Part 129

=Rise Under the Hapsburgs.=--In 1156 the mark was raised to a duchy; and after coming into the possession of the House of Hapsburg in 1282, it began its period of growth toward a powerful state. The princes of that house extended their dominion by marriage, by purchase, and otherwise, over a number of other states, including the crowns of Bohemia and Hungary; and from 1438 down to the nineteenth century they held almost without interruption the throne of the German empire (nominally “the Holy Roman Empire”)--the emperor being the most conspicuous, if not always the most powerful personage among the crowned heads of Europe.

=Hapsburg Power Through Marriage.=--The most pronounced rise of Austria and of the House of Hapsburg to historical eminence may be said to date from the reign of Maximilian I. (1493-1519). By marrying Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold (1477), he acquired possession of the Netherlands. Through the marriage of their son Philip with Joanna of Spain, the Houses of Austria and Spain were united.

=Passes to Charles V. of Germany.=--As Philip died in 1506, his elder son, the celebrated Charles V., became heir to the united monarchies, and was elected emperor of Germany in 1519. Thus, by a succession of fortunate marriages, the House of Hapsburg became the most powerful dynasty in the world.

Charles V., however, resigned all his German territories to his younger brother, Ferdinand I., who was thus the continuation of the Austrian branch of the line. Under Ferdinand the power of Austria greatly increased.

=Division of the Empire.=--In the partition of the inheritance that took place among Ferdinand’s three sons, the eldest, Maximilian II., received the imperial crown along with Austria, Hungary and Bohemia; the second, Ferdinand, Tyrol and Upper Austria; the third, Charles, got Styria, Carinthia, etc. Maximilian II. was fond of peace, tolerant in religion, and a just ruler. He died in 1576; and of his five sons, the eldest, Rudolf II., became emperor.

Rudolf II. was negligent, leaving everything to his ministers and the Jesuits. His war with the Porte and Transylvania brought him little credit; and the Protestants of Bohemia, oppressed by the Jesuits, extorted from him a charter of religious liberty. In 1608 he was obliged to cede Hungary, and in 1611 Bohemia and Austria, to his brother Matthias.

Matthias, who became emperor in 1612, ceded Bohemia and Hungary to his cousin Ferdinand, son of the Archduke Charles of Styria, third son of Maximilian II. Matthias lived to see the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ war, and died in 1619.

=Ferdinand II. and the Thirty Years’ War.=--Bohemia refused to acknowledge his successor, Ferdinand II., to whom all the Austrian possessions had again reverted, and chose the Elector Palatine, Frederick V., the head of the Protestant Union, as king. This election gave the signal for the Thirty Years’ war, in which the House of Austria took the lead, both as the champion of Catholicism, and the head of a power which aimed at universal domination in Germany and in the Christian world. The battle of Prague (1620) subjected Bohemia to Ferdinand, who formally set about rooting out Protestantism in that country and in Moravia. The emperor also succeeded in extorting acknowledgment of his sovereignty from the states of Austria; and here, too, Protestantism, which had made great progress since the time of Luther, was mercilessly suppressed.

Under Ferdinand’s successor, the Emperor Ferdinand III. (1637-1657), Austria continued to be a theater of war; and at the peace of Westphalia (1648) had to cede Alsace to France.

=Leopold I. and the War of the Spanish Succession.=--Ferdinand III.’s son and successor, Leopold I., provoked the Hungarians to rebellion by his severity. The struggle between Leopold and Louis XIV. of France for the heirship to the king of Spain led to the War of the Spanish Succession, during which Leopold died, in 1705.

His eldest son and successor, the enlightened Joseph I., continued the war. He died childless in 1711, and was succeeded by his brother, Charles VI.

=Hapsburg-Lorraine Line of Rulers.=--With the death of Charles VI., in 1740, the male line of the Hapsburgs became extinct, and his daughter, Maria Theresa, who was married to the duke of Lorraine, assumed the government. For many years it had been the aim of Charles to secure the adhesion of the European powers to the Pragmatic Sanction, by which the possessions of the Austrian crown should pass to Maria Theresa. Those powers during his lifetime had promised to second his wishes, but he was no sooner in his grave than nearly all of them sought to profit by the accession of a female sovereign.

=War of the Austrian Succession.=--A great war arose, in which England alone sided with Maria. Frederick II. of Prussia conquered Silesia. The Elector of Bavaria was crowned king of Bohemia, and elected emperor as Charles VII. in 1742. The Hungarians, however, stood by their heroic queen, who was soon able to wage a fairly successful war against her numerous foes. At the death of the empress in 1780, the monarchy had an extent of two hundred and thirty-four thousand square miles, with a population of twenty-four millions. The administration of Maria Theresa was distinguished by unwonted unity and vigor, both in home and foreign affairs.

Her successor, Joseph II., was an active reformer in the spirit of the enlightened despotism of the times, though often rash and violent in his mode of proceeding. He was succeeded in the government by his brother, the grandduke of Tuscany--as German emperor, Leopold II.--who succeeded in pacifying the Netherlands and Hungary.

=Austria and the French Revolution.=--At the outbreak of the revolution in France the fate of Leopold’s sister, Marie Antoinette, and her husband, Louis XVI. of France, led him to an alliance with Prussia against France; but he died in 1792 before the war broke out. War was declared by France on his son, Francis II., the same year, and by the treaty of Campo Formio, 1797, Austria lost Lombardy and the Netherlands, receiving in lieu the Venetian territory.

In 1795, at the second partition of Poland, it had been augmented by western Galicia.

Francis, in alliance with Russia, renewed the war with France in 1799, which was ended by the peace of Lunéville. It is needless to follow all the alterations of boundary that the Austrian dominions underwent during these wars. The most serious was at the peace of Vienna (1809), which cost Austria forty-two thousand square miles of territory. It was in 1804, when Napoleon had been proclaimed emperor of France, that Francis declared himself hereditary emperor of Austria as Francis I. On the establishment of the Confederation of the Rhine, he laid down the dignity of German emperor, which his family had held for nearly four hundred years.

The humiliating peace of Vienna was followed (1809) by the marriage of Napoleon with the Archduchess Maria Louisa, and in 1812 Austria figured as the ally of Napoleon in his great campaign against Russia, but she did not give much active assistance. In August of the following year Austria joined the grand alliance against France and the Austrian general, Schwarzenberg, was entrusted with the chief command of the allied forces, which at the battle of Leipzig and in the campaign of 1814 broke the power of Napoleon.

=Congress of Vienna and Subsequent Period of Metternich.=--The sacrifices and great services rendered by Austria in the gigantic struggle received full consideration at the treaty of Vienna (1815). As recompense for the loss of the Netherlands she received Venice and Dalmatia, which afforded an outlet for her foreign trade.

After that time Austria, under the diplomatic guidance of Prince Metternich, exerted a powerful influence in European politics generally, and more especially in the German Confederation, of which her emperor was president. The death of Francis I. in 1835 made little alteration in the policy of Austria; Ferdinand I. trod in his father’s footsteps. The political alliance with Russia and Prussia was drawn closer by a personal conference of the emperor with Nicholas I. and Frederick-William III. at Teplitz in 1835.

=Revolution of 1848.=--In Austria, after the fall of Metternich from power, the revolutionary period of 1848-1849 was one of exceptional severity, the movement for constitutional freedom being complicated by the revival of the national spirit in Hungary, Italy and Bohemia. The time was everywhere ripe for revolt, when the fall of Louis-Philippe of France (February 24, 1848), gave the signal for the outbreak of the revolutionary elements all over Europe. Nowhere was the spirit of change stronger than in Vienna, which for many months became a scene of confusion.

The leaders of the popular movement in Vienna were in sympathy with Hungary, and when the imperial troops were ordered to suppress the national rising there, the citizens again rose in insurrection. In the meantime the military forces had withdrawn from the capital in order to prevent the Hungarians coming to the aid of the Viennese. Vienna was now besieged, and surrendered at the end of October, after a resistance of eight days.

=Francis Joseph Emperor.=--The reaction was triumphant, and the leaders of revolt severely punished; but as Ferdinand had not shown sufficient vigor in the great crisis, he was persuaded to abdicate, and Francis Joseph was declared emperor at the age of eighteen. Thus restored, the central authority had now to assert itself in Hungary and to complete the reconquest of northern Italy. With the surrender of Venice, which took place in August, the subjugation of Italy was complete.

=Conquest of Hungary.=--In Hungary, the Magyars, though the Germans and Slavs within the country itself were hostile to them, began the campaign of 1849 with decided success. But the government had already solicited the aid of Russia, whose armies, entering Transylvania and Hungary, added to the imperial cause the irresistible weight of numbers. Surrounded on every side by superior forces, the Hungarians were completely beaten. It was in vain that Kossuth transferred the dictatorship to General Görgei. Görgei, whether from treachery, as the other Magyar leaders maintained, or from necessity, as he himself averred, laid down his arms to the Russians at Vilagos (August 13). The surrender of Komorn, in September, completed the subjugation of Hungary, which was treated as a conquered country.

The ten years which followed on the revolutionary troubles of 1848 were a period of reaction and of absolutism. A constitution which had been granted in 1849 was soon annulled. The policy pursued was one of strong centralization under a bureaucratic government, by which the claims of nationality and of freedom were alike disregarded. Liberty of the press and trial by jury were set aside. A rigorous system of police was maintained. The aim was to Germanize the whole empire and to crush the aspirations of both Slavs and Hungarians. The Church pronounced against national freedom, and supported the central authority and received great privileges by the Concordat of 1855. The result of all these proceedings was only to irritate the national feeling in Hungary, Italy and Bohemia.

