Central Europe

Front matter

CENIRAL

EUROPE

Briedrich Naumann i'

Contents

PAGE

I. PARTNERSHIP IN THE WAR AND ITS RESULTS I

We must know in the midst of the war with what mutual relations Germany and Austria-Hungary intend to emerge from it : Each of the two Empires is too small by itself : The formation of • new military boundaries between unallied States : The lack of programme at the outbreak of war : The test of Mid-Europe by history. Necessary reflections : Considerations of foreign-speaking partners in the union : The differences between the two allied Empires : Dissimilarities in the history of the countries, in their stages of capitalist development and in their rhythm of life : Currents in the German Empire setting against the Central European alliance : Opposing currents in Austria and Hungary : The pohtical independence of the two Empires can only be maintained by the union : Whether or no Austria-Hungary must separate into its component parts ? : Optimism : Criticism of the existing conditions of alliance : Whether or no a programme can be drawn up for Mid-Europe ? : A single nation of brothers I

Chapter I Partnership In The War And Its Results

As I write this fighting is going on in the East and in the West. I write of set purpose in the midst of it all, for it is only in war time that our mood enables us to entertain broadly transforming thoughts of reconstruction. Once the war is over our everyday spirit will quickly take possession of us, and in the everyday spirit Mid-Europe can never be fashioned. Bismarck founded the German Empire during and not after the war of 1870, and our statesmen must lay the foundations of this new structure during this war, in the midst of bloodshed and the upheaval of the nations. Later it might, and it would, be too late.

The subject I wish to discuss is the growing unity of those nations which belong neither to the Anglo-French western aUiance nor to the Russian Empire. But more particularly my subject is the welding together of the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy, for all further schemes for a union of the Central European nations depend on whether or no, in the first instance, the binding together of the two Central Powers themselves is successful.

When war broke out many of us, myself included, thought that an understanding with France might stiU come about, since there is no enmity towards France either on the German or the Austrian and Hungarian side. Whenever the French are willing we shall be able to offer them the hand of friendship, but of course each additional month of war makes any mutual approach more difficult. France has chosen to Unk her fate with that of England and from henceforth wiU be made use of by England. She will no longer be willing to conclude an independent peace for herself, and wiU, unfortimately, for the immediate future, become a larger and more important Portugal at England's side. Hence, in what foUows, we leave the French outside the discussion, whilst always hoping that in a more distant future they will rank themselves with Central Europe.

Nor can we speak of Italy except with reserve and caution. Italy, disregarding her old union by treaty, has, it is true, gone over into the camp of the enemy, yet she can hardly by this act have determined her political and economic aUiances for all time. National humours and economic interests are indeed frequently inharmonious in Italy. Economically she belongs to Central Europe, but we recognise that her Latin nationahty and the Adriatic- Alpine boundary problem have turned Itahan thought into another direction. Now the armies on the Isonzo have the first word, and hence we shaU discuss Mid-Europe without reference to Italy.

Of the Northern Powers, the Roumanians, Bulgarians, Serbians and Greeks, and also of Holland and Switzerland, we shall have something to say later on in our book. We shall not say very much however, for it would be a mistake to include these smaller Central European States in our scheme from the outset as fixed quantities, whilst actually they still have a breathing space before making their decision. They wish to see and they ought to see for themselves first whether the nucleus of Mid-Europe will form itself, whether the German Empire and Austria- Hungary will crystallise.

During the war we Germans, the Austrians and the Hungarians stand in friendly alliance with the Turks. In this aUiance the Turks are fighting in their own interests. They are engaged in a brave fight for Ufe for the remnant of a once powerful State, and for the political existence of the faith and being of Islam. A strange turn of history has brought us and the Turks together in that their enemies were our enemies. Their only hope of holding their own was an aUiance with us, and hence also with the Austrians and Hungarians. We hail them, and hope that in the future too our paths may Ue together, but Turkey is not in the firsts instance concerned in the formation of the Mid-European nucleus. It is not in direct contact with us geographically, and is a country of a very different type both nationally and economically ; it is southern, oriental, antiquated and sparsely populated. In this case too the nucleus of crystallisation must first be in existence before the conditions of accession to the union can profitably be discussed.

Thus our attention must first be directed towards that portion of Central Europe which extends from the North and Baltic Seas to the Alps, the Adriatic Sea and the southern edge of the Danubian plain. Take a map and see what Hes between the Vistula and the Vosges Mountains, and what extends from GaHcia to Lake Constance ! You must think of these stretches of country as a unity, as a brotherhood of many members, as a defensive alhance, as a single economic district ! All the traditional separatism of these lands must be so effaced in the stress of the Great War as to make the idea of union tolerable. This is the demand of the hour, the task of these months. History speaks to us of it in the thunder of the guns, but it rests with us whether or no we Usten.

