III. World War I

Austria-Hungary remains the cornerstone of Europe. — Leroy-Beaulieu, in 1903.

BY 1914 we see two different types of monarchies in Europe. In some countries the king or emperor overshadows the parliament, in others again the parliament is in full control of the government and the crowned sovereign merely functions as a representative of the nation or as symbol of the state. These monarchies were to all practical purposes republics; some of them had a democratic, some an aristocratic or plutocratic character. It is important to note that it was not always the constitution which curtailed the rights and prerogatives of the monarch, but rather practice and usage. The Swedish constitution, for instance, gives more rights and powers to the king than the Belgian charter, but the king of the Belgians has far greater influence over the state affairs of his country and there is no doubt that he was, during the last war, the virtual dictator of his diminished realm.

The decline of the influence of monarchs was accompanied by the decline of the influence of the Catholic Church.¹²⁸ The male supremacy was challenged in public life and it became evident that kings, Popes, emperors, fathers, priests were facing bad times in Europe, and God Himself was ignored. France had become a republic in 1870, Portugal followed in 1910, China, the oldest monarchy in the world on the other end of the Eurasian continent, became a republic in 1912, and the ceaselessly increasing power of the American republic threw long shadows over Europe.* The twilight of the institution of monarchy in Europe was soon at hand.

The moral and political prestige of the Church reached an all time low.¹²⁹ Even in “Catholic” countries her power amounted to almost nothing. France and Portugal had expelled most of the orders. “Freethinkers” not only guided the political destinies of these two republics but they also ruled in Italy and directed Spanish political life. The kingdom of Ferdinand and Isabel was actually governed by the liberal branch of the Bourbons while the conservative, Carlist branch lived in exile. The Second German Reich treated Catholics more favorably than France, inasmuch as it had diplomatic relations with the Vatican,* gave full financial support to the Church and had furthermore only one single order proscribed.** The Church in France went through a miserable period of transition as a mere association cultuelle, sustained by the charitable gifts of the faithful. It is true that France became in course of time rather lax in the enforcement of her anti-Catholic laws, but priests were always denied the right to vote, although in a truly egalitarian spirit they were made to fight in the army.

Even Austria-Hungary was not a model Catholic state if one considers the fact that the Emperor-King Francis Joseph forced his officers to fight duels if their “honor” was attacked.*** The Church continued to punish this sometimes tragic and sometimes comical practice with excommunication all the same. Catholicism in Austria and Hungary often was supine and suffered from the burden of traditionalism. The middle class with its small but ambitious and headstrong Jewish and Protestant minorities was fully imbued with ideas derived directly or indirectly from the French Revolution and worked for the disruption of the Danubian monarchy. Gladstone, the great liberal, considered her to be a medieval “survival,” putting the realm of the Habsburgs on the same level as his other bête-noire — Turkey.

Austria-Hungary nevertheless was a great asset of the Catholic Church and the ultimate hope of all true “reactionaries,” as they were then considered. “Progressive” people from all parts of Europe felt their political herd instincts outraged and insulted by the mere existence of this irrational, national mosaic. Diversity was the keynote of Austria-Hungary. Twelve nationalities lived together in comparative harmony under a monarch who enjoyed such great moral prestige because he was (besides the Church) the truly uniting bond. It is hardly a question that this second largest European state would have survived to our very days if the World War had not offered an opportunity to the nationalistic middle classes to throw off the yoke of the benevolent Habsburgs with the help of the Allies, and to exchange it (after a short interlude) for the sweet yoke of another Austrian, a good deal less scrupulous in the methods of government.

The peasants, the aristocracy, the laboring classes, and the clergy had been perfectly happy under the old order; and they formed after all the overwhelming majority of the population. Against these historical classes remonstrated the urban populace, the semi-intellectuals, the lawyers, journalists, high school professors, gymnastic teachers, and white-collar workers. (Even the business world was rather divided.) These elements found their way to collaborate with the Allies, who helped them to break up the monarchy. In the delirium of victory few people were consciously aware of the disappearance of the Danubian monarchy. The Habsburgs themselves were of “unpleasant” memory for the progressives who felt haunted by the shadows of Philip II and the Armada, Charles V and his dreams of a universal monarchy, Ferdinand II, and Maximilian, the “Last Knight.” Austria stood in their eyes for “racial” persecution, for Metternich’s police system, the Counter Reformation, the Baroque style and the wars against Frederick II of Prussia.

But in general Austria-Hungary was not disliked. The hatred of the Seton-Watsons and Wickham Steeds was the sentiment of a powerful and influential but small group of people. Francis Joseph, the tragic old man, was more respected than William II. Places like the Tyrol and the Dolomites, old Prague, gay Vienna, Dalmatia, or the Hungarian Steppes had a slightly Ruritanian halo of glamor and romance which was remotely connected with Dracula’s castle in the Carpathians and the waltzes of Johann Strauss.

And it was nevertheless Austria Hungary which was the reason for World War I and even World War II, it was Austria which was forced by circumstances to start the great massacre, and it was Austria again which was the great bait, the large, potential spoil; her destruction changed the map of Europe and thus conditioned the present struggle.¹³⁰

The war of 1914–1918 was not in the interests of Germany. Every territorial aggrandizement of the Second Reich would have been equivalent to an increase of her Catholic and non-Germanic population and therefore would have created an intolerable and dangerous situation in the eyes of all prussianized Protestant nationalists. Germany was then still a country partly ruled by a parliament, and an increase of Ultramontanes and Franco-Slavic opposition parties would have changed the character of the government and the administration seriously. There is not the slightest evidence that Germany coveted any particular part of any neighboring country previous to the outbreak of the war. No “movements” favoring an Anschluss of the adjacent regions were supported by the government of the Reich; a German “Irreddenta” did not exist and no responsible person inside and outside the government put forward territorial claims of any nature. There are neither maps nor pamphlets demanding the extension of German (or Austro-Hungarian) domination printed before 1914; they became indeed very numerous after Hitler’s advent to power but were unheard of under the imperial government.

On the other hand we had the Italia Irreddenta working feverishly in Triest and the Trentino. Italian geographers were expounding the theory that watersheds (continental divides) alone can be regarded as just and tenable borders.* There was the south Slav movement directed toward a separation of the Croatian and Slovenian provinces from the dual monarchy. The Rumanian nationalists carried their propaganda to Transylvania and the Bukovina. The Panslavs stirred up the feeling in Bohemia, Slovakia, and among the Ruthenes of Galicia. Czech emigrants (Masaryk and Beneš among them), spoke about the establishment of a Russian imperial protectorate in their country. There were French claims for Alsace-Lorraine, Danish claims for Northern Slesvig, and Russian claims for eastern Germany. The material for these demands, aspirations, and desires could fill whole bookstores.

The Central Powers were politically on the defensive. Germany especially, as “das Reich der Mitte,” had a definite inferiority complex on account of her encircled position, and William II followed the very unwise policy of shouting menaces at the top of his voice in order to frighten all potential enemies, a behavior reminding one of a child in a dark room. There is little doubt that he was, in spite of his blunt and uncontrolled word spoken in public, deadly afraid of war.¹³¹ It was one of the tenets of German foreign policy up till the Moroccan crisis not to antagonize France, and the fear of a French irritation caused William II to decline the offers of the British government at the end of the Boer War for close cooperation. No competent historian considers him today to be the originator of the war to end wars. Yet his partly offending rather than offensive, and partly vacillating policy contributed to the downfall of the Central Powers.

Germany and Austria-Hungary were at the end of the nineteenth century already inseparable allies. The efforts of King Edward VII to lure Austria-Hungary away from Germany were doomed to failure because nationalism had already made such inroads into the political mentality of Central Europe that the very idea of a war between Germans and Germans (37 per cent of all Austrian citizens were Germans) was out of question. The fateful events of the year 1866 should never be repeated again.

Austria-Hungary had to stick to Germany, and for the Second Reich the Danubian monarchy was the only ally they could count upon. Neither was the linguistic national tie the only one between these two countries. They had a common tradition and a common heritage. The old capital of the First Reich was in Austria, the crown of the holy Roman emperors was in Vienna, the arms as well as the dynasty of the Sacrum Imperium continued their existence in Austria. The legal historical successor of the Caesars was in Vienna and not in Berlin. When Francis Joseph celebrated his diamond jubilee all German princes, headed by the king of Prussia, came to Vienna to pay homage to him. The old emperor emphasized in his thanks address that he considered himself to be a German sovereign — ein deutscher Fürst.

Most Austrians of German extraction considered themselves to be Germans. They rather looked down at the “Prussians” as non-Germans.

Germany was, of course, more industrialized than Austria and her population was accordingly larger. Yet territorially she was smaller than Austria-Hungary.

During World War I the Germans of the Second Reich bore the brunt of the attack, the defense, and the general hatred. The Austrians were only hated by their immediate neighbors and enemies. Thus most of the propaganda of the Allies was directed against Germany and not against Austria, which circumstance further helped to becloud the minds of many otherwise intelligent persons. It must be said in all candor that it is impossible to make a correct historical evaluation of World War I while disregarding the fact that Austria-Hungary began the war, that she was the real issue of the war, and that the most important result of the war is the new order in the Danubian area as established in 1919. Everybody who denies that the World War I is not “about” Austria-Hungary, understands neither history nor Europe.

Neither is it possible to continue the legend of German aggression in 1914. This legend has been thoroughly destroyed. The books of Sidney Fay, of H. E. Barnes, G. P. Gooch, Henri Pozzi, A. v. Wegerer, Bogičević, the publications of the German, Austrian, Russian archives and numerous memoirs have changed the picture completely in the eyes of everybody who has taken the time and energy to dig through these lengthy volumes.* If there is any “war guilt” on the side of the Central Powers one must admit that it was Austria-Hungary which made the fatal, but unavoidable initial steps, the most decisive ones even, without concrete knowledge of the German government. G. P. Gooch wrote in an article in German Life and Letters (Vol. III): “Bismarck used to say that in concluding the alliance with Austria it was understood that Germany was the rider and Austria the horse. Since the coming of Aehrenthal in 1906 to the Ballhausplatz the roles have been reversed.” This remark is very much to the point.

Yet it is hopeless today, especially since September, 1939, when another Germany willfully started another war, to propagate the truth. It probably will take at least a full generation after this present struggle, decades of sobering up, thinking, reflecting, and investigating, until the wars of 1914 and 1939 will clearly be considered apart. There is little hope in the near future that the just accusations against the Germany of 1939 will not be automatically extended to the Germany of 1914. If we live by 1960 still in an ochlocratic age (i.e., in an age of mass emotions), no such distinctions will be either made or encouraged in spite of the fact that we can see now clearly the difference between a prepared and an unprepared Germany.**

The tragedy of 1914 could perhaps not have been averted. The Karagjorgjevics of Serbia, who were for three years not recognized by the British government because they had gained their throne by murder, set the fuse by profiting from a new murder. Russia regarded herself as compelled to stand by Serbia on account of the Panslavist sentiment, and the intrigues of the military clique checkmated every imperial peace effort coming either from Berlin or St. Petersburg. The French “liberal” republic, so liberal in her loans to the eastern autocracy, was bound to help her. England, tied to France by the secret Naval Agreement of 1907, was bound to assist the Franco-Russian Entente. Constitutional tradition in England made it impossible for the king, a first cousin of William II, to intervene effectively. Italy, who had given birth to a Machiavelli, swung from the Central Powers to the Allies, in spite of the fact that her former associates could promise her far greater profits.* Yet the anti-Habsburg influences determined her to join the anti-Austrian and only accidentally anti-German bloc.

This war was clearly, if we exclude Russia, a war of the “modern” countries against the “survivals.” Even the Balkan states, in spite of their technical industrial “backwardness,” were deeply imbued with the ideas of the French Revolution. Neither Serbia nor Montenegro had a feudal background. The power of the Italian king was only nominal, and England, then liberal to the core, had an ineffective Conservative opposition. The Russian Revolution did not bring despair alone to London and Paris but also a sigh of relief. Now at last it was possible for the American Republic to join the crusade to make Europe safe for politicians, traders, and dictators. People spoke of a victory of the ideals of 1688, 1776, and 1789. Today these very ideals are effectively challenged by 1917, 1922, and 1933. It is London and Washington who are now the “survivals” with a conservative program against the revolutions.

