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326
SWEDISH NEUTRALITY [chap, xviii.
the same rights as those received by the Hungarians in
1867; to grant serious national guarantees to the
Rumanians of Transylvania, and finally to give up
Bosnia and Herzegovina in favour of the Serbians—this
was the policy which would have infused new life into
the decaying monarchy and which might have disclosed to
it other prospects of grandeur. But this arrangement
could only be made to the detriment of the Magyars,
from whom Croatia and the Slovak country would have
been taken, and whose claims in Transylvania would
have been nullified. Now the Magyars were ardent and
energetic, whereas the Viennese Court—whence alone
salvation could come—was vacillating and devoid of all
creative genius ; as to the supreme power, it was
represented by a poor, helpless old man. Under the
circumstances the desperate efforts of the Magyars, backed up
by those of Berlin, triumphed over the tendencies to
wisdom which for an instant had been apparent in
Vienna. A change did occur, but it was an entirely
different one. MM. Tisza, Weckerle and Burian—all
Magyars and obsequious servants of Germany—obtained
unlimited power over the two sections of the Monarchy,
and the Austro-Hungarian armies were put under the
Prussian General Headquarters Staff and almost
amalgamated with the German contingents. Hence the
struggle in Galicia was to begin again, and to be more
bitter than heretofore.
I have often wondered whether anything was done at
this moment on our side to help the sound and reasonable
elements in Austria in the plans which they had outlined
for a moment? Without knowing the mysteries of the
Foreign Office I can answer a priori-. "No." Once war
had been declared and had led from the first months to
startling successes on the Austrian front, that to us
meant the complete triumph of the simplest political
principles which had been preached for such a longtime
by our patriotic Press, by our so-called Slavophiles,
reactionary as well as Liberal, and by the General Staff
party. Austria-Hungary dismembered and replaced by
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