another. 
 
 The members of this class are people of 
 very little principle and no seriousness. The 
 majority of them are commercial men, among 
 whom are to be found those financiers who 
 live by exploiting the reduced aristocracy. 
 But although I have distinguished them on 
 paper from the society of the high industrials 
 and the high Government officials, they are 
 not so easily to be known apart in real life ; 
 they push themselves in whatever they can, 
 
 46
 
 The Upper Ten 
 
 so that they are to be found almost every- 
 where. Their fortunes vary from twenty 
 thousand to a hundred thousand pounds ; 
 very often they make a good deal of money, 
 but they spend it more quickly than they 
 acquire it. They are masters in the game of 
 bluff. Their sons can afford to enter the 
 bureaucratic career, since papa can provide 
 them with a private income and is quite 
 willing to do so for the sake of the lustre 
 which will be shed upon his family name. 
 Thus the youth makes friends with colleagues 
 who are starving upon a salary of £75 or £80 
 a year. He invites them to dine at his home, 
 where they eat as much as they like at a 
 well-appointed table, perhaps for the first 
 time in their lives. The whole object of the 
 invitation is probably to arrange a marriage. 
 The wealthy man may have set his affections 
 on a sister of his friend, or he may have a 
 sister whom he is anxious to bestow upon the 
 starving bureaucrat of noble birth Thus 
 his family gains an entrance into the bureau- 
 cratic circle, which is more easily accessible 
 than any other, since money is scarce and 
 
 47
 
 The Upper Ten 
 
 very badly needed. Of course if papa is rich 
 enough to afford the luxury of a penniless 
 count the bureaucratic alliance is disdained. 
 In that case his object will be to push the 
 family into the clique of the high industrials. 
 
 It is not, however, quite so easy to gain 
 an entree into this set ; nevertheless the high 
 industrial will close one eye and welcome the 
 wife of an aristocratic husband, however 
 mean her own parentage may be, for he is 
 always hoping to give the impression that 
 he is on intimate terms with representatives 
 of Court Society. And the aristocratic hus- 
 band is quite satisfied to find himself within 
 the circle of the high industrials, a circle 
 surrounded in this instance also by a wall 
 of tradition. 
 
 The only class which is a caste by occupa- 
 tion is that of the physicians, who are re- 
 spected everywhere and never pretend to be 
 other than they are. Lawyers, on the other 
 hand, form with few exceptions the bottom 
 rank of " Sodom and Gomorrah." The legal 
 profession is one which is almost entirely in 
 the hands of Jews, for the apprenticeship to 
 
 48
 
 The Upper Ten 
 
 it is so long that only wealthy Jews of the 
 baser sort can afford to bring up their sons as 
 lawyers. These unfortunate individuals com- 
 pose a class with which no one will willingly 
 associate — lawyers are regarded as a necessary 
 evil. Their wives are often the daughters of 
 Jewish shop-keepers and consequently do 
 not count at all, since it is only the Jew of 
 high finance who has any social status in 
 Austria. For this reason many Jews forsake 
 their faith as soon as they begin to climb the 
 social ladder. 
 
 All ranks which fall below the " Sodom 
 and Gomorrah" class, as I have named it, 
 are considered to be negligible. Their names 
 appear nowhere in the papers. They form in 
 reality the Austrian middle class, and as a 
 matter of fact are much more respectable and 
 valuable members of the community than 
 many who can claim a place among the most 
 aristocratic circles of Vienna. For their sake, 
 if for no other reason, Austria must be 
 checked in her precipitous downward course. 
 
 I 49
 
 III. MILITARISM 
 
 IN my last chapter on the sets in Austrian 
 society I avoided all reference to the 
 military class ; for this reason — that 
 this section of society is so important that it 
 really calls for a chapter to itself. Indeed 
 one can scarcely speak of the military caste 
 asa " section of society" ; it is an organism, 
 so vast, so classified in itself, that it demands 
 separate consideration. 
 
 The military class in Austria embodies a 
 spirit which is supposed, as in Prussia, to 
 dominate the whole country — a spirit anta- 
 gonistic to the civil community in general. 
 The military man with a touch of contempt 
 designates any man not in uniform as " Der 
 Civilist," yet only the staff and the high 
 officers from the Colonel upwards are really 
 imbued with the Prussian spirit of militarism 
 — that principle which exhibits itself in brutal 
 
 50
 
 Militarism 
 
 force towards inferiors and suave politeness 
 to superiors — the acme of snobbish conceit. 
 
 It is a great mistake to suppose that 
 the spirit of solidarity prevails in Austrian 
 military society ; quite the reverse is the 
 case. The military party is broken up into 
 cliques as numerous and as definite as are 
 to be found among civilians. There are grades 
 and shades of all kinds. There are first- 
 class cavalry and second-rate cavalry regi- 
 ments ; officially of course there should be 
 no difference, but socially these regiments 
 have entirely different codes. Naturally the 
 aristocracy again hold the social reins, and 
 in some cavalry regiments only men who 
 boast the aforementioned sixteen ancestors 
 can obtain admittance, while the wife of an 
 officer who is not of the same social rank as 
 her husband could have no intercourse with 
 wives who also boast the indispensable 
 Sixteen ! 
 
 Nearly all the second sons of the aristocracy 
 are for at least a time officers in one of the 
 regiments. Very often their military career 
 is cut short by their accumulations of debts, 
 
 5i
 
 Militarism 
 
 for life in these regiments is extremely costly 
 and entails a heavy amount of social obliga- 
 tions. As the Court is strictly military, a 
 large section of Court society is military 
 also, yet even there a distinction is made 
 between officers of high title and those who, 
 although they hold some office of Court, 
 belong by birth to the lesser nobility. The 
 first Adjutant to the Emperor must be a 
 nobleman, but this necessity does not apply 
 to the other officers, which fact is probably 
 due to an attempt at producing some degree 
 of equality among them ; if so it has been 
 quite unsuccessful. The lieutenant with six- 
 teen ancestors would take advantage of any 
 opportunity that might arise to snub a colonel 
 whose lineage was not so pure. 
 
 The infantry officers rank the lowest socially 
 and may be compared to the bourgeoisie. 
 The artillery officers are the best educated, 
 they represent the intellectual party in the 
 army. They are much more retiring than 
 the officers of other regiments, and are 
 generally speaking the most agreeable mem- 
 bers of Austrian military society. 
 
 52
 
 Militarism 
 
 The less exclusive cavalry regiments form 
 the circle of the " swanks," and are drawn 
 for the most part from the " Sodom and 
 Gomorrah" class. 
 
 During the last twenty years before 191 4 the 
 military class had lost much of its prestige ; 
 the officer generally was regarded as a species 
 of slacker, a man who shirked real work, 
 and the military class had therefore with- 
 drawn more and more from the civilian. It 
 was only among the lower bourgeoisie that 
 people could be found who would be im- 
 pressed by the status of an officer. This 
 statement could easily be proved by a perusal 
 of the marriage registers, from which it 
 would be seen that the majority of infantry 
 officers married the daughters of their 
 superiors ; the only conditions required from 
 both sides were a certain degree of smartness 
 on the part of the bridegroom, and the ability 
 of the bride's father to give his daughter the 
 dowry (Kaution) without which no officer 
 is allowed to marry. 
 
 This dowry has to be deposited with the 
 officers before the nuptial rites can take 
 
 53
 
 Militarism 
 
 place. The sub-lieutenant, whose salary 
 varies from sixty to seventy pounds a year, 
 must pay in the highest Kaution, that is 
 £2,400, on which he receives an interest of 
 4 per cent. This means in round figures 
 another hundred pounds a year for the 
 maintenance of his wife. Many infantry 
 officers are to be found who really do live on 
 that income. They have, of course, certain 
 small advantages ; for instance, a soldier is 
 attached to the house as orderly, so that 
 they get a servant practically for nothing, 
 since he is even allowed to have his meals 
 at the barracks ; all he costs his master is 
 an occasional tip and perhaps half a crown 
 a week. 
 
 The private soldier receives no salary, he 
 is obliged to give his services for three years, 
 and in exchange for them is supplied with 
 clothes, food, lodging, and a penny a day to 
 spend on tobacco ; hence it is profitable to 
 become an orderly, and such positions are 
 much coveted among the rank and file. 
 
 Moreover, reductions are made in railway 
 fares for the benefit of officers, and provisions 
 
 54
 
 Militarism 
 
 can be bought at somewhat lower prices 
 from the Army Stores. But in spite of these 
 trifling concessions, the life of a young sub- 
 lieutenant and his wife forced to live on the 
 interest accruing from the Kaution and his 
 pay is a bitter struggle, for happen what 
 may, appearances must be kept up. The 
 young couple must be present at all the 
 regimental festivities — balls, banquets, and 
 bazaars. They must dress fairly well and 
 pay calls on the wives of the higher officers, 
 whose condescending manners are often very 
 galling to the young brides. Frau Kapitan 
 — that is Madam Captain — is anxious that 
 Madam Lieutenant should recognise her 
 superiority ; Madam Major treats Madam 
 Captain haughtily in her turn, and the less 
 distinguished the regiment the more tena- 
 ciously are these petty distinctions in rank 
 maintained. Thus the young officer can 
 seldom feel really comfortable unless his wife 
 happens to be the daughter of one of his 
 superiors, or his means permit him to enter- 
 tain a little himself. 
 
 Since the infantry regiments are not very 
 
 55
 
 Militarism 
 
 highly esteemed among the upper middle class, 
 he must go to the shop-keepers and small 
 manufacturers to find a father-in-law who 
 can give his daughter an ample income, and 
 who will, indeed, be pleased to make this 
 provision for the sake of the lustre that such 
 an alliance will add to the bourgeois family. 
 Hence the wives of military officers are very 
 often the daughters of the butchers and 
 bakers of the garrison town in which the 
 regiment happens to be stationed. The 
 officers themselves are almost without excep- 
 tion officers' sons, for they can be educated 
 in the military schools without paying fees. 
 The son of an officer from his tenth year will 
 cost his father nothing if he send him to one 
 of these military boarding-schools ; more 
 often than not the father is only too glad to 
 avail himself of this means of reducing his 
 expenses. For the pay is extremely small, 
 and promotion to a higher rank than a 
 captaincy is very slow unless a man has 
 some one of influence at his back. 
 
 There is a cruel system in all this, a system 
 in the hands of a comparatively small number 
 
 56
 
 Militarism 
 
 of the higher military functionaries. The 
 average officer is kept in a state of submission 
 and thus converted into a pliant tool ; his 
 poverty forces him to make his sons enter 
 the same profession, and by this means the 
 leaders gain control of the whole military 
 community, in whom the habit of docility 
 towards superiors has been so persistently 
 inculcated that insubordination and initiative 
 are impossible, and in which such a mass of 
 conceit has been accumulated that it regards 
 the rest of the world as beneath contempt. 
 
 For every officer's family considers that it 
 ranks amongst the elite of society. They 
 have almost nothing to live on and in many 
 cases the mothers are members of the lower 
 middle class, yet vanity and snobbery are 
 rampant among them, often reaching the 
 zenith of the ridiculous. 
 
 The daughters of infantry officers of low 
 rank are in a pitiable case. They receive a 
 good education at reduced fees as officers' 
 daughters ; they are too poor to provide the 
 Kaution which would enable them to marry 
 an officer, and they are too proud to marry 
 
 57
 
 Militarism 
 
 into a shop-keeper's family, so they remain 
 old maids and supply the markets in their 
 own country and abroad with respectable 
 governesses — gentlewomen in reduced cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 It is poverty, long-standing poverty, which 
 has in time produced this class of penurious 
 officers and their families. They are perfectly 
 harmless, entirely lacking in brutality, and 
 have none of the " mailed fist' 1 ' ideas which 
 distinguish the same class in Prussia. 
 
 The ranks above that of major abound in 
 bullies. These higher officers are most in- 
 tolerable in their manners, and astonishingly 
 narrow-minded. Unfortunately almost every 
 town of fair size in Austria-Hungary has a 
 garrison, and these people, with the help of 
 their Government influence, are everywhere, 
 and at the head of eveiy thing. No pro- 
 minent person in the town, whether he be a 
 doctor, a large manufacturer, or a landowner 
 of the veomanry class, would dare refuse to 
 receive them and to give them full official 
 recognition. So that Austria-Hungary is in- 
 fested by that bullying spirit which during 
 
 58
 
 Militarism 
 
 the last twenty years has worked in harmony 
 with the same spirit in Germany. The 
 Austrian officer did not set out to bind himself 
 to the German, but Germany was regarded 
 as the ideal military State, the example 
 which the Austrian military party strove to 
 emulate. 
 
 The Emperor Francis Joseph is himself a 
 
 soldier, heart and soul, hence the man who 
 
 followed in his footsteps was regarded as a 
 
 patriot. All the .Archdukes — and there are 
 
 sixty or seventy in Austria — receive a military 
 
 training and a number of them are educated 
 
 at military schools for officers' sons. Thus 
 
 the spirit of militarism has its source in the 
 
 highest class and from it is communicated to 
 
 all the others. Every Archduke at the age 
 
 of nineteen is made a sub-lieutenant, and 
 
 from that moment he is never seen in public 
 
 except in his uniform. This custom may 
 
 perhaps be responsible to some extent for 
 
 his contemptuous attitude towards the Civil- 
 
 ist. Some of these .Archdukes are purposely 
 
 put into infantry regiments in order to impress 
 
 military people with the idea that all the 
 
 59
 
 Militarism 
 
 regiments are equal, but these efforts again 
 are attended with little success. 
 
 Only too often the consequence of intro- 
 ducing a young Archduke into such a regiment 
 has been a Court scandal. Leopold Wolfling, 
 who was formerly known- as Erzherzog 
 Leopold Salvator, the eldest brother of the 
 ex-Crown Princess of Saxony, is a striking 
 example of the effect of such an appointment. 
 The society of his garrison town was very 
 little to his liking ; the women were of a 
 particularly uninteresting bourgeois type, be- 
 longing to the class of infantry officers' wives 
 whom I have before described. He felt, 
 therefore, that he had no need to consider his 
 actions. His manners relaxed; probably to 
 annoy the silly snobs among whom he found 
 himself he fell into the habit of drinking, and 
 was not ashamed to exhibit himself in an 
 intoxicated condition. Finally when he was 
 tired of shocking this little society he turned 
 his attention to the strolling companies of 
 actors who visited the garrison town, and 
 thus he met an actress of somewhat doubtful 
 repute, Miss Adamobitz, for whose sake he 
 
 60
 
 Militarism 
 
 even gave up his title and adopted the name 
 of Mr. Leopold Wolfling. It is true that his 
 case is exceptional, but other examples could 
 be cited to demonstrate that these experi- 
 ments with young Archdukes in the interests 
 of the military caste have often proved 
 extremely risky. 
 
 All the Archdukes being " active " officers, 
 their mode of life, their surroundings, suites, 
 and servants are also military. Even their 
 valets are ex-sergeants with the military 
 discipline behind them, and thus imperial 
 princes are spread all over the country in the 
 different garrison towns where they maintain 
 their little Courts. These have naturally 
 developed into centres of militarism, since 
 the military spirit has gradually become an 
 essential part of Court etiquette — unwritten 
 itself, it is stronger than any written code. 
 In this we find another explanation of the 
 self-importance which distinguishes the mili- 
 tary class : they all believe themselves to be 
 in some way connected with the Court, though 
 their wives and daughters are never admitted 
 unless they are of noble birth, and the officers 
 
 61
 
 Militarism 
 
 themselves only to certain functions of trifling 
 importance. 
 
 Cavalry regiments, however, have a worse 
 influence in the country than the others. 
 Their members are imbued with the same 
 conceit and arrogance, while they possess 
 in addition either private means or unlimited 
 credit. The orgies which take place in towns 
 where cavalry regiments are garrisoned are 
 often beyond the power of description. It is 
 not uncommon for several regiments to be 
 stationed in one neighbourhood, and in this 
 case they entertain one another at sumptuous 
 banquets. At Brunn, the capital of Moravia, 
 the dragoon regiment No. n, Kaiser Franz 
 Josef (the name of the regiment speaks for 
 itself), gave a ball in honour of the ladies 
 of Maria-Schul. [Maria-Schul is a kind of 
 secular convent provided by the church for 
 unmarried ladies of the impoverished no- 
 bility. These women are not enclosed, they 
 have taken no vows, and Maria-Schul would 
 perhaps be best described as a Residential 
 Club.] After a night of revelry the officers 
 ordered the proprietor of the hotel in which 
 
 62
 
 Militarism 
 
 the ball was given to bring in all the china 
 and glass which he possessed. All sorts 
 of toasts were proposed and drunk, and 
 finally every piece of china and glass was 
 smashed to atoms by way of homage to the 
 ladies. The cost of this little extravagance 
 was five hundred pounds. The festivities 
 came to an end at about six o'clock in the 
 morning, after which the officers' horses were 
 saddled and a wild ride ensued through the 
 quiet streets of the town up to the market- 
 place. Here the peasant women had just 
 arrived and set out their goods — butter, eggs, 
 fruit, and vegetables. In less than a moment 
 the wild cohort conceived the idea of galloping 
 through the crowd of frightened women. 
 Swiftly it was put into execution, and eggs, 
 butter, cabbages, and apples flew round the 
 market-place, to the huge delight of these 
 fine gentlemen. 
 
 At a second banquet which one regiment 
 gave to another the Archduke Otto, father of 
 the present heir to the throne and himself 
 one of the nearest relations of the Emperor 
 of Austria, was the guest of honour. When 
 
 63
 
 Militarism 
 
 the banquet was well advanced and most of 
 the guests were seeing double, the Archduke 
 loudly demanded a drum. His behest was 
 speedily obeyed, and he then offered a prize 
 to the guest whose performance on the in- 
 strument should be most successful. When 
 every one had tried he awarded the palm to 
 the Colonel of the other regiment. He then 
 ordered champagne to be brought, and cutting 
 the drum open at one end he filled it with 
 that beverage to the brim. Ceremoniously 
 he advanced towards the unfortunate prize- 
 winner to bring him his reward. " Don't 
 get up ! " the Archduke shouted. The 
 Colonel, never imagining for a moment what 
 was going to happen, sat still while the Arch- 
 duke poured the entire contents of the drum 
 over his person. I leave it to the reader to 
 make his own criticism as to the dignity of 
 such conduct, and the expediency of making 
 a colonel the laughing-stock of his whole 
 regiment. 
 