Hardly had the war begun when an immense propaganda of hatred and calumnies enveloped the more ochlocratically inclined countries of the world. Propaganda was used to a small extent in the “backward” countries like Russia, Turkey, Serbia, Austria-Hungary, and Rumania. In Germany, Italy, and certainly in France it was felt quite strongly. But England and the United States outdid them all. Propaganda had to arouse active hatred and indignation in order to keep the modern “fighting spirit” alive. The hinterland was soon more enraged and inflamed than the front, and the female element at home was in that respect far worse than any active combatant. The conception of traditional chivalry on the Western Front survived merely in the ci-devant individualistic weapon of the air force. Waves of soldiers, driven by sinister, teeth-gnashing sentiments, were hurled against each other; the more illiterates the armies contained, the lower the level of “popular education,” the smaller the percentage of city-bred population, the more human was the war.

Austrian officers, referring to the Galician or Volhynian battlefields, spoke about the “gentleman front,” a term that was not extended to the Isonzo Valley, while the war in the Dolomites had more personal aspects and was therefore also more affected by the spirit of chivalry and sport. Russian prisoners of war, “farmed out” to the Hungarian peasantry, had a good time; frequently they married the war widows and nobody saw anything blamable in it. English as well as French was taught in Austrian and German schools during the war. But Austria-Hungary alone, being less “progressive” than her German ally, refrained from putting enemy aliens of military age into concentration camps, a method practiced by Berlin, London, and Paris alike. Prisoners of war, especially officers, had frequently a good time in Austria and Montenegro;¹³² Austrian and German craftsmen, released from military prisons by the Russian authorities, could settle down in smaller towns, and made a splendid living until Bolshevism destroyed their prospects. The Siberian camps, of course, were less pleasant.

This propaganda of hatred¹³³ in modern wars is of absolute necessity because of their ochlocratic character, because public opinion has to be taken into consideration, and also because all modern wars are (for the aforementioned reasons) “holy wars.” Human nature is basically idealistic and it is impossible, contrary to general beliefs, to wage a modern mass war for economic or for that sake also for dynastic reasons. Only professional soldiers who love fighting for fighting’s sake would cooperate in such an enterprise. Yet these are always a small minority. The mass war demands mass emotions because it is only possible to ask the average man to sacrifice his life for an emotional value and one has to admit sadly that hatred is often stronger than love.¹³⁴

The Russian soldiers who “attacked” the enemy forty-five lines deep in the Carpathians, the first fifteen lines equipped with prayer books instead of rifles, fought perhaps without “conviction,” but also without hatred. Yet from a higher point of view it is definitely better to die for “Holy Russia” and the “Little Father Czar” than in a crusade against “Huns.”

Efforts to restore peace and to stop the senseless butchering, by which big capital alone profited handsomely, were made by supranational as well as by international powers. The Socialists met in Stockholm but their efforts were in vain. The British government had not given passports to the members of the Labor Party, while the German government, eager for a peaceful settlement — in spite of such intransigents as Ludendorff and Count Stolberg-Wernigerode — had acted otherwise. President Wilson’s appeal and proposals demonstrated the depressing ignorance of the ex-governor of New Jersey in the affairs of Europe, but it was received with sympathy in the capitals of all belligerent powers. Efforts of greater importance were made by the Pope, but they, too, failed miserably on account of the hostility from the side of the German Protestants, headed by Michaelis,* and the “liberal” anti-Catholics led by the fatal triumvirate, Wilson, Lloyd George, Clémenceau.¹³⁵ A moral victory of the papacy had to be avoided by all means and the indifference of these statesmen toward the death of millions of men was manifest.¹³⁶ The great task of paving the way for Adolf Hitler was not yet accomplished. Stupidity, shortsightedness, greed, prejudice, and bigotry had never reaped greater victories. The democratically elected politicos quickly proceeded after their sanguinary diplomatic victory over the papacy to thwart another peace effort coming this time from Charles I, the pious emperor of Austria.

While English, French, and German shareholders of the flourishing Nobel dynamite factories discussed dividends and interests in peaceful Switzerland, and German soldiers on the western front were killed by weapons for which the Krupp works continued to receive royalties during the whole war, delegates of Charles I met the emperor’s brother-in-law on neutral soil. This young man, Prince Sixte of Bourbon-Parma, thanks to the intervention of the queen of the Belgians, served in the Belgian army.**

It was the intention of the Austrian ruler to use his relative as an intermediary between himself and the French government. In a later stage he sent an autographed letter to be shown to the French authorities who promptly published it in order to sow discord between Vienna and Berlin. Through this wanton betrayal of confidence the peace efforts were frustrated.¹³⁷

Thus the war went on; the Allies had in the meantime given binding promises to the dissatisfied elements in the dual monarchy and President Wilson proclaimed pompously that he was not willing to deal with the representatives of the “German autocracy.” The hungry and desperate masses of the Central Powers revolted and exiled their monarchs in order to comply with Wilson’s demands, and the drama which found its climax on September 1, 1939, took its course.

One hears frequently the argument that the Central Powers would have treated the Allies brutally if they had won the war, and the treaties of Brest-Litovsk (Brześć nad Bugiem) and Bucharest are always cited as outstanding examples of a dictatorial peace arrangement and as logical forerunners of St. Germain and Trianon. Yet in connection with these two treaties one is tempted to repeat Bowie Haggart’s words in Barrie’s Auld Licht Idylls:

I am of opeenion that the works of Burns is of an immoral tendency, I have not read them myself, but such is my opeenion.

Yet it is true that the Treaty of Brest was not fair. The Central Powers were anxious to impress the world by their moderation and a weak effort was made to apply Wilson’s delirious proposal for “self-determination”; the result was a compromise in favor of the Russians. The Finns, Esthonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Poles were given borders which were far from meeting their just demands. Thus the Latvians of Latgalia were left under the communist regime. The district of Chelm, populated by Ukrainians with Polish sympathies, was given to the Ukraine and naturally the Poles were alienated in their sympathies from the Central Powers to such a degree that they instinctively turned to the Allies for help in the realization of their hopes. The Esthonians who had claims for the district of Petseri were no less disappointed than the Finns, who had expected to receive Karelia and Ingermanland. Without the possession of these two provinces they could never reasonably hope to stave off communist attacks in the future.* The Ukraine became an independent country and even after the breakdown of Skoropadsky’s and Petlyura’s nationalist regimes and the subsequent victory of the Bolsheviks this country was never reincorporated into (Soviet) Russia, but became merely a member of the international Soviet Union.

