internal affairs in as full measure as this can be done in accordance with its membership of the State as a whole and with the latter's prosperity, and thereby give the population of Galicia a guarantee for its racial and economic development. In informing you of this my intention I charge you to prepare suitable proposals for its legal realisation and to submit them to me. The reason why it is difficult to understand what this promise of autonomy meant is that Galicia already possessed provincial home-rule. All the Austrian provinces were endowed with local autonomy, the extent of the autonomy differing slightly in different provinces; and in the case of Galicia the powers of the provincial legislature were very considerable. It is possible that the Emperor only meant that these powers were to be still further increased, Galicia nevertheless remaining an Austrian province. It is, however, also possible that the letter was intended to indicate that Galicia should be ejected from Austria altogether, the province ceasing to send representatives to the Reichsrath, and being raised to the status of a semi-independent country, similar to Hungary, The old Emperor, however, did not live long enough to carry out his promise, and at the end of the year it was not known how far his policy in respect of Austrian Poland had been adopted by his youthful successor.

On November 17 it was announced significantly in Vienna that within a few days the Archduke Karl, the Heir to the Throne, would "have charge of affairs of the realm conjointly with the Emperor." It was well known in Court circles that the aged Emperor's strength was at last failing. At about 9 o'clock on the evening of November 21, the Kaiser Francis Joseph died at Schönbrunn. The Emperor had been suffering from a cold, which had affected his lungs, but the real cause of his death was sheer old age. Up to the day of his death, the Emperor's mind was clear, and throughout the last week of his life he gave audiences, engaged in political deliberations, and received state reports. At the time of the Emperor's death most of the important personages in the monarchy were present in the death chamber, including the Kaiser's two daughters, Princess Gisela of Bavaria and the Archduchess Marie Valerie, the Heir to the Throne and his consort, Baron Burian, Dr. von Koerber, and the higher officials of the Viennese Court. The monarch's decease was publicly announced in the capital at 11 o'clock the same night. The Kaiser Francis Joseph was born on August 18, 1830, and was therefore 86 years of age at his death. In the earliest years of his reign his policy was governed by narrow views of German ascendancy, and the story is told of him that he once made the remark that "he would rather be a private soldier in the palace of a German king than Emperor of all the Slavs." In the middle

and later years of his life, however, the force of events modified his policy, if not his personal views, and the liberties bestowed upon the Hungarians and Galicians won him the

affections of at least some of his non-German subjects. During the last half-dozen years of his life the aged man was unable to exert his former control over the actions done in his name, and he had little responsibility for the policy which led AustriaHungary into the terrible calamity which marked the close of his life. (A full obituary notice appears elsewhere. See Obituary.)

The Heir to the Throne was the young Archduke Karl Franz Josef, grandson of the deceased Kaiser's brother, Louis, and son of the Archduke Otto, who died in 1906. He was born on August 17, 1887, and in 1911 he married Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma.

Immediately after his accession the young Kaiser showed that he possessed considerable energy and strength of character, and he straightway made his influence felt in Europe. His accession signalised a sudden revival of Austrian as distinct from Hungarian influence in the affairs of the Central Powers. On November 23 a letter from the Emperor to Dr. von Koerber was published in the Wiener Zeitung stating that the war must be continued until the enemy-powers realised that it was impossible to overthrow the monarchy, but that the Kaiser would do all in his power to bring about an honourable peace at the earliest opportunity. On the same day, the generals, officers and soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army renewed their oath of allegiance in the name of the "Emperor Charles the First."

The funeral of the late Emperor, which was carried out with the elaborate ceremonial usual on such occasions, took place on November 30. On November 27 the body was removed from Schönbrunn to the chapel at Hofburg, where it lay in state until the 30th. The funeral service took place in St. Stephen's Cathedral and the body was buried in the imperial vault at the Capuchin Church. The funeral was attended by representatives of all the German reigning Houses, including the German Crown Prince, the King of Bavaria, and the King of Saxony, and also by the Crown Prince of Sweden, the Infante Ferdinand of Spain, Prince Waldemar of Denmark, the King of Bulgaria and other royal personages.

The first action of the new Emperor was to endeavour to bring about peace. It was known that the official proposal of peace negotiations made by the Central Powers on December 12 (see Germany) was made at the instance of Austria-Hungary, and at the personal wish of the Austrian Emperor. The Kaiser also quickly asserted his authority in the internal affairs of the monarchy, and this involved numerous Ministerial changes. On December 3 Prince Konrad Hohenlohe was appointed Austro-Hungarian Finance Minister, a post held provisionally by Baron Burian-in addition to the latter's position of Foreign Minister. Preparations were made for summoning the Reichsrath early in the next year. On December 14 it was announced

that Dr. von Koerber and the whole Austrian Cabinet had resigned. The Emperor first asked Herr von Spitzmüller to form a Cabinet, but after several days spent in negotiating with leading politicians, that statesman abandoned the task. The Emperor then sent for Count Clam-Martinitz, who succeeded in forming a Cabinet, which included Herr von Spitzmüller (Finance Minister), Baron von Handel (Minister of the Interior), Dr. von Forster (Minister of Education), Herr Bobrynski (Governor-General of Galicia) and General von Georgi (Defence Minister). Count Clam-Martinitz was a Czech 'noble, and although no very clear indications of the new Cabinet's policy were given before the end of the year, it was generally believed that Count Clam-Martinitz would adopt a much more Liberal policy in regard to the Bohemian province. This inference was confirmed to some extent by other changes which followed within a few days. Prince Hohenlohe resigned his post, and Baron Burian, the Foreign Minister, was transferred to the Common Ministry of Finance, the Emperor appointing Count Ottokar Czernin to be Foreign Minister and President of the Common Council of Ministers. Count Czernin was, like the new Austrian Premier, a Czech, and he had previously held the post of Ambassador at Bukarest. The transference of Baron Burian to a less important post clearly indicated a decrease of Magyar influence.

On December 12, when the great peace speech was made by the German Chancellor, no similar scene took place in Vienna, since the Reichsrath was still closed. A proclamation was issued in Vienna, however, which repeated, in different words, the arguments of von Bethmann-Hollweg, declaring that the defeat of the Central Alliance was manifestly impossible and that to continue the war further would be, on the part of the hostile Powers, a crime against humanity. In the Hungarian Parliament, Count Tisza read the Note of the Central Powers, and subsequently declared that Germany and Austria-Hungary had been waging a war of defence, not of conquest, and that they had always been ready for an equitable peace.

The Croatian Legislature met for a short session during December,—the first occasion on which this diet had been convoked since the outbreak of war. Both the Hungarian Parliament and the Croatian Diet passed the necessary resolutions arranging for the coronation of the new sovereign as King of Hungary, but the Croatian Opposition refused to take any part in the proceedings, on the ground that the Jugo-Slavs were oppressed by the Hungarian authorities. The Hungarian Parliament elected Count Tisza to act as Palatine at the Coronation, although he was a Protestant.

King Charles and Queen Zita were crowned in the Cathedral at Budapest on December 30, the ceremony being less elaborate than usual, owing to the war.

CHAPTER III.

RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND THE MINOR STATES OF SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE.

I. RUSSIA.

THE beginning of the year found the Russian Empire in a troublous state. In the preceding six months, Russia had only been saved from complete and irreparable military disaster by virtue of her immensity and her severe climate. The territory in the west of the empire occupied by the armies of Germany and Austria-Hungary was more than half the size of France, and also possessed a population half as great as that of the latter country. The conquered region constituted, however, only a small fragment of European Russia, albeit the most populous and the most highly industrialised fragment. In 1915 the illequipped Russian armies had been quite incapable of resisting the force of the Austro-German onslaught. If the French Army in 1914 had been equally outmatched it would inevitably have been cornered and utterly crushed. But the Russian hosts had the vast spaces behind them, distances which even the railway could not annihilate, and into those spaces they retreated, until the icy hand of winter came down upon the scene, rendering campaigning impossible for half a year. The German generals marched victoriously three hundred miles eastward, only to find themselves still faced by their numberless foes.

Although the military disasters had not been irreparable, they had nevertheless been serious, and it was clear that Russia would need all her energies to fortify adequately the new lines occupied by the armies in the winter, and that the reconquest of the lost territory would be a formidable task. Moreover, the internal situation of the country was such as to cause some uneasiness. The large majority of the Russian nation were heartily in favour of the war, and were prepared to make great sacrifices in order to prosecute the campaign to a victorious conclusion, but there existed serious friction between the majority in the Duma, the Lower House of the Russian Parliament, and the Imperial Government. The session of the Duma had been suspended in September, and greatly to the disgust of Progressive politicians the House had not been permitted to reassemble before the end of the year. The majority in the Duma consisted of what had come to be known as the "Progressive Bloc." This Bloc was composed of a number of parties previously quite distinct from one another, namely, the less Conservative wing of the Nationalists, the Centre, the Octobrists, the Progressives proper, and the Cadets. This great composite party of moderate politicians was flanked on the one side by a combination of the so-called "Right" (the extreme reactionaries) and the more Conservative wing of the Nationalists, and on the

R

other side by the extreme "Left," being the Labour Party and Socialists. The Duma also contained a few Independents and Polish Nationalists. About 230 members belonged to the Progressive Bloc, about 100 to the combined Reactionaries, and only 23 to the Left, so that the Bloc possessed a large majority over all other parties combined. Now the Bloc parties were ardently in favour of the war and of adherence to the alliance with France and Great Britain. This was also, of course, the official policy of the Government, but the Bloc accused the Administration of gross inefficiency in the conduct of the war, and of ill-timed opposition to necessary internal reforms.

Now the Russian Government were, of course, responsible to the Emperor, not to the Parliament; but their political position was in reality intermediate between that of the Bloc and that of the Reactionaries. The latter not only differed from the Bloc on questions of internal politics, in their opposition to the proposal reforms and their dislike even of those meagre constitutional rights that the Russian people had already been granted, but a certain number of them, though not all, were also antagonistic towards the war. In so far as this was the case, the Entente policy had never gained such general acceptance in Russia as it had in Great Britain and France. In Great Britain and France small groups of "advanced" politicians, thinkers of the extreme Left, to use the Continental terminology, were opposed to the war on pacifist grounds, and a precisely similar body of opinion existed in Russia, where the Socialists had always been anti-war. But in Russia there existed also this other utterly dissimilar group of anti-war politicians, who were probably more numerous and certainly much more influential, since they included persons of high social position. In Russia the political extremes met in their opposition to the dominant foreign policy. The Socialists were not pro-German, but they were pacifist. The extreme Reactionaries were far from being pacifist, but they might be truthfully described as pro-German.

Now many Liberals suspected and feared that the Government might be influenced even in its foreign policy by these Reactionaries. The so-called "Monarchist" Congresses which were held at the end of 1915, and which represented the party that desired to re-establish a completely autocratic form of Government, were attended by statesmen who had remained members of the Government for nearly a year after war had broken out; and these same statesmen made speeches not only condemning the proposed reforms, but deploring the policy which had led to the conflict with Germany. From the tone of the speeches at these Congresses it was to be inferred that the Reactionaries would be prepared to welcome a separate peace with Germany. Much irritation was caused by the fact that the Government permitted the Monarchist Congress to be held, whilst at the same time proposed conferences of the Zemstvos