ANDRASSY, COUNT JULIUS. 



9 



control the policy of the Government. But a 

 Minister of Andrassy's bold genius, feeling the 

 weight of responsibility resting upon himself, 

 and having the power and patronage in his 

 grasp, would not long submit to tutelage. The 

 task that he undertook was the double one of 

 educating a nation to representative self-govern- 

 ment, in which the Magyars proved apt and 

 eager pupils, 'and of gaining the approval of the 

 Emperor-King, reared amid bureaucratic tradi- 

 tions strong enough to choke the constitutional 

 development of his Cisleithan dominions. The 

 ingrained believers in centralized despotism were 

 astounded to see Franz Josef won over, by a 

 revolutionist lately under sentence of death, to 

 acquiesce in the removal of all restraints on agi- 

 tation by granting complete freedom of the press, 

 of assembly, and of association in Hungary ; in the 

 abolition of theciviland political disabilities of the 

 Jews, notwithstanding the protests of the Con- 

 servative Magyar aristocracy ; and finally in the 

 organization of a national Honved army. When 

 the free Hungarian people came to be looked 

 upon as the chief bulwark of the Hapsburg Em- 

 pire, when the strength and prosperity of Hun- 

 gary was considered even at the expense of the 

 Cisleithan half of the monarchy, all the Vienna 

 traditions were thrown out of the groove, and 

 the era was opened when the stifled nationali- 

 ties of Austria could throw off the incubus of 

 the German bureaucrats. Andrassy raised a 

 loan of 100,000,000 florins to build railroads and 

 public works, began the rebuilding of Buda- 

 Pesth on a magnificent scale, and instituted grand 

 projects for the development of the material and 

 intellectual progress of the country. Having no 

 taste or talent for economical or financial minu- 

 tiae or departmental details, he not only lacked 

 the capacity to direct and supervise the execu- 

 tion of his plans, but intrusted the work to men 

 whom he selected on account of their power to 

 grasp and advocate his large political concep- 

 tions without reference to their special knowL. 

 edge or administrative training. After four and 

 a half years of misapplied efforts, extravagant 

 waste, and corruption, which flourished for 

 want of efficient checks, the Andrassy era came 

 to an end by a process of which there is scarcely 

 another instance in the history of constitutional 

 states. The party declared itself insolvent and 

 incompetent, and voluntarily resigned the reins 

 of power to Tisza and the Left. Andrassy's 

 genius for far-reaching political combinations is 

 exemplified by the course of action that he 

 adopted as Prime Minister of Hungary, which 

 has resulted, as he foresaw and intended, in the 

 present European equilibrium. If he had not in- 

 risted on his constitutional right to be consulted 

 segarding the foreign policy of the empire, and 

 even gone beyond it in his efforts to influence the 

 mind of the Emperor, Count von Beust might 

 have dragged Austria-Hungary into an alliance 