up in what had been Russian Poland. With such ideas of family domination, it was natural for him to dream of a benevolent autocracy imposed by the Hapsburgs rather than of their acknowledgment of normal popular development toward freedom.

And yet, paradoxical as it may seem, alongside this aristocratic Hapsburgism was their Kaiser's democratic desire to serve in the ranks and the Viennese appreciated this equally. He always slept upon a common army cot; he rose at dawn like any other soldier; his fare was their fare, and, when an assassin wounded him, his first words were: "I am only sharing the lot of my brave soldiers." Even the Socialists felt this and were sometimes dubbed "the Imperial and Royal Socialists" because of the respect they showed not only for a monarchical form of government but for the person of the Emperor.

. His character could not fail to have an influence on the character of the country, and in especial, because the late reign was longer than that of any other modern monarch except Louis XIV-indeed, actively longer than that of Louis; the French ruler was a child when called to the throne. One

naturally compares Louis XIV's and Queen Victoria's long reigns to Francis Joseph's. But neither Louis nor Victoria had to face the Austrian's trials.

A RECORD OF INTERNATIONAL BLUNDERS

How is Austria-Hungary different to-day from what it was in 1848 when Francis Joseph began to rule?

Let us consider first its external relations. As to the Empire's boundaries, in 1848 Francis Joseph was lord over two-thirds of North Italy. Now Italy is free-unless we wish to except the Trentino, the mountainland jutting into the Italian northern frontier. Then, save for the Dalmatian coast, there was no development to the south. Now, for the North Italian loss, there is the offset in size and strategic importance of the former Turkish provinces of Bosnia and the Herzegovina.

The foreign policy of the reign began in an international storm and started with a blunder. It closed in a greater storm and with a greater blunder.

The first blunder was the urging of the powers by Austria (which then had perhaps the best army in Europe) to forbid or at

least to hamper the unification of Italy. Though the powers were mostly unfriendly to Austria she was at first successful in preventing unification, as the battle of Novara (1849) showed, but vengeance followed in her loss of Lombardy, ten years later, and of Venetia in 1866.

The realization of these losses, added to that of the territory previously taken by Prussia, impelled Austria to look southward for territorial offsets and finally brought her to the ambition of possessing a port on the Egean Sea and the connecting SerboMacedonian strip between it and her frontier. To gain this Austria depended on her partnership with Germany and Italy in the Triple Alliance. She knew that she could rely on German backing; for as the venture would benefit German trade even more than Austrian, Austria would merely be Germany's vanguard. And Austria hoped to induce Italy also, for value received, to aid in controlling the country to the south.

The diplomatic history now revealed by a former Italian Prime Minister, shows how summarily Italy declined to enter into such a venture in 1913. The next year came the assassination, at Serbian instigation, of the Emperor's nephew and heir to the throne, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, to bring a better excuse for aggression. The Emperor was pierced domestically and politically. The sequence of Hapsburg succession had been broken. A youth of the third generation, Charles Francis Joseph, was now Crown Prince. Politically the shock was no less severe. Disdaining Serbian attempts at settlement, the Austrian Kaiser yielded to the demand of the jingo element in his government, and declared war on Serbia even though he must have known that such a war would precipitate a European conflagration. This was the greater blunder which marked the end of the Emperor's reign. It seems incredible that one who had learned the lesson of events during that reign should, at its end, countenance such a deed.

THE EMPIRE "A RAMSHACKLE HOUSE"

Now as to internal relations. How is Austria-Hungary different from what it was in 1848? Among others, in two ways. Then there was no universal, direct and equal suffrage in Austria: now there is. Then Hungary was the under-dog: now she is an equal partner.

In its domestic policy, Francis Joseph's

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reign exhibits an apparently greater breadth of view than does the foreign policy. Yet the Empire is still, as Bismarck said, ramshackle house built with bad bricks," even if we cannot quite agree with him that it is "only held together with German cement." The ramshackle structure is composed, among other lesser races, of some twenty-four million Slavs (Poles, Slovaks, Czechs, Croats, Slovenes, Serbs, Ruthenians); about twelve million Germans; of some ten million Hungarians, and about four million Latins (Rumans and Italians)—certainly a confusion of races and tongues; exclusive of dialects there are ten distinct languages spoken in the Empire.