 But these incidents are harmless compared 
 with the many well-known escapades which 
 mark the standard of regimental life in these 
 
 6 4
 
 Militarism 
 
 quarters. Many of the cavalry officers are 
 married to girls from the Viennese " Sodom 
 and Gomorrah" set, who are able to supply 
 their husbands with much-needed cash. 
 They bring with them not only their marriage 
 portion, but also their vitiated code of morals, 
 and in this way the unprincipled mode of life 
 which characterises their class is spread 
 through Vienna and Budapest over the 
 whole country. 
 
 But the officers have a terrible code of 
 honour of their own. They indulge freely 
 in practical jokes, but duels are also of fre- 
 quent occurrence. If an officer has been 
 insulted by a civilian who has not received 
 a high-school education, that is to say has 
 not had the training which would enable him 
 to enter the University, the officer is unable 
 to ask for satisfaction (the military phrase 
 for a duel), and must therefore lose his posi- 
 tion, which is, of course, a most serious 
 matter. 
 
 Military service is compulsory. The edu- 
 cated man, therefore — that is, the man who 
 is qualified to enter the University or one of 
 
 5 6 5
 
 Militarism 
 
 those colleges which rank with the University, 
 such as the Technical College, the Consular 
 Academy, the Academy of Commerce — is 
 obliged to serve for one year only, and for a 
 space of time lasting twelve years he must 
 also spend twenty-eight days with the colours 
 every second year. After a year of service 
 these men as a rule become sub-lieutenants, 
 so that practically every other man of educa- 
 tion is an officer of the Reserve, and to all of 
 them this code, the code of military honour, 
 applies. 
 
 A man who lost his rank as reserve officer 
 would be handicapped for the rest of his life, 
 as no other reserve officer would be supposed 
 to acknowledge him any longer as his equal ; 
 he could be invited nowhere and could occupy 
 no prominent position. In this way the so- 
 called Civilist has for some time been a 
 military man, but, unlike the active officer, he 
 hates and despises militarism. Military ser- 
 vice has been a nightmare overshadowing the 
 whole of his boyhood. He must get through 
 his high-school course in order not to serve 
 for the three years which are compulsory for 
 
 66
 
 Militarism 
 
 the lower classes, and thus disgrace his family. 
 However stupid he may be in the study of 
 Latin, algebra, etc., he must go through with 
 it, for the sword of Damocles hangs over his 
 head. 
 
 The man who serves for one year only is 
 called a " Freiwilliger," literally " a free- 
 wilier," though there is very little free-will 
 in the service he gives. Probably the term 
 alludes to the fact that the young man is free 
 to choose in which regiment he will serve, 
 while the ordinary soldier must go where he 
 is ordered. The latter is provided with his 
 uniform, but a Freiwilliger is obliged to get 
 his own kit. Naturally only a young man of 
 means can enter a cavalry regiment, and his 
 one year's service costs papa a small fortune, 
 varying between two thousand and five 
 thousand pounds, for he is obliged to provide 
 his son with the two horses which the military 
 regulations require. 
 
 The ordinary soldier is called a " Gemeiner." 
 If you look in the dictionary you will find the 
 word " gemein " translated " common, too 
 familiar, vulgar, low, mean ; for a soldier, 
 
 67
 
 Militarism 
 
 Private." Naturally the word carries with 
 it its first definition, and the Austrian people 
 bear a grudge against the authorities for 
 allowing their soldiers to be called by a name 
 which suggests poverty and meanness. Mean 
 the word is, and mean is the treatment meted 
 out to these poor creatures. In this matter 
 there is an enormous difference between 
 Austrian and German militarism — especially 
 of course Prussian. The Austrian soldier 
 hates his three years of service, dreads them 
 as he might a dose of poison ; the Prussian is 
 only too proud to put on the King's coat — 
 he does not consider himself a complete man 
 until he has served his time with the colours. 
 Prussian militarism is a spirit which per- 
 vades every rank from the highest to the 
 lowest in the land. From the time that 
 Prussia became a kingdom it has been 
 systematically instilled into the people. At 
 first probably this militarism was forced upon 
 them, but after the time of Frederic the Great 
 the people, rejoicing in his many military 
 successes, began to feel that to maintain the 
 tradition he had formed they must remain 
 
 68
 
 Militarism 
 
 soldiers. In the course of time the sentiment 
 grew stronger and stronger, and the events of 
 1870 were considered to be a revelation of the 
 splendour of militarism. The Prussian sol- 
 dier, though under the severest discipline, 
 regards his officer as a prophet ; he has 
 unlimited confidence in him, and after the 
 first six months of training is as a rule well 
 treated by his superiors. 
 
 Here I will take the opportunity to make a 
 statement. The most unmilitary people in 
 Germany are the Bavarians. It is a fact that 
 in 1870 their assistance was looked upon by 
 Prussia as negligible. When Prince Luitpold 
 became Regent in 1886 he set himself to alter 
 this condition of affairs, and as he owed a 
 great deal to Prussia he turned to that country 
 for help and advice. It was useless to try 
 to make military men out of Bavarians, so 
 entire Bavarian regiments were constituted 
 out of Prussian private soldiers, and Bavarian 
 soldiers were distributed among the different 
 Prussian regiments. Hence there are no real 
 Bavarian regiments to-day, and the atrocities 
 that were perpetrated in this war by so-called 
 
 69
 
 Militarism 
 
 Bavarian regiments were the work of Prussian 
 soldiers who had been incorporated in those 
 regiments. Had Bavarians fought in their 
 own regiments, we should have heard much 
 the same stories as we are now told of the 
 Saxons. The question might well arise — 
 '"Why has not Prussia pursued the same 
 policy in the case of Saxony ? " The answer 
 is simple. The King of Bavaria is under 
 many obligations to the Kaiser, while the 
 King of Saxony, until the outbreak of war, 
 was his private enemy. 
 
 Now let us return to the question of 
 Austria. In this country the military spirit 
 is only rampant among the highest officers. 
 The officers of lower rank have no dislike for 
 their profession, but they do not take it as 
 seriously as the Prussians. For one thing 
 their frivolous character prevents them being 
 so much in earnest, and as a rule they do not 
 possess the confidence of their men. This 
 war may have brought about a change, but 
 I doubt it even now. They had been too 
 long in the habit of treating the private 
 soldier with disdainful contempt as a person 
 
 7°
 
 Militarism 
 
 without brains or soul. That which chiefly 
 hinders any possibility of understanding be- 
 tween officers and men is the difference in 
 their nationalities ; for the regiments are 
 composed of Poles, Czechs, Croats, Slovenes, 
 Wallachians, Mohammedans, Italians and 
 Germans. 
 
 The private soldier who hates his military 
 service is from the beginning looked upon as 
 a rebel who must be put into the strait- 
 waistcoat of discipline, and the harder the 
 method the more successful it is supposed to 
 be. Fifty years ago lashes were prohibited, 
 but incarceration, hanging on a wall by one 
 hand, handcuffing the left hand to the right 
 foot are modes of punishment as common in 
 the Austrian army as the scolding of a naughty 
 boy is in an English school. 
 
 To prevent the men uniting in a common 
 cause, different nationalities are distributed 
 among the various regiments, and these 
 unhappy men are dragged from their homes 
 to be stationed in far-away corners of 
 the monarchy. This policy is extremely 
 oppressive, and the Assentirung (the literary 
 
 71
 
 Militarism 
 
 word for enrolment by compulsion) is really 
 a tragedy. One sees the poor fellows march- 
 ing in fours and fives — drunk, most of them, 
 for they have been trying to drown their 
 despair in liquor since the early hours of the 
 morning ; their hats are adorned with small 
 bouquets of artificial oak-leaves and coloured 
 flowers so that they may be easily recognised. 
 Although drunkards are liable to arrest, these 
 men, whose mad shouts of Galgenhumor 
 [gallows' humour] can be heard from afar, are 
 immune. The fiction is kept up that the 
 miserable wretches are shouting with joy, 
 but to any one who knows the truth such 
 scenes are heartrending. The first few 
 months are the most terrible to the poor 
 peasant. The recruiting sergeant, who has 
 risen from the ranks and has chosen to con- 
 tinue his military service, is only too often an 
 ambitious individual who has caught the 
 bullying habit from his superior officers ; he 
 is their right hand and the evil spirit of the 
 whole army. If he serves another seven 
 years he can get a good place as policeman or 
 gamekeeper on an archducal or imperial 
 
 72
 
 Militarism 
 
 estate, or some other " Court position," as 
 this class of people love to designate their 
 humble service in a royal house. They are 
 often to be found in the ranks of the innumer- 
 able police detectives, whose functions fre- 
 quently resemble those of a common spy, and 
 they form too the class from which the 
 under clerks of the Government are recruited. 
 Of all human creatures they are the most 
 servile towards any superior, and the meanest 
 bullies of the poor and oppressed. They are 
 the sneaks who prowl about scenting out the 
 smallest political offences, such as crimes of 
 lese-majeste, and they often prove the ruin 
 of honest men who have spoken too freely in 
 the tavern. They are zealous for the sake 
 of promotion and swollen with the conceit 
 of their importance. All the pettiness of 
 Austrian Court life to-day might be traced 
 to the existence of this servile class ; their 
 evil eye is on every one and very often they 
 are the go-betweens in the vilest intrigues. 
 In course of time they marry and produce 
 another generation to carry on their sinister 
 traditions. 
 
 73
 
 Militarism 
 
 One might almost go so far as to say that 
 every person in Austria who has any kind of 
 connection with the imperial house, however 
 slight, either by right of birth or by appoint- 
 ment — military or ecclesiastical — seems to 
 embark on a career of crime and wickedness. 
 If there exist evil and good spirits (and I 
 believe they do) then the Austrian Court with 
 all its adherents is possessed by the evil ones. 
 
 But I have digressed and must return to 
 the subject under discussion — the sergeant. 
 After what I have said already the reader will 
 not be astonished to hear of the brutal way 
 in which he addresses the recruits ; " swine " 
 and " scoundrel " are among the mildest of 
 his epithets. The superior officer smiles, 
 while the unfortunate men stand to attention 
 and receive all these insults in silence. The 
 man who is worst off is the poor peasant who 
 gets no support from home, for his means do 
 not allow him to tip and treat the sergeant. 
 Often the sergeant will borrow money from 
 privates which he never intends to repay, and 
 naturally the man who has nothing to lend 
 is treated even worse than his fellows. Many 
 
 74
 
 Militarism 
 
 a little home has gone without the necessities 
 of existence in order to send a few pence to 
 its soldier son ; many a young girl has gone 
 into domestic service so that she may be able 
 to help her brother out of her modest earnings. 
 
 When at last the poor wretch has com- 
 pleted his three years' service his spirit is 
 broken. He knows that if he dares to com- 
 plain overmuch of the treatment that he has 
 received, the ex-sergeant spy will find him 
 out and denounce him to the authorities. 
 Austrian militarism is, as a matter of fact, 
 even worse than the Prussian ; it is a yoke 
 which every individual must bear, for it is 
 too heavy for him to throw off, and he dances 
 and sings to drown the pain which is slum- 
 bering in his heart. 
 
 The well-to-do part of the population suffer 
 as many hardships, though in a different 
 manner, from the code which the officers 
 have evolved. This code is so stringent that 
 it often comes into conflict with the civil 
 laws of the country. A little incident will 
 illustrate my meaning. A great friend of 
 mine, Dr. Adolf von Ofenheim, had an 
 
 75
 
 Militarism 
 
 altercation with Dr. Carl Lueger, who was at 
 that time Mayor of Vienna. Both men are 
 dead now, but the story will never be for- 
 gotten in Vienna. The quarrel became so 
 violent and Lueger insulted Dr. von Ofenheim 
 so deeply that the latter had to ask for 
 " satisfaction " and sent him two witnesses. 
 Dr. Lueger not only refused him satisfaction, 
 but had Dr. von Ofenheim arrested for 
 offending against the civil law, which in 
 Austria prohibits duelling under any circum- 
 stances whatsoever. Dr. von Ofenheim was 
 tried and sentenced to nine months' imprison- 
 ment. May I add here that imprisonment in 
 the ordinary sense of the word does not exist 
 in Austria ; to be sent to gaol implies that the 
 prisoner is dishonoured for life, he loses his 
 title and any other distinctions that he may 
 possess. Dr. von Ofenheim appealed to the 
 Emperor, and as his family is one of import- 
 ance [one of his brothers-in-law was an 
 Admiral and another a Brigade-General] an 
 audience was granted him and the Emperor 
 annulled the sentence. But had he been a 
 less prominent person, he would have been 
 
 76
 
 Militarism 
 
 obliged to submit to the punishment as many 
 others have done before and since. 
 
 Has any other country such absolutely 
 conflicting laws ? Not even Germany can 
 boast such a paradox. Duelling is prohibited 
 there, it is true, but the sentence passed by 
 the civil law conveys no social stigma. I 
 know a man who had the misfortune to kill 
 his adversary in a duel near Berlin ; of course 
 the story could not be kept secret, and he 
 was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, 
 at the end of that time, however, he took up 
 his life again without the slightest stain on 
 his character. 
 
 Until the beginning of this century the 
 honour of an officer in serious matters had 
 always remained above reproach. He was 
 frivolous, snobbish, perhaps loose in his 
 amours, but he was entirely honourable as 
 far as his profession was concerned, though 
 he did not regard it seriously as a metier. It 
 would have been quite impossible for him to 
 take a bribe, and also there was probably not 
 a single man in the whole army, notwith- 
 standing his poverty, who would have con- 
 
 77
 
 Militarism 
 
 descended to make money in business. The 
 impoverished aristocrat would have parted 
 with his military coat before he would have 
 entered into any commercial transaction, nor 
 could any officer have been induced to risk 
 money in a little gamble on the Stock Ex- 
 change. The code, such as it was, was strictly 
 kept. Financial enterprises were unworthy 
 of an officer, for the military set was at that 
 time the only one which had resisted the 
 inroads of commercialism. Although the 
 struggle for existence was increasing daily in 
 magnitude [we all know at what a pitch of 
 extravagance people were then living], and 
 though temptations surrounded him on every 
 side, yet the officer kept his hands clean. 
 But suddenly an influence coming from the 
 highest quarters brought down this last moral 
 stronghold. 
 
 Franz Ferdinand was on bad terms with 
 the Archduke Frederic because he had married 
 a lady-in-waiting of the latter' s daughter, 
 then the young Archduchess Marie-Christine, 
 and was using his influence to obtain the 
 position of Inspector-General of the Army, 
 
 78
 
 Militarism 
 
 which had hitherto been in the Archduke 
 Frederic's hands. The Archduke Franz Ferdi- 
 nand, who, as I mentioned before, was one of 
 those vampires who accumulated wealth at 
 the expense of the community, now used his 
 power to make money even out of the soldiers. 
 The Archduke Frederic was a bad enough 
 example, but as long as he left the military 
 people alone he had been absolved by his 
 class with the typical Austrian shrug of the 
 shoulders so characteristic of the national 
 frivolity. But Franz Ferdinand knew only 
 one code — the code of his own interest, and 
 he actually took whole regiments of soldiers 
 from their military duties to make them work 
 on the impoverished estates which he bought 
 cheaply and put in working order in this in- 
 expensive fashion. The time which the men 
 spent in these agricultural pursuits counted 
 to them as military service. 
 
 Franz Ferdinand succeeded in replacing 
 all the former high officials by his own crea- 
 tures, the most notorious of whom was a 
 General of the Staff, the ill-famed Conrad von 
 Hotzendorf. These individuals of course 
 
 79
 
 Militarism 
 
 never attempted to oppose the man to whom 
 they owed their elevation. The scandal be- 
 came so notorious that a question was asked 
 in Parliament, but still no action was taken. 
 At first the military people rubbed their eyes. 
 Was this possible ? Then they ceased to 
 shrug their shoulders ; they had learnt their 
 lesson. Why should an " all-highest " act 
 like this and they not follow his example ? 
 Thus the one redeeming point in Austrian 
 militarism disappeared for ever. 
 
 In June 1913 the whole world resounded 
 with the scandal of Staff-Colonel Raedel's 
 suicide. The Colonel had been living at a very 
 high rate ; he had had many liaisons in 
 Vienna, culminating in his connection with 
 a strikingly fashionable foreign lady, whom 
 he provided with motor cars, a costly fur- 
 nished flat, and all the other luxuries de- 
 manded by her class. How did the Colonel 
 manage, with a salary of about £300, to 
 support all this expenditure ? He was not 
 the only officer living at such a rate, and at 
 last the newspapers took the matter up. 
 Colonel Raedel's flat in Vienna was raided, 
 
 80
 
 Militarism 
 
 and a voluminous correspondence with Russia 
 was discovered. There was no getting away 
 from the fact that the first Colonel of the 
 Austrian staff, a man who was actually 
 making plans for the Austrian campaign, was 
 in the pay of Russia. But the matter was 
 not to end here. After the Colonel had been 
 arrested an officer brought him a revolver 
 and made the wretched man understand what 
 he was to do. A trial was impossible, as 
 too many prominent officials were involved 
 in the scandal ! 
 
 Such was the state of morals in the Aus- 
 trian Army a year before the war broke out. 
 Can the Austrian people wonder that they 
 were sold to the highest bidder ? 
 
 81
 
 IV. POLITICAL AUSTRIA 
 
 " T — >NGAGED in contests of power the 
 
 |H Athenians did not pay sufficient 
 
 ~^~^^ attention to the armies abroad and 
 
 were embroiled in mutual altercations at 
 
 home. They would not have been conquered 
 
 had not their own domestic feuds at last 
 
 disabled them from resisting their enemies." 
 
 These words were written by Thucydides, 
 
 who actually witnessed the decline and fall 
 
 of Athens in the fourth century before Christ, 
 
 and yet, in spite of their antiquity, how 
 
 applicable they are to-day to some modern 
 
 States, and especially to Austria ! 
 
 Austria, a conglomeration of some twelve 
 or more nationalities, has during the last 
 fifty years been so agitated by her internal 
 difficulties that she has had to neglect her 
 foreign politics. Hence she has arrived at 
 the position in which she finds herself to-day. 
 
 82
 
 Political Austria 
 
 She is at the point of collapse. She stands 
 on the brink of a downfall from which only 
 a miracle can save her. 
 
 To understand the position exactly this 
 question must first be answered : " What is 
 Austria, and who are the Austrians ? " 
 
 The real Austria consists of the Crown lands 
 or lands of inheritance [Kronlander, Erb- 
 lander] the original possessions of the Haps- 
 burgs. These formed a part of the Holy 
 Roman Empire, were indeed in the possession 
 of the sovereign of the Holy Roman Empire 
 just as Prussia is now part and head of the 
 German federation — of the new Germany 
 created by Bismarck in 1870. The Crown 
 lands are : Lower Austria, Upper Austria, 
 the provinces of Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, 
 Carniola, and the Tyrol with Vorarlberg. 
 Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia [a part of this 
 last State was annexed to Prussia by Frederic 
 the Great] became part of Austria through a 
 Hapsburg ruse, for the Hapsburgs under- 
 stood the art of winning lands by means of 
 profitable marriages. The same is the case 
 with Hungary, yet it must be added at once 
 
 83
 
 Political Austria 
 
 that that State only recognised the Hapsburg 
 as their King and was never incorporated 
 into the empire of Austria. These countries 
 which I have mentioned form the Austro- 
 Hungarian monarchy of to-day. 
 
 It is easy, therefore, to recognise that 
 Austria as a nation does not exist. The 
 original population of the Crown lands, ex- 
 cept in the case of Carniola, which is peopled 
 by a race of Slavs [the Vends], is German ; 
 the Bohemians and Moravians are Czechs — 
 a Slav race ; the Poles are Slavs also ; the 
 Hungarians are Magyar, a Mongol race more 
 like the Turks, but they are Christians ; the 
 Bosnians are Serbs, that is Slavs, and the 
 people of Goritzia and Gradiska, Istria, and 
 Dalmatia are all of Italian origin, but in 
 some parts have intermingled with the Slavs. 
 All these different races have intermarried a 
 good deal, and as the result of these unions 
 a special race has sprung up which has settled 
 chiefly in the Austrian Crown lands and 
 especially in Vienna, the centre of the 
 monarchy, for the pure races look with 
 suspicion on the offspring of these mixed 
 
 84
 
 Political Austria 
 
 marriages. These people call themselves 
 Austrians and are moreover very indignant 
 should they by any chance be termed Ger- 
 mans. They consider themselves the founders 
 of a new nation, namely the Austrian. They 
 are obviously a mixture of German, Slav, 
 and Italian, retaining many of the fine 
 qualities of the three races ; they are artistic, 
 generous, frank, and intelligent, but they 
 seem to have absorbed much of the frivolity 
 of the Poles and the gaiety of the southern 
 German and Latin races, and have thus 
 become even more casual and heedless than 
 any one of the three parent stocks. 
 
 But while the inhabitants of the Crown 
 lands have become so mixed, strangely enough 
 the other countries have kept their strain pure. 
 Was the reason for this the fact that the 
 inhabitants of the Crown lands conceived 
 themselves the chief nation in the monarchy, 
 and therefore did not deem it necessary to 
 preserve their German strain ? Or was it 
 perhaps due to their geographical position ? 
 Bohemia, Hungary, Galicia — indeed, all the 
 other provinces were bordered by States 
 
 85
 
 Political Austria 
 
 which did not belong to the Austro-Hungarian 
 monarchy, while the Crown lands, lying 
 almost entirely in the centre of the monarchy, 
 were surrounded by States under the same 
 government. 
 
 There are parts of Bohemia entirely in- 
 habited by Germans, and these people call 
 themselves "German Bohemian" [Deutsch- 
 bohme] ; they are the deadly enemies of the 
 Czechs, and the idea of intermarriage between 
 the races would be equally detestable to both. 
 The German Bohemians are the most Chau- 
 vinistic people of the whole monarchy, and 
 the chief representatives of the German 
 national party in Parliament. It is among 
 them that Prussia has found most assistance. 
 The Poles in Galicia, owing to the fact that 
 they were conquered by force, make some 
 stand for themselves. The Hungarians, who 
 had to fight so hard for their independence, 
 were till the beginning of this war openly 
 anti-German, and their conduct at this crisis 
 is made the more inexplicable by the reality 
 of this hatred, which certainly existed up till 
 1914. I am convinced that the attitude of 
 
 86
 
 Political Austria 
 
 Hungary is simply the result of German in- 
 trigue, and that after the war the real feelings 
 of the Hungarians towards Prussia will once 
 more be expressed. 
 
 The feeling of Italy towards the old Ger- 
 man Empire which was ruled by the Haps- 
 burgs, and the modern Austrian Empire is 
 thoroughly well known. It is not therefore 
 difficult to divine the sentiments that prevail 
 in the Austrian-Italian provinces. 
 
 This conglomeration of nationalities forms 
 in short the Austria of to-day. 
 
 When in 1804 Austria ceased to be the 
 head of the Holy Roman Empire, and the 
 Emperor Francis II induced by Napoleon I 
 exchanged his title of Holy Roman Emperor 
 for that of Emperor of Austria, his dream 
 and ambition was to found a vast empire 
 of the Orient, reducing the Balkan States to 
 the position of feudatories. In that way 
 Austria would have regained in the east the 
 prestige which Napoleon had wrested from 
 her in the west. 
 
 The same ambition was handed down to 
 the descendants of Francis, but the aims of 
 
 37
 
 Political Austria 
 
 the Emperors went exactly counter to the 
 aspirations of the races under their sway. 
 While the rulers dreamed of a homogeneous 
 nation acknowledging one government, the 
 ruled were striving with all their might for 
 the recognition of their separate national 
 rights, language, literature, and legislation. 
 
 Thus these nations forgot their own true 
 interests and neglected all questions of Euro- 
 pean policy in squabbling among themselves 
 over their racial differences, while the rulers, 
 instead of trying to make them come to an 
 understanding, fostered this quarrelsome 
 spirit among their subjects so that they 
 might be left free to take part in foreign 
 politics. As always their own ambitious 
 schemes were of paramount importance, the 
 interests of their people ranked far below. 
 
 It was under such circumstances that a 
 Parliament consisting of innumerable parties, 
 a Parliament to which all the Parliaments of 
 the world can present no parallel, which has 
 become the laughing-stock of Europe, came 
 into existence. In other countries there are 
 two definite parties — Conservative and Liberal 
 
 88
 
 Political Austria 
 
 — which are bound together by many com- 
 mon interests, but in the Austrian Parlia- 
 ment the German Conservatives have quite 
 different aims from the Bohemian-Czech Con- 
 servatives, the interests of the Bohemian- 
 Czech Conservatives are again other than 
 those of the Polish Conservatives, the Polish 
 from the Italian, and so on. The same 
 argument of course applies to the Liberal 
 party. For example, the German Conserva- 
 tives always opposed the foundation of an 
 Italian University at Trieste which was the 
 dream of the Italian Conservatives. 
 
 The Austrian Parliament therefore con- 
 tains German Conservatives and Liberals, 
 Polish Conservatives and Liberals, two Czech 
 parties, two Italian, two Serbo-Croats, two 
 Ruthenian (who are Poles of the Orthodox 
 Church), and other factions. The Poles op- 
 posed the Ruthenians on a religious question, 
 and thus caused another split in the so-called 
 Conservative party. But these rude dis- 
 tinctions between Conservatives and Liberals 
 do not stand alone ; other parties exist in 
 Austria, such as the clerical party, of which 
 
 89
 
 Political Austria 
 
 I will speak later, the anti-Semites, the 
 German-clerical party, etc. 
 
 The course of the Government then is 
 simple. Should any question be asked in 
 Parliament which is disagreeable to the 
 Emperor, who is supreme in name, but who 
 is ruled by the Court parties and by the 
 military class, a little judicious sowing of 
 dragon's teeth will produce a bitter quarrel 
 between one or more of the various antago- 
 nistic factions, and in the ensuing squabble 
 the important matter which aroused the 
 question will be shelved. Thus Austria in 
 spite of her constitution has remained an 
 autocracy ruled by the Emperor, or rather 
 by his Camarilla, who are very greatly under 
 the influence of the Vatican, or still more of 
 the Jesuits, but who pretend to be violently 
 militarist, knowing the inclination of the 
 Emperor towards militarism. 
 
 Again, the people of Austria are not 
 politicians. They are far too idealistic, too 
 much of the dreamer type to occupy their 
 minds for long with what they consider the 
 dry subject of politics. As a fact the masses 
 
 90
 
 Political Austria 
 
 do not understand at all in what the game of 
 politics consists. Very few indeed realise 
 that the deputy they have power to elect is 
 the man who is to represent their wishes in 
 Parliament. An election in many districts 
 is a farce in the hands of the different party 
 leaders, and the result does not represent the 
 voice of the people at all. 
 
 This system of keeping the populace in 
 ignorance is deliberately conceived by the 
 class which has all power in its hands. The 
 result is that a district will be represented for 
 years and years by a member who cares 
 nothing for the welfare of the people who have 
 elected him. Often he will be an idealist, 
 regarding himself as an apostle of his own 
 nationality. The member of Parliament of a 
 Czech district, for instance, will devote all 
 his energies to elaborating the Czech pro- 
 gramme and altogether neglect the interests 
 of the district as a whole. I merely take the 
 Czechs as an example, the same is true of 
 every other race. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that any general 
 question of social progress, or matters such 
 
 9*
 
 Political Austria 
 
 as the overtaxing of the poor, the granting 
 of concessions which are unfavourable to the 
 district and the framing of laws, can be 
 carried through by the Government without 
 encountering any great opposition, provided 
 that the law affects the whole country and 
 not the private interests of any particular 
 district. It is easy therefore to understand 
 how the Agrarier managed to impose such 
 laws as those which prohibited the importa- 
 tion of frozen meat, and how Archduke Franz 
 Ferdinand could with impunity make use of 
 soldiers to work on his estates. In that case 
 it is true the matter was brought into Parlia- 
 ment, but as it was a question that concerned 
 Austrian economy and not the policy of any 
 one nationality no difficulty was experienced 
 in thrusting it aside. 
 
 It is a recognised fact that nowhere do 
 people grumble and criticise their Govern- 
 ment more than in Austria, but the Austrian 
 does not realise that the redressing of his 
 grievances lies in his own hands. He seems 
 to forget that he sends a representative to 
 Parliament whose business it should be to 
 
 92
 
 >t_ 
 
 Political Austria 
 
 make these criticisms where they might be 
 effective. The Austrian elector is unaware 
 of his own power. 
 
 Some parties, for instance the Polish, which 
 is called the " Poland Club," consist almost 
 entirely of aristocracy. But the Polish 
 peasant right up to the present day looks 
 upon the big landowner as his master who in 
 case of necessity will protect him. Though 
 serfdom is of course abolished in Poland, a 
 sort of patriarchal spirit has remained preva- 
 lent there, and consequently almost without 
 exception the peasant will elect one of the 
 prominent landowners of his district as his 
 deputy. At this point one might produce a 
 proof of the value of an aristocracy that has 
 preserved its hereditary caste and breeding. 
 The Polish nobleman has kept aloof from the 
 commercialising influences which have de- 
 based the aristocracy of the other districts of 
 the monarchy. This may be in part due to 
 the downfall of their country, but with more 
 probability it may be assigned to their in- 
 herent and traditional contempt for com- 
 merce. For in Poland commerce was and is 
 
 93
 
 Political Austria 
 
 almost entirely in the hands of the Jews — 
 the notorious Polish Jews, who in that country 
 take the place of the middle class. Thanks 
 to this aloofness, the Poland Club is to-day a 
 very powerful party in the Austrian Parlia- 
 ment. A Cabinet is seldom formed nowadays 
 without the inclusion of one or two Poles, 
 and these men may be considered as the 
 leaders of the Pan-Slavist movement. 
 
 During the last three decades this move- 
 ment known as Pan-Slavism has come into 
 great prominence, and has indeed had some- 
 thing to do with the origin of the present war. 
 
 The Slavs were determined to fight for the 
 rights to which they were fully entitled. The 
 Hungarians had after great struggles and 
 sacrifices obtained their autonomy — that is 
 to say, their own Parliament and their own 
 military laws. Why should the Bohemians, 
 Galicians, and other Slavs be deprived of 
 theirs ? Austria had captured these coun- 
 tries and was now intent on crushing their 
 individuality, but what had happened so 
 often in the history of other nations was 
 happening here — the conquered were absorb- 
 
 94
 
 Political Austria 
 
 ing the conqueror and putting their stamp 
 on the country that had enslaved them. The 
 German language still remained the Govern- 
 ment language, but in the Slav countries the 
 familiar speech was Slav. We have noted 
 above how de-Germanised the original Ger- 
 man-Austrian countries were becoming ; the 
 language indeed had not changed, but a kind 
 of indifference prevailed, not a little due to 
 the great Slav and Latin influence — the Slav 
 being much the stronger. 
 
 Germany gradually realised that Austria 
 was on the eve of becoming a Slav country, 
 for even the Italian provinces had come under 
 the lead of the Pan-Slavists. In time this 
 great Slav Empire would become a menace 
 to the entire Teutonic race. Some powerful 
 check must therefore be inaugurated against 
 it. This change of front was first manifested 
 in the German parts of Bohemia, which, as I 
 mentioned before, are the most chauvinistic 
 of the monarchy. The idea spread in the 
 original German districts — the Crown lands — 
 especially in Styria and the Northern Tyrol. 
 Soon a party under Schonerer was formed, 
 
 95
 
 Political Austria 
 
 which henceforth termed itself " The Ger- 
 man National Party " [Deutsche National- 
 Partei]. Unquestionably this party had no 
 wish to be swallowed up by Prussia and 
 become a German province in the sense in 
 which the small kingdoms of Bavaria and 
 Saxony really exist. Never for a moment 
 did they aim at the inclusion of the Crown 
 lands as an insignificant kingdom of the 
 German federation ; no, they were harking 
 back to the old Hapsburg dream of an 
 Austrian empire extending over half the 
 European continent. 
 
 Prussia on her side seized the opportunity 
 to delude these fanatics with false prophecies 
 as to the realisation of their hopes. She 
 stirred the dead ashes of the fire that they 
 were longing to rekindle, stirred them so well 
 that it is to this blinded faction that Austria 
 owes thanks to-day for her undoing by 
 Germany, her treacherous ally. For gradually 
 the Nationalists allied themselves to the 
 military party, who saw in them the Parlia- 
 mentary representatives of German militarism. 
 It is only during the last fifteen years that 
 
 96
 
 Political Austria 
 
 Austrian politics have come under the com- 
 plete sway of the militarists. One of the last 
 struggles against this predominance was made 
 by Count Aehrenthal, a genius much too little 
 appreciated by his contemporaries. General 
 Conrad von Hotzendorf with Franz Ferdi- 
 nand's backing had, at the end of 191 1, be- 
 come so powerful that he almost succeeded 
 in overthrowing Count Aehrenthal' s policy 
 with Italy, and brought Austria to the brink 
 of a war with that country. Italy, who was 
 then involved in her war with Tripoli, was 
 to be attacked by her ally in the back. The 
 troops of the Southern Tyrol were only 
 waiting for the order for mobilisation when 
 after a last effort Count Aehrenthal put it to 
 the Emperor either to dismiss Conrad von 
 Hotzendorf or to accept his own resignation 
 from the Foreign Office. The Emperor after 
 some hesitation elected to dismiss the General, 
 and thus for a time Austria was saved from 
 the outbreak of war. 
 
 But from this moment the breach between 
 the Emperor and his heir became irremediable. 
 Franz Ferdinand took the dismissal of the 
 7 97
 
 Political Austria 
 
 General as a personal affront and never ceased 
 to scheme for his restoration to power. 
 
 A few months later, in the spring of 191 2, 
 death, the inexorable, dealt the blow which 
 the Emperor had refused to strike, and 
 finally removed Aehrenthal from his position. 
 He died of a very mysterious illness, a kind 
 of decomposition of the blood, the result of 
 blood poisoning alleged to have been an after- 
 effect of influenza. He was only fifty-five 
 years of age and had been a healthy man up 
 to that time. Under the Medici some cen- 
 turies ago people were known to die of similar 
 mysterious maladies. 
 
 With his death Europe as well as Austria 
 lost one of her best men, her best politicians, 
 and it is not too much to say that had he 
 lived this war would never have taken place, 
 for it owes its origin to the scheming of Franz 
 Ferdinand and Wilhelm II, whose strongest 
 opponent Count Aehrenthal had ever been. 
 In Austria it is dangerous to oppose. Count 
 Aehrenthal died. 
 
 98
 
 V. CHURCHES AND JESUITS 
 
 I HAVE tried to show to what an extent 
 races are divided up and reclassified 
 in this extraordinary monarchy of 
 sliced-up nations. I have demonstrated how 
 not only by nationality, but by rank, caste, 
 and clique these people have subdivided them- 
 selves to the most bewildering point of com- 
 plication, indeed it would be impossible for 
 an outsider to make head or tail of the whole 
 matter. And yet there is one great power 
 which holds this modern Babel together, a 
 power which dominates the highest, the richest, 
 the most cultivated, and the frivolous no less 
 than the poorest and most ignorant, a power 
 to which even the divers races bow — Slavs as 
 well as Germans, Italians as well as Hunga- 
 rians — a power to which they all owe obei- 
 sance, namely the Roman Catholic Church. 
 Is it not pathetic that the Church should 
 
 99
 
 Churches and Jesuits 
 
 have failed to recognise her true mission ? 
 The one subject on which all these nationali- 
 ties are agreed is that of Faith ; it was as if 
 they had been tested by the Almighty. In all 
 worldly concerns these people were as poles 
 asunder, but in God they were united. The 
 only link that was left to be broken was their 
 religious sympathy. Does it not appear as 
 almost a dispensation of Heaven that out of 
 fifty million people forty should be undivided 
 in their religious belief, and that the other 
 ten should profess so many divergent creeds 
 that they counted for nothing in comparison 
 with the vast preponderance of Roman Catho- 
 lics ? The Protestants, the members of the 
 Orthodox Church, and the Mohammedans 
 formed an inconsiderable minority, only the 
 Jews gained power and influence. Is it not 
 a pity that in a domain which might have 
 been a kingdom of Christian love Rome 
 should have used her power to spread terror, 
 to oppress, and to defame her prestige ? A 
 pity that instead of glorifying herself by 
 making all these scattered members of her 
 flock realise that there was but one fold and 
 
 ioo
 
 Churches and Jesuits 
 
 one Shepherd, she preferred to sow the seeds 
 of hypocrisy, jealousy, and discord. But the 
 fact remains that instead of being the salva- 
 tion of this unfortunate country Rome became 
 her greatest curse ; for, though the Church 
 is good, her priests were bad. They did not 
 wish to heal, to console, to act as peace- 
 makers, to lead their flock to heaven ; they 
 only thought of their own advantage — how to 
 make the biggest profit out of this unhealthy 
 condition of affairs, in order that it might 
 yield them a rich harvest. 
 
 Let us see how they, the only link between 
 the highest and the lowest, oppressor and 
 oppressed, made use of their influence. 
 
 They gave the rich and powerful bad 
 advice ; they told them that as long as they 
 were ardent adherents of Rome they could 
 obtain absolution for their sins, and thus 
 planted the roots of hypocrisy in their hearts. 
 Indeed they drove a bargain with them — so 
 long as the priesthood could be paid, so long 
 would absolution be obtainable. The poor 
 were told that it was the mark of a Christian 
 to endure suffering and privation, and thus
 
 Churches and Jesuits 
 
 the priesthood played into the hands of the 
 rich and helped to keep the oppressed in check. 
 
 When the so-called Holy Roman Empire 
 came to an end in 1804 the death-knell for 
 Rome's temporary power was tolled, though 
 its destruction was not completed until 
 another sixty-five years had passed. Naturally 
 enough the Hapsburgs and the Vatican clung 
 to one another, dragged one another down like 
 two shipwrecked men, but while the support 
 of the dual monarchy maintained the prestige 
 of the Vatican, the Vatican on the other hand 
 wrought havoc in the Hapsburg dominions. 
 
 Prince Metternich, the powerful Chan- 
 cellor of Francis I Emperor of Austria, rein- 
 stated the Jesuits in full power, although they 
 had been driven out of the country by 
 Joseph II, the uncle of the Emperor Francis. 
 Metternich, who was the most reactionary 
 statesman of modern times, and who at Napo- 
 leon's downfall assumed the role almost of 
 Dictator of Europe, realised that his reaction- 
 ary schemes could only be carried through 
 with the assistance of the Jesuits. The Court 
 was brought entirely under their domination, 
 
 102
 
 Churches and Jesuits 
 
 the education of all the young archdukes and 
 archduchesses was placed in their hands, and 
 the older members of the Royal Family were 
 kept under the Jesuit influence by the appoint- 
 ment of Jesuits as almoners. 
 
 May I say here that the English Jesuit 
 differs materially from the Continental mem- 
 bers of the Order ? The English Jesuit is 
 incapable of shaking off the essential quality 
 of an Englishman's nature — discretion. In- 
 quisitiveness is a characteristic so entirely 
 foreign to the character of the Englishman 
 that no amount of influence would ever make 
 it natural. The same may be said of his 
 methods. The Englishman would rather die 
 than save his life by a means which would 
 seem to him unclean ; his insular upbringing 
 has made it impossible for him to assimilate 
 Continental practices. But the whole system 
 of the Jesuits is based on ruse and intrigue, 
 on underhand methods of satisfying their 
 curiosity. The English Jesuit is incapable 
 of understanding, much less of imitating, his 
 Continental brother in this respect. The 
 Austrian Jesuit is his exact opposite; know- 
 
 103
 
 Churches and Jesuits 
 
 ing himself all-powerful, he has lost all sense 
 of proportion. The Jesuits have assumed 
 control over the whole of the priesthood and 
 consequently over a whole community, and 
 what does not suit their purposes is relent- 
 lessly wiped out. No human life, man's, 
 woman's, or child's, is sacred to them if it 
 stands in their way. They are the advisers 
 of the Emperor, they are his confessors, he 
 humiliates himself before them and obeys their 
 wishes. Should he indeed show any reluct- 
 ance to carry out their instructions they 
 take the law into their own hands. If a rebel 
 exists among the ranks of the powerful he is 
 soon disposed of. Many if not most of the 
 tragedies in the life of the Emperor Francis 
 Joseph may be laid to the charge of the 
 Jesuits. They have formed round him an in- 
 surmountable barrier, every individual about 
 his person is under their dominion. I have 
 heard Catholic priests in England speak quite 
 openly against' the Jesuits, but never would 
 any one attempt to do this in Austria, for the 
 whole Catholic priesthood is under their 
 sway. No political career, no success in the 
 
 104
 
 Churches and Jesuits 
 
 Government or the Army can be achieved 
 without a profession of fervent attachment 
 to the Catholic Church. In Parliament the 
 ecclesiastical party is all-powerful. But while 
 the Emperor Francis Joseph is an ardent be- 
 liever and a really pious man, his piety lend- 
 ing a lustre of veritable spirituality to the 
 Court, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his 
 morganatic wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, 
 were superstitious hypocrites. Backed by 
 them the Church reopened a reign of terror 
 worthy of the times of the Inquisition. The 
 only class in Austria who have really re- 
 mained fervent believers are the peasantry ; 
 the lower orders of townspeople and the 
 middle class have lost all belief and are 
 absolute materialists. 
 
 The only religions tolerated beside Roman 
 Catholicism are the Lutheran, the Orthodox, 
 and the Jewish, for the Catholic Church, 
 which is the Government Church, has the last 
 voice in all religious questions. Noncon- 
 formist churches are prohibited, freemasonry 
 is absolutely banned, even the Salvation 
 Army is not allowed, and psychical research is 
 
 i°5
 
 Churches and Jesuits 
 
 forbidden. So far does this narrow-minded- 
 ness go that cremation is illegal, and the dead 
 who in their last will and testament have 
 expressed a wish to be cremated must be ex- 
 ported to Germany. Hence those souls who 
 cannot accept the strict dogmas of the creeds 
 which are allowed in Austria have no oppor- 
 tunity of enjoying a freer faith. They must 
 either recite one of the recognised formulas 
 or place themselves among the ranks of the 
 atheists. On the other hand, religious teach- 
 ing in the schools is obligatory and parents 
 are forced to have their children instructed 
 in one of the four creeds. The children of 
 parents who have no religious belief them- 
 selves despise this teaching and generally 
 develop into more convinced unbelievers than 
 their parents before them. 
 
 This lack of religion may explain much of 
 the frivolity of the people in general and the 
 unscrupulous depravity of the higher classes, 
 for the religiosity which was forced upon 
 them has no less an atheising influence. 
 Their religion forbids them to think, they 
 must accept in blind faith ; often they feign 
 
 106
 
 Churches and Jesuits 
 
 a faith which they do not possess, for they 
 dare not investigate. They drift, and gradu- 
 ally they lose consciousness of good and evil 
 and laugh at the idea of any life to come. 
 But in order that the people may be blinded 
 to the fact that their higher aspirations are 
 interdicted, the roads to frivolity and im- 
 morality are left open. On one side of their 
 existence is a narrow and jealously guarded 
 boundary, but the primrose path of dalliance 
 is wide and easy of access. 
 
 But fifty million people cannot remain for 
 ever in obscurity, and this war will make a 
 big difference. The people of Austria are 
 starving for high ideals. They have been 
 forced into a crude materialism, albeit they 
 are naturally idealistic. This war had to 
 come to save their souls. Materially Austria 
 may go down, but spiritually she will rise. 
 The Church which might have joined her 
 varying elements together by her good in- 
 fluence will succeed in uniting them by her 
 evil practices. 
 
 People of Austria, at last you have one cause 
 in common ! Fight for your souls' salvation. 
 
 107
 
 VI. THE CHILDREN OF SHEM 
 
 THE only people in Austria who have 
 made any real material advance- 
 ment during the last century are 
 the Jews, and their progress has been extra- 
 ordinary. In a certain sense they may be 
 looked upon as the counterpart of the Jesuits. 
 The Jews owe their freedom in Austria to 
 the Emperor Josef II, a man of noble and 
 original character, proud, impetuous, but 
 more broad-minded than any sovereign of 
 Germany who has reigned before or after 
 him. He it was who, as I mentioned before, 
 expelled the Jesuits from Austria and opened 
 the country to the Jews. Personally I have 
 no grudge against the Jews. They doubtless 
 have many good points, yet I often wonder 
 if Josef banished one troublesome class only 
 to make room for the members of another, 
 if one may say so. For of course the Jews 
 
 jo8
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 are a race who have as much right to " a 
 place in the sun " as any other nation, while 
 the Jesuits are an organisation bent on under- 
 mining all modern systems of government, 
 law, and education. 
 
 Josef died in 1790 after a short reign of 
 ten years. He was only forty-nine at the 
 time of his decease ; his death still remains 
 one of the mysteries, the many mysteries, of 
 Hapsburg history. 
 
 Shortly afterwards the Jesuits were rein- 
 stated, but the Jews did not return to their 
 Ghettoes. Hence Austria became the goal of 
 all the persecuted Jews in the world and 
 provided a second Palestine for this race of 
 permanent exiles. At first they existed in 
 Austria as if on sufferance, subdued, fawning 
 and crouching like animals, but by degrees 
 they managed to gain ground and finally 
 became one of the dominating factions in the 
 country. Gradually they secured possession 
 of the financial market to such an extent that 
 nobody nowadays is able to prosper without 
 their assistance. Even the Jesuit at times 
 has recourse to the money-bags of the Jew, 
 
 109
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 and to carry on the work of the Cross calls 
 to his aid the descendants of the crucifiers. 
 
 For the people of Austria are not rich ; 
 only the wealthier members of the aristocracy 
 and the Jews possess fortunes which English 
 people would regard as considerable. 
 
 From the Emperor to the smallest trades- 
 man every individual must have a Jew as 
 financial adviser, and it must not be imagined 
 that these important people creep about in 
 dirty caftans ; on the contrary, many of 
 them pose as leaders of fashion. They enter- 
 tain lavishly, support princely establishments, 
 and from all points of view are persons to be 
 reckoned with. The scornful nickname of 
 " Hof-Jude " by which they were originally 
 designated has now descended to the level 
 of a joke which no one would venture to use 
 in Austrian society. 
 
 The financial advisers of the Emperor for 
 many years were Theodor von Taussig, 
 Managing Director of the Boden-Kredit An- 
 stalt, and Josef Palmer, Superintendent of 
 the Landerbank. Taussig had twelve chil- 
 dren, and was so prosperous as to boast that 
 
 no
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 he would not be satisfied until he had 
 accumulated enough wealth to settle a million 
 florins on each child at his own death and a 
 second million at the death of his wife. To 
 do this he would have to acquire a fortune of 
 two million pounds, which corresponds 
 roughly to twenty-four million florins. [The 
 Austrian florin was worth about one shilling 
 and eightpence in our currency before the 
 war — not to-day !] As a matter of fact he 
 succeeded in amassing an even larger amount 
 before he died. 
 
 This man lived in a style of the most extra- 
 ordinary ostentation. In the winter the 
 family resided in town, occupying the entire 
 third floor of the bank building ; they spent 
 the summer in a chateau near Vienna adjoin- 
 ing Schonbrunn, the imperial castle. A large 
 party of governesses and tutors was attached 
 to the household ; each child monopolised 
 the services of one maid, and servants were 
 provided for the educational staff. The 
 establishment was indeed an exact copy of 
 an archducal household. The parents even 
 went so far as to dress their daughters in the 
 
 in
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 simple toilets affected by the high nobility. 
 This must have involved severe self-discipline 
 on the part of their mother, and proved the 
 sincerity of her admiration for the class she 
 was imitating. Wealthy Jewish magnates do 
 not as a rule adopt that severe simplicity of 
 costume which makes young Archduchesses 
 look more like the inmates of an orphanage 
 than royal princesses. For the children of 
 the Austrian royal family wear their hair 
 always in tight plaits, which are only un- 
 bound on high days and holidays. At 
 ordinary times their gowns are of blue or 
 check material, on special occasions of white 
 embroidery ; they wear plain white straw 
 hats, and the only sign of distinction in their 
 attire is to be found in the white gloves with 
 which their hands are invariably covered. 
 The children of Frau von Taussig were there- 
 fore garbed in this simple fashion. They 
 were a good-looking family and very few of 
 them were of a pronounced Jewish type, not 
 one had dark hair, and some of the daughters 
 were remarkably beautiful. Nevertheless the 
 pseudo-archducal menage was almost comic 
 
 112
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 and not at all in keeping with Mr. von 
 Taussig's origin. His father, I believe, 
 hawked felt shoes from door to door. 
 
 The other financier, Herr von Palmer, was 
 introduced to the Emperor by the woman 
 who had been his friend for years — Frau 
 Katharina Schratt. He was a bachelor, and 
 it was therefore easier for the Emperor to 
 meet him socially. An expert at the game of 
 taroque [a game of cards], Herr von Palmer 
 owed his fortune to this accomplishment. 
 Several times a week his Majesty would visit 
 Frau von Schratt at her house. She knew 
 how fond he was of taroque and would arrange 
 little card parties for him, at which the banker 
 soon became an indispensable fourth. The 
 Emperor does not like losing, and though he 
 plays for very low stakes he is furious if any 
 one dares to beat him. The shrewd Jew soon 
 became aware of this and gained the old mon- 
 arch's favour by allowing him to come off vic- 
 torious in his pet game. Having thus obtained 
 his confidence, it was easy to recompense 
 himself by success in games of finance when 
 considerably larger stakes were concerned. 
 8 113
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 These two instances are by no means 
 exceptional, though all wealthy Jews do not 
 aspire to the gentility displayed by the family 
 of Herr von Taussig. The luxury indulged 
 in by Israelitish households is notorious, and 
 servants are always anxious to obtain situa- 
 tions in them. These people form the only 
 class in Austrian society which could be 
 compared with the " Get-Rich- Quickly s " of 
 Trans- Atlantic fame. At first no doubt they 
 were satisfied with living well and imitating 
 the upper classes, but in time they began to 
 compete for and to attain a foothold both 
 in the social and in the commercial world. 
 Very soon the Jews were ubiquitous ; they 
 had acquired almost complete control of the 
 business of the country and it seemed probable 
 that they would even take the reins of 
 government into their own hands. They 
 became such a nightmare to the other classes 
 in Austria that a strong parliamentary party 
 known as the " Christlich-'Socialen " [Anti- 
 Semitic league] was formed to oppose them. 
 For a time the efforts of this party held back 
 the onrushing tide of Jewry, and its advent 
 
 114
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 caused a lull in the progress of the Hebrew 
 invasion. 
 
 In the seventies Austria, after her wars 
 and quarrels with Prussia, Italy, and Hun- 
 gary, was on the brink of bankruptcy. The 
 Jewish bankers saved the situation. The 
 Emperor, to reward these acts of (shall we call 
 it ?) patriotism, found himself obliged to confer 
 the order of Knighthood on a great number 
 of these people, to the desperate anger of 
 Christian high society . Probably the monarch 
 himself shared some of this disgust. At the 
 first great ball to which the new knights had 
 to be admitted a list of names of the per- 
 sonages to be presented to the Emperor was 
 read aloud to him. " Poor Austria ! " he 
 exclaimed, " if these are the only knights to 
 protect you in the future ! " His words were 
 more ominous than he realised. 
 
 For some time after this the triumphant 
 course of the Jews was checked to some 
 extent by the hostility which they encoun- 
 tered, but Israelitish ruse and cunning soon 
 discovered a method of evading the new 
 danger. The Jew had made up his mind to 
 
 115
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 soar and all inconvenient scruples had to be 
 cast over the side. A new class, that of 
 " baptized Jews," began to spring up among 
 them. 
 
 In my opinion it is these people who are 
 really responsible for Austria's moral degra- 
 dation. While the Jesuits sowed the seeds 
 of unbelief and reaction, these so-called con- 
 verts spread cynicism and boundless frivolity. 
 While under the Jesuit regime the people 
 were kept in a condition of ignorance and 
 narrow-mindedness from which there was 
 hope that they might ultimately emerge, the 
 influence of the converted Jews was utterly 
 demoralising and productive of shameless 
 decadence. This new element of moral 
 degradation aroused in serious people a 
 feeling of profound disgust and drove them 
 back to the Church as the only stable thing 
 in a world of corruption. Thus the chains of 
 the Jesuits were riveted more firmly. " Do 
 you not see," they could say to their flocks, 
 " where a life of unbelief leads ? Look at 
 the results of modern teaching, of new faiths 
 and new doctrines!" They might say this, 
 
 116
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 but they knew very well all the time that 
 while these pretended converts might profess 
 what doctrine they liked, they were really 
 guided by nothing but their own perverted 
 instincts. 
 