Yet in spite of the actual intentions, the Treaty of Brest Litovsk was soon decried as the most brutal and dictatorial arrangement. The fact that the newly revived nations again had to resort to arms, immediately after the final defeat of the Central Powers, in order to conquer additional territories from the Soviet Union (to which they had perfect claims), proves the contrary. The Finns thus acquired Petsamo; the Latvians, Latgalia; the Esthonians, Petseri; the Poles got thousands of square miles; and even the Rumanians, the “gallant Allies in the East,” did not make the slightest move to return Bessarabia, to which they had a good right according to national statistics and historical tradition. This time no voice of protest was heard and the western statesmen considered it not a crime that as many square inches as possible should be wrenched from the destructive realm of the Red Czar. And this time they were (accidentally) right. (See map, Appendix V.)

The situation at the Treaty of Bucharest was not identical. Rumania was a monarchy and her ruler a relative of the other European dynasties.* It must be remembered that the Soviet Union, although outside the category of traditional European states, was nevertheless treated as a diplomatic equal at Brest Litovsk. Its representatives, fresh from the Siberian prisons and the Ukrainian ghettos, dined solemnly with the prince regent of Bavaria, Count Czernin, General Hoffmann, and Herr von Kühlmann.** Even Ludendorff, that Machiavellian and destructive militarist who had shipped Lenin to Russia, was present and hobnobbed with Trotzky, Radek, and Yoffe. The old tradition of sportsmanship still lingered on.*** And this tradition was even stronger in the Rumanian case. A group of Rumanian politicians (under Marghiloman) suggesting that their country should be included in an Austro-Hungarian federation and their royal house exiled was — in spite of William II’s wavering attitude — not listened to.

Rumania had to consent to a correction of her Hungarian border, involving the loss of a few hundred square miles of barren land in the Carpathians with a population of about 3000 people. She had also to cede 23,000 square kilometers in the southeast (the Dobrudja) to the Central Powers who turned over one third of this territory to Bulgaria.* Rumania, on the other hand, was compensated for the loss of 800,000 inhabitants in the Dobrudja (a loss which was not final) with Bessarabia, a province of 44,000 square kilometers and almost 3,000,000 inhabitants. The “reactionary and feudal” Central Powers forced Rumania to grant full citizenship to its Jewish subjects.** Thus Rumania emerged from her defeat with an actual gain. Yet this did not prevent her from declaring war on the Central Powers three hours prior to the armistice and to seize another gigantic piece of land equivalent to about 90 per cent of her own territory.

Such were these two treaties. It is interesting to note that there were few Englishmen or Americans who acclaimed the “liquidation” of the Treaty of Brest Litovsk in 1940 with great enthusiasm. When Soviet Russia knifed Poland in the back supporting Nazi aggression and started to grab Bessarabia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Esthonia in order “to redress the wrongs of Brest Litovsk” (as their press wrote), the United States State Department and the Foreign Office protested against these actions. When Russia attacked Finland in 1939 in order to swallow her up, few “democrats” exulted with joy. Even moderate Socialists felt outraged about this unprovoked assault, and yet one wonders how many of them realize that Finland’s independence has been stipulated in Brest Litovsk and that her freedom was largely due to German armed intervention.

The affirmation that the Western Powers were fighting for “democracy” had gained more credibility by the end of 1917. Russia had become a “democracy” in March, but the Russian ochlocracy went through the stages of evolution quicker than even Plato had dared to dream. The young republic was already a tyranny in November, and Hungary achieved the same goal in an equally short time, while Germany, always slow and thorough, took fourteen fateful years.

Supranational monarchism was dead by 1919. A Welsh lawyer in the highest political office of Great Britain demanded publicly the hanging of the first cousin of his own king. It made an excellent slogan for elections and worked like magic. A regime with ochlocratic tendencies which goes to war and makes full use of its skill in the art of propaganda cannot suddenly swing around and stop abruptly all artificially aroused sentiments. It is easy to stop a small canoe within a few yards of the embankment, but a 70,000 ton ocean steamer, doing 32 knots per hour in one direction has to slow down and to put on counterspeed many miles before it reaches the harbor. Governments under popular pressure are such large boats. Peace treaties are thus forced and concluded by the representatives of the victorious masses, who are still under the spell of mass emotion.¹³⁸ Brest Litovsk and Bucharest were not in the least influenced by the general will, and there is no doubt that Hungarian public opinion demanded a greater “punishment” for Rumania, to which the Hungarian experts and the King-Emperor did not agree.

The shortcomings of the suburban treaties of Paris — Versailles, Trianon, St. Germain, Neuilly, and Sevres — can be summed up as follows:

1. The atmosphere of mass hatred under which these treaties were concluded. (Which is largely due to nationalism and democratism.)

2. The lack of fraternal royal feeling which usually paralyzes the effects of general hatred.

3. The monumental ignorance of the political leaders and the lack of expert geographical opinion.¹³⁹

4. The complete failure of the economic “experts” in their estimates.

5. The return to primitive “dictation” (Vae victis!) and the absence of the element of negotiation.

6. The social treatment of the delegates of the former Central Powers.

7. The application of impossible geopolitical dogmas.

8. The breach of promises and disregard of the original program (14 points of Wilson) due to secret commitments.

9. The humiliation inflicted through the war-guilt clauses.

10. “Punishment” of nations.¹⁴⁰

The trouble is that modern countries are usually run by politicians and not by statesmen, which is a different thing altogether. The representatives of the western nations had an educational background which was certainly inferior to that of a Dutch secondary school.¹⁴¹ There is little doubt that a personal meeting of European monarchs would have moved on a higher plane and that greater intimacy and understanding would have prevailed. There was not a single ruler in 1917 who did not speak three to five languages with great ease. Yet the lack of linguistic abilities alone would not have had such fateful consequences; an astounding ignorance of history and geography prevailed among the people’s representatives who had been chosen on account of their popularity, not their knowledge, and this they had little time to improve once they were in office. It is highly probable that in the subjects mentioned premier and president could never have successfully passed the entrance examination to a Continental university. To this lack of education and knowledge one has to add a lack of manners and ineradicable prejudices. Mr. David Lloyd George disliked monarchs and he didn’t care for Catholic ideas. Yet Europe is, apart from its northwestern islands and peninsulas, a predominantly Catholic continent.* Whether one likes the Church or not, one cannot ignore her. Yet Mr. Lloyd-George expected more from the genuine, mutual sympathies of “free nations” than from traditional solutions.¹⁴² But these same nations soon voted for dictatorships** and the ensuing “popular leaders” made old-fashioned liberals long for a revival of the Middle Ages. But then it was too late.

