Face to Face with Kaiserism Part 21

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAIN STAIRWAY IN THE AMERICAN EMBa.s.sY, BERLIN]

Berliners say that although the German Emperor gave the d.u.c.h.ess of Hohenberg all the honours due to the wife of an Austrian Archduke, heir to the throne of the Austrian Empire, he was careful not to bring her claims in direct conflict with any Prussian female Royalty and that on the first visit of Franz Ferdinand and his wife to Potsdam, when the doors of the banquet room were thrown open, it was seen that the Kaiser had skilfully placed all the guests at small tables, sitting at one with the Empress and his two guests. In this way he prevented a conflict of precedence and a possible scene with some Prussian royal princess.

After one of these Potsdam visits, the Austrian government appropriated three hundred millions for new Skoda cannon and a great and unexpected increase of the navy was voted. In Austria itself it was seen that the German influence was dragging Austria-Hungary nearer and nearer to war.

Ferdinand disliked the Hungarians and in turn was hated by them.

If he had attained the throne of the Empire, as his children could not inherit, he would have endeavoured first to remove that obstacle, but if he had not succeeded he intended, as I have said, either to restore the kingdom of Bohemia and place his son, child of a Bohemian mother, on the newly created throne, or create, possibly from conquered lands, another kingdom over which his heir could reign.

The Magyars, the real Hungarian ruling race, are most skilful politicians. Their elections often are corrupt and all the tricks of the politician are in use in Hungary.

In many families political talent seems hereditary. Tisza, the Premier of Hungary for the period for some time before the war, was the son of Tisza, who was Premier of Hungary about the year 1875. Kossuth, son of the great Kossuth, has been active in politics. The father of Count Julius Andra.s.sy was Premier about 1866 and favoured Germany, a policy which has been inherited by his son. One of the sons-in-law of Count Andra.s.sy's wife, Marquis Pallavicini, came to America to act as best man when my wife's sister married Count Sigray.

Andra.s.sy came to Berlin during the war where I had several long talks with him. The one desire of Hungarians and Austrians alike is for peace, but surrounded by the armies of their German masters, they have lost their independence of action, a bitter blow to the Magyars, who are not fond of the Germans.

Count Stephen Tisza is an obstinate and able man, so many sided that it is related of him that he fought a duel, rode a steeplechase and made a great speech in Parliament, all in one day.

Duelling is still a custom in Hungary, Austria and Germany. Once when I was in Hungary I took supper with a Count who had been second in a duel that day. One young Magnate was at a restaurant with an actress who wore a wide brimmed hat. Another young Magnate of his acquaintance looked under the hat brim to see who the girl was. Result: a duel with sabres in a riding school. On this occasion, as the insult was not deadly, the use of sharp points was forbidden. The duel was stopped after one young Magnate received a cut on the forehead.

Stephen Tisza, on first taking office, was permitted by the old Emperor to obtain some apparent concessions for Hungary in order to make his premiership popular. It was arranged that Hungarian flags should be carried by Hungarian regiments, and that the officers of those regiments all should be Hungarians, but German was to be used as the military language and language of command even in the Hungarian regiments.

As soon as Tisza became premier for the first time, Count Apponyi left the Liberal party and lately Count Julius Andra.s.sy and his wife's sons-in-law, Count Karoli and Marquis Pallavicini, have been in violent opposition to Tisza, Pallavicini even fighting a duel with the Prime Minister.

In a country where the majority of the inhabitants are Roman Catholics it is rather strange that Tisza and his father, both strong Protestants, should have attained the Premiership. The father of Count Stephen Tisza was even more obstinate than his son and greatly oppressed the Slovaks and Roumanians within the borders of Hungary.

A great responsibility lies at the door of Stephen Tisza. He allowed the Germans to use him in bringing on the world war.

Doubtless he believed that Russia and the Powers would not move, that Austria-Hungary could seize or invade Serbia, while Germany terrorised the world as in 1908 when Bosnia and Herzegovina were added to the Imperial dominions. But his failure to read the intentions of Russia and the other Powers is no excuse for the calamity he brought on Hungary and the world, no excuse for the fact that his country is now overwhelmed by Kaiserism, its armies surrounded by the armies of Germany and its very independence threatened by the subtle influence and intrigues of the master intriguer of the world,--the German Kaiser.

