Bohemia under Hapsburg Misrule

However, the Patent of Tolerance extended only to Protestants of the Helvetian and Augsburg Confessions, not to the Bohemian Church, which latter had been denied recognition.

7

On February 9, 1748, a bill was introduced in the English Parliament “to relieve the United Brethren (so-called in Comenius’ time), or Moravians, from military duties and taking oaths.” Among the speakers was General Oglethorpe, who spoke in support of the bill. “In the year 1683 a most pathetic account of these brethren was published by order of Archbishop Sancroft and Bishop Compton,” said Oglethorpe. “They also addressed the Church of England in the year 1715, being reduced to a very low ebb in Poland, and his late Majesty, George I., by the recommendation of the late Archbishop Wake, gave orders in council for the relief of these Reformed Episcopal Churches, and letters patent for their support were issued soon after. But since 1724 circumstances have altered for the better, and they have wonderfully revived, increased and spread in several countries. They have even made some settlements in America. In the province of Pennsylvania they have about 800 people to whom the proprietor and Governor gave very good character.”

8

When Napoleon sought to weaken Austria’s position at home, he addressed a patriotic appeal to the Bohemians. “Your union with Austria,” read Napoleon’s appeal, “has been your misfortune. Your blood has been shed for her in distant lands, and your dearest interests have been sacrificed continually to those of the hereditary provinces. You form the finest portion of her empire, and you are treated as a mere province to be used as an instrument of passions to which you are strangers. You have national customs and a national language; you pride yourself on your ancient and illustrious origin. Assume once more your position as a nation. Choose a king for yourselves, who shall reign for you alone, who shall dwell in your midst and be surrounded by your citizens and your soldiers.” – Napoleon’s proclamation found no echo among the people for whom it was intended. The sentiment of nationality was yet too weak to respond.

9

Francis Palacký (1798-1876), historian, revivalist, and statesman, is, by common consent, regarded as the greatest Bohemian of our time. His monumental work, “History of the Bohemian Nation,” on which he labored some thirty years, will endure as long as the Bohemian language continues to be spoken. There was a time when not only the outside world, but Bohemians themselves, believed that the old-time Bohemians of the stormy days of John Hus or those who revolted against Ferdinand II. were a band of heretics and rebels. Such has been the official Austrian version of these events in Bohemia. However, the truth could not be suppressed for all time. Palacký and others were being born, and in time the alluvium of Austrian bigotry and of falsehood was removed from the nation’s past, and to the astonished gaze of Resurrected Bohemia was revealed a glorious history of which descendants could be justly proud. Great men, national heroes, hitherto unknown or misunderstood, emerged from almost every chapter of Palacký’s work.

10

See page 59 (#x_2_i164).

11

Karel Havlíček (1821-1856) is in many respects the most noteworthy Bohemian of the nineteenth century. As a journalist, he had no equal among his contemporaries. His political articles were models of sound and mature reasoning and of lucid thinking. When arguments failed with the black reactionaries, lay and ecclesiastic, Havlíček employed another weapon with telling effect – ridicule. Bohemians venerate him as a martyr of their cause. The cultured immigrants to the United States from Bohemia in the early days were imbued with Havlíček’s spirit and ideas, and the present-day spread of free-thought among them is directly traceable to this Thomas Paine of Bohemia.

12

Friedrich Ferdinand Beust, a Saxon statesman, entered the services of Austria soon after the disaster at Sadova. It was he who brought to a successful termination the Settlement between Vienna and Hungary. The centralists were at first opposed to the division of Austria in two, but were eventually placated by Beust, he having convinced them that dualism meant the permanent subjugation of the Slavs. The above remark, “Die Slaven werden an die Wand gedrückt,” is attributed to him.

13

“Eingedenkt der Staatsrechtlichen Stellung der Krone Böhmens und des Glanzes und der Macht bewusst, welche dieselbe Uns und Unseren Vorfahren verliehen hat, eingedenkt ferner der unerschüttlichen Treue, mit welchen die Bevölkerung Böhmens jederzeit Unseren Thron stützte, erkennen wir gerne die Rechte dieses Königreiches an und sind bereit diese Anerkennung mit Unserem Krönungseide zu erneuern.”

Among the many titles of Francis Josef are those of “Emperor of Austria,” “King of Hungary,” “King of Bohemia,” etc. Strictly speaking, Francis Josef has no legal claim to the title “King of Bohemia.” He has never taken the coronation oath; and, without such an oath, he is no more King than Woodrow Wilson would be President of the United States without first taking the oath of office. Logically, therefore, Francis Josef is an unlawful ruler of the Bohemian Kingdom.