Mr. Wilson had a similar dislike for Catholics and this prejudice had fatal consequences.¹⁴³ It was a tragedy that two of the representatives of the Big Four were Protestants (the one a Calvinist, the other a Wesleyan) and that the rest consisted of lapsed Catholics. Clémenceau was even famous for his violent anticlericalism.

Thus ended in 1919 the Christian political history of Europe. This is the deeper significance of the “suburban” treaties which really were suburban from every point of view. The French Revolution had begun the work of destruction. Now it had received its official seal. In order to solidify this new disorder a League of Nations was set up. This secular dream of gentlemen in tails and top hats sitting around a table, united by some vague humanitarian mutual affection and talking shop could never become effective.¹⁴⁴ The lack of a common spiritual basis and a common moral code doomed the League to failure before she even settled down on the shores of Lake Geneva. What, after all, did unite these hopeless busybodies? The knowledge of God’s all-compromising fatherhood or just the experience that wars were expensive and uncomfortable? Strange people could be seen in the halls of the palace of the League. Little yellow men who affirmed that their emperor descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu, delegates of loyalist Spain which persecuted religion brutally, delegates of the Soviet Union firmly believing in Marxian dialectics, Scandinavians putting their faith in materialism and the fatherhood of the Pithecanthropus erectus Dubois, Austrians and Portuguese who came from countries which tried to oppose the evil spirit of the time. Their faiths divided them more than their languages. And through the windows one looked out on the town of Jean Cauvin and Jean Jacques Rousseau.¹⁴⁵

This league of men who were neither noble, nor savage, nor anything else soon found its deserved end.

The Treaty of Versailles*itself was not the great evil which finally brought the National Socialists into power. It is not difficult to vindicate the letter of Versailles; it is the spirit which makes it inexcusable. It is the spirit of Versailles which brought no material advantage whatsoever to the victors but gave the National Socialists a powerful weapon into their hands. Was it necessary to copy Herr von Bismarck’s bad dramatic taste in choosing the Mirror Hall of Versailles, birthplace of the Second Reich, as a stage for the scene where the German delegates were made to sign the fateful document? They signed the death warrant of the Second Reich which was a none too glorious period in German history but a mild one in comparison with the one bound to follow. Could not another day have been picked than the fifth anniversary of the assassination in Sarayevo and the four hundredth anniversary of the election of the greatest ruler of the First Reich — Charles V?** Was it necessary to celebrate in such solemn form the fact that murder does pay?* Could not Count Brockdorff-Rantzau be treated at least in the same way as Trotzki was treated in Brest Litovsk? Was it necessary to force the signature under the war guilt clause?**

Many similar questions could be asked in connection with that sad and silly Treaty of Versailles. But one thing can be mentioned in its defense and that is its factual content which was hard but not intolerable. The financial demands were anyhow so unreasonable that no intelligent person expected that the demands could be met. Yet the territorial arrangements gave sense. Alsace-Lorraine, as could be expected from French insistence, was detached from Germany. The Danes had a perfect right to northern Sleswig, and the Poles ought to have received more than they did. The plebiscites in the Upper Silesian and the East Prussian lands were unfortunately held at a much too early date. For these Reich citizens of Polish nationality the idea to join Poland was still identical with joining Russian Poland (“Congress Poland”) which was maladministrated under Muscovite rule. The plebiscites were therefore in favor of Germany and added to the friction. Another mistake was made in the case of Danzig, a mistake which caused endless complications. National (“racial”) borders in eastern Europe are utter nonsense; Danzig, together with all of Western Prussia (Pomorze), Posen, and Upper Silesia, should have been given to Poland. This would have included even more Germans, but from the point of view of a minority it is better to be numerous than to be suppressed as a negligible quantity which can offer no resistance. The more national minorities a state has, the less efficient, hopeful, and active will their suppression be. One has only to compare the desperate situation of the Austro-Germans in the South Tyrol, under Italian domination, with the Germans in Bohemia and Moravia under Czech rule.

A Poland with its historic borders in the west including Upper Silesia would have been a strong, well-rounded state; with the borders of Versailles it was crippled from the very beginning. The Poles are undoubtedly to blame for their excessive nationalism, but it would be very unjust to blame them alone for this suicidal policy.¹⁴⁶As long as ethnic nationalism is a potent force no reasonable political life can exist, no reasonable state can be put up, no reasonable and permanent border drawn.

The total loss of colonies was definitely a breach of promise but practically no financial loss to Germany. In view of all these facts it is not an exaggeration to believe that, in spite of the factual arrangements of Versailles, the rise and victory of National Socialism has little connection with the treaty itself. The circumstances of the signing, the accusations, humiliations, discriminations are of a more serious nature. Yet the real root of all evil was the nature of the events of 1918–1919: the Weimar Constitution, the flight of William II to Holland, the increased centralization, socialism and socialization, the whole impetus which ochlocracy and materialism gained, thanks to the victory of the Allies. Versailles has as much to do with the reasons for the existence of National Socialism as the Boston Tea Party with American Independence. Both events were symptoms and not causes.

Germany lost the war technically on November 11, 1918, when she sued for an armistice, but she won it “back,” in spite of Versailles (even materially) when Austria had to consent to the breaking up of her territory in the Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye a few months later. This treaty was supplemented a year later with the Diktat of Trianon between Hungary and the Allies.

The procedure in all three cases was the same; for weeks the representatives of the Allies deliberated among themselves and then “informed” the delegates of the Central Powers, who were treated like dangerous criminals, of their “decision.” Not a single point of the original draft was modified. Even a man like Bismarck had changed the preliminary treaty with France by returning the district of the fortress of Belfort to her. But the high-pressure salesmanship of the Western Powers had finally the opposite effect from that which they expected. Germany had already deeply impressed most Europeans with her stand for four and a half years against practically the whole world. “Morally” she had lost very little.¹⁴⁷ But now that the map was so radically changed, after the solid block of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy had been smothered into unrecognizable fragments, Germany was put in the most advantageous geopolitical situation. It was now only a question of time when a rejuvenated and reinforced Germany would enter into a receivership for the liquidated estates of the dual monarchy. The imaginary “road to Bagdad” was now a reality.

