same time the most immoral towns in Europe. In 1910 of all the children born alive 18-25 per cent. were illegitimate in Upper Austria, 21.9 in Lower Austria, 23-0 in Styria, 23.6 in Salzburg, and 35.6 in Carinthia. In Vienna the percentage of illegitimate births is on an average about forty, according to the official statistics. Possibly they understate the facts.

While, for the sake of making their peoples obedient, the Austrian rulers forced them by the most savage persecution into a religious uniformity, they had no desire to weld them together into one nation. The old principle of the Habsburg monarchy is Divide et impera.' Francis the Second, who ruled Austria at the time of the Congress of Vienna, said to the French Ambassador:

My peoples are strangers to each other. That is all the better. They do not catch the same political disease at the same time. If the fever takes hold of you in France all of you catch it. Hungary is kept in order by Italian troops, and Italy is kept down by Hungarians. Everybody keeps his neighbour in order. My peoples do not understand each other, and hate each other. Their antipathies make for security and their mutual hatreds for the general peace.

Absolutism is maintained by fear. Absolute rulers in the East and the West habitually distrust their principal advisers, fearing that their power may become too great. Actuated by fear and distrust, the Austrian rulers have usually entrusted the government of the country to mediocrities and nonentities, and have treated with ingratitude the public servants who had rendered the greatest services to their country. If Austria-Hungary entered upon a war in which she was absolutely certain of victory, her armies were commanded by a member of the ruling house, so that the dynasty should receive new glory. If she was likely to lose, the command was given to officers who were afterwards dismissed and disgraced for their incompetence. Generals von Auffenberg, Dankl, and many

other leading men have shared the fate of General von Benedek, who was defeated at Königgrätz, while Admiral Tegethoff was very badly treated by the Government because he unexpectedly defeated the far stronger Italian fleet at Lissa and was made a hero by the people. Austria's stagnation is largely due to the fact that she has usually been governed and administered by mediocrities, and that her armies have been entrusted to military nonentities in time of war.

Austria-Hungary curiously resembles ancient Spain. In both countries we have seen rulers actuated by tyranny, treachery, cruelty, and jealousy. After all, the Spanish and Austrian dynasties are closely related. Both possess the same traditions and the same unbending Court ceremonial. Austria-Hungary, like ancient Spain, pursues not a national, but a purely dynastic policy. The people are merely pawns, and they are exploited, oppressed, and treated with perfidy and ingratitude. The attitude of the Austrian rulers towards their subjects will be apparent from a few examples out of many. In 1690 the Emperor Leopold the First invited 200,000 Serbs to leave their country and to settle in Austria. They were to clear the Eastern frontier provinces of the Turks and to defend them against Ottoman aggression. They were promised freedom of religion, and their nationality was to be respected. During one hundred and sixty years the Serbs and their descendants fought Austria's battles against the Turks. They fought for Austria in Italy and on the Rhine. Notwithstanding Austria's promises, they were deprived of their leaders and forcibly denationalised. Their religion was suppressed, the building of Serbian churches and convents was prohibited, and during a century printing in the Serbian language was not allowed. The books required for religious service had to be copied by hand as late as the nineteenth century. The Serbian saints were excluded from the calendar, and on the sacred days of their Church Serbs were purposely sent to forced labour. These persecutions

drove thousands of Serbs from Austria to Russia and even to Turkey, where at least they were allowed to practise their religion.