=Struggle Between Austria and Prussia.=--On the confused arena of German politics, the struggle for ascendancy was kept up between Austria and Prussia. In 1850 the two powers were armed and ready to come to blows with reference to the affairs of Hesse-Cassel; but the bold and determined policy of Schwarzenberg prevailed, and by the humiliating arrangement of Olmütz, Prussia gave way. For a few years longer the preponderance of Austria in the German Confederation was secured.

The rule of Austria in Italy had always been unsatisfactory. From her own provinces in Venice and Lombardy she controlled the policy of the courts of central and southern Italy, and her influence tended invariably towards the suppression of national feeling and popular liberty.

=Loss of Italian Possessions.=--Sardinia was the only state that worthily represented the spirit of the Italian people. In the spring of 1859 it began to arm against Austrian supremacy. Austria demanded immediate disarmament, on pain of war; but Sardinia refused. Austria accordingly commenced hostilities by crossing the Ticino at the end of April, 1859. Sardinia having secured the aid of France, the Austrians were defeated at Magenta, Solferino and elsewhere, and their emperor was fain to seek an armistice from Napoleon. On July 11 the two potentates met at Villafranca, and concluded a peace, ceding Lombardy to Sardinia. Venice was all that still remained of the Italian possessions of Austria.

=Austro-Prussian War.=--The rivalry of Prussia and Austria for influence in the Germanic body of states dated from the rise of Prussia to be a leading power. The arrangement of Olmütz in 1850 had left a painful feeling of humiliation in the minds of the Prussian statesmen. The long rivalry was now to be brought to a decisive issue. In 1864 the combined Prussian and Austrian forces drove the Danes out of Sleswick-Holstein, but the two victors quarreled about the subsequent arrangements. War was declared, and in 1866 the Austrian armies in Bohemia were completely beaten by the Prussians, in a campaign of seven days, which closed with the great defeat of Königgrätz or Sadowa.

=Period of Reforms.=--After the great war of 1866 the history of Austria has been concerned chiefly with two important interests. In the first place, the government had to attempt an arrangement of the conflicting claims and rights of the peoples constituting the empire; in the second place, it has had to establish working relations with the great neighboring powers, Germany and Russia, and especially with the latter, on the Eastern Question.

=Union of Austria and Hungary.=--Hungary’s claims to be recognized as a separate and distinct country were now, with great advantage, pressed forward. In 1867 its political rights were successful in being regarded as justified. This agreement was the famous Ausgleich, which has since been in force, and which has to a sufficient degree justified its adoption.

At the end of 1867 the first parliamentary ministry was formed. The Concordat was set aside. Education was freed from the control of the Church. Marriage was placed under the jurisdiction of the civil power. The press laws were relaxed. Finally, the Prussian system of military organization was introduced.

In the foreign affairs of Austria the chief aim was to arrive at a satisfactory understanding with Germany and Russia. After 1871 Bismarck arranged as between Germany, Austria and Russia a “Three Emperors’ Alliance,” which after the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878 was superseded by an alliance between Germany and Austria. This, by the inclusion of Italy, in 1882, became the Triple Alliance, which remained in full force down to the great European war of 1914.

During the Turkish revolution of 1908 Austria-Hungary annexed the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which the Treaty of Berlin had placed under Austro-Hungarian administration and military occupation in 1878.

=Racial Difficulties Bearing Upon the European War, 1914-1917.=--The multiplicity of races and their mutual jealousies rendered the task of the central government in Austria-Hungary both delicate and difficult. (See Peoples and Races.) Russia, as a Slav nation and a great power, had long exercised a predominant influence in the Balkans. Acting under this influence, Servia secretly fostered aspirations in the direction of a Pan-Slavic propaganda with the apparent object of not only lessening Austrian influence in the Balkans but of breaking up, through internal defections, the Austrian Empire; from the accomplishment of this Servia hoped to profit.

The Slavs are closely allied with Russia. The spread of Pan-Slavism constituted a menace to the very existence of the Dual Monarchy. The growth of German and Russian aspirations directed at expansion through the Balkan States had, therefore, a direct connection with the racial element of which Pan-Slavism was but one manifestation. As an evidence of the spread of the doctrine of “Pan-Slavic Unity” and of the bitterness of the racial antipathy which it engendered, the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated on June 28, 1914, at Sarajevo, the capital of the Austrian province of Bosnia. This act led directly to a declaration of war against Servia on July 28th, followed by an Austrian invasion on July 30th. (Further causes and details of the war will be found under the European War.)

SOVEREIGNS OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.