14

The elusive paragraph fourteen of the constitution (bearing date December 21, 1867) has been the cause of some of the bitterest fights in parliament. It virtually nullifies constitutionalism in Austria, permitting as it does the emperor and his ministers to rule the land “in case of urgent necessities” without parliament. Past experience has shown that these “necessities” arise quite often. Paragraph fourteen is a bulwark of strength to the German party against which the Bohemians have battled in vain. Under paragraph fourteen the ruler cannot change the fundamental laws of the realm, contract permanent loans, and alienate public property. Aside from this there is nothing to curb his absolutism. Parliament may impeach the ministers for exceeding their powers, but this safeguard is really no safeguard at all. The German text of paragraph fourteen is as follows:

“Wenn sich die dringende Nothwendigkeit solchen Anordnungen, zu welchem verfassungsmässig die Zustimmung des Reichsrathes erforderlich ist, zu einer Zeit herausstellt, wo dieser nicht versammelt ist, so können dieselben unter Verantwortung des Gesammtministeriums durch Kaiserliche Verordnung erlassen werden, in soferne solche keine Abänderung des Staatsgrundgesetzes bezwecken, keine dauernde Belastung des Staatschatzes, und keine Veräuserung von Staatsgut betreffen. Solche Verordnungen haben provisorische Gesetzkraft, wenn sie von sämmtlichen Ministern unterzeichnet sind, und mit ausdrücklicher Beziehung auf diese Bestimmung des Staatsgrundgesetzes kundgemacht werden.”

15

The register of prisoners at Kiev shows 114,000 were taken in the Carpathian fighting during the two months before the fall of Przemysl, and some difficulty has been found in preventing racial troubles among the enormous colony from captives. German Uhlan soldiers, hearing of the fall of Przemysl, declared that it must have been due to the treachery of “that Czech Kusmanek,” whereupon a Czech officer struck him. The fight spread and the participants had to be separated. — Cable item from Russia.

16

The Slavs in Austria-Hungary are divided into the following racial groups:

1. The Bohemians. Inhabit Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. Strong settlements are found in Austria (the city of Vienna alone being the home of not less than 300,000, according to some estimates 500,000) and in Prussian Silesia.

2. The Slovaks. Settled in the northwestern part of Hungary and in Moravia.

Professor Lubor Niederle, who is recognized as an authority on Slavic matters, computed in 1900 the strength of the Bohemians, together with the Slovaks, at 9,800,000.

3. The Poles. Scattered over the whole of Galicia, intermixing there with the Ruthenes, but predominating mainly in the westerly part of it. They also live in Silesia, with settlements in Bukovina and Moravia. Austrian Poles number almost 5,000,000. All told, the Polish race in Austria, Germany, and Russia is computed by Niederle (1900) at 17,500,000; Polish statisticians make the total 20,000,000. When the constitutional era first dawned in Austria, the Poles were put in full charge of Galicia, in appreciation of which concession they have always loyally supported the Austrian Government. In Galicia, the Poles are the aristocracy and the Ruthenes the peasant element. The affection of Vienna for the Poles, however, is not above suspicion; it is claimed that hatred of Russia, common to both the Poles and the Austrians, was more directly responsible for the alliance than any other single cause, though of course it is undeniable that under Austrian rule the Poles fared better than either under the Russian or Prussian régimes.

4. The Slovenes. Occupy the whole of Carniola, the southern part of Styria, the major section of Goritz and Gradiska, except a section in the southwestern part thereof, the outlying villages of Trieste, the northern end of Istria, which projects on the west into Italian territory and eastward into Hungary. Niederle’s estimate of the Slovenes in 1900 was 1,500,000.

5. No Slavic race is more torn up territorially than the Serbo-Croatians. Although really one people by language and origin, they have divided themselves, or rather were subdivided by their political masters, into two national units. Their homelands include a large section of Istria and Dalmatia, together with the adjacent islands in the Adriatic, the whole of Croatia and Slavonia, a piece of southern Hungary, and all of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Besides this, there is, of course, the Serbian Kingdom and Montenegro.

Niederle estimated the Serbo-Croatians in 1900 at 8,550,000.

6. The Ruthenes (Little Russians). Overflow the Russian boundaries to Galicia, being predominant in east Galicia, strong in western and northern Bukovina, numerous in several counties in Hungary.

Niederle computed the strength of the Ruthenes in Galicia, Hungary, and Bukovina in 1900 at 3,500,000.