To illustrate the situation better one might visualize a cage (Central Europe) containing a lion and a tiger, Austria and Germany. The Allies killed the lion, carved him up, broiled his slices, and left these on a platter. Then they humiliated the tiger beyond words, clipped his tail and ears, cut his claws, wounded his back, starved him, and locked the cage. Our “democratic” simpletons were highly astonished when the tiger started to eat the remains of his former cage mate once he had finished with the job of licking his wounds.

It must be realized that the Habsburgs in exile meant the green light for Prussianized Germany. When William II arrived in Amerongen the way for Adolf Hitler was open,¹⁴⁸ when Charles I debarked from a British cruiser on the shores of an African island to die a bitter death in exile, the war was lost for the Allies. The fact that it took them twenty years to become aware of this truth has no bearing on the matter.¹⁴⁹

Another aspect of this great anti-Austrian victory¹⁵⁰ was the Balkanization of large parts of Europe. The “democrats,” who always boasted of being “moderns,” created fragmentary states which were against the very spirit of the time and a challenge to economic principles. Yet neither monolithic centralized mammoth states nor hopeless parcellation is the solution, but the federal, decentralized principle of organic crystallization. Now countries were invented which in history had never existed before. In vain do we try to find names like “Czechoslovakia” or “Yugoslavia” in the Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1912. The name Rumania had only been coined in the fifties in order to have a common label for Vallachia and Moldavia. But the lack of any tradition was considered an asset rather than a handicap. In vain did Hungarian propaganda emphasize that their country was an ezeréves királyág, a kingdom over 1000 years old;* the expression “the young republic” sounded so far better and hopeful.

These new states were nationalistic states with enormous minorities. Czechoslovakia had 52 per cent of non-Czechs,* Yugoslavia, 60 per cent non-Serbs,** Rumania, 25 per cent non-Rumanians. These new countries insisted from time to time, not without deeper justification, on being called “democracies.” If their “dominating race” formed more than 50 per cent of the population or provided more than half the deputies in their parliaments, then the minorities had no hope for a revindication of their rights. Their treatment usually varied from suspicion and fiscal vexation to brutal persecution, mass execution, torture and exile. After all, they disturbed the uniform monotony of the herd, and were thus eo ipso troublemakers.

A rigorous application of the Wilsonian principle of self-determination is, of course, equally hopeless. The masses generally do not know what is best for themselves or the community of states. This principle, if sincerely invoked, produced such monstrosities as the Czech-German border after the Munich Conference, this sublime triumph of Wilsonism.*** The National Socialists, with their spasmodically manifested respect for the general will, have invoked this principle very successfully when it fitted in with their plans.

It is the nationalistic uniformistic spirit which lies at the bottom of these evils. The problem will only be solved if people are able to get back to their natural delight for a diversity of languages, customs, dresses, and habits. The alternative is rather simple; it is either return or suicide.

The breaking up of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was also a heavy blow to the Church which awoke after the victory of the progressive Allies in a thoroughly bourgeois world.¹⁵¹ The victory of the middle classes was almost complete.

Rump Austria was governed most of the time by a Catholic party which frequently had to compromise with a huge Socialist minority exercising an absolutistic rule over the city of Vienna. This metropolis harbored one third of the population of the small Alpine republic, which tended to become a “second Switzerland.” Yet while ochlocratic and socialist influences made Vienna the heart and brain of the Second Internationale, the Alpine districts under Catholic influence developed an ardent hatred against Vienna.

Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Rumania installed an ochlocratic and bureaucratic rule with oligarchic tendencies. Officialdom is for the etatistic bourgeois the same thing as the clergy for the people of the Middle Ages. A soulless, inorganic bureaucracy, centralizing tendencies, the middle classes, state omnipotency, and uniformity all go very well together.

Hungary after a short communist reign of terror became in name a monarchy again. In practice it is a republic run by the Calvinist gentry as the most powerful class. Hungary and Czechoslovakia were both predominantly Catholic (Hungary, 67 per cent, the Czechoslovak Republic, 78 per cent in 1937) yet most of their high officials were non-Catholic if not anti-Catholic. The Regent Horthy of Hungary, the Prime Ministers Bethlen and Gömbös, the Presidents Masaryk and Beneš of Czechoslovakia were Protestants, Agnostics, or Neo-Hussites. In spite of the hatred and tension between Hungary and Czechoslovakia the Hungarian Calvinists unceasingly cooperated with M. Beneš in his efforts to thwart a Habsburg restoration. As a rule the non-Catholic elements always were bitterly anti-Habsburg. The Neo-Hussites in Bohemia, the Moravian Brethren in Moravia, the Lutherans in Slovakia, the Calvinists in Hungary, the Schismatics as well as the “Old Catholics” in Transylvania and Croatia opposed the Habsburgs, Vienna and Austria with the despair of hatred. The Jews were frequently in the same boat and only after the rise of National Socialism in Germany did they change their direction.* Yet men like Beneš persevered. “I rather want to see the Nazis in Prague than the Habsburgs in Vienna,” he had declared in 1934. There is little evidence of an organized conspiracy; the anti-Habsburg sentiment of the evangelical and agnostic groups was an instinctive resentment* and paved Germany’s way to the Balkans in the last years.

The new order — i.e., the “liberation of small oppressed nations” — found approval in the leftist circles of Paris as well as in British nonconformity. Mr. Wickham Steed and Mr. Seton-Watson (Scotus Viator) saw their dreams come true. The light of progress had finally come to the Danubian area which British and American** liberalism had always considered the darkest part of Europe with the possible exception of Turkey.

The man to avenge the easy murder of Austria was an Austrian who got hold for this purpose of the most deadly and precise instrument in Europe — the German people. At one time he had turned his eye south of the Alps, as all Germans traditionally do. A superficial glance seemed enough. And then he started to create a superochlocratic, superidentitarian, monotonous, and monolithic state which was a synthesis of all ideas sprung from the French Revolution, a veritable reductio ad absurdum of “progressive” thought, a gorgonic mirror to the West. This man is Adolf Hitler.