The following is a list of the Hapsburg rulers of Austria (Dukes and, from 1453, Archdukes of Austria, from 1526, also Kings of Hungary and Bohemia, from 1804 Emperors of Austria).

HOUSE OF HAPSBURG Albert I. 1282 *Rudolf II. 1282 *Rudolf III. 1293 Frederick (III. as rival Imperial claimant) 1307 *Leopold I. 1314 *Albert II. 1314 *Rudolf IV. 1358 *Albert III. 1365 *Albert IV. 1395 Albert V. (II. as Emperor, King of Hungary and Bohemia) 1404 *Ladislaus (King of Hungary and Bohemia) 1439 Fredrick V. (III. as Emperor) 1457 Maximilian I. 1493 Charles I. (V. as Emperor) 1519 Ferdinand I. 1520 Maximilian II. 1564 Rudolf V. (II. as Emperor) 1576 Matthias 1611 Ferdinand II. 1619 Ferdinand III. 1637 Leopold I. 1658 Joseph I. 1705 Charles II. (VI. as Emperor, III. of Hungary) 1711 *Maria Theresa. 1740 HOUSE OF HAPSBURG-LORRAINE Joseph II. 1780 Leopold II. 1790 Francis I. (II. as Emperor) 1792 *Ferdinand I. (V. of Hungary) 1835 *Francis Joseph I. 1848 Charles Francis Joseph 1916

* All except those marked with an asterisk likewise filled the throne of the Holy Roman Empire.

THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE

Russia extends over eastern Europe, the whole of northern Asia, and a part of central Asia. This area, which is more than twice as large as Europe, and embraces one-sixth of the land-surface of the globe, has a population estimated at near one hundred and seventy-four millions. The Russian Empire consists of two well-defined parts: European Russia less than one-fourth of the whole but including nearly three-fourths of its population; and Asiatic Russia. The inhabitants of European Russia mostly belong to the Slavic branch of the human race.

The subdivisions are indicated in the following table:

=======================================+=========+=========== | AREA | GOVERNMENTS AND | ENGLISH |POPULATION PROVINCES | SQUARE |JAN. 1912 | MILES | ---------------------------------------+---------+----------- _European Russia_: | | Russia proper (50 Provs.) |1,862,524|122,550,700 Poland (10 Provs.) | 49,018| 12,776,100 Finland (Grand Duchy) | 144,178| 3,140,100 _Asiatic Russia_: | | Caucasia (11 Provs.) | 180,703| 12,288,100 Central Asia (10 Provs. and Regions)|1,325,530| 10,727,000 Siberia (8 Provs. and Regions) |4,786,730| 9,577,900 _Dependencies_: | | Khiva | 26,028| 800,000 Bokhara | 78,524| 1,500,000 Inland Lakes | 317,468| -- +---------+----------- |8,770,703|173,359,900 ---------------------------------------+---------+-----------

The various sections of European Russia differ greatly from one another, and have thereby given rise to certain _popular divisions_ that are even better known generally than the strictly governmental provinces. These, with their distinguishing features, may be indicated as follows:

_Great Russia_ (Muscovy).--All the central and northern regions to the Arctic shores. Chief towns: Moscow, Tula.

Except on its outskirts, this region presents everywhere the same aspects, wide, undulating plains covered with cornfields and dotted with small deciduous forests. The soil is of very moderate fertility in the north, but very fertile in the black earth belt of the south.

The Great Russians, numbering about fifty-five millions, are a vigorous and manly stock, usually rather light-haired, with blue or brown eyes, well-formed hands and feet, and a serious, kindly, but somewhat crafty, temperament, an inborn disposition for a wandering life, a very small regard to the value of time, and (especially in the peasantry) an extreme carelessness and slovenliness in all details of daily life.

_Little Russia_, or the Ukraine.--In the southwest. Chief town: Kieff.

The little Russians, over twenty-two millions in all, are settled in the Ukraine, which contains also in the borderlands some twelve per cent of Jews and six per cent of Poles. Their religion, like their love for music and poetry and their passion for country life, they share with their relations on the north and northeast, but in their developments of folklore and popular song, and in the more feminine character both of their physique and their intellect, they offer marked peculiarities. The Little Russians of the Dnieper basin are closely allied to the Ruthenians of Austria-Hungary.

The Ukraine comprises the governments of Tchernigoff, Kieff, Poltava, and part of Kharkoff, as well as Volhynia and Podolia on the spurs of the Carpathians, the richest and most populous parts of Russia. The soil is mostly a rich black earth, and assumes farther south the aspect of fine grassy steppes, or prairies, yielding rich crops of wheat.

_Eastern Russia._--Chief towns: Astrakhan, Kazan, Samara, Saratoff.

This part of the country is more elevated, but less effectively drained; and vast forests stretch from the upper Volga to the Urals.