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Who could weld such a mass into a political whole?-a mass of races, not only linguistically different, but cherishing mutual animosities and nationalistic notions enough to destroy any expectation of imperial unity. In his desire to compel the making of this political whole, it was even charged that Francis Joseph used one race to crush another and some races to crush others. truer statement would be that, when by nationalistic agitations a representative government repeatedly broke down, he had temporarily to resume central executive powers long ago willingly surrendered. In this he was able to turn popular attention from racial aggressions to social and economic questions. His Empire hung together, not so much because of the short-sighted and self-willed races which compose it, as because of the personal authority and prestige of the monarch who reigned over it.

EARLY MISTAKES IN HUNGARY

The reign began badly enough with the young Emperor's ruthless action after the revolution (1848) of the Magyars, for a thousand years the ruling race in Hungary. Few races show intenser conviction of nationality. This has always enabled them to control a numerically slightly stronger total of other races in Hungary-Rumans, Germans, Slovaks, Croats, Serbs, Ruthenians. Magyar intolerance toward subject races was, however, no justification for the retribution dealt by the Austrian Kaiser, King of Hungary, aided by Russia, to the Magyar leaders and in long depriving Hungary of her ancient dependencies, rights, and liberties. What a contrast to the ruler's later tact and to present-day relations between the two halves of the Dual Monarchy!

THE DEMAND FOR AN INDEPENDENT

BOHEMIAN STATE

Also in his relations with other parts of the Empire, especially with Bohemia, Galicia, and Bosnia, Francis Joseph showed himself increasingly astute. Not that Bohemia, for instance, has achieved the degree of selfgovernment which is her due. The Bohemians have had but a qualified independence; they have seen. with increasing distrust a gradual centralization at Vienna, thus endangering the agreement to maintain the rights of the Bohemian state. The Revolution of 1848, suppressed at Budapest, the Hungarian capital, was also suppressed at Prague, the Bohemian capital, and absolutism reigned until the loss of Lombardy in 1859 compelled the granting of a constitutional régime to avert further disasters. But Bohemian expectations were never realized as were Hungarian.

may have his entire education from the kindergarten to his graduation at the university without ever using a word other than Polish. There is liberty of the press. Their great men have occupied most important government positions; one, Count Goluchowski, was long Foreign Minister, and another,

Count Badeni, Prime Minister. Hence the Galician Poles are not as keen for the reintegration of Poland as are the Poles in Prussian and Russian Poland, whose liberties have been abridged more seriously.

A REDEEMED BOSNIA

In no part of the world, however, has there been a greater recent advance toward civilization than in Bosnia or in Herzegovina. No matter what our views may be as to the Emperor's fealty to the Treaty of Berlin (which had assigned these provinces to his military protection) in finally annexing that region, so far as economic justification. is concerned, he held a trump card. He had redeemed the region from misrule, politically, economically, and educationally. The only reminders of the old Turkish domination are the red fezes and the short Oriental jackets of the Bosnian contingents in the army.

The present war has added bitterness because the government did not consult the Bohemian deputies in Parliament before taking hostile action with regard to Serbia as it consulted the Hungarian deputies. The reason was because in its new enterprise the government could not rely upon the fidelity of any Slav deputy. No wonder then that the Czechs (the Slav Bohemians, four-fifths of the total number) demand a really independent state. In other directions, however, there has been much concession to the Czechs. Any one may see this who visits Prague and notes the old German street names now set forth exclusively in Czech. In all administrative and judicial transactions the Czech language is now on an equality with German and a knowledge of it is required of all public functionaries.

CONCESSIONS TO THE POLES

As to Galicia, the equally marked concessions made in the use of the Polish language are astounding as compared with conditions in either Prussian or Russian Poland. In those regions everything possible must be done in the German or Russian languages, but in Galicia, Austrian Poland, a child

The provinces now actually enjoy practical self-government, their basis of election being on the same ratio as that observed in electing the legislatures of other provinces. Unlimited forced labor has given place to a tax levied on the basis of a ten years' harvest. Even as late as the '70's Bosnia's only communication with the outside world was the Austrian Consulate's weekly postcard; now highways, railways, telegraphs and telephones have made the region accessible. The former illiteracy has been largely eradicated, for many schools have been built and efficiently operated: industries are also taught in them. But a still more signal triumph has been in the Department of Justice. Under the rule of to-day there has not even been a train robbery. The Bosnian redemption is perhaps the most notable feature of Francis Joseph's reign. And yet, in the capital of Bosnia was to occur a murder, the proximate cause of the present war!