WHY AUSTRIA HATES GERMANY.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7920, 18 August 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHY AUSTRIA HATES GERMANY.

FEAR MAKES THE BOND.

WHEN WILL IT SNAP.

Although cabled stories of Austria’s growing feeling |of revolt against German dominance must not be takejn at their face value, they are gravely significant of things that must not be overlooked or under-es-timated. As a fact 'indisputably in evidence it may be stated that Ausitm hates Prussia. The alliance holds, but inclination has mo place in the bond on Austria’s side. In tiliq New York Times a writer masked as Lucius V erus explains whv this is sjo. Ho makes it plain that Austria would out off from Germany to-morrow if she dared.

1 MMEDIATELY after Maria Theresa’s acension to the throne of Austria, October .10, 1740, Frederick, himself King of Prussia since May 31 of the same yesi.r, in a letter to the youn& Queen s husband, Francis, Duke of Lorraine and Grand Duke of Tuscany, proposed an alliance witli tike house of Hapsburg. This proposal was regarded in Vienna rather a £/ an expression oi good-will than as) a serious overture. Maria Theresa dispatched Marquis Botta to Berlin to ascertain the truth. The Austrian diplomat found the highways blocked will troops marching, indeed, to the Silesian border. The King tried to put him off with the statement that tho real purpose of the move was to protect Austrian territory againdt menaced interference of Maria Theresa’s enemies. The Italian was not so easily taken in by tho Tartuffe of Potsdam. Ho sent word to Vienna that no faith should be put in Frederick, and that the Prussian troop, were expected to be 'in Silesia within a fortnight or so. On December 8 Frederick dispatched ■Count Gotter to Vienna, offering his support for the flection of Francis to tho imperial throne of Germany, and the military and financial help of Prussia against Austria’s enemies. In exchange for hi 3 (services he insisted upon tlic cession of the greater part of Silesia.

for that terrible Corsican adventurer put it into hi.-j head to pi.iy cannon with the renowned heads of Europe. On the stli and 6th of July, 1809, at Wagram, near Vienna, he inflicted a terrible) thrashing upon Archduke Charles and the gayety restarted Unterden Linden. This game of Court and l diplomatic intrigues went on until the battle of Waterloo (June 18, 1815) which marked the end of the French Revolution and inaugurated a new epoch in the history of Europe. Bismarck fought with all Ills power for the hegemony of Prussia. Always afraid of Russia, lie told the French Ambassador at Berlin. Marquis do Moustiei*, that his country ought to make an alliance with France, and Russia against Austria. These utterances came to the ear of the Vieifna Government. When the Prussian IPremier, Manteuffel, informed him of the) remonstrances of the Vienna Court, Bismarck haughtily icplied: When 1 went to Frankfort in 1848 I was not, in principle, opposed! to Austria ; but I should /have to belie, every drop of Prussian blood in me had I desired to preserve even the smallest affection for the Austria w/hioli has been called into being by her present rulers.

The .young Queen, still in mourning for her father, and expecting an increase in her family, refused 1 to receive Frederick’s ambassador or to treat with the King unless he withdrew forthwith his troops from her province of -Silesia. But tlie Hohenzollern Prince, having before him a weak woman, laughed »ni his sleeve and, without even waiting for his 1 ambassador's arrival in Vienna, on December 16, crossed over to Silesia in person to take supreme command of his army. THE “GREAT” FREDERICK. We. now come to the second villainy of the great Frederick, the partition of Poland, throughout a mean Teutonic game of treachery, in which tho Hohenzollern Prince, with unenviable mastership, played tho part of Judas Iscariot. When challenged by the ambassador of Austria at the time of t,he conclusion of Prussia’s treaty with Russia in 1764, Frederick calmly said: “I am sure that your court is alarmed about this /treaty, and that at Vienna it is believed that we have already decided on the partition of Poland. But you will see that tlie contrary is! the case.” Frederick’s imperial spv and relative, Catherin 11., nee Sophie Auguste, Princess of Anhalt-Zerhst, gave out the samq dementi in almost identical terms. But not even she who, as we know, was, neither in her public nor her private life, overtormented by moral scruples, was quite easily won over to Frederick’s partition schema. He met, of coursb, with still greater difficulties in Vienna. Direct negotiations between the latter city and St. Petersburg were impossible since tin* two Empresses hated on another. Marie Theresa spoke of Cather ine contemptuously as “that woman.” Frederick the Great, the hero of tho Prussian people, humbly acted as the honest broker between the two ladies. Frederick William 11. cheerfully engineered the .second partition of Poland (1792) -forgetting his solemn treaty .with Austria, of which the ink was hardly dr.y, and where he had guaranteed the integrity lof the Poland of 1772.

In YVilila.ni I. appeared! on the stage of European politics in hi c i quality of Prince Reigent—his brother, ’King Freedrick William IV., having become an incurable maniac. He was) then 60 years old; the reactionary, blood-thirsty temperament of his early youth gave way to the quiet wisdom of ripe age. Francis Joseph, tho 29-year-old ruler, stung in his dynastic pride, preferred tio conclude a disadvantageous peace with France, thereby losing Loinbarciy, rather than to accept help from Prussia and to allow her to asaume military leadership of Germany. William gradually ‘ reached the conclusion that thero was no room in Ueimany for two leading powers. Count Albert yon Bernstorff (1809-1873), lather of Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, late German Ambassador at Washington, was Minister for Foreign Affairs in King William’s Liberia Cabinet (1861-1862;. He induced bis .tovereign to come out openly with his programme (December 20, 1861.) FRANCIS JOSEPH, CHRISTIAN. William was ready to appeal to the sword. This time Francis Joseph played the part -of the meek Christian. He invited -all German Princes to the historical Fuerstentag at Frankfurt. Even King William doubted the wisdom of •absenting himself. But Bidmarck threatened with his resignation—a weapon of intimidation he knew how to use with great success throughout his political career. So excited was he that on leaving the study of the King he broke the knob of the door.