The franchise in Austria and in Hungary is like that given grudgingly to the Prussian, a mere ghost of suffrage. Autocracy rules. In Hungary, particularly the Magyars, seeking to keep the political power in their hands, oppose a broadening of the franchise. Tisza has always been against any letting down of the bars, but when the young and brilliant Count Esterhazy was made Premier, many looked for a change--a change which has, however, not yet come.

The new Emperor Carl at first seemed to exhibit Liberal tendencies, but only for a moment.

The events in Russia will have a grave effect in Austria-Hungary.

More than a million Russians are prisoners in the Dual Monarchy, nearly a million of whose subjects are in Russia--and of these at least fifty thousand Czechs are fighting the Austrians and Germans in the ranks of the Roumanian army. Many more will refuse to leave Russia, but the coming back of one-half, after having witnessed the winning of liberty by the Russians, will influence their countrymen in no small degree. Just as the French soldiers under Lafayette and Rochambeau, after helping us gain our independence, returned from the free fields of America to a France where the burdens of the plain people were almost unendurable and brought on the great French Revolution, the soldiers and prisoners who return to Prussia and to Austria-Hungary from the strange scenes of the Russian Revolution may, perhaps, leaven the inert slave ma.s.ses of the Central Empires with a spirit of revolt for liberty.

We should inst.i.tute a great propaganda from the Italian front.

For instance, I have been told by a man who has been on that front, a man who should know, that if a few American troops were sent there and signs erected stating "Come over and surrender to the Americans, you will be taken to America well fed and paid a dollar per day when you volunteer to work," there would be a great rush of Austro-Hungarian troops eager to be taken prisoner.

The losses of Austria and Hungary have been enormous--men up to fifty-five have been drafted for the army, and the troops have often suffered defeat and the horrors of retreat at the hands of Russians, Serbians, and Italians.

And all the time the iron hand of the German Kaiser grasps more and more of the power. Cheerless prospect it is for the once gay Hungarians, the once happy Austrians, if to financial ruin and the killing of the flower of their youth is to be added the iron horror of Prussian domination.

Our citizens of Austrian and especially of Hungarian descent have been loyal to their new flag. And our great President with enlightened wisdom has eased the enemy alien regulations so as to favour those born in the Dual Monarchy. America will never forget the loyalty, ungrudgingly given by those of her people born under the double eagle of the Hapsburgs.

In my many visits to Hungary I grew to like and admire the Hungarians. Natural in manners, hospitable, polite, there is something in them that wins Americans. How different the open hospitality and friendliness in Budapest from the stern, cold formality of the Prussian capital!

And with all friends of Hungary I hope that that country will soon throw off the trance of Prussianism, which has led the Dual Monarchy into a Dance of Death.

CHAPTER XVI

GERMAN INFLUENCE ON THE NORTHERN NEUTRALS

Just as I had the opportunity to study conditions in Austria, so also I came in contact with the politics and diplomacy of the nations contiguous to Germany on the north.

My grandfather, Benjamin F. Angel, was American Minister to Sweden and Norway and on leaving received from the King the Order of St. Olaf. I have always taken a deep interest in Scandinavian affairs and it behooves the American people to regard closely what is happening nowadays in Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

The outbreak of the European War in 1914 served to bring the three northern nations close together. Their Kings met in conference and a peace monument was erected on the boundary of Norway and Sweden as if to proclaim to the world that in spite of their recent separation, Norway and Sweden were sister countries.

The people of these three countries are of the same blood and their languages are somewhat similar. Norwegian and Danish written are practically the same. But there is quite a difference in p.r.o.nunciation. Swedish is more like German and the p.r.o.nunciation is not as difficult to learn as that of Norwegian and Danish. In Norway, there are older dialects, differing from Danish, and there has lately been a great movement in favour of a more national language. Many Norwegians regard the official Danish-Norwegian as a reminder of old subjection to Denmark and not at all fitted for the new independent Norwegian kingdom. The new national language is called "Landsmaal."

Sweden and Norway were both under one king from 1814 to 1905. In that year after a peaceful secession, Prince Charles of Denmark, the son of the King of Denmark, was made the King of Norway, with the t.i.tle of Haakon VII. Although both have kings, Denmark and Norway may be termed democratic countries.

Copenhagen is lively since the war. The population of Denmark is only 2,500,000 and the whole country is only 14,829 square miles, which means an area about the size of Maryland. The country was once larger but in 1864 Prussia went to war with Denmark and, finally, after the war with Austria in 1866, added to the Crown of Prussia the two Danish duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. As the city and port of Kiel were included in this territory annexed, it is easy to see why the Germans engaged in this enterprise against Denmark.