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It may be questioned whether our partnership in this war is due to chance or to necessity. We maintain the latter. In old days indeed it was chance when, or if ever, Austria and Prussia combined. They united when they had some common task to complete such as the division of Poland or the conquest of Napoleon, but they fell apart again as soon as they had settled their own frontiers, or were attracted in diverse directions by other Powers. In the long years of the past there was much more fighting than harmony in Central Europe. Each section went its own way, and there were as yet no constraining reasons for a lasting unity. The States were merely territorial divisions, disputing sovereignties, and in no sense historically determinate poHtical groups. They grew and fell apart Uke clouds. Even the partnership in the old German Empire involved no solidarity, for hardly ever, if at all, during the later centuries did this ancient Empire emerge as a complete political entity. It was broken in the Thirty Years War, it crumbled in pieces in the Seven Years War, it split in Napoleonic times and it was divided in the Civil War of 1866. We shall discuss the earlier history more in detail later on. For the present this statement is suihcient : there is more unity to-day than ever before in the old German Empire ! To-day all the ancient States, large and small, in the stretch of country described above, have become a single united fighting entity, and victory and defeat are a like experience for all, from Heligoland to Orsova.

This is no mere political intrigue, no patched-up defensive aUiance. The war has come as a creator of the Mid-European soul, which is now coming into existence in advance of the external forms appropriate to it. It is this soul that we shall discuss, and its external embodiment that we shall examine. AU the allies in the Great War feel without argument that neither now nor in the future can small or even moderate-sized Powers play any large part in the world. Our conceptions of size have entirely changed. Only very big States have any significance on their own account, all the smaller ones must live by utilising the quarrels of the great, or must obtain leave if they wish to do anything unusual. Sovereignty, that is freedom to make decisions of wide historical importance, is now concentrated at a very few places on the globe. The day is still distant when there shall be " one fold and one shepherd," but the days are past when shepherds without number, lesser or greater, drove their flocks unrestrained over the pastures of Europe. The spirit of large-scale industry and of super-national organisation has seized politics. People think, as Cecil Rhodes once expressed it, " in Continents." The country which desires to be small and isolated will, in spite of this, become of its own accord dependent on the varying fortunes of the Great Powers. This is in conformity with an age of intercommunication and with centraHsed military technique. The country without alliances is isolated, and the isolated country is endangered. In this age of extending State federations and Great Powers, Prussia is too smaU, and Germany too small, and Austria too small, and Hungary too smaU. No single States of this kind can survive a world war. Suppose that we of the German Empire were fighting alone, or that Austria- Hungary had to offer a soUtary defence. Such things are no longer possible. Their day is past. Hence to-day the Central European union is no chance but a necessity. People who do not feel enthusiastic about it must yet desire it, since the alternatives are even worse. The intelligent man is he who does of his own free will what he recognises as necessary.

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Nevertheless it will be very difficult to found Mid-Europe, and no one act or decision can be at all adequate to the task. It will occupy at least a generation. But for the moment it is for the Governments and the peoples to determine and say whether or no they desire Mid-Europe at all or not. For the representatives of the German Empire, equally with those of Austria and Hungary, will enter upon the coming peace negotiations in an entirely different spirit according to whether or no they mean to remain united in the future.

We have no intention of saying anything about the actual terms of peace, partly because at present pubUcity is still forbidden, partly because we ourselves think it a useless and doubtful policy to discuss something which is as yet subject to military successes or failures. But whether or no the frontiers of the two Central Empires of Mid-Europe be shifted somewhat more to the east or west as the result of military victories, this question will arise : Will the ambassadors from BerUn, Vienna and Budapest enter the hall of the International Peace Congress as declared and honest friends, or as secret opponents ? We want them to return to their countrymen with the watchword : United for ever ! Then they will indeed bring back something real for every one, a new creative work, a great hope, the beginning of a fresh epoch. Thus only shall we Central European nations appear finally justified for having shed our blood for one another. What was Serajewo to us Germans of the Empire ? What were we seeking in the Carpathian passes ? Why did the Hungarians or the Southern Slavs trouble themselves about Zeebriigge ? Why should German Bohemians or Tzechs have defended the ridge of the Vosges ? The entire history of the war with all its sufferings and heroic deeds becomes purposeless, meaningless, if the war ends with a misunderstanding between those who, throughout it, have been allied. But this misunderstanding is not so far off as many think, for even now the spirit of a unified Mid-Europe is no mere matter of course, and the approaching peace negotiations wiU supply to the full opportunities both small and great for friction and trouble. All coaHtion wars have, from of old, had difficult peace negotiations, for they end in gains and losses which must be equalised amongst the aUies. But each allied Power can, and will, allow and make over advantages to its allies with a better grace, if it knows that they are certainly going to remain its allies. Both Powers will obtain much more from the Peace Congress if they negotiate throughout in common and do not enter into special settlements. These considerations ought to suffice, and will indeed be amply sufficient for those who remember the depressing history of the Vienna Congress in 1815. Then exactly that happened which now we must avoid. Temptations to break faith will creep in on both sides, since the future is assured to our opponents if they can succeed in dividing us. This weighs with them more than any other gain from the war. But for what then have we sacrificed our sons, and for what are we Germans, Austrians and Hungarians mutilated.

It is occasionally said that the war will lead to a general slackening of the bonds between the Great Powers, and that every country must wish to emerge free and without obligations from this great tragedy of political aUiances. There may be some truth in this in so far as the constraint of the State syndicates has been generally felt as such, but all the same, the outcome will be much what it is in the case of industrial syndicates : new ones are continually growing up when once the idea of combination has taken root. It is contrary to history to beUeve that in these days five or eight Great Powers will leave the precincts of the Peace Congress without having some fresh treaties in their pockets. What is called " freedom " is nothing but the already conceived desire to change one's aUiance in the future.

It is not to be supposed that at the conclusion of the war the long jubilee years of an everlasting peace wiU begin ! It is true, doubtless, that there will be a widespread inclination towards peace, for war sacrifices and war taxes speak an insistent language. Moreover, we shaU be more careful than hitherto to suppress frivolous pretexts for war and to strive for understanding between nations. But, on the other hand, the war wiU leave behind it an immense number of unsolved problems, both new and old, and will lead to disillusionments which wiU express themselves in extensive armaments. All the War Ministers, General Staffs and Admiralties will ponder over the lessons of the past war, technical skill will contrive yet newer weapons, frontier fortifications will be made stiU wider and, above all, longer. Is it really credible that in such an atmosphere the isolated State can remain any longer in isolation ?

As far as Germany and Austria-Hungary are concerned, they must either intrench their respective frontiers on the ridges of the Erzgebirge, the Riesengebirge and the Bohmerwald, or they must regard this line as, in essentials, only an inner administrative boundary in a territory looked upon by foreigners as one. This reasoning is as valid for Vienna as for Berlin. After the experiences of the present war no isolated country can remain unintrenched. For the primary and most important military inference from the war is that in future we shall fight only in long lines, and that the trench will become the essential form of defence for a country. The poUcy of trenches means that every country must consider what frontiers can and what cannot be defended by trenches. The argument is somewhat as follows : if France before 1914 had not appUed its expenditure on defences to the erection of heavy fortresses, but instead had protected its whole frontier from Belfort to Dunkirk with trenches, probably the German thrust into Northern France across Belgium would not have been possible. The same thing appUes to our frontiers in East Prussia and to those in Austrian Galicia. After the war, frontier trenches will be made ever5rwhere where there is any possibility of fighting. There will be a fresh system of Roman and Chinese walls made out of earth and barbed wire.

In consequence of this trench-making pohcy a country will be constrained to make certain, at the moment of planning out these miUtary defences, with whom it proposes under all circumstances to Uve at peace. Europe will have two long ditches from north to south, one anyhow stretching from the Lower Rhine to the Alps, the other from Courland to either the right or left of Roumania. This will constitute the main and unavoidable triple division of the Continent. The problem for Central Europe to decide is whether or no another intermediate ditch, dividing Germany and Austria- Hungary, will be needed in between the two great north to south ditches. It will be needed if no unity of future policy can be guaranteed, but if it does become necessary it will be harmful and fateful in the highest degree to both parties.

The future trench-making policy will make it exceptionally difficult for small States to maintain their independence, for under this system miHtary expenses will decrease as the size of the country to be defended increases in relation to its frontiers. A State like Roumania could hardly afford to maintain its own trench system on all sides. This means that it must choose from the outset which frontiers it will leave open. Higghng over neutrahty will be rendered much more difficult by this coming trench poUcy. Possibly trench-making will be the most effective instrument of Providence in making war into a delusion by means of its own technique. But in the first instance the long trenches must be made and paid for and manned. And when this is done Mid-Europe will either be estabhshed, or she will be debarred from unity in any future that can be foreseen.

It is on these grounds that a decision must be based.

During the war the responsible leaders of the combatant States are so pressed by their daily duties that in the midst of strenuous work they can hardly find time for historical reflections. They are not in the fortunate position of Bismarck in the winter of 1870-71, who knew from the outset approximately what he wanted, for this unprecedentedly serious war appeared, in the summer of 1914, undesired and diplomatically unprepared for. We purposely avoid entering into complicated discussions over the causes of the war, the time for this wiU come later, when all the documents have come to light. This much may, however, be stated with certainty : the two Central European Powers had no defined mihtary aim because they were only prepared for defence. The war was not undertaken in order to secure this or that object. Hence it lacks any intrinsic unity of purpose, and the royal and ministerial proclamations calhng the nations to arms lack a definite programme. There is no single watchword for all the combatants from Apenrade to Fiume. The war began purely as a war of defence, and hence from the point of view of Mid-Europe its ideals are essentially somewhat vague. This, in our opinion, is felt even more strongly in Austria and Hungary than in the German Empire. In the German Empire two ideas were always present in the minds of Government and people : that some time or other a break would occur with the Tsar, and that some time there must be a fight with England lo CENTRAL EUROPE

over the control of the sea. The only regret was that both things came about together with an overwhelming rush ; the war with France, the war in the East and the naval war. Austria and Hungary, however, had no interest in either the French war or the Anglo-German naval war, but instead they had serious tension in the Balkans, among the Southern Slavs and in Italy. Thus at the outset they were evidently more concerned about their southern frontiers than about the risks in GaHcia. It was only during the war itself that the nations in the Danube kingdom became fuUy conscious of and impressed by the Russian danger. The miUtary objective shifted from Belgrade to Przemysl and the Carpathians, and then swung back again to Trieste and extended into PoHsh territory. A situation arose in which the two parties had a joint campaign in the east, whilst, in addition, the German Empire had its special international campaigns and the Austrians and Hungarians their special southern campaign. Obviously we were mutually helping one another in this way, but nevertheless the war was regarded, and is stUl regarded, rather differently in Vienna and Budapest than in BerUn. There was no controlling idea of joint statesmanship and hke responsibihty in aU directions. This controlling idea, however, appeared during the war in peoples and Governments, in spite of many individual differences of opinion. Then for the first time the beUef took root in the hearts of those concerned that this war is not merely a German war, and not merely a Danube war, but is the historical test of Mid-Europe. But this inspiring thought has not yet risen to general consciousness. It is yet far from certain that all utterances about the war are tuned to this note. It is our task to strengthen this consciousness, until even leading men in their official statements speak of the rapidly growing unity of Mid- Europe as a self-evident fact. The Germans of the Empire in their utterances concerning the war have not always kept in mind the effect that an insistence upon purely German aims must have on their Magyar and Slav alhes. To talk, for instance, of a decisive struggle between German

PARTNERSHIP IN WAR AND ITS RESULTS ii

and Slav is a misconception, very natural indeed, but a serious departure from ideas proper to the alliance. Phrases of this sort necessarily sound very differently in the ears of Tzechs, or Poles or Slovenians than in ours. If we expect a hundred thousand Poles and other Slavs to join with us in driving out the Russian armies, we must never let these aUies of ours slip out of our memories. This involves a certain sacrifice for us Germans of our accustomed national mode of thought, but we are faced ultimately by a definite alternative. Either this is a German war, in which case we have no right to complain if it is so regarded in Prague and Agram, or it is a Central European war, in which case we ought to, and must, speak of it as such and act accordingly.

The same thing appUes to the preaching of " the German idea in the world." My friend Rohrbach has done us all a great service by becoming the prophet of this idea in his admirable and widely read book, and no patriotically minded Hungarian or Tzech wiU think evil of us patriotic Germans if we sing and dream and study and work for Deutschland, Deutschland uher alles. We need this. It is our life's blood. Only, in doing so, we must not fail to remember that our non-German partners too have a Ufe's blood, and want to reahse for what they are prepared to die. In exalting our nationaHty we ought at the same time to exalt theirs.

Come what may we must not be petty. It is obvious that in a Germany at war all our old heroic traditions must be revived, and we must see around us the Prussian King Friedrich II., and Bliicher, Moltke and Bismarck. We fight as Germans, but we fight with millions of non-Germans, who are prepared to go with us to battle and to death, so long as they have our respect and can beUeve that our victory will also be their victory.

On the Austrian and Hungarian side too a like mode of thought must be acquired more definitely than hitherto. The feelings of dishke and irritabiUty often aroused now by any strong expression of German national feeling must vanish and be overcome in a common appreciation of the many-sided strength of our great and noble union. There are stUl in the Empire of the Danube some easily expHcable remnants of the old temper of 1866, which are but ill-suited to the new Mid-Europe ; anti-Prussian feelings which, when they are expressed, are just as impalatable to the Northerners as the North German particularism, referred to above, is to the differently constituted South. Occasionally something appears which seems Uke envy, a grudging of the strength which yet is indispensable for us all as a body. To speak quite frankly : it sometimes happens that people accept help, and at the same time scold those who help them. The finer spirits in the Danubian Empire have always been sensible that this was unsuitable, but there, as here, there are people who have not such fine feelings. To such people on both sides the conception of comradeship in the joint war must be more openly preached than hitherto, and the leading men in both States must speak to their countrymen more frankly and decisively of the accompUshed fact ; that the past is forgotten, that we cancel all our earher debits and credits, and from henceforward press onwards hand in hand Uke good and honest friends. The war unites.

In the later sections of this book we shall have to discuss more in detail the difficulties in the way of the union, and even here we must briefly point out how different the two Empires are, so that we may face the whole comphcated problem from the outset,

Austria-Hungary is a unit of long standing with strong disintegrating tendencies ; the German Empire is a newly formed unit with ever-increasing centraHsation. Over there exists a growing spirit of particularism or of provinciahsm, a constant effort to snatch something from the hands of the central authority and to make Maria Theresa's monarchy a mere legend. With us, on the contrary, the creative energy Hes more in the Imperial than in the State Governments. To use an old phrase, Germany develops daily from a confederation of States into a federal State, whilst Austria and Hungary are growing out of a single State into a confederation of States, or rather, into a union of two States, one of which is almost a confederation of States, whilst the other is an attempt at a national State, but of a most difficult composition. With us political talents and aspirations are Imperialist, over there they are frequently provincial, separatist, or nationaUst, but not centraUsing.

The German Empire is founded on the German national ideal, and finds its justification therein. The foreign-speaking portions, and especially Prussian Poles, are indeed a difficult problem for statesmanship, but they are neither so numerous nor so powerful as to come into consideration as partners in the Government. Austria-Hungary, on the other hand, has dreaded for the last hundred years the national spirit of its peoples as a decentraHsing power. Hence its political thought is more colourless. In the place of a central nationalism there is what the -French term etatisme, the mere machinery of government : monarchy, bureaucracy, army.

Austria-Hungary is older ; it had long been rich in land and honours when Prussia had stiU to seek recognition of its royal dignity ; it was one of the European Great Powers before the North had any serious word to say ; it was not so broken as the North either in the Thirty Years War or in Napoleon's time ; it has followed a prudent course through the centuries, and has many more traditions to uphold. The German Empire, on the contrary, is the most recently founded of the European great States, an intruder in the royal company, less inherited than fought for, a child of the nineteenth century. It is like mixing the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to think of working up Austria and Prussia into a single historical entity.

The German Empire is more northerly, colder, more uniform, more technical. Austria-Hungary is more southerly, more brightly coloured, more a natural growth, more romantic. The difference noticeable within the German Empire between North and South Germany is in a yet higher degree the difference between Germany and Austria- Hungary.

The German Empire is more western, Austria more eastern. The same differences which we know as marking the districts east and west of the Elbe occur in more defined form in Central Europe, so soon as the country between the Theiss and the Carpathians joins the countries, distant to them, on the Mosel and Lower Rhine.

The greater part of Germany is Protestant, most of Austria-Hungary is Catholic.

Germany is much more capitaUst, and consequently much more socialist, than Austria-Hungary. For us Germans of the Empire a union means a reopening of the already halfsettled disputes of the preceding generation ; for Austria- Hungary it means a rapid transition to conditions and problems which are there only slowly and gently approaching.

The rhythm of Kfe is different. We work more methodically. We think more in terms of money, are more punctual, more businesslike, hence also poorer in homely comfort and the art of simple living. This is carried so far that each country secretly regards the other with something of pity and forbearance, because each lacks just what the other regards as essential to civiUsation.

Austria-Hungary possesses more past because it is the older organisation, and more future because it has more undeveloped land and labour power. It has less present, because it has held itself back with long hesitation from the technical skill advancing from the West, and is not so rich in sea-coast, coal, iron, and organising energy.