 The Jews are a very ancient people and 
 until quite lately of an exceptionally pure 
 strain, for laws and traditions have prevented 
 them from intermarrying. Hence no doubt 
 they have become more or less degenerate in 
 certain respects. The fact that they still 
 exist as a fairly vigorous stock is probably 
 due to the persecutions and restrictions which 
 they endured for so many centuries after 
 their downfall as a nation. Being naturally 
 of a sturdy and determined disposition, they 
 asserted themselves in spite of the efforts of 
 other races to exterminate them. But what 
 poverty, misery, and humiliation may fail to 
 do, wealth and ease have often been known 
 to achieve. As long as they were confined 
 to their Ghettoes they did not fall under the 
 influence of that decadence which attacks old 
 and exclusive races. But now their decline 
 is certain, they are going up like a rocket to 
 
 117
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 come down like a stick. For a short time 
 they will have made havoc in every corner 
 of Austria. They have no nationality, they 
 have no soil to which they are attached, they 
 are deprived of all which makes a people 
 noble and disinterested. Exiles of the ages, 
 their business is to do the best for themselves 
 in whatever territory they happen to be 
 placed. But while in other countries they 
 are but a minority unequally matched against 
 a national majority, in poor split-up Austria 
 they form one of the most influential of her 
 many different factions and their influence is 
 diffused throughout the empire. 
 
 Everywhere the Jews have become the 
 governors of the Austrian middle classes. 
 They compete successfully in the traffic 
 connected with all trades — in the traffic only, 
 since the Christian does the work and the 
 Jew pockets the profits. Big stores such as 
 those of Peter Robinson, Marshal & Snel- 
 grove, Debenham & Freebody are in Vienna 
 in the hands of Jews. The same con- 
 ditions exist in the larger provincial towns, 
 where their influence over the townsfolk is 
 
 118
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 still greater, as money is even more im- 
 portant in such places. Just as the more 
 prosperous Jews copy an aristocracy which 
 is scarcely worthy of imitation, so the less- 
 important Jews model themselves on the 
 example of the Jewish magnate. The rest 
 of the population try to follow suit. One of 
 the most dangerous features of the case is 
 that Jews are for the most part excellent 
 conversationalists and often very witty and 
 attractive. Their mode of life and their ani- 
 mated manners exercise a certain fascination. 
 Anecdotes about Jews are innumerable, and 
 though they mostly refer to the lower grades 
 of the community many of them could be 
 applied to the whole race. Gossip travels 
 fast in Vienna, for after all it is a compara- 
 tively small city and it was not until the out- 
 skirts were included in its boundaries that 
 it was able to boast two million inhabitants. 
 The Viennese are much more friendly than, 
 for instance, the English. Coolness and re- 
 serve are taken in Austria as signs of animosity 
 if not rudeness. The habitual reserve of an 
 Englishman would only be affected by an 
 
 119
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 Austrian with a person of his own class with 
 whom he was on bad terms, or with some one 
 from a lower clique who was trying to push 
 into his intimacy. For reserve in Austria 
 implies hostility, there is no such thing as 
 cool but friendly politeness. A proud aristo- 
 crat may snub a Jew of the High Finance, but 
 he will have no objection to playing practical 
 jokes in the company of his valet. The wife of 
 a high Government official will be on quite 
 friendly terms with her maid, though she will 
 behave with the most chilling hauteur to- 
 wards the wife of some nouveau riche who 
 presumes to angle for her social recognition. 
 Servants are considered so much lower in 
 the social scale that it would be an impossi- 
 bility for them ever to take advantage of their 
 mistress's familiar attitude. Were their em- 
 ployers to adopt a distant manner towards 
 them, they would be looked upon as hard and 
 inconsiderate and be very poorly served in 
 consequence. Does it not show that a much 
 greater equality exists among the classes in 
 England, that a mistress must preserve a 
 stiff and constrained demeanour towards her 
 
 120
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 domestics in order to keep them, as she 
 would say, in their proper place ? 
 
 But this rather nonchalant intercourse 
 between the lady of the house and her 
 domestic staff in Austria fosters gossip, and 
 the mistress who loses her maid to-day may 
 be certain that every one of her actions will 
 be faithfully reported to the mistress who 
 engages her to-morrow. Thus the Austrian 
 servant is a kind of loophole through which 
 one can peer into one's neighbour's privacy, 
 and many a little social custom has been 
 spread from family to family by the agency 
 of servants. The story of any amusing or 
 out-of-the-way incident will soon be published 
 throughout Vienna, and as the Jews are an 
 interesting and traditionally comic race they 
 figure largely in the repertoire of these tale- 
 bearers. 
 
 The social boycott of the Chosen People 
 has diminished very much during the last 
 few years. The Jew of High Finance is an 
 excellent entertainer, and people who could 
 not afford luxuries in their own homes have 
 condescended to enjoy them in the houses of 
 
 121
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 the Jewish nouveaux riches. A ball given 
 by one of these plutocrats would be a much 
 more elaborate affair than those for which a 
 member of the aristocracy had been respons- 
 ible. Priceless flowers would be presented 
 to the young girls in the cotillion, cigars and 
 cigarettes provided in profusion for the men, 
 and it is notorious that many young officers 
 filled their cigar and cigarette cases every 
 evening at the expense of some wealthy 
 Jewish host. In a Christian salon such 
 behaviour would have been impossible, but 
 the Jew was always afraid that his guests 
 might remember his mean origin, and gradu- 
 ally this grabbing of " free smokes " became 
 a custom in certain circles. 
 
 But while this lavish extravagance may 
 seem attractive for a time, it soon grows tire- 
 some, for it brings with it a certain freedom 
 of manners, especially, as I said before, among 
 those who have abandoned their ancient 
 faith. These individuals imagine that they 
 are on the road to social triumph, and in 
 order that they may not be cast down from 
 the heights to which they have climbed 
 
 122
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 with so much difficulty they have begun to 
 play the Anti-Semite — to dissimulate their 
 origin and to profess contempt for their own 
 people. By this means they think that their 
 position is rendered secure, and filled with 
 self-confidence their wantonness has become 
 boundless. 
 
 When the Los von Rom was inaugurated 
 by Germany, a movement to Germanise 
 Austria by means of Lutheran Protestantism, 
 this clique of false proselytes embraced the 
 cause with enthusiasm. Their money was of 
 no little service to the movement and by this 
 means they gained ground in Austrian polit- 
 ical circles. Thus the last decade before the 
 war saw a new era of Jewish prosperity, this 
 time a much more serious one than that of 
 1870, for they were no longer satisfied with 
 knighthoods, but demanded baronetcies as 
 the due reward of their patriotic labours. 
 
 The remunerative honours were even more 
 liberally distributed in Hungary than in 
 Austria, and this mushroom aristocracy be- 
 came Count Tisza's stronghold. I am firmly 
 convinced that the so-called Hungarians who 
 
 123
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 in the present war have sold Hungary to the 
 German Emperor are to be found almost exclu- 
 sively among their ranks. For what do the 
 Jews care who rules Austria ? They are 
 neither Austrians nor Hungarians, but, as I 
 said before, a dangerous faction of the Austro- 
 Hungarian community which is ready at any 
 moment to sell the country of its adoption 
 to the highest bidder. 
 
 Even the high military circles have now 
 hob-nobbed with this class of wealthy and 
 " converted " Jews, attracted no doubt by 
 the length of their purses and the munificence 
 of their hospitality. The salons of good- 
 looking and smartly dressed Jewesses have 
 become the favourite haunts of the younger 
 staff officers. Madame, aided by these 
 liaisons, has managed to secure a precarious 
 foothold in a higher social sphere than that 
 to which she belongs. Herr Hauptmann, 
 captain of some regiment other than cavalry, 
 or Herr Rittmeister, cavalry captain, enjoys 
 the luxuries of his belle amie's menage with- 
 out expense to himself. He sits in her box 
 at the theatre or the races, drives in her car, 
 
 124
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 has a place at her well-appointed table, accom- 
 panies her to fashionable restaurants and 
 tea-places — in a word, he is her shadow and 
 gets a lot of enjoyment out of life. You may 
 ask " What does Madame' s husband say to 
 this state of affairs ?" Well, he is perfectly 
 aware of the situation and acquiesces in it 
 calmly ; indeed he is often the instigator, 
 and, pretending to suspect nothing, will boast 
 of his own friendship with the captain through 
 whose instrumentality he hopes to do a little 
 climbing on his own account. It was common 
 enough in Vienna before the war to meet 
 husband and lover arm in arm on the prom- 
 enade, absolutely cordial with one another 
 and apparently quite unaware of any awk- 
 wardness in the position. 
 
 These liaisons were soon accepted as a 
 natural development of the social order and 
 scarcely even aroused comment among on- 
 lookers. That the husband consoled himself 
 elsewhere it is almost superfluous to add. 
 
 It was not long before corruption of this 
 kind became the rule in all branches of 
 society. The cost of living had increased to 
 
 125
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 such an extent that many householders were 
 unable to keep pace with the times, and a 
 triangular or quadrangular menage offered 
 an easy solution to impoverished husbands 
 and wives. Thus it will be seen that the de- 
 praved state of Austrian society is not even 
 based on human passion, but on the craving 
 for those luxuries which would otherwise 
 have been beyond the reach of so many. 
 
 When I was in Austria for the last time 
 (in 1911) I rubbed my eyes in amazement. 
 There was not one of the families I had known 
 in former years who had not adopted this 
 mode of life. I was astonished to find that 
 the various husbands and wives with whom 
 I had once been acquainted never seemed to 
 remember to whom they were bound. And 
 the freedom with which they carried on their 
 illicit amours filled me with surprise. 
 
 In the high military circles this state of 
 things was everywhere prevalent, and in al- 
 most every instance it might be traced to 
 Jewish influences. So powerful had the Jews 
 become that they were even beginning to 
 show their teeth at Court. The following 
 
 126
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 little story may illustrate the extent to which 
 their impudence has grown. The Archduke 
 Frederic bought some property in one of the 
 overseas colonies with a certain Herr Knop- 
 felmacher, of Jewish birth, as intermediary. 
 The commission due to this gentleman was 
 some eight thousand pounds. The Archduke, 
 not wishing to part with so large a sum of 
 money, sent instead his autographed picture 
 in a silver frame. Herr Knopf elmacher 
 thanked his Imperial Highness for this honour, 
 but at the same time begged to remind him 
 of the commission that was still owing. Arch- 
 duke Frederic made an excuse for refusing 
 to pay the money. Upon this Herr Knopf el- 
 macher took the photograph of the Archduke 
 in its silver frame, wrapped it in a piece of 
 paper and sent it back to the illustrious donor 
 with a letter stating that he did not wish to 
 possess either the picture or the signature of 
 a man who cared so little about his word of 
 honour. Perhaps this lesson served the Arch- 
 duke right, but what has become of the Haps- 
 burg prestige if such a thing as this can 
 happen ? And what will be the near future 
 
 127
 
 The Children of Shem 
 
 of Austria if a man of Herr Knopf elmacher's 
 origin can dare to treat in such a cavalier 
 fashion one of the most prominent members 
 of the imperial house ? 
 
 It has been stated by historians that 
 Poland's downfall was due to the predomi- 
 nating influence of the Jesuits and the Jews — 
 God grant that Austria may not suffer a too 
 similar fate. 
 
 128
 
 VII. THE PEOPLE 
 
 FROM what I have said up to the present 
 the reader will believe that not a 
 grain of virtue is left in poor old Aus- 
 tria. But my remarks apply to the upper 
 millions only. There exists a vast community 
 with very valuable qualities, qualities which 
 they possess in excess of any other country. 
 
 To begin with, the Austrian is a willing and 
 hard-working individual, and, since industry 
 is the blessing of men, this excellent character- 
 istic has preserved him from downfall. But 
 the Austrian has none of that assiduity which 
 makes the German apply himself with the 
 sole object of making money. No, money- 
 makr g is the last aim of the Austrian. He 
 has far too much of the artist's temperament, 
 he works for the work's sake and possesses the 
 big, generous heart of the true artist. For 
 many years this artist has combined something 
 9 129
 
 The People 
 
 of German industry with the idealism of the 
 Slav and the Latin love of art and beauty. 
 Austria is in these days the one country 
 where the old craftsman's love of his work 
 still lingers. In Austria you find workmen 
 who delight in their work for its own sake 
 and not merely for the profit that accrues to 
 them from it. A shop-keeper will display 
 all his goods with pride to a person whom he 
 knows has no intention of buying anything. 
 Should such a one express regret that he is 
 taking his trouble for nothing, he will reply : 
 " Oh, I don't want you to buy ! It gives me 
 such pleasure to show you my goods, I am 
 so proud of our Austrian products." The 
 other day I happened to accompany a friend 
 of mine to her tailor. His name sounded any- 
 thing but English ; it was a Slav name but 
 not Russian, so I asked him to what nation- 
 ality he belonged. He replied : " Czech, my 
 lady, but I am here in England since 1888." 
 He told me that he had served his apprentice- 
 ship in Vienna. His prices were exceedingly 
 low and I could not resist the temptation 
 of asking him how this came about. He 
 
 130
 
 The People 
 
 answered : The war, my lady. People 
 cannot pay de high prices now. I could make 
 more if I work khaki, but I lof ladee work. 
 I have my son fighting with de Allies in de 
 Czech battalion, so I do my bit any way." 
 
 Now that is the Austrian all over. In his 
 manufactories he makes the most beautiful 
 things that the world's market contains. He 
 does not try to profit by them — he enjoys 
 making them. His zeal is lavished in render- 
 ing them as beautiful as possible, when that 
 is done his enthusiasm ceases. It is a fact 
 that of the various goods imported into 
 England before the war the useful and very 
 often poorly made articles came from Ger- 
 many, but all the beautiful and artistic things 
 were made in Austria. Leather goods, cut 
 glass, china, and those lovely thick carpets 
 of every shade which seemed to suggest that 
 one was walking on velvety green moss — all 
 were masterpieces of handicraft, for the work- 
 men made them with love. The Austrian is 
 an artist, often a genius. But he hates the 
 routine of everyday life, the fight for the 
 squalid necessities of existence. He would 
 
 131
 
 The People 
 
 rather go without his daily bread than abase 
 himself to obtain it. Indeed he is almost too 
 proud. He is too generous, too kind-hearted. 
 The result is that the Austrian lower classes 
 are only too easily exploited by the upper. 
 The so-called gentleman makes his request in 
 so engaging a manner that the poor man will 
 go through fire and water to serve him. And 
 in this friendly way the whole population of 
 Austria has been kept in check so long. 
 
 German bullying does not exist here, and 
 it is not difficult to imagine the effect that the 
 bullying, brutal Prussians must have on this 
 courteous people. In one way it was well for 
 them that they should be brought into con- 
 tact with them. It has opened their minds 
 to the real facts. The scales are falling from 
 their eyes. Now at last they begin to realise 
 how shamefully they have been oppressed. So 
 long as the orders of their tyrants were couched 
 in suave words and punctuated with smiles 
 these poor people were blind to the hard- 
 ness of their lot. The comedy of gracious- 
 ness covered the tragedy of callous cruelty. 
 When they had to pay homage to the chiefs 
 
 132
 
 The People 
 
 of their districts — despots surrounded by dili- 
 gent spies — they were too simple to recog- 
 nise the tyrant beneath the mask of the good- 
 tempered, smiling official. When on festive 
 occasions they set out with bunting and music 
 and the school-children were arrayed in white, 
 their pleasure in the pageantry of the affair 
 caused them to forget that they were acknow- 
 ledging a power which existed in opposition 
 to their most genuine convictions. But when 
 the Prussian came and with the impudence 
 of his race commanded that flags were to be 
 waved and music played and children dressed 
 in white, with no accompanying smile or 
 gracious quip, then the Austrian people, when 
 they had recovered from their first amaze- 
 ment, gradually became aware that the change 
 which they detested lay in method rather 
 than in practice. They realise now that all 
 these years they have existed in a kind of 
 torpor under an oppression the extent of 
 which is now at last revealed to them. The 
 moment cannot be far off in which they will 
 understand that this is the crucial moment in 
 their history, and they will rise united in 
 
 133
 
 The People 
 
 devotion to a common cause — the freedom 
 for which they have so long yearned in secret. 
 
 It was this idealism, this genius as it were, 
 that prevented the people of Austria from 
 awakening before. They were too poor, their 
 means were too limited to allow of their 
 development, to permit them to be aware of 
 their own value. Their light-heartedness, 
 their inherent frugality made them easily 
 satisfied, and so long as they could sit at the 
 table of an inn or cafe and hear a little music 
 all their needs seemed to be supplied. 
 
 In Austria, unlike other countries, you can 
 go to a cafe or tavern for a little refreshment 
 and stay as long as you like. People go, for 
 instance, at about five o'clock and order a 
 " melange," which consists of a large glass 
 of perfect cafe au lait with abundance of 
 cream on top and which costs about fourpence, 
 and on the strength of this munificent order 
 they can stay till seven o'clock or even later. 
 They sit in groups of six or eight at a table, 
 all friends together, for no one would take a 
 seat among strangers. The cafe is the ren- 
 dezvous of the lower middle class in town, 
 
 i34
 
 The People 
 
 and also the only means which the peasantry 
 have for social intercourse. Rich people are 
 not supposed to visit these resorts, though the 
 food is almost invariably excellent as well as 
 inexpensive. 
 
