The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-12-16
A GLANCE AT AUSTRIA.
CNew York World.)


Francis Joseph. emperor of Austria.
king of Hungary, king of Bohemia, king
of Croatia SlaVonia, has sat sixty years
upon his uneasy throne. He is tS years
old: he was for half n century the worst
hated monarch in Europe, but has come
By lapse of time TO be popular with
most of his turbulent peoples
He has outlived many SORROWS His
empress was murdered. His crown
prince died Economically for love. He
lost the Austrian provinces in northern
Italy and knows that Trieste and Is
tria look to Italy as their fatherland.
He lost the leadership of the German
confederation, and knows that many of
his 100000 German-speaking people IN
Austria, an element that grows Of less
preponderant Importance every year,
look to Kaiser Wilhelm as their virtual
leader.
These events will not let the phrase
"hapless Hapsburgs' rest forgotten. But
in his seventy ninth year comes the
annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The "drang mach osten" of Misrnarcks
phrase, the drive toward the east, i'm
peIs Austrian statesmen TO plan, con-
trive. disavow. abandon for a time, but
always to renew the slow advance on
Macedonia and the Aegean sea
The old emperor will not see the
working out of the problem. There is
| talk of a regency, possibly of an abdi-
cation. and the crowning Of the Arch
duke Ferdinand as his successor. This
archduke is the most fascinating polit-
| ical study in Europe. He is As. He
cherishes the plan of adding to Austria
fifth crown. that of a reconstructed
Servia. containing all the 100000
southern Slavs now scattered under
/ four flags. and Of quieting the national
! jealousies OF an empire which would be,
in that event. heavily Slavic, by local
| home rule and imperial federation. He
/ has found his Bismarck in Won Aehren-
thai. a statesman of the modern Ger
man school-studious, PROFESSIONAL, ex-
act, ruthless.
| ustria-Hungary is half Slav. one
/ fifth Magyar. two-ninths German, with
smaller Italian and Roumanian eIe-
ments. II has one common political
factor in the Catholic religion. The
Archduke Ferdinand has a wife not Of
! blood royal and has renounced the sue
cession of their children. The wife is
accessible to clerical influence, and po-
/ litical clericalism is almost as little
popular in Austria as in Spain or Italy.
! The core OF the dual monarchy is the
Magyar race in Hungary. surrounded
| by Germans in the west. SIavs in the
I north, Roumanisns in the east. Slavs
again in the south. Italians and Slavs
on the Adriatic coast. Most Magyars,
/ liks Count Andrassy, their minister of
the Interior oppose the Bosnia-Herzego-
vina annexation and the plan of Slav
empire. That plan also runs counter to
the dream of the southern Savs in Bos-
mia. in Herzegovina, in Montenegro.
NovibaZar and in the Kossoyo portion
of Macedonia, Of a united country.
Theirs is a dream potent enough to
make Bosnia and Herzegovina adamant
| against Austria for thirty years. to
make every Montenegrin a soldier from
his sixteenth year until he can no long
er march. and to set the very women
in Servia drilling in rifle corps for home
! defense.
Only through rivers of blood can
! Archduke Ferdinand march to his am
| bitiOn. In the future. as for thirty
years past. troubles in Austrian home
politics may continue1to compel him 10
defer his ambitions-tos defer. and defer
and defer. never TO forget or abandon.