During the struggles of the Serbians with the Turks a century ago Austria disregarded their pitiful appeal for help, betrayed them to the Turks, and forced them to surrender to them by closing against them the Austrian frontier, whence alone they could obtain food. During the Revolution of 1848 the Roman Catholic Serbs of Austria, the Croatians, loyally aided the Emperor against the Hungarian revolutionists, defeated them and reconquered Vienna. Yet after the suppression of the Hungarian revolution they were handed over to Hungary to be illused and oppressed. The Roumanians, who also had loyally supported their Emperor against the rebellious Magyars, were likewise handed over to their enemies, their protests notwithstanding. When the revolution broke out in Hungary, the Austrian officers stationed there were treated with the greatest duplicity by the Austrian Government. Believing that the Hungarians would succeed in making themselves independent, and fearing their hostility, the Austrian Government wished to keep them quiet and encouraged the Austrian officers in Hungary to take service under the Hungarian Government in order to allay its suspicions. A little later when, with the help of Russia, Austria succeeded in defeating the Hungarian armies, she had many of the deluded Austrian officers executed for high treason.

A king or emperor who rules over a number of different nationalities will, for convenience' sake, make one of their languages the official language of the Government. The Austrian Habsburgs, being German princes, not unnaturally made German the official language and handed over to the Austro-Germans the government of the Austrian peoples and the administration of their lands. German became the language of the upper classes, and of literature, for until lately only the upper classes in Austria could read and could afford to buy newspapers and books. Not

very long ago the Magyar, Czech, Polish, Serbian, Roumanian, Ruthenian, Slovenian, and Slovak languages, which now have a great and glorious literature, were hardly more than rude local patois used only by the common people. Books in most of these languages did not exist. The official language of the Magyars was Latin and German. The debates of the Hungarian Parliament were conducted in a mongrel Latin until a short time ago.

Joseph the Second, who ruled from 1765 to 1790, was an enthusiast and a great admirer of Frederick the Great, his contemporary. Animated, perhaps, by a premonition of the rise of a great German State outside Austria, he endeavoured to Germanise his numerous non-German possessions. He strove to Germanise the people of the monarchy by forcing upon them a centralised German administration and the German language. Acting clumsily and high-handedly, he outraged the non-German peoples and brought about a revival of their languages. Patriotic native philologists began to study the non-German patois and to elevate them into a language by purifying them. Languages which had apparently died were painfully reconstructed out of the debris at hand. Polish, Magyar, Czech, and other writers created a great and beautiful literature in their revived languages. The cultured Magyars abandoned Latin and German for Magyar, and the leaders of the other nationalities also took to their rediscovered national languages. The current of nationalism could not be stemmed. The nationalities acquired race consciousness and race pride. The rapidity with which the nonGerman languages have progressed even during the most recent times will be seen from the figures in table on page 118, which are taken from an official Austrian publication, 'Statistische Rückblicke auf Oesterreich,' which was published in Vienna in 1913.

Between 1882 and 1912 the number of papers and periodicals of the Czechs increased sevenfold, and those of the Poles more than fourfold. In 1882 there were two

German papers and periodicals to every single non-German one in Austria. In 1912 the number of German and nonGerman papers and periodicals had become nearly equal. The huge increase of the Czech papers and periodicals is particularly noteworthy. It has been far greater than that of the other nationalities, because the reawakened nationalism has grown particularly vigorous in Bohemia, where formerly it had been most ruthlessly suppressed.

The nationalities had been murmuring for many years against Austrian misrule, and the German-Austrians also had become more and more dissatisfied with the reactionary Newspapers and Periodicals printed in Austria,

and oppressive methods of government which Metternich had introduced after the downfall of Napoleon in 1815. The great Revolution of 1848 shook the monarchy, to its very foundations. The German, Italian, and Hungarian lands rose in arms. The Emperor and Prince Metternich had to flee from Vienna. The revolution was overcome with the greatest difficulty and with terrible bloodshed, and the reconquered lands were treated with the utmost barbarity by the victors. In 1859 the Italians rose once more against their Austrian oppressors and, with the help of France, wrested Lombardy from them. Still Italy remained dissatisfied, for Austria retained Venetia. A second war with Italy was likely. Since the early sixties, and especially since the time when Bismarck had become Prussia's Prime Minister, Prussia had begun to arm with feverish haste and was doubling her military forces. Her