The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. THURSDAY, JUNE 5, 1919. THE DOOM OF AUSTRIA.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 133, 5 June 1919, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

THURSDAY, JUNE 5, 1919. THE DOOM OF AUSTRIA.

For the cause that Jacks assistant*, For the in-ono that needs resistance, For the fuUcre in fSe distance, md the good that we c-in do.

It is a somewhat curious fact that while the official representatives oi Austria have accepted the peace terms dictated by the Allies without discussion, and even with alacrity, a furious outcry has arisen against them in Vienna. Not only the Conservative organs, but such accredited mouthpieces of the social democrats as the "Arbeitcr Zeitung" are protesting vehemently that these conditions mean the annihilation of the Austrian Empire, and even at this eleventh hour Viennese public opinion seems to conceive the. possibility of some form of settlement that m:ghl obviate the final doom of Habsburg dom ination. To some extent this obstinate refusal to recognise the stern realities | may be attributed to the social andi historical influences which have long played an important part in the history of the Austrian capital. The Viennese are notoriously proud of their city and themselves, and the proverb which epitomises their self-contained and exclusive arrogance, and their unconcealed contempt foT all other types and classes of men, is familiar to all the peoples of Central Kurope. But apart from their immense appreciation of their beautiful city and their pride in the social and artistic amenities of their metropolitan life, the Viennese, far more than the rest of the Austrian Emperor's subjects, have lived perpetually under the influence of the Habsburg tradition; and the glamour which the historic glories of the past still shed upon the ruins of the Holy Roman Empire blinds them even now to the ■truth, and prevente them from recognising that the destiny of the Habsburgs ■has run its appointed course, and their fate is now irrevocably sealed. It is likely that many people outside the borders of Austria-Hungary will share to some extent this regret for the passing of the Empire which alone of all surviving political systems has transmitted through the Dark Ages to modern times some faint shadow of the spirit and authority of the Mediaeval Papacy, and even of Imperial Rome. But purely sentimental considerations of this kind are of little value for the purposes of historical criticism, and even a euperficial knowledge of the true character of the Dual Monarchy and its methods of government is sufficient to show that the Austrian Empire, if It ever had any excuse for existence, has long since outlived its proper functions, and that its dismemberment and extinction are both inevitable and indispensable for the progress and security of the European nationalities and for the peace of the civilised world. For in the first place the realms of the Habsburgs have never formed an Empire in the strict political or constitutional sense of the term. For centuries past they have consisted of a heterogeneous mass of distinct nationalities, bound together by only one common tie —their enforced allegiance to the Imperial throne. Created by force, wielded with a supreme contempt for that great principle of Nationalism which must form the basis of all enduring political institutions, nnd governed always in the spirit of an absolute and arbitrary despotism, the so-called Austrian Empire, has been for hundreds of years nothing but a crude political expedient, accepted and supported by its neighbours because they feared that its dissolution, like that of another cognate tyranny, the Turkish Empire, might react disastrously upon themselves. Bismarck and other statesmen who are credited with having remarked that if the Austrian Empire did not exist it would be necessary to invent it, have merely expressed with cynical frankness the whole truth about the nature and destiny of Habsburg Imperialism. It is conceivable that anomalous a≤ this artificial combination of States has always been, it might in the process oJ time have attained some kind of unity and developed like a true political organism into a higher type of national growth. But the character of Habsburg rule has effectively prevented am such natural and orderly evolution For, as such reliable authorities as Wick ham Steed and Seton Watson have eon stantly pointed out, the Habsburg , eon I ception of monarchical power and tht Ilabsburg way of exercising jmperia authority have always been so com pletely out of keeping with modern pro gressive and constitutional ideals that they can be described mo~t accurately at Oriental. And the history of the Habs burgs down to the death of the agec Francis Joseph three years ago show: how fully they were inspired by th< truly Oriental conception of government expressed in the famous motto of thei: house: "Divide et impera"—"se't you J subjects against each other so that yoi I may rule them all." More ; during the last century, the records o ' the Dual Monarchy reveal with painfu clearness the success with which thi Habsburga carried this brutal and bar barous principle into practice. Whei Hungary revolted the Imperial niaste bribed the Jugoslavs to help him sup press the Magyar, and when Hungar; was beaten, he compromised with >th Magyar by handing over to them as vas sals the Croats and Slavonians, by whos ' aid he had conquered them. Thus free' from anxiety about the Southern Slav and the Magyar, Francis Joseph wa able to hold in check the Northern Slavs

and so to establish a soTfc of unstable' equilibrium throughout his ill-balanced Empire. But with 'the steady growth of national and patriotic feeling among the subject races of Central Europe their i final emancipation was only a question of time. To-day the creation of a new •Poland, a new Jugoslav kingdom, and a ( new Czecho-Slovak Republic involve the complete dismemberment of the Empire, while the secession of Hungary leaves the heir of the Habsburgs ruler of little more than the original patrimony of his; arch-ducal ancestors- The fate of Austria proper, German in origin, and in the ;haracter and spirit of its people is to! Hjalesce with the German Empire, oil vhich in past ages it formed an integral; >art; and those who fear that Germany;hus strengthened may again prove a| langeroia enemy to the world peace may! je reminded that out of the fragments j if the old -Ha'bsburg Empire have been! :reated three new States, bitterly hostile' n spirit to their old masters, and both; lble and willing 'to baffle or control the fiercest efforts of Teutonic treachery jr Teutonic aggression.