 Should a foreigner have the curiosity to 
 visit one of these cafes on several consecutive 
 days he would invariably find the same 
 people there each day, and were he to con- 
 tinue his visits for months it would be the 
 same thing. Probably he would come to the 
 conclusion that these people were extra- 
 ordinarily frivolous, but really the frivolity 
 does not go very deep. The public in the 
 afternoon consists mainly of women, in the 
 evening of men, and upon investigation he 
 would find that there is a good reason for the 
 frequenting of these places by the people. 
 Rents in Austrian large towns, especially in 
 Vienna, are terribly high. All the people, 
 with the exception of the high nobility, live 
 in flats. Only the great aristocracy inhabit 
 mansions of a size unknown in English towns 
 and more of the Italian palazzo type. The 
 flats in which the rest of humanity live are 
 
 i35
 
 The People 
 
 of all sizes, some contain more than twenty 
 rooms and some one room and a kitchen. 
 The rents vary according to size and quarter, 
 but the cheapest rate in Vienna for one 
 kitchen and a bedroom is ten shillings a week. 
 A family of four or five with one maid 
 often reside in a flat consisting of one large 
 and two small bedrooms, dining-room, and 
 kitchen. For that the head of the house 
 will have to pay at least fifty pounds a year, 
 and such a flat at that price could only be 
 found in a mediocre quarter of the town on 
 the second or third floor of a very old house 
 in which the drainage is bad, no means of 
 lighting are provided beyond the use of 
 petrol lamps, and which will contain no bath- 
 room and no water except a common source 
 of supply on the landing of the staircase. A 
 flat in the same quarter but in a new house 
 with electric light and water laid on in the flat, 
 but no bathroom, would cost about seventy 
 pounds. Thus a family that has to maintain 
 itself on an income of £200 or £250 a year — 
 and there are heaps of respectable people 
 whose incomes do not exceed that amount — 
 
 136
 
 The People 
 
 will have to make extraordinary sacrifices to 
 be able to pay such a rent. As a rule people 
 of this class keep one little servant maid who 
 receives perhaps six pounds a year in return 
 for such services as an undersized girl of 
 fifteen can render. All the housework there- 
 fore which requires any degree of skill has to 
 be undertaken by the mother of the family a 
 
 Yet these people are of a cheery disposition 
 and rarely inveigh against the fate which has 
 made their life so hard, though inwardly they 
 may be longing for some change from the 
 long, dull round of trivial duties by which 
 they are enslaved. Their homes are too 
 small, their surroundings too sordid to en- 
 courage cheerfulness. The children enjoy 
 somewhat better atmospheric conditions 
 during their school hours, for the school 
 buildings are generally large and commodious 
 with excellent hygienic arrangements. The 
 fathers have intercourse with other men at 
 their places of employment, but the poor 
 hard-working mother has no moment of 
 leisure during the day, and even if she had 
 could not afford to entertain her friends to so 
 
 137
 
 The People 
 
 much as a social cup of tea. Here the cafe 
 comes in, for she can go there in the afternoon 
 and drink a cup of coffee and have a chat with 
 her friends who are living under the same 
 conditions. 
 
 In fact the cafe takes the place of the Club 
 — and more, it has to make up for the de- 
 ficiencies of the home. Since accommodation 
 is so limited that often one of the children is 
 obliged to sleep on a couch in the dining-room, 
 in the evening papa also has to choose be- 
 tween his bed and the cafe as a place of refuge. 
 This is particularly the case on Sundays. It 
 follows that gradually the cafe has become a 
 habit, a habit which has even taken root 
 among those who possess better homes but 
 lack the means to entertain. It is a less 
 expensive way of indulging in social inter- 
 course and involves far less trouble for the 
 housekeeper. 
 
 The custom of treating is unknown. People 
 simply go to the cafe to meet their friends. 
 In summer the coffee garden replaces the 
 cafe. There on Sundays one may see whole 
 families whose incomes vary from £300 or 
 
 138
 
 The People 
 
 £400 a year to the twenty shillings a week 
 which is the average pay of the working-man. 
 All these have come on a pilgrimage from 
 homes which are not pleasant enough to 
 compete with the attractions of the public 
 gardens. In England most of these people 
 would possess small houses or cottages with 
 little gardens attached in which they could 
 take their ease and receive their friends. 
 Other refreshments beside coffee are to be 
 obtained in these places, ices are provided 
 in the better-class gardens and beer and 
 cheese in the others. But everywhere the 
 same atmosphere prevails, an atmosphere free 
 from care, impregnated with innocent light- 
 heartedness, proceeding from people who are 
 taking their life, hard as it is, without grum- 
 bling and rejoicing in their rare moments of 
 relaxation. 
 
 There are two places of special attraction 
 in Vienna — the Prater and Schonbrunn. The 
 latter is the residence of the Emperor and 
 is on the outskirts of the capital, for it is 
 only on rare occasions that he is in residence 
 at the Hofburg, his town palace. The park, 
 
 139
 
 The People 
 
 which contains the Zoological Gardens, is 
 open to the public and admittance is free. 
 Hence Schonbrunn is the goal of many a 
 Viennese child. But the Prater is the more 
 popular ; it was originally the imperial 
 hunting-ground near the capital, but at that 
 time Vienna was much smaller than it is 
 to-day, for the Prater can scarcely be said to 
 be on the outskirts of the city at the present 
 time. These grounds were given to the 
 public by the Emperor Josef, who, as I said 
 before, could never do enough to alleviate the 
 hardships of mankind. The gift was a source 
 of great annoyance to the nobility, who until 
 then had alone enjoyed the privilege of 
 rambling in these grounds, and it is said that 
 one nobleman even dared to complain to the 
 Emperor about his act of generosity. " Where 
 shall we go now if we wish to move in the 
 society of our equals ? That was the only 
 place where we could be exclusive ! " the 
 dismayed aristocrat exclaimed bitterly. " If 
 I wished to confine myself to the company of 
 my equals, dear friend," replied the Em- 
 peror, " I am afraid I should have to take 
 
 140
 
 The People 
 
 my recreation in the imperial crypt. There 
 is only one Emperor in the country so far as 
 I know ! " So the beautiful forest remained 
 open for all time. 
 
 The greater part retains its original charac- 
 ter, but some of it has undergone changes. 
 In process of time it has been divided into the 
 Volks-Prater and Nobel- Prater ; not that one 
 part is prohibited to either class, but gradually 
 it became the custom for the aristocracy to 
 enjoy their drives and rides on horseback in 
 one section of the Park, while merry-go- 
 rounds, cheap theatres, swings, and restaurant 
 gardens delighted the common herd in the 
 other section. This quarter is the same 
 to-day as it was fifty years ago, and time has 
 effected no modification of the usage. In 
 some of the cheap restaurants dancing is 
 permitted, but those who avail themselves of 
 the privilege have to pay a farthing per 
 dance. These little " hops " are the special 
 rendezvous of soldiers and servant-maids. 
 The other side has altered its original aspect, 
 for the motor-car has changed the fashion. 
 It is no longer the tip-top of " chic " to drive 
 
 141
 
 The People 
 
 in a carriage and pair with coachman and 
 footman on the box, and the Prater is too 
 near Vienna to be useful as a goal for motorists. 
 Only one resort has remained — the Krieau, a 
 kind of farm situated in an isolated position 
 in the most countrified part of the Prater. 
 This is much frequented by society people, 
 especially on racing days, as it is very near 
 the race-course of the Freundenau. Twenty 
 years ago it was the favourite haunt of all 
 who aspired to gain a footing in Society, as 
 it lay at such a distance from the capital that 
 horses and carriages were required to convey 
 people to it. 
 
 Until the beginning of this war Vienna 
 possessed in her fiacres the finest hired-out 
 horse-vehicles in the world. The Viennese 
 fiacre was famous everywhere, and no equal 
 could be found of the Viennese driver. The 
 " Fiacre-Kutscher " was a personage, a typical 
 Austrian product — the embodiment of the 
 Slav-Magyar-Italian-German mixture. His 
 manner was always extremely polite, until 
 you attempted to bargain with him. As a 
 rule he was a man inclined to corpulency, due 
 
 142
 
 The People 
 
 to his sedentary life and the amount of good 
 beer he was in the habit of consuming. He 
 was the type of Austrian light-heartedness. 
 When the motor-car appeared his prestige 
 declined, but he was such a favourite with 
 the people that he was kept up as a kind of 
 religious institution. I am afraid that the 
 year 1914 must have seen the end of his long 
 and happy reign, for horses were scarce and 
 needed for the Army, and with him one of the 
 most characteristic relics of dear old Vienna 
 has gone to the grave. 
 
 Dear old Vienna ! Still some traces of you 
 may be found in your more remote corners, 
 where one may wander on a quiet summer's 
 day through broad streets with grey stone 
 buildings, none of them more than three 
 stories high, with flowers blossoming in 
 every window. Here one may catch from 
 afar the strains of some quartette of strolling 
 musicians playing in a courtyard, to whom 
 the maids throw their coppers wrapped up in 
 paper. The word " Laudongasse " will recall 
 this picture to many an American and English 
 student. 
 
 i43
 
 The People 
 
 These musicians are also an old Viennese 
 tradition. Many of them are really ex- 
 cellent performers and might have become 
 great artists had fortune willed. But no- 
 where perhaps is it harder to gain prominence 
 in the musical world than it is in Vienna; 
 there is too much competition, the Austrians 
 are all so highly musical. All the greatest 
 music is Austrian in origin or by virtue of 
 the influence that produced it. Even Beet- 
 hoven and Brahms, both German by birth, 
 lived, worked, and died in Austria. Mozart, 
 Schubert, Haydn were born there. And in 
 lighter music who does not know the Blue 
 Danube waltz by the immortal Strauss ? 
 Where would English musical comedy be 
 without the waltzes of Lehar, composer of 
 " The Merry Widow," " The Count of Luxem- 
 bourg," and " Gipsy Love " ? And what 
 would our parade bands and barrel organs 
 do without the " Chocolate Soldier " and 
 " Waltz Dream " of Oscar Strauss ? 
 
 A people capable of inspiring music which 
 reaches so high a pitch of excellence in such 
 varied forms cannot be on the decline. But 
 
 144
 
 The People 
 
 it is only in a country where life can be taken 
 gaily that such music will be created ; it is 
 the expression of the Austrian soul — the soul 
 that rises above all sordidness, above the 
 pettiness of everyday life, above (of course) 
 reality. 
 
 From the same source arises the charm, 
 that magnetic charm of the Austrian which 
 makes it impossible for any one to regard 
 him as an enemy. It is difficult to believe 
 that such people could hate, that in acting 
 spitefully they could be obeying the prompt- 
 ings of their own natural instincts. 
 
 I have described the introduction of Bradi's 
 Wintergarden in an earlier chapter. At the 
 beginning it was merely a pleasure resort 
 like many others. The Grinzinger Quartette 
 had a restaurant of the same kind, the 
 Gartenbau Gesellschaft another, and there 
 were many more. What was the chief at- 
 traction at all these places ? Music ! Gay 
 Viennese music. There was not a particle of 
 vicious frivolity about them, nothing but 
 quite innocent and genuine pleasure, and 
 many a song which later on has been spread 
 10 145
 
 The People 
 
 abroad and obtained a world-wide fame has 
 issued from these more or less humble resorts. 
 The Capelle Drescher, which in later years 
 took up its abode in Manchester after travel- 
 ling over the whole of Great Britain, was 
 originally nothing more than one of the many 
 string bands so well known in Austria. 
 
 The changes which have been introduced 
 into these places are largely due to foreign 
 influence. It suddenly occurred to the 
 Viennese that in comparison with other 
 European capitals their town received far too 
 few visitors ; they came to believe that they 
 were too " klein stadtisch " [provincial] for 
 the wide-travelled tourist and tried with all 
 their might to become " gross stadtisch " 
 [metropolitan]. The transformation was not 
 a reformation. Personally I do not believe 
 the tourist was much attracted by this pro- 
 cess of modernisation, while the Viennese 
 themselves tried to live up to the new con- 
 ditions and lost in the effort much of their 
 charming ingenuousness. And in spite of all 
 what was it that made Bradi's famous and 
 thus gave the lead to the inauguration of a 
 
 146
 
 The People 
 
 new era ? Again a song, a mere song ! Its 
 first words were : " Those who have no 
 money, stay at home " [" Kinder ! Wer ka 
 Geld hat der bleibt z'Haus"]; neither luxury, 
 champagne, nor women could have done what 
 that one little song achieved. "Tout Vienne " 
 made a pilgrimage to Bradi's to hear it ! 
 
 God grant that the trial through which the 
 Austrian people are passing at this moment 
 may lead them back to the road from which 
 they threatened to go astray ! May they 
 return to their old good-natured kind-hearted- 
 ness when once the dark clouds which were 
 oppressing them for years will have given 
 place to the bright sunshine of the prosperity 
 which has been too long withheld from them. 
 And when at last peace and justice reign 
 over these dear people it will only be neces- 
 sary to touch the main string of their sensi- 
 tive souls to bring them back to themselves. 
 
 One little song and all will be well again. 
 
 i47
 
 VIII. A FEW WORDS ON EDUCATION 
 
 AS I was educated myself in Austria 
 and am bringing up my own chil- 
 dren in England, it is an easy task 
 for me to compare the two methods. Of 
 course, when I was a child the education of 
 a girl was not considered a very serious matter 
 by her parents, for marriage, just as in Eng- 
 land, was regarded as her only proper career, 
 though the Austrian girl of the better class 
 made a more serious study of French and 
 English than the English girl did of French 
 and German. In other respects the educa- 
 tion in both countries reached very much the 
 same standard. 
 
 The difference between English and Aus- 
 trian education became more marked when 
 the girls attained the age of sixteen, f* While 
 in England at that age they stayed on at 
 boarding-school, learning very little except 
 
 148
 
 A Few Words on Education 
 
 sports, painting, and music, Austrian girls, 
 like those of most other European countries, 
 were initiated into the arts of housekeeping 
 with special attention to cookery — not, be it 
 understood, in cooking classes, but in their 
 own homes. For no Austrian cook would 
 dare to exclude her mistress or the daughters 
 of the house from the kitchen. The women 
 of Austria, no matter what their rank, can 
 cook a decent meal, and indeed would be 
 ashamed to acknowledge to their servants 
 that they did not understand every detail of 
 the culinary art. Yet the Austrian woman, 
 in spite of her talent as a Hausfrau, is not, 
 like her German cousin, in any wise a Philis- 
 tine ; she is generally a well-read and often 
 a very entertaining person. 
 
 But since my childhood such an immense 
 change has passed over the education of girls 
 in every country of the world that I dare 
 not attempt to raise too many points of com- 
 parison. It is quite a different case with 
 boys. For them the system of education has 
 undergone scarcely any change. The chil- 
 dren of the masses go to school up to the age 
 
 149
 
 A Few Words on Education 
 
 of fourteen and there is very little difference 
 between the instruction of girls and of boys. 
 There are eight standards through which they 
 can pass if they are sufficiently intelligent. 
 The first five are called the Volks-schule, and 
 all children high and low must pass through 
 these five courses of instruction. The re- 
 maining three standards form the Biirger- 
 schule which until twenty years ago had to 
 be passed by girls of all classes, but, in the 
 case of boys, were only compulsory for those 
 of the lowest rank. In the middle and higher 
 classes of the community a boy, after having 
 passed through the first five forms would, at 
 the age of ten, enter the Gymnasium or classi- 
 cal school, at which Greek and Latin are 
 essential studies and where he receives his 
 first preparation for the university. Or he 
 can go to the Real-schule, where drawing and 
 arithmetic are the most important subjects 
 and English and French are substituted for 
 Greek and Latin. In these schools boys are 
 prepared for the engineering profession. The 
 Gymnasium has eight forms, the Real-schule 
 seven. 
 
 150
 
 A Few Words on Education 
 
 " My eight years at the Gymnasium will re- 
 main in my memory as the hardest and most 
 troublesome period of my whole life," said an 
 Austrian to me once here in London. He 
 was a man of about forty who had certainly 
 experienced many worries and troubles since 
 his schooldays, yet nothing in his opinion 
 could be compared with the hardships he had 
 undergone as a youth. Is it not really a 
 tragedy that this time which ought to remain 
 in one's memory as the brightest and happiest 
 of one's life should be thus strained ? For 
 this man was only expressing the opinion 
 of thousands and thousands of his fellow- 
 countrymen. 
 
 What a contrast does the school-time of an 
 English boy present ! It is true that until 
 quite recently the average English schoolboy 
 was allowed to take his studies too lightly, yet 
 even this under-study was less detrimental 
 to the development of his character than 
 over-study. Indeed, the example of Austria 
 should be a warning to English and American 
 pedagogues. Over-strenuous brain-work in 
 early youth must inevitably be followed by 
 
 151
 
 A Few Words on Education 
 
 brain-fatigue, and, though it may be con- 
 sidered a rather bold statement, yet I do 
 assert that the average man in Austria with 
 an academic education behind him lacks 
 energy, has lost independence of character 
 and with it much of his sense of responsibility. 
 He gets into the habit of depending on his 
 books, and the moment a situation arises 
 which demands cool common sense he is 
 helplessly at a loss. 
 
 A very amusing incident occurred in 1911 
 during my stay at Feldafhng, which affords 
 an apt illustration of what I have said. 
 Among the other hotel guests was a young 
 Viennese woman with a son of the same age 
 as my own whom I had left in Canada. 
 Every afternoon during the hot summer 
 weather this poor child was coached by his 
 mother, and as their rooms adjoined mine on 
 the left-hand side and in the fervour of her 
 instructions her voice would often be raised, 
 I frequently played the part of an involuntary 
 audience. I must confess that my motherly 
 pride sank to a very low ebb, for this boy 
 had to solve arithmetical problems which I 
 
 152
 
 A Few Words on Education 
 
 should have found difficult, and certainly my 
 own son would have appeared a veritable 
 dunce in comparison. A few days after I 
 first heard these lessons the little boy was 
 sent out to buy some plain note-paper. His 
 mother had given him a fifty-pfennig piece 
 [sixpence] and he was told to purchase 
 twenty-five pfennigs' worth of paper and 
 bring back the change. He brought the 
 paper, but the change was incorrect and he 
 could not account for the mistake, as he had 
 no idea what was the price of the paper and 
 had never even counted the change when it 
 was handed to him ! " Well," I thought to 
 myself, " my boy might not be able to cope 
 with your acrobatic calculations, but he 
 would know how to use his common sense if 
 he were sent on an errand with sixpence to 
 buy three pennyworth of paper." Austrian 
 men in general are in the same condition as 
 that poor little lad — they have not been 
 trained to use their common sense. 
 