Involuntarily Virgil’s immortal hexameter comes into one’s mind: Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor!*** This avenger from the bones of dead Austria has come.

National Socialism, as we have pointed out before, is not the result of the Treaty of Versailles. Nor has the movement as such anything to do with St. Germain, Trianon, and Neuilly,¹⁵² which were instrumental in laying the foundations for this war. Yet the present issue is, in the political and ideological sense a clear outcome of the political and ideological efforts of the victorious Allies in 1918–1919, and the result of their so-called order, which was (badly) organized disorder.****

The fatal thing which happened twenty-two years ago was the victory of the principles of national, identitarian, ochlocracy and a spurious concept of “democracy” in Central and Eastern Europe.* There is only a very short step from national majoritarianism to National Socialism, a step as short as that from mortal disease to death.

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* The general European interpretation of the American political traditions and values was, needless to say, far off the mark.

* France re-established diplomatic relations after the war. Latvia with 400,000 Catholics was represented at the Vatican. Even Britain with barely 7 per cent Catholics has an envoy. The United States with twenty-two million Catholics still preserves her “splendid isolation” unlike pagan Japan and China and Lutheran Finland.

** It was imperial Germany which readmitted the Jesuits in 1917. The Jesuits are still debarred from “democratic” Switzerland (and Norway).

*** The Emperor-King Charles abolished this regulation immediately after the death of Francis Joseph.

* This theory supported Italy’s claim for the Brenner border which finally put 250,000 German Austrians into Fascist servitude. Professor A. Penck, the well-known geographer wrote the best treatise against the watershed theory.

* The French have never published their archives.

** One frequently hears the talk of “well-informed historians” maintaining that Germany violated the neutrality of Belgium which she had solemnly pledged to respect. Yet Germany never signed the Belgian Neutrality Pact for the simple reason that she did not exist in the years between 1806 and 1871. The Belgian neutrality was actually violated by Austria-Hungary (who was a signatory) by sending their heavy artillery, which alone was able to crack the heavy fortifications, to Belgium in August-September, 1914.

Neither were all Englishmen so sure whether they had to defend the neutrality of Belgium prior to the secret Anglo-French “naval” alliance of 1907. During the Boulangist crisis in 1887 several papers published letters and editorials urging nonintervention in the case of French or German violation of Belgium independence. The Standard, semiofficial English paper, brought a letter of “Diplomaticus” on February 2 which was followed by an editorial on the fourth. There was an editorial the same day with the same tendency by Stead in the Pall Mall Gazette and an article representing a similar view by Sir Charles Dilke in a June number of the Fortnightly Review. The text of the treaty (confirmed by Prussia, Austria, England, and Russia) was actually not clear and the secret clause about the fortresses actually permitted occupation of the Belgian fortresses by a large power other than France. This secret clause was never formally abrogated but it can be maintained that it had lost its object by the passing of the Napoleonic danger.

The famous Belgian jurist, professor Ernest Nys, a member of the International Court of Arbitration in the Hague wrote in 1912 in his monumental work: Le droit international, les principes, les théories, les faits (Bruxelles, 1912, I, p. 424): “In reality Belgium obtained the guarantees of neutrality, but the Five Powers did not give her a guarantee of the integrity and inviolability of her territory. . . . This is a situation quite different from that of Switzerland.”

There is no doubt that the attack on a peaceful country is not a commendable deed. But the attack on Greece by the Allies in 1917 was morally as condemnable as Germany’s attack of Belgium in 1914—not less and not more so. Germany’s assault on Belgium in 1940 on the other hand was a far greater crime than either forementioned cases; it happened almost immediately after a solemn declaration of nonintervention.

Says Guglielmo Ferrero: “The Allies tore up two treaties—the Declaration of Paris of 1856 and the Declaration of London of 1909—which limited the right of blockade to material strictly necessary for armies and warfare. The nations who blockaded the central empires do not yet realize that in 1914 the wholesale blockade, as the Allies applied it, was a measure of warfare quite as expressly prohibited by treaty as the invasion of Belgium.”—Peace and War. Trans, by Bertha Pritchard, London, 1933, p. 59.

* Austria was ready to cede to Italy all the Italian-speaking part of the South Tyrol as well as territories near Triest, which should receive the status of a free city. In the case of a victory of the Central Powers Italy could expect the return of Corsica, Nizza, Savoy, and the annexation of Tunisia in addition to the districts blackmailed from Austria.

* It must be stated here in all fairness that the German emperor, who was never a bigoted anti-Catholic, received the papal peace proposals with great sympathy. Michaelis’ boycott of the peace plan is splendidly described in Friedrich Ritter von Lama’s Die Friendensvermittlung Papst Benedikt XV (Munich, 1932).

The president of the German Protestant Union, Count Stolberg-Wernigerode wrote a flaming manifesto declaring that “the glittering, victorious sword is going to decide the issue and not dark papal intrigue,” which sounds amusing in the light of the outcome of the war. Yet the funniest part of his open letter lies in his accusation that the pope purposely made his efforts in the year when all “Germany celebrated the four-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation” (1517–1917).

** As a descendant of the Bourbons, who after all had some merits in regard to France, the egalitarian French Republic, did not permit him to join the French forces. Later, as a special privilege, he was allowed to reside in France.

* There is little doubt that Finland in the possession of Ingermanland and Karelia would have been in the position militarily to take care of herself in 1939–1940. The Nyeva River, Lake Ladoga, the Zvir River, Lake Onyega, and the White Sea would have given her a perfect system of defense. In addition she would have received a Finnish-speaking population of 600,000 people.

* It is psychologically not easy for a monarchy to consider a republic as an “equal,” just as there was a marked difference between a country inside and outside of the League of Nations. To have a Christian monarch was equivalent to belong to a definite covenant to which the outsider had no claim.

The supporters of the League regarded the very existence of countries outside the League as undesirable. Monarchs considered for similar reasons the existence of republics in Europe as something negative. Switzerland was always treated as an exception because of her self-declared neutrality. Her neutrality was therefore a declaration to keep out of European politics, to keep out of the whole game of alliances, treaties, wars, and diplomatic intrigues.

** See the amusing descriptions in J. Wheeler-Bennett’s, The Forgotten Peace, Brest-Litovsk, pp. 113–115 (New York, 1939).

