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For a single but sufficient illustration let us take the situation in the split apart fragments of the former great Austro-Hungarian Empire, which now constitute all or parts of German Austria, Hungary, Czecho-Slovakia, Jugo-Slavia and Roumania. In Vienna were many of the land-owners, most of the heads of the great industries, and the directors of the transportation system.
When at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 a resolution was introduced calling upon the Governments of Roumania, Servia, and Bulgaria to accord equal rights to the Jews in their respective dominions, and was warmly supported by all plenipotentiaries, such as Waddington, Beaconsfield, Bismarck, and others, the only one to oppose the emancipation of the Jews on principle was the Russian chancellor Gorchakov, In his desire to save the prestige of Russia, which herself had failed to grant equal rights to the Jews, the chancellor could not refrain from an anti Semitic sally, remarking during the debate that "one ought not to confound the Jews of Berlin, Paris, London, and Vienna, who cannot be denied civil and political rights, with the Jews of Servia, Roumania, and several Russian provinces, where they are a regular scourge to the native population."
Thus when, within two years of his emancipation, he came to his crown, the uncouth lad from Roumania had blossomed into a Prince as goodly to look on as any Europe could show a handsome boy of courtly graces and accomplishments, able to converse in several languages, and singularly equipped in all ways to win the homage of the simple people over whom he had been so early called to rule.
At first M. Bratiano swam with the stream. He assured foreign diplomatists, eminent Italians and others, that Roumania had decided to throw in her lot with the Allies. And his declarations were re-echoed by his colleagues. These statements were duly transmitted to the various Cabinets interested, and the entry of Roumania into the struggle was reckoned with by all the Allied Powers.
Roumania, too, was friendly to Greece and Serbia, rather than to treaty Bulgaria, for the Roumanians knew that Bulgaria was very anxious to get back the territory of which Roumania had robbed her, in the second Balkan war. The Greek people were ready to rush to Serbia's aid and so was the Greek prime minister.
Little notice has, however, been taken of the fact; matters in Europe are looking so threatening that the affair of Greece is almost forgotten. It is said that war will break out in the Balkan provinces in the spring, a war which will involve both Turkey and Austria. The Balkan provinces are Servia, Roumania, Bulgaria, and Montenegro.
The only son of Leopold II dying in 1869, the succession passed to the brother of the King, the Count of Flanders, who married Mary, Princess of Hohenzollern, a sister of the King of Roumania. The death of their son Prince Baldwin in 1891 was held to be a national calamity. He married in 1900 the Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria; to them have been born three children, two boys and a girl.
To carry out this plan a general, who had up to that time been occupied in Roumania, was dispatched to Odessa, and now commenced independent military proceedings from there. For payment kronen were used, drawn from Vienna.
A letter from a German officer to a friend in Roumania, which found its way into the newspapers, tells a great deal of truth in a few words. 'You cannot conceive, he wrote, 'what difficulty we had in persuading our Emperor that it was necessary to let loose this war.
To Roumania and Greece, another non-Slavic State, i.e., Albania, has been added; and in no part of the peninsula is Russia so detested as in Bulgaria which unreasonably protests that Russia betrayed her. "Call us Huns, Turks, or Tatars, but not Slavs." Twice the Austro-Hungarians, in their anxiety to maintain the balance of power in the Balkans, made the mistake of backing the wrong combatant.
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