Francis entry into the old German Coronation town was brilliant. All four German Kings (Saxony, Wurttemberg, Bavaria and Hanover) clung to Austria.

January 30, 1864, the question of an Austro-Prussian alliance for tjlie purpose of a common procedure against the Scandinavian Belgium of fifty years ago came up in the Ausltrian Parliament. In spite of thfi appeals of the Cabinet Rechberg, the Austrian representatives remained obstinate in tiheir refus’al to approve tlie un-warranted act. The .following sentence tfrom a memorablo speech delivered b;v Deputy Schindler summarises the feelings of tlie Austrian people:

Prussia almost suddenly changed her hostile attitude toward Austral Hvitli tho outbreak of the French Revolution. The common danger to the undisturbed continuation of tho rule by Divine grace submerged the petty jealousies between Court and the greedy appetite for unending territorial aggrandisement. But only for a wihile; in 1795 Prussia withdrew altogetjher from the struggle r,gainst the French Republic. The double motive was: return of the old land hunger and the almost instinctivo desire a [Jain to stab Austria in the hack. FRANCE AND PRUSSIA. France offered to Prussia in exchange for her left Rhine territory, the arenhi.V.in,>ries of Cologne, Miayence, and Treves. Berlin could not resist. Tlie Hohenzollcirns chuckled at the thought of the loss of moral prestige tihid detachment of the three historic archiepiscopal sees must mean f'or Catholic Austria. And thus autocratic Prussia entered a treaty with the French JacotUns, while tho. Emperor of Germany *was left to fight .single-handed for tine existence of the empire, and malicious joy reigned in Potsdam when Austria had to give up her Italian provinces. Emperor Francis humbled himself* by making, in Berlin, overtures for an alliance. Tho intermediary was the young diplomatist, the, later Austrian Chancellor, Count Mettemich.

Hardly has Prussia digested and assimilated our poor Silesia, and already she is' stretching out her fangs toward the unfortunate duchies of Schleswig-Holstein.

When Francis Joseph received King William and Bismarck, yielding finally to the persuasive power of tliq Prussian statesman, lie then hardly thought that lie was turning the first sJod of the grave ol liis dynasty. A secret alliance of Prussia with Cavour gavo the latter timo to conquer Austria .and dqprivo her of her last Italian province, Venice. It was easy after this to overpower tho exhausted quarry. Koeniggraetz was the ros'ult. Hapsburg monarchy was definitely eliminated from Germany, and Prussia was ready to throw herself on prey No. 3, France. THE BERLIN CONGRESS. On Juno 28, 1878, at the Berlin Congress, Austria received the) BosniaHerzegovina mandate (curiously enough, on the same day, thirty-six •years later, Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated in Serajevo). St. Petersburg was dumbfounded at that move of Bismarck. At the risk of losing Russia’s friendship he stood firmly by Austria. This was the beginning of the rupture between Germany and Russia, which culminated in the declaration of war on August 1, 1914.

Prussia, at that time, had her eyes on Hanover, which she hoped to obtain as a bribe from Napoleon. But Czar Alexander I. knew how to treat his Brandenburg cousin. He threatened to march through Berlin.

No time was then to he lost, for thero was danger that Germany would remain isolated. Bismarck hurried to \ ionna, and when he became convinced that no secret treaty had yet been signed h,v Andrassy with France and England, he came out. with his alliance proposal. Here is Bismarck’s own tale :

Wo are at the eve of the battle oi Austerlitz. Austria w;>,s in .a, terrible plight. Francis begged, in a pathetic letter, Frederick William 111. to come to lii’s aid. The haughty Elector ot Brandenburg remained deaf. He contented himself with dispatching Haugwitz to Napoleon a® mediator, hut obeying secret orders, the Prussian envoy tarried until after th humiliating defeat of the Austrians and Russians near tho little Moravian town, Docomhor 2, 1805. Now the courageous Count Haugwitz, who prudently faiiledl to reveal the content-* of his original menage, camc-i forward and Prussia concluded an open treaty of alliance with Bonaparte—the latter maliciously insisted upon the term open —Prussia receiving ns reward for her treachery tln> long-eovetod province of Hanover. NEMESIS. But. this time Nemesis came on the quickstep. Prussia was beaten to a frazzle tin the battle of Jena, October 14, 1806. The mirth in Vienna over tlie discomfiture of tin* Hohenzollerns was, however, only of short duration—

Francis Joseph favoured my plan even more than Andrassy. But not so my King. He heaped objection upon objection in spite of the perfidious and shameless behaviour of the Russian Court. 1 wrote, at that time, in my own hand r , more than 1000 foolscap sheets), day and night, memoranda, letters, despatches, and so on. T begged him, almost on my knees, to give in. In vain!

At last, owing mainly to th, skilful intervention of Count Stollberg, the German Emperor yielded.

Thus the chain is complete. In 1701 tlio Margrave of Brandenburg appeared as supplicant in the Hofburg nf Vienna to obtain thq roval Crown from the hands of Emperor Leopold I.; September 21-24, 1879, Prince Bis'nvirch kow-towed in the same Imperial Palace to obtain the precious parchment guaranteeing the safety of tlie German Empire, wherefrom lie had clmsed tin* Hapsburg.?, they .who wore the crown