*** If one compares this attitude with the behavior of the Allies toward the delegates of the democratic Weimar Republic, who were kept behind barbed wire, one is able to make an estimate of Europe’s decline since 1815. The delegates of Austria and of Hungary were similarly treated like criminals.

* Rumania gained the Southern Dobrudja in a most peculiar way. When Bulgaria was overwhelmed in the Second Balkan War by a coalition of Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Turkey the Rumanians appeared on the scene and occupied the defenseless Southern Dobrudja.

Bulgaria coveted, after the signing of the Treaty of Bucharest, also the central and northern part of the Dobrudja (which is largely populated by non-Rumanians) but Austria-Hungary and Germany were determined to return this region to Rumania after the war. This produced a similar result as the cessation of Chelm to the Ukrainians. The Bulgarians cooled down in their enthusiasm for the Central Powers and concluded an early, separate armistice with the Allies after the first big reverses in autumn, 1918.

**Cf. the curious protest of D. Iancovici in La Paix de Bucharest, Paris, 1918, p. 201 and Texts of the Rumanian Peace, Washington, D. C., 1918, pp. 28–29.

* The Catholic population of the European Continent is roughly 210 millions, the Protestant, 65 millions. The Catholic birth rate lies on the average 65 per cent higher than the Protestant.

** About the superficiality of European “Liberalism,” see Eugene M. Anderson’s excellent article in Social Education, May, 1938.

* The reader is reminded that the Treaty of Versailles was concluded between the Allies and Germany only. As a treaty, that of Versailles is much less important than the treaties of St. Germain (Austria) and Trianon (Hungary and the Allies), treaties which changed the map of Europe more fundamentally than Versailles.

** The date was June 28. There is, of course, a possibility (taking the poor educational background of the delegates into consideration) that they were not intentionally mischievous.

* The Serbs erected promptly a monument for the murderer Gavrilo Prinćip. The National Socialist also found great delight in the idea of assassin worship and named many places after the murderer of Dollfuss (Planetta). The Italians preceded this noble cult by having many Piazza Oberdan(k) in their country. Oberdank was an Italian of German ancestry who attempted to assassinate Emperor Francis Joseph. Planetta (Pianetta) was probably of Italian descent. It is possible that foreign names incite individuals to a greater racial “self-assertion.” (Earlier another man, with the Czech name of Drtil, tried to assassinate Dollfuss.)

** The reason given for the war guilt clause is that it would be impossible to make Germany pay without a “moral” justification. Neither is it moral to force a signature. If the Germans would have been told that the whole war was a mistake from both sides, that great damage was done, and that in a bout it is always the loser (not the “scoundrel”) who pays the bill, much trouble could have been avoided.

* The countries of the oldest “national” continuity in Europe are Bulgaria, Croatia, and Hungary. Of these the Hungarians and Croats alone can claim also an unbroken continuity of statehood which is the more interesting because the Hungarians are not Europeans, but of Mongoloid, Finnish-Turkish descent.

* The Slovaks speak a language which is almost identical with Czech but their history, tradition, and character marks them out as a totally different people.

** The Serbs cynically listed in their statistics every Bulgarian as “Yugoslav.” Neither was a difference made in their census between Serb, Croat, and Slovene.

*** Another attempt to create a “linguistic” frontier was made in the case of the new (1940) border between Rumania and Hungary which clearly shows that the National Socialist genius is always able to beat the “democratic” mind in its own game, be that even the noble competition in absolute stupidity.

These new borders fit national-socialist purposes admirably. It will help to keep Central Europe full of frictions, suspicions, and hatred. It will prevent the establishment of any state which is strong enough to serve as a crystallizing point and thus might antagonize Germany. Divide et Impera! has been the great catchword since 1919.

* The first sign of a change of mind was Philipp Menczel’s book Trügerische Lösungen which was published in the early thirties. Herr Mènczel is a zionistic Jew from Czernowitz in the Bukovina (then under Rumanian rule).

* This resentment is little justified. The German line of the Habsburgs never permitted the Inquisition to work in their hereditary countries and while Protestants did suffer disadvantages (outside of Hungary) these were never of a penal character as for instance those imposed upon British Catholics.

** Theodore Roosevelt, not less than Mr. Wilson, was in favor of a partition of “that survival.” The anti-Habsburgian tradition in the United States dates from the great Kossuth reception in New York. Yet one might doubt whether the American public would have been so overenthusiastic had it known the truth about M. Kossuth’s political views, mainly in regard to national minorities.

***Aeneas IV, 625.

**** The main pillar of this ludicrous “order” was besides the League of Nation the so-called “Little Entente,” consisting of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Rumania, who had replaced the “ramshackle” Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was the task of this combination of Ruritanian “democracies” to prevent Germany’s expansion toward the East. The total incongruity of their own power in relation to this task was manifest when we remember that the main activity of this trio consisted in securing their problematic survival. This they could only hope to carry out successfully by preserving the status quo — in Austria and Hungary. Neither country was permitted to restore the Habsburgs to their throne, and Budapest and Vienna were repeatedly warned that such an action would constitute a casus belli. (Hungarian revisionism constituted another “danger.”)

Yet it must be conceded that the states of the Little Entente were so weak and artificial that a restoration in Vienna and Budapest would have made them melt away like the snow in the sun. The only crystallizing factor in the Danubian area were the Habsburgs and the Czech. Serb and Rumanian politicians were stupid enough to let themselves be used by Hitler as stooges. When the day of reckoning came Czechoslovakia and Rumania surrendered without fighting a shot. Yugoslavia almost immediately lost two thirds of her army which went over to the German side. Only the disillusioned, but brave Serbs fought on. Yet the “ramshackle” Danubian monarchy fought valiantly for four and a half years.

Today certain Czechs are agitating again for the status quo in Central Europe. Yet if the Danubian area should be solidified into a harmonious whole then Austria and Hungary must have the right to choose their rulers after their own heart. If self-determination were again to be called a casus belli then one can safely deduct that a restoration of “Czechoslovakia” or “Yugoslavia” in its pristine form and its previous structure must be all means be avoided. In Central Europe only solidly founded states have a right to exist, not provisional establishments which crumble at the first opportunity and serve as steppingstones to German expansion.

* The treaties of 1919 and 1920 were, significantly enough, the first major pacts between Christian powers which omitted the invocation of the Holy Trinity.