Denmark possesses the Faro Islands which lie far to north of Scotland, the great island of Iceland and Greenland, relics of the times when the Viking ships brought such terror to the other countries of Europe, that the Litany used to read: "From plague, pestilence and famine, from battle and murder, from sudden death and from the fury of the Northmen, good Lord deliver us."

In Christiania we saw on our trip out two graceful Viking ships dug out of the clay sh.o.r.es of the coast in a state of fair preservation--one of them a Princess's ship on which it was easy to imagine some blonde princess of the North, her long braids of golden hair flying in the wind, urging on her Scandinavian oarsmen.

The Danes are a st.u.r.dy race, the women more independent than those of other countries. On the _Frederick VIII_, when we sailed from Denmark, September 28, 1916, for the United States, were two handsome girls, nineteen and twenty-one years of age, the daughters of the proprietor of the largest department store in Copenhagen. They were going to America to find employment in department stores in the different cities of the country, travelling entirely alone, and expected to return to Denmark after a year's experience in America with many new ideas of management and advertising for their father in Copenhagen. These girls were wonderfully educated, speaking in addition to Danish, French, German and English with hardly a trace of accent. They lived a short distance out of Copenhagen and told me that every morning of the year they jumped into the sea at six-thirty in the morning, something that I should not care to do even in August in that cold northern land.

Danish farmers learned early that in order to be prosperous they must practise intensive farming. I believe that Denmark, which even before the war enjoyed a high degree of prosperity, is the only country in the world where there are pig sties steam-heated and electric lighted while the farmer himself does not have these luxuries.

Our farmers have much to learn from the farmers of Denmark both in agricultural methods and in co-operation for the marketing of products. The reclamation of the Danish moors in Jutland has made surprising progress: it is in Jutland that a park has been preserved in its primeval state--the Danish-American Park, bought with money subscribed by Danish emigrants to America who prospered in their adopted land.

Ever since the conquest of Denmark by Germany, there has been a deep hatred of all things German in Denmark on account of the treatment of those Danes, numbering between one hundred and two hundred thousand, who were living in Schleswig and Holstein and were unfortunate enough to be turned over as property to the King of Prussia.

I found the Danes agreeable people. Of the same race as the Germans, living like them in the dark North, this difference in behaviour is perhaps accounted for by the fact that the Danes are free, while the Germans are oppressed by the weight of an ever present autocracy.

While the Danish people hate the Germans, officially Denmark is careful to conceal this hate and even, apparently, to lean towards the German side, through fear of the German troops, which could easily overrun Denmark in thirty hours.

Denmark, during the war, received oil cake from America, which was fed to cattle later sold to Germany. A great tonnage of fish has also been sent from Denmark to Germany while salt and potash have been imported. There is no question but that supplies of all kinds and in great quant.i.ties have found their way across the Danish border.

And the Danes have prospered enormously since the war. Many people have become millionaires through the sale of food and other supplies to the Germans. A great deal of this food supply was sent in the form of canned meat, popularly known as goulash, and so to-day whenever an automobile pa.s.ses on a Danish road, the small boys call out "goulash Baron," in the belief that the occupant is a new-made millionaire, enriched by trade with Germany.

It is hard for us to realise how far north the Scandinavian countries lie. Christiania, the capital of Norway and in its southern part, is in the same lat.i.tude as the south point of Greenland; and is it not difficult to imagine a modern city situated in Greenland?

In Christiania it is not fairly daylight in December until ten in the morning and dark early in the afternoon. The ample water power of Norway and Sweden furnishes electric light, a G.o.dsend in the short dreary winter days.

Norway, in many respects, is one of the most advanced countries in the world. Having been ruled by Denmark for four hundred years, it was united to Sweden by the Treaty of Kiel, in 1814, with the approval of all the Powers, but against the inclinations of the Norwegians, who knew that they were given to Sweden to compensate that country for the loss of Finland, annexed to Russia.

The ambitious Bernadotte arranged to govern Norway as king of that country, which was theoretically to retain its independence and be united to Sweden only through the personal rule of the one monarch.

At this time, the Norwegian Const.i.tution provided that no more personal privileges should be granted and since then the progress of Norway towards a real democracy has been rapid. It was the conflict over the right demanded by the Norwegians to establish a separate consular service that led to the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905, Norway voting for separation 368,211 to 184.