 But what is far worse than even this 
 cramming and over-study is the unsatisfactory 
 state of the relations between teachers and 
 
 i53
 
 A Few Words on Education 
 
 pupils. Schools in Austria are all Govern- 
 ment institutions and consequently the 
 teachers are appointed by the State. They 
 hold office for life with rather poor pay, 
 varying from £100 to £200 a year, and an old- 
 age pension. But since the master is in 
 Government employ he at once considers 
 himself a bureaucrat and gives himself airs 
 befitting, as he thinks, his position. The 
 Gymnasium as well as the Real-schule is 
 staffed by men alone, and as a rule they are 
 bullies and very ill-tempered. Their lot is 
 not an enviable one ; they have to teach 
 about fifty boys at once and some of their 
 pupils have very hard heads. The boys are 
 in a constant state of anxiety, while the 
 master does all in his power to thwart the 
 instincts of youth. There is nothing of the 
 friendly intercourse that exists between an 
 English schoolmaster and his pupils. The 
 Herr Professor of an Austrian school is a 
 dreaded being, a kind of ill-tempered bull-dog. 
 A little incident may illustrate how ingrained 
 in them is this unfriendliness. 
 
 A man who for many years had lived 
 
 154
 
 A Few Words on Education 
 
 abroad came back to Vienna for a short visit. 
 As he was one day passing the school building 
 in which he had once been so long chafed and 
 harassed, a feeling of curiosity inspired him 
 to look inside it. He strolled into the yard 
 and from that made his way into one of the 
 long passages. But his little perambulation 
 was soon interrupted ; a man evidently, to 
 judge from his appearance, a school professor, 
 stopped him and asked what he wanted. 
 The intruder tried to explain that he had 
 spent eight precious years of his life within 
 these walls and that curiosity had led him 
 to pay this little call. 
 
 " That has nothing to do with me," the 
 uncouth fellow replied ; "I am the head master 
 now, and no stranger can be admitted. I 
 don't care who you are ! " 
 
 The former student hurriedly beat a re- 
 treat without any further comment, but his 
 experience shows the spirit in which Austrian 
 schools are conducted. It is unnecessary to 
 contrast this man's action with that of an 
 English head master. Every one who reads 
 these pages will know the kind of reception 
 
 i55
 
 A Few Words on Education 
 
 an old student, interested enough to visit 
 his former place of instruction, would receive 
 from any head master in England. 
 
 Yes, in the schools of Austria Ger- 
 man bullying has indeed made itself at 
 home. 
 
 I heard some one say the other day that 
 Austrians had no sense of humour. At first 
 I was extremely indignant, for of course the 
 Austrian by nature is exceptionally humor- 
 ous, and, as a literal statement, the assertion 
 is absurd. At the same time there is no 
 doubt that certain classes of Austrians are 
 deficient in this respect and among them 
 must be numbered the members of the lower 
 bureaucracy. Their sense of humour is de- 
 stroyed by their life of dissimulated poverty, 
 and no doubt the schoolmaster has lost his in 
 the same way. For the most part he is an 
 embittered man, and having often spent some 
 of his educational years in Germany he has 
 learned to cloak his ill-temper by a habit of 
 bullying. Also it is probable that the system 
 is encouraged by the Government. The au- 
 thorities do not want to bring up bright, 
 
 156
 
 A Few Words on Education 
 
 intelligent, free-thinking men. In a country 
 where a regime of oppression is essential to 
 the ruling classes, it is certainly by malice 
 aforethought that this system of oppression 
 is brought to bear even upon the children of 
 the nation. But not only is the child kept 
 down to make his spirit weak and submissive, 
 but the young man is also hindered in his 
 career by regulations, which he must satisfy 
 before he attains full independence. A 
 lawyer after emerging from the University, 
 at the age of twenty-three at the earliest, 
 must serve seven years as a so-called con- 
 cipient in a law office before he is allowed to 
 establish himself. His pay is about fifty or 
 sixty pounds a year. The man who has 
 studied as much law as is obligatory for a 
 high Government career must be to obtain 
 a position at least twenty-two years of age, 
 and must then serve two years in a Govern- 
 ment department for nothing. He receives 
 one shilling " ink money " per month. After 
 that for several years varying from two to 
 five he gets thirty to fifty pounds a year, 
 and by the time he is thirty he will enjoy the 
 
 i57
 
 A Few Words on Education 
 
 lordly salary of £100 to £150 per annum. 
 A doctor who wishes to be successful must 
 fill the post of assistant to a State hospital 
 in one of the larger cities. While he is there 
 his pay is next to nothing, but, as he has to 
 live in, his expenses are not very large. He 
 too is well over thirty before he can start 
 on his own. Engineers and architects are 
 less restricted, but like men of all other 
 professions are very late in starting for them- 
 selves. No man is considered to be of full 
 age much before thirty. While in other 
 countries a young man of twenty-five is 
 regarded as a man, in Austria he would be 
 looked upon as a mere youth. Hence the 
 men themselves have learnt not to consider 
 themselves of responsible age until they are 
 thirty ; they believe that all kinds of foolish 
 tricks are still their prerogative while in 
 reality they should have sowed their wild 
 oats long ago. Moreover, many of them still 
 live on papa's money and thus have no 
 opportunity of learning its real value. If, on 
 the other hand, their parents are poor, their 
 poverty only too often embitters them and 
 
 158
 
 A Few Words on Education 
 
 brings them under the influence of others who 
 can help them. 
 
 To the category of the embittered belong 
 the school-teachers, so that very often one 
 can scarcely wonder at their fiery tempers ; 
 the hard necessities of life have rendered them 
 harsh. 
 
 Naturally if the Austrians regard a man 
 under thirty as a mere stripling the national 
 tendency towards frivolity is easily explained. 
 The years of irresponsibility are so enormously 
 extended for just that class from which 
 should issue the leaders of the nation. 
 
 But this system of keeping the youth of 
 Austria back is deliberately conceived. It is 
 to the interest of the governing classes that 
 these young people should not be too anxious 
 to intrude into the realm of practical affairs, 
 and thus it is as if they would drain the sap 
 of the best trees in the Austrian forest. 
 
 So as everywhere else, here too the hour is 
 striking in which the hierarchical monument 
 of Humanity, hidden under the cloak of 
 thoroughness and culture, must speedily be 
 rebuilt. 
 
 i59
 
 IX. THE PEASANTRY 
 
 I HAVE compared the Austrian monarchy 
 to an old ruined house, and the descrip- 
 tion of this edifice would be most in- 
 complete did I omit to mention the peasantry. 
 It would mean that I was neglecting the only 
 part of the building that is perfectly sound 
 and free from any indications of decay, for 
 the peasants of Austria, more perhaps than 
 those of any other country, are fine people. 
 They are vigorous and sane both in body and 
 soul, and may deservedly be called the pride 
 of the monarchy. Take the Czechs, the Poles, 
 the Moravians in the north, or the Slovaks, 
 the Italians, the Vends in the south, the Hun- 
 garians in the east, the Lower Austrians in the 
 centre, the Upper Austrians and Tyrolese in 
 the west — they all bear the hall-mark of a 
 clean, pure, and honest spirit. They are 
 kind-hearted, hard-working, and take little in- 
 terest in politics, being chiefly occupied in 
 
 160
 
 The Peasantry 
 
 the honest toil entailed on them by the neces- 
 sity for earning their daily bread. Still very 
 naive, they live a life of their own, untouched 
 by Western civilisation, and yet on a higher 
 grade than the Eastern races of the near Orient. 
 Naturally there are distinctions between 
 the different nationalities. For instance, the 
 hardest working of all is undoubtedly the 
 Czech ; he is perhaps the finest type of pea- 
 sant that exists to-day, and consequently 
 excites a good deal of jealousy among other 
 Austrians. He is a shrewd, clever fellow, 
 the most advanced of all the Slav peasantry 
 including even the Russian and Balkan pea- 
 sants of Slav origin. He possesses a good 
 share of humour and must impress the 
 foreigner as a very droll specimen ; yet his 
 spirits are volatile, he can drop from the 
 height of gaiety to the depth of depression in 
 a few minutes. In this respect he differs from 
 the peasants of the Crown lands, who are 
 invariably light-hearted and have not the 
 slightest tendency to melancholy. A Czech 
 woman will weep six times to a Crownlander's 
 once, but on the other hand the Crownlander 
 ii 161
 
 The Peasantry 
 
 will fall into constant rages for nothing, while 
 the Czech is seldom seen to lose his temper. 
 Yet the Crownlander will forget the cause of 
 his anger almost before he has recovered 
 from its effects, while the Czech will cherish a 
 grudge for a very long time, and indeed will 
 never allow it to pass entirely out of his mind. 
 Dreaminess and melancholy are common to 
 all Slav peoples, but I think this resentfulness 
 is a special characteristic of the Czech. 
 
 The Poles and the other Slav races in 
 Austria may be regarded as coming between 
 the Crownlander and the Czech. They are 
 neither quite so energetic nor so industrious 
 as the latter, nor do they bubble over with 
 lightheartedness so readily as the Crown- 
 lander. The Hungarian is the easiest pea- 
 sant to move and the most impulsive. He is 
 very enthusiastic, very hard-working, and 
 perhaps the most primitive type to be found 
 among the Austro-Hungarian peasantry. He 
 probably suffers most at this moment, for one 
 of his essential faculties is his keenness of men- 
 tal perception involving the possibility of that 
 intense mental suffering which is always so 
 
 162
 
 The Peasantry 
 
 much more acute than any physical pain. Let 
 me give an example to illustrate my meaning : 
 in this terrible phase through which we are 
 now living the Crownlander remains compara- 
 tively calm, almost indifferent until he feels 
 the pressure of physical want. (This trait, by 
 the way, is not only peculiar to the Crownland- 
 er.) Meantime the Hungarians and the Slavs 
 have already suffered in their anticipation of 
 future misery, in their agony at the degrada- 
 tion through which their country is passing. 
 Spiritually they are more highly developed ; 
 they scent the coming danger, there is no 
 necessity to bring it under their eyes. It is 
 much easier to dupe the Crownlander, he is 
 much more patient, much too credulous, and 
 quite willing to believe what he is told until 
 the bare facts stare him in the face. But 
 with all these peasants, in whatever state of 
 development, their revolt will be terrible 
 when the day of reckoning arrives. 
 
 It is curious that these people, in spite of 
 their different characteristics, have so many 
 of the same customs and habits and so much 
 in common in their mode of life. Their food 
 
 163
 
 The Peasantry 
 
 is the same everywhere ; smoked and home- 
 cured bacon with dumplings made of bread 
 and flour, and cabbage fermented in salt 
 called " Sauerkraut," form the basis of their 
 winter diet. Boiled beef, lettuce, potatoes, 
 and similar dumplings constitute their main 
 dish during the summer months for their 
 midday meal. At all other times of the 
 day cafe au lait is served in large bowls, 
 holding at least a pint, with dry black rye 
 bread ; white bread is a luxury reserved for 
 special occasions, so is butter, which is saved 
 for consumption by the townspeople. They 
 eat large quantities of food at a time, but are 
 very particular as regards its quality, and in 
 this respect their habits are at variance with 
 those of the other classes in Austria. While 
 the German is reputed to eat in large quan- 
 tities with little discrimination as to quality, 
 the Austrian, with the exception of the pea- 
 sant, is a gourmet and his fastidiousness 
 increases with his means. 
 
 To serve a lunch or dinner which is not 
 perfect in every detail would be a disgrace 
 to any hostess. Even in ordinary life the 
 
 164
 
 The Peasantry 
 
 food is excellent and varied, and dinner is 
 quite a vital question in the household. So I 
 consider that any foreign girl who should 
 marry an Austrian ought to become an 
 expert cook if she wishes to forestall disaster. 
 But while we are on the subject of marriage 
 I would like to say a few words of warning. 
 Austrian men, charming, distinguished, and 
 cultivated as they may be, certainly do not 
 make desirable husbands on the whole. Their 
 education is so unpractical that they are in- 
 capable of grasping the full responsibility 
 that a man takes on his shoulders when he 
 enters into the bonds of matrimony. So 
 many of them are accustomed to having 
 their affairs managed by other people that 
 only too often they expect the young wife 
 to take the greater share of the responsibility 
 on her shoulders, and this shifting of the 
 burden leads not infrequently to misfortune. 
 
 I must apologise for having drifted away 
 from my original theme, but sympathy for my 
 sisters diverted the course of my pen. 
 
 To return to the subject of the peasants ; 
 their men, unlike those of the higher classes, 
 
 165
 
 The Peasantry 
 
 make excellent husbands. There is very little 
 drunkenness among them beyond an occasional 
 outburst on a Sunday, for their chief beverage 
 is wine or beer according to the district, and 
 spirits are absolutely unknown. 
 
 Both men and women are extremely early 
 risers, in summer they get up as early as three 
 o'clock and in winter not later than five. 
 The peasant generally owns a freehold pro- 
 perty instead of renting his land like the 
 English farmer, and this fact probably ac- 
 counts for his addiction to hard work. He 
 has no landlord, no one beside himself whose 
 interest it is to keep the ground fertile and 
 the roof in good repair. To be able to meet 
 all his expenses he must work hard at his 
 sowing and reaping. In process of years 
 this condition of affairs has made him am- 
 bitious and proud, so that to-day he would 
 not exchange a small cottage and a few acres 
 of his own for an estate with house and stables 
 which would only be leased to him. This it 
 is which has made him such a fine fellow ; he 
 has something of his own to work for, some- 
 thing he can improve. The home, which 
 
 166
 
 The Peasantry 
 
 some day will go to his son and his grand- 
 children, is the object of his whole life. His 
 wife is his comrade in the struggle, she works 
 almost as hard as her husband ; and perhaps 
 here we may find a proof that strenuous 
 physical labour does not impair a woman's 
 health or hinder the functions of childbirth. 
 For the peasant's family is always a large 
 one ; it is an essential part of his fortune. 
 Farm hands are necessary for the develop- 
 ment of his land, and the payment of wages 
 would be a serious drain on a peasant pro- 
 prietor's resources, but there are always 
 sufficient dumplings and bread with which 
 to feed the little urchin. While for the most 
 part it is the man's work to plough and reap 
 in the fields, it is madame's task to run the 
 home and take the goods to market. Only 
 the big deals such as the sale of grain or stock 
 are transacted by the husband, who drives 
 to market a few times a year. The mer- 
 chandising of the smaller items such as butter, 
 geese, fowls, and cheese, which are sold 
 every week, comes within the wife's sphere. 
 Knowing nothing of the Rights of Woman, 
 
 167
 
 The Peasantry 
 
 ignorant of the Suffrage question, she regards 
 it as a natural thing for her to carry her 
 goods herself, neatly laid out in a large round 
 basket on her head. This she balances by 
 means of a little cushion, and thus laden walks 
 miles and miles up and down hill. It never 
 occurs to her for a moment to resent the fact 
 that her husband would not dream of going 
 to market in such a manner. He of course 
 must drive — that is his natural privilege. No 
 doubt in that way the peasantry are still very 
 backward, though the men treat their wives 
 decently, and in their homes, within their own 
 walls, they are on equal terms, and very often 
 the woman is the chief authority. 
 
 In Bohemia, Moravia, and Northern Hun- 
 gary the women carry their goods to market in 
 a hood made of basketwork, which hangs on 
 their backs. They are so accustomed to carry- 
 ing everything on their backs that even their 
 children are slung in a shawl and fastened round 
 the mother's neck. It is not at all unusual 
 to meet a peasant woman trudging along the 
 road with two or three little fair heads peeping 
 out from the safe recesses of mother's wrap. 
 
 168
 
 The Peasantry 
 
 Of course none of them wear hats, but coloured 
 or black scarves pinned or fastened in various 
 ways. Unfortunately the typical head-dresses 
 of former years are rapidly disappearing. 
 
 But hard-working as the Austro-Hungarian 
 peasant is he looks upon his pleasures and 
 amusements as of vital importance. To spend 
 Sunday as his confreres in England and Scot- 
 land do would appear to him the very depth 
 of misery. " What is the use of working hard 
 all the week," he would say, " if a man can't 
 have a bit of fun on Sunday ? " They attend 
 Mass punctiliously at the beginning of the 
 day, but when that is over their time is their 
 own. First they meet in the little market- 
 place, then they take a stroll to an inn near 
 by where they sit and gossip for an hour, re- 
 turning thence to their own homes for dinner. 
 In the afternoon not a single husband re- 
 mains indoors, for as every village has once a 
 year its special " Kirchtag " (a kind of Sun- 
 day fair) there is always in the vicinity some 
 place of gaiety to which the whole family can 
 repair. One can see from this how deep- 
 rooted in the subjects of the Austro-Hun- 
 
 169
 
 The Peasantry 
 
 garian monarchy is the instinct which leads 
 them to seek their amusement in public places, 
 and that the difference between the citizen 
 and the peasant is only a difference in the 
 quality of the place of entertainment which 
 he frequents. The townsman goes to the cafe, 
 the countryman to the inn, and this applies 
 also to their wives and children. The fact 
 that a man takes his pleasure in the company 
 of his family provides an excellent guarantee 
 for his good behaviour. 
 
 In these inns too they have their music, 
 generally supplied by the so-called " veterans," 
 who are not aged warriors as the term 
 suggests, but merely soldiers who have 
 finished their military duties. 
 
 All the peasantry are Roman Catholics 
 everywhere and very fervent. Their ignor- 
 ance concerning religion is almost incredible 
 and their intolerance fanatical and indis- 
 criminating. A man who is not a Catholic 
 is in their eyes a heathen, and life in a village 
 for such a person would be insupportable. 
 But we must not blame the people for this 
 bigotry ; there is no one whose business it 
 
 170
 
 The Peasantry 
 
 is to lift them out of their darkness, and as 
 apparently they are free, they do not realise 
 that their thoughts are still in bondage. As 
 everywhere else in Austria so here too the 
 invisible power of the Church holds them 
 captive. It is not even in the power of an 
 individual priest to change their way of 
 thought, for should one of them try to bring 
 enlightenment to his parish he would at once 
 be relentlessly removed from it. 
 
 The morals of the peasants are consequently 
 somewhat peculiar. One never hears of an 
 untrue wife or a faithless husband, but, on the 
 other hand, it is difficult to find a girl who 
 has not borne an illegitimate child. Often 
 the lovers of these unmarried mothers are 
 quite without the means to marry and sup- 
 port them, and would make indifferent hus- 
 bands if they were able to do so ; generally 
 they have still to pass through their three 
 years' military service. When the parents 
 discover the condition of their daughter the 
 matter is soon settled ; the young mother in 
 spe gets a sound hiding from her father and 
 then he yields with a good grace to the in- 
 
 171
 
 The Peasantry 
 
 evitable consequences of her misdemeanour. 
 And since an extra child in a peasant's home 
 is a welcome asset, its arrival is not really 
 very much begrudged, and the question of its 
 illegitimacy is generally waved aside. When 
 the mother marries after a few years, not as 
 a rule her first lover, the husband quite will- 
 ingly adopts this " child of sin " as it would 
 be termed in a more strait-laced community. 
 Indeed in some parts, the Northern Tyrol 
 for instance, the men rather like to marry a 
 girl with a child, as they have then a proof 
 before their eyes that their future wife will 
 be able to provide them with the little farm- 
 hands whose assistance is so eagerly desired. 
 As a rule too a woman who has had an ex- 
 perience of this kind becomes a more docile 
 mistress of her new household. 
 
 It is a question of naivete rather than im- 
 morality, and there is no one to teach these 
 simple people a more enlightened code. 
 Not infrequently Herr Pfarrer [Mr. Priest] 
 is himself the father of at least one of these 
 little intruders, but even if he lives a per- 
 fectly clean and pious life his practice is not 
 
 172
 
 The Peasantry 
 
 enough, for his precept is curtailed. He must 
 not be too harsh with his little flock, since the 
 people must remain in the belief that the 
 Roman Catholic Church is the freest of all. 
 One sees the difference between the two 
 regimes by comparing the restricted Catholic 
 priest of Austria with his brother in Ireland ; 
 the Irish priest is encouraged to preach 
 morality — indeed, morality is his stronghold. 
 The British people are morally the highest in 
 the world, hence the Church has no fear of 
 falling into disfavour because it inculcates 
 the doctrine of social purity. Besides, the 
 village priest in Austria-Hungary is generally 
 a man who has only received his " first 
 consecration," and can never rise to any 
 higher position in the Church, because his 
 education has been too limited. Often he is 
 the second son of a rich peasant whose life's 
 ambition is crowned in seeing his child 
 ordained. And these young ignorant priests 
 are mostly so proud and self-satisfied that they 
 consider they are entitled to a certain amount 
 of moral licence. It is a common saying 
 among them when they are attacked, on this 
 
 i73
 
 The Peasantry 
 
 subject, " We have vowed not to marry, but 
 we are not monks." 
 
 While in many ways the present condition 
 of Austria recalls that of France before the 
 Revolution, the life of the peasantry is quite 
 diiferent. Modern times have freed them 
 from serfdom, and even in a state of villeinage 
 the Austrian peasant was never so poor as 
 the French serf. There are, of course, at this 
 moment side by side with the rich peasants 
 a large number whose means are very small, 
 but there is no real destitution — even the 
 poorest has his small cottage, his cow, and the 
 few acres of land which keep him above 
 water. The conditions of their life are not 
 gloomy and they are infinitely better off than 
 the people of their own level in towns. If it 
 were not that they are sunk in a kind of mental 
 stagnation which causes them to stand aside 
 from the onward march of humanity, their 
 lot would be comparatively more enviable 
 than that of any other subjects of the Emperor. 
 Could they only be enlightened in their ideas 
 they would become the mainstay of the 
 Austro-Hungarian monarchy. 
 
 174
 
 X. THE AUSTRIAN COURT 
 
 SO much has been written, so much said, 
 and so much invented on the subject 
 of the Austrian Court that it is rather 
 an ungrateful task, which I have set myself, 
 to add anything to the pile of matter that 
 already exists. For the sphere of the Aus- 
 trian Court is dull and restricted ; its eti- 
 quette is based on narrow-minded traditions, 
 it belongs to an age and a state of affairs that 
 are singularly out of date in this twentieth 
 century. 
 
 Only the other day an Englishwoman said 
 to me : " You must admit, Countess, that 
 in no other royal or imperial house have so 
 many members expressed their desire, and 
 in many instances fulfilled it, of breaking 
 with their family traditions and giving up 
 their rights and titles in order to marry the 
 people for whom they have really cared." 
 
 i75
 
 The Austrian Court 
 
 My first impression was that this statement 
 was absolutely true, but looking at it from a 
 broader point of view I can see that the 
 assertion is inaccurate if Austria be considered 
 in relation to the other Courts of Europe. 
 
 The imperial family of Austria consists of 
 nearly a hundred members, for the Hapsburgs 
 are the only royal family in which all the 
 junior branches bear the same title as the 
 sons and brothers of the Emperor. An 
 example will illustrate my meaning. In Eng- 
 land the cousins of the King have titles of 
 their own ; their descendants have already 
 intermarried in the second generation with 
 the aristocracy. For instance, if the present 
 Prince Arthur of Connaught, the nephew of 
 King Edward VII and grandson of Queen 
 Victoria, had had three sons the first would 
 have succeeded to his father's title, but the 
 second and third would have had other 
 titles, to which their eldest sons would in 
 process of time have succeeded, but their 
 second and third sons would have borne no 
 title indicating princely rank, and would have 
 been perfectly free to spend their lives accord- 
 
 176
 
 The Austrian Court 
 
 ing to their own inclinations and to marry 
 the women of their choice. Nobody would be 
 scandalised, and the wives as a matter of 
 course would have taken their husbands' 
 name and title. In Austria these men would 
 still be Archdukes and obliged to suffer all the 
 restrictions of their rank, simply because a 
 century ago or more one of their remote 
 ancestors happened to be an Emperor. Yet 
 they themselves are much too far from the 
 throne ever to have any chance of attaining 
 imperial suzerainty, and are thus compelled 
 to support a burden which brings them no 
 material compensation whatsoever. 
 
 Indeed it is astonishing that there are not 
 more cases of rebellion ; considering the size 
 of the imperial family the proportion of 
 " strikers " is remarkably small. Did such a 
 state of affairs (let us suppose for the sake of 
 comparison) exist in England I am convinced 
 that the crop of revolutionaries would be 
 much larger — indeed, I cannot imagine any 
 English nobleman acquiescing in conditions 
 of this nature; 
 
 What, then, is the cause of the submissive 
 
 12 177
 
 The Austrian Court 
 
 attitude of the imperial house of Austria ? 
 [It will be seen from my question that I hold 
 an exactly opposite opinion from that of my 
 friend. Though the Austrian imperial family 
 may in other countries be regarded as re- 
 bellious, I maintain on the contrary that it 
 is extraordinarily meek, otherwise some 
 change would have been forced upon it from 
 within.] 
 
 Archdukes as well as Archduchesses are 
 from their earliest childhood systematically 
 trained to distrust real human sentiments. 
 The theory is inculcated into the little Arch- 
 duke's infant mind that he is a unique being 
 to whom the ordinary laws that govern 
 human nature do not apply. He is assured 
 that he is of purer blood than any other royal 
 personage in Europe. He is made to believe 
 that in a world of parvenus he is the sole 
 survivor of a race of kings. He must not 
 listen to the promptings of such good human 
 instincts as sympathy, friendship, faithfulness, 
 and generosity ; these might serve the turn 
 of a Baron or a Count, but they are not " fit 
 for a Hapsburg." This magic phrase is re- 
 
 178
 
 The Austrian Court 
 
 peated at every crisis in his childhood, it is 
 the golden rule and the determinating argu- 
 ment at every juncture in his youth. Even I 
 myself in my secluded upbringing was perse- 
 cuted with this phrase : " Remember," I 
 was told, " to put to yourself this question 
 before every one of your actions — ' Is this 
 worthy of an Archduchess ? ' " Happily, 
 through the extraordinary cast of chance I 
 have had an opportunity of developing on 
 more generous lines, but what would have 
 happened to me had I remained in the 
 atmosphere of this Court ? The few who 
 have had sufficient will power to throw off the 
 fetters of its traditions have by their re- 
 bellion proved that they possessed extra- 
 ordinary strength of character. Indeed, if 
 they have failed, the blame can hardly be laid 
 upon them ; the fact that they were strong 
 enough to revolt does not imply that they had 
 the practical wisdom which their education 
 has given them no chance to cultivate. All 
 their life they have been wrapped in swad- 
 dling clothes. 
 
 The greatest danger and misfortune of the 
 
 179
 
 The Austrian Court 
 
 unhappy house of Hapsburg is this system of 
 education, which is bound to produce un- 
 intelligent men and women totally unfit for 
 the practical business of life. The royal 
 children are never allowed to have friends, 
 they are never left long in the company of 
 any one tutor or governess for fear he or she 
 might gain undue influence over them. From 
 babyhood they have a household consisting of 
 five or six persons, with servants in addition 
 to do the menial work of their apartments, 
 and the child is never permitted to choose 
 its own attendant, but must always be accom- 
 panied by that member of its staff who 
 happens to be on duty for the moment. The 
 poor children are so bored by this arrange- 
 ment that they only deem themselves happy 
 when they are rid of everybody and alone. 
 Thus they gradually lose all faith in humanity 
 and in the end take no interest in any person 
 or thing — certainly none in sociological or 
 political questions. Once grown up they are 
 purposely introduced to a life of licentious- 
 ness ; if they have no vicious tastes their only 
 resources are bigotry and intrigue. Utterly 
 
 180
 
 The Austrian Court 
 
 enervated, they have not as a rule the energy 
 to extricate themselves from this net of 
 tradition, and fall entirely into the hands of a 
 few courtiers and councillors, who pull the 
 strings of State for their own advantage. 
 
 In this way the Countess Sophie Chotec, 
 the tool of the Jesuits, gained complete control 
 over Franz Ferdinand, a creature weak, 
 unnerved, morally decadent, and already 
 somewhat under their influence. But the 
 Duchess of Hohenberg — to use her later 
 title — had reckoned without the counter 
 faction existing at the Court ; its leaders 
 were the Prince Montenuovo and Count 
 iEhrenthal. Human lives are of little im- 
 portance in the eyes of these people, who 
 would have no compunction at a critical 
 moment in removing their opponent from the 
 scene of action. iFhrenthal was Chotec' s, 
 and thus indirectly Franz Ferdinand's, victim, 
 Chotec and Franz Ferdinand became the 
 victims of Prince Montenuovo and his faction, 
 and recently Count Berchtold, the man who 
 had been nominated by Count iEhrenthal 
 himself as his successor, has been appointed 
 
 181
 
 The Austrian Court 
 
 chief adviser to the new heir Karl Franz 
 Josef, screened under the position of Grand 
 Master to his private household. This means 
 that ^hrenthal's policy, a policy unscrupu- 
 lous in method but peaceful in its aims, may 
 eventually prevail. For although when the 
 war broke out Count Berchtold was Minister 
 for Foreign Affairs in Austria, yet he had been 
 obliged to waive his own policy in favour of 
 Franz Ferdinand, who was nothing but the 
 puppet of the Emperor William and the 
 Vatican. During the months which elapsed 
 between Franz Ferdinand's death and the 
 outbreak of hostilities, Count Berchtold had 
 no time to change these destructive plans, but 
 no doubt my readers will remember the 
 report of the British Ambassador, Sir Maurice 
 de Bunsen, in which he described the courtesy 
 with which Count Berchtold had treated him 
 and contrasted his conduct with that of 
 Count Tschirsky, the German ambassador at 
 Vienna. It is not difficult to guess what 
 Count Berchtold's real feelings were, though 
 he was forced to conceal them at that moment. 
 I have no hesitation in asserting that his 
 
 1S2
 
 The Austrian Court 
 
 politics are anti-Prussian and pro-Ally ; his 
 comparatively rapid retirement from his post 
 in the Foreign Office is undoubtedly a con- 
 firmation of my belief. His advice to the 
 new heir will be to form fresh alliances which 
 will certainly not embrace either Germany or 
 Turkey. 
 
 But although the right man happens to 
 have been chosen as pilot for the moment, 
 there is no great cause for congratulation ; 
 he may be overthrown any day by the in- 
 trigues of an opposing faction. For such is 
 the pitiful state of affairs that the government 
 is in the hands of a Camarilla itself divided into 
 camps, which have no desire to pull together 
 for the sake of their country, but are entirely 
 ruled by the interests of faction and self. 
 
 It might be argued that it does not much 
 matter whether a State is torn asunder by 
 party quarrels or by the quarrels of a Cama- 
 rilla, but alas ! the real difference is only too 
 apparent in Austria, for the parties in the 
 Camarilla will shrink from nothing. I have 
 heard here in this country very biting com- 
 ments made upon the members of our English 
 
 183
 
 The Austrian Court 
 
 Cabinet, yet it would be impossible for any 
 sane person to harbour for a moment the 
 idea that one member of the Government 
 would ever be likely to rid himself of another 
 by slow poison, however bitter and an- 
 tagonistic his feeling might be. Mr. Asquith's 
 personal safety is not threatened in spite of 
 the virulent hostility of the Northcliffe press, 
 but I doubt if he would suffer merely from 
 influenza and chills were he Prime Minister 
 of Austria-Hungary ! His recovery might be 
 hampered by a mysterious blood-poisoning 
 as happened in the case of Count iEhrenthal. 
 Besides, in England the leaders of the nation 
 are, after all, chosen by the nation, and if the 
 British people are dissatisfied they have 
 therefore only themselves to thank. In 
 Austria there is at the head of affairs a 
 generation of aristocratic intriguers who have 
 managed to keep their fingers constantly in 
 the political pie, and it is these few people 
 who form that frightful invisible power 
 which, like the canker in an apple, is gradually 
 undermining the health of the whole monarchy. 
 I know this so well from my own experi- 
 
 184
 
 The Austrian Court 
 
 ence that I cannot help mentioning my per- 
 sonal affairs at this point. In 1911 I tried 
 to obtain my rights as Archduchess ; I found 
 myself up against a wall formed by a few 
 individuals who stood like sentinels round 
 the throne of my imperial father. It was not 
 to their interest or advantage that I should 
 gain his ear. In my case the wall consisted 
 of Count iEhrenthal, Prince Montenuovo, 
 and Count Zichy, who had all resolved that I 
 should not be heard. They were the faction 
 of Archduchess Valerie my sister, Archduke 
 Karl Franz Josef, and others. Opposed to 
 their faction was that of the Archduke Franz 
 Ferdinand and his wife the Duchess of 
 Hohenberg, including such important mem- 
 bers of the Court as Baron Runerskirchen 
 and many high ecclesiastical and military 
 people. I did not bring my cause before 
 them, but I am almost certain that I should 
 have been just as unsuccessful had I done so ; 
 it is not likely that my success in obtaining 
 justice would have been any particular benefit 
 to them. If Franz Ferdinand would have 
 gained anything byjielping me he would have 
 
 185
 
 The Austrian Court 
 
 done so, and enjoyed fighting the other 
 faction, but as his interest in suppressing my 
 claim was equally strong with that of his 
 opponents I had no chance with either party. 
 
 This little incident would hardly be worth 
 mentioning, but that it does show how diffi- 
 cult it is in Austria to obtain a hearing. What 
 happened to my claim takes place also in mat- 
 ters of national importance ; no one can ever 
 reckon upon the actions of the opposition. 
 
 The Emperor himself is the chief victim 
 of these intriguers. He really has very little 
 to say in public affairs, but his councillors con- 
 ceal the fact of his impotence from him. 
 Unwittingly he carries out the wishes of the 
 party in power for the moment, who keep him 
 in ignorance of anything they prefer he should 
 not know, or so dish up the truth that he is 
 never informed of the actual state of affairs. 
 
 The imperial family are more or less aware 
 of all these intrigues and are consequently 
 the prey to an unconquerable me* fiance. They 
 are suspicious of every one who comes near 
 them, and they are really not answerable for 
 this attitude. It would take too long to 
 
 186
 
 The Austrian Court 
 
 write a history of Hapsburg intrigues, but the 
 ruthlessness with which, for instance, the 
 King of Rome, Napoleon's only son, was 
 harried to his end, and the unscrupulousness 
 with which his mother, the Empress Marie- 
 Louise, was ruined by Prince Metternich 
 (who even intercepted her correspondence 
 with her husband, to whom she was genuinely 
 attached), are notable examples. Well known 
 are the methods employed by the Arch- 
 duchess Sophie, the mother of the present 
 Emperor, whereby she caused the Emperor 
 Ferdinand to be dethroned and obtained the 
 imperial sceptre for her son. The Crown 
 Prince Rudolf was a victim to the same kind 
 of machinations, and the intrigues which 
 barely two years ago brought about the 
 present condition of Austria-Hungary are 
 fresh in the memory. 
 
 These 7 , facts must prove to all reasonable 
 people that the Hapsburg rulers have reigned 
 too long ; it is time for them to relinquish the 
 Crown, for Austria must hope in vain for 
 better things unless she has at her head a 
 man strong enough to root out all these 
 
 187
 
 The Austrian Court 
 
 poisonous weeds, to tear down for ever these 
 parasites whose treacherous embraces have 
 sapped the erstwhile mighty strength of the 
 ancient Empire. I have the boldness to ask, 
 "Is Karl Franz Josef such a man ? " The 
 whole of Austria-Hungary must reply to me 
 with an emphatic " No." His page in the 
 book of history is still white, but to place 
 any confidence in him is to shut one's eyes 
 to the lessons of the past. He was brought 
 up under the crushing Hapsburg tradition 
 and any natural gifts he may have possessed 
 must long ago have been destroyed. 
 
 All my life I have congratulated myself 
 that Destiny has made me a woman. Until 
 this war broke out I had never wished to 
 change my sex, but then I realised bitterly 
 that I was suffering from the handicap im- 
 posed for generations upon my sisters, a 
 handicap which will exist so long as humanity 
 refuses to recognise that a woman can be 
 the equal of a man. 
 
 Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., 
 London and Aylesbury.
 
 
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