The Manawatu Daily Times Back to a Throne

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7193, 27 June 1933, Page 6

The Manawatu Daily Times Back to a Throne

Although we were told in yesterday's cables that the Mussolini move to repaint the map of Southern Europe in order to prevent Germany swallowing Austria had been checkmated by the austute French Prime Minister's plan to checkmate both Italy and Germany, it would seem that the idea of placing the hapless Hapsburgs on the throne of a re-united Austria-Hungary is not yet finished with. We are told in to-day’s cables that the youthful Prince Otto and the ex-Queen Zita have been induced to alter the Hapsburg oath so that it will sound less offensive to Hungarian ears. And the good people of Hungary do find quite a lot of things offensive that arc said and done by the Hapsburgs. Hungary at present is a kingdom without a king. The monarchical settlement lias been always strong in its people. But the economic troubles which have lasted for years have given them far more pressing things to think about than a restoration of their monarchy, and not all who want a king again in Hungary want a Hapsburg. That family was not very popular with its Magyar subjects when it ruled before. For thirteen years now Admiral Hortliy, who belongs to its old nobility, has been regent, acting in a king’s place, and though, or perhaps because, he has asserted himself less and less in recent years he seems to have pleased most parties.

The “Legitimists” of Hungary believe that, while there is a Hapsburg to fill the position, no other king can have any right to rule their State, and they still keep touch with the young Prince Otto, son of the late Emperor Charles, where his mother has helped him to keep a small artificial court, and to bear the title of “Imperial and Royal Majesty,” in the Belgian village of Stenokerseelc. Another party, however, holds that the Hungarian nation, represented by its Parliament, has the inalienable right to elect its king, or at the least of imposing on him any conditions which it may please. And “conditions” would not suit Otto, understood to have been trained, under his mother’s and ecclesiastical influenoc, in ideas more suited to the earliest Hapsburgs than to monarchs of to-day. There is at least one non-Hapsburg claimant to the throne.

The Hapsburg dynasty was dethroned in Hungary by Act of Parliament in 1921, after the late Emperor Charles had made two attempts to regain his position in that country. But those who dethroned Charles, when his restoration would have made not a little trouble with neighbouring States, might rally to Otto and reverse that law if his training had been of a different kind. Apart from his training, the heir, or king uncrowned, now in his twenty-second year, is described as handsome youth, of good mental parts. The Hungarians will have a king whenever they can agree who he is to be. Admiral Horthy has declared that the selection must be voluntary, and can be made only through the Hungarian Parliament, lie is said not to be enthusiastic for Signor Mussolini’s scheme, and apart from the danger of complications with other States it is conceivable that he has grown to enjoy his own powers. But a kingdom of Austria-Hungary, which is now proposed, is something different from a kingdom of Hungary alone. Austria is a republic, and contented to be such according to most accounts. The general belief has been that if Otto was crowned in Hungary it was the most he could ever expect. Because even his mother shared that conviction, his education has been primarily Hungarian. There will be many obstacles to the reunion of Austria and Hungary under a monarchical system, but the greater fear that is felt by several European States of an Austro-German conjunction gives the development its best chance to happen.