By religious affiliations the Slavs are divided as follows: To the Catholic group belong almost wholly the Bohemians, Poles, Slovenes, Croatians, and Slovaks (of the last named about seven-tenths). Protestantism finds favor among the Slovaks (24 per cent.), Bohemians (2.44 per cent.), and Poles living in Silesia (1.81 per cent.). The Orthodox faith is professed by the Ruthenes in Galicia, Hungary, and Bukovina, and the Serbians. A fraction of the Russians in Galicia and Hungary adheres to the Uniate Church, and there are believers in Mohammedanism in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The old-fashioned Austrian diplomacy knew well the value of the principle “divide and rule” and tried it on its Slavs with success. There was a time when Bohemians in Moravia were taught by Austrian officials to believe that they were Moravians, not Bohemians. The difference between Bohemian and Moravian is as great as the difference between Bronx English and Brooklyn English, yet this fact did not discourage the grammarians in Vienna from setting up boundaries where none existed. Croatia, as pointed out elsewhere, is peopled by a nation calling itself alternately Croatians and Serbs. Possessing a common past, the same racial traditions, and speaking one language, the Serbo-Croatians are clearly one nation, divided only by different faiths. The Croatians use the Latin letters and adhere, almost to a man, to the Catholic faith, while the Serbs employ the Cyrillic alphabet and belong to the Orthodox Church. The busy grammarians in Vienna and in Budapest did their utmost to keep the Serbo-Croatians apart, and even incited one against the other, by instilling the belief in them that two different religions really meant two different races. Galicia is inhabited by two distinct peoples, the Russians and the Poles. The name “Russian” sounded badly in Austria. It constantly reminded the Galician Russians that on the other side of the yellow-black boundary posts lived a great nation that spoke the same language and professed the same faith as they. Again the learned grammarians in Vienna went to work and by dint of hard study discovered that Austrian Russians were really not what they seemed to be and promptly they baptized them “Ruthenes.” The ruse, of course, was to veil the nearness of the relationship of the “Ruthenes” to the Russians in Russia proper. In the same manner and with the same object in view the Slovaks of Hungary are encouraged to believe that they are a separate race and not near relatives of the Bohemians.

17

For a student of Austrian conditions it is instructive to note how the war of the Balkan Allies against the Turk divided the sympathies of the people along racial lines. Save a fraction of the Poles in Galicia, the Slavs sided heartily and enthusiastically with the Allies. The Germans and the Magyars wished for the success of the Turks. When the Bulgars routed the Ottoman army at Kirk Killisé, the Vienna press ill-concealed its chagrin, while Slavic journals rejoiced as if it had been their own victory. Imagine the dismay of such a staunch champion of Austrian public opinion as the Vienna “Neue Freie Presse,” when the Serbs crushed the Turk at Kumanovo! For many reasons Serbia was for years looked upon as a kind of barometer of the hopes of the Austrian Slavs. A clever Bohemian journalist made the interesting prediction some time before the Balkan War that relief from Austrian thraldom may be looked for, not from Russia, as many dreamers believed, but from the small Slavic states in the Balkans. If these were victorious, prophesied this newspaper writer, the Slavs in the Hapsburg Monarchy were sure to gain morally from the victory. Official public opinion frowned on the war relief work among Austrian Slavs in aid of the Balkan Allies.

18

Francis L. Rieger (1818-1903), a lawyer, writer, economist, and statesman, was, despite his German name, an uncompromising patriot who had spent his whole life in the service of his nation. Modern Bohemia without Rieger is unthinkable. His name is written large on every page of his country’s history. As a leader of the Old Bohemian party he naturally played a prominent rôle in the fight for the historical rehabilitation of the Bohemian Kingdom. Having married the daughter of Francis Palacký, the “Father of the Nation,” he was nicknamed by his political adversaries, “Son-in-law of the Nation.”

19

Ferdinand, however, took his oath of office January 30, 1527.

20

“The Slovaks and Their Language” (Slováci a ich Reč), by Dr. Samo Czambel, Budapest, 1903.

21

Among the Slovak spokesmen at this meeting was Editor Milan Getting, of New York. At a subsequent conference was present Albert Mamatey, President of the National Slovak Society.

22

The very words “Slovak,” “Slovakland,” “Slovak nation” are tabooed in Hungary, and school books containing them prohibited. Hungarian officialdom refers to Slovakland as the Hungarian Highlands.

23

London Times, January 20, 1915.

24

The writer is a representative type of the sturdy settler of Bohemian ancestry who helped to build up the Northwest. He sojourned in the birthland of his parents when the war broke out.