The Tragic Crime Of The Habsburg Rulers

The failure to see the truth of all this constituted what may be called the tragic crime of the Habsburg rulers.

Joseph II was the Roman Emperor of the German nation. He grew anxious when he realized the fact that his House was removed to an outlying frontier of his Empire.

With superhuman energy this ‘Friend of Mankind’ made every possible effort to counteract the effects of the carelessness and thoughtlessness of his predecessors.

Within one decade, he strove to repair the damage that had been done through centuries.

The miracle might have been performed if:

• he had been given 40 years for his labours
• two generations had carried on the work which he had started

But when he died, broken in body and spirit after ten years of rulership, his work sank with him into the grave.

His successors had neither the ability nor the will-power necessary for the task they had to face.

When the first signs of a new revolutionary epoch appeared in Europe they gradually scattered the fire throughout Austria.

When the fire began to glow steadily, it was fed by nationalist yearnings of the various ethnic groups.

The European revolutionary movement of 1848 took the form of a class conflict in almost every other country.

But in Austria, it took the form of a new racial struggle.

This helped to awaken the spirit of Western Democracy which, within a short while, shattered the foundations of their own existence.

The first great blow to the predominance of the German element in the Dual Monarchy was the setting up of a representative parliamentary body without having a single language for all public intercourse under the State.

From that moment, the State was also doomed to collapse sooner or later.

The Parliament, or Reichsrat (Imperial Council) as it was called in Austria, most clearly manifested unmistakable signs of decay.

It was a corporate body patterned after that in England, the land of classic democracy.

The Austrian counterpart to the British two-chamber system was a Chamber of Deputies and a House of Lords (HERRENHAUS) established in Vienna.

I had always hated the Parliament, but not as an institution in itself. Quite the contrary. As one who cherished ideals of political freedom I could not even imagine any other form of government.

In the light of my attitude towards the House of Habsburg I should then have considered it a crime against liberty and reason to think of any kind of dictatorship as a possible form of government.

A certain admiration which I had for the British Parliament contributed towards the formation of this opinion. I became imbued with that feeling of admiration almost without my being conscious of the effect of it through so much reading of newspapers while I was yet quite young.

I could not discard that admiration all in a moment. The dignified way in which the British House of Commons fulfilled its function impressed me greatly, thanks largely to the glowing terms in which the Austrian Press reported these events.

I used to ask myself whether there could be any nobler form of government than self-government by the people.

But these considerations furnished the very motives of my hostility to the Austrian Parliament. The form in which parliamentary government was here represented seemed unworthy of its great prototype. The following considerations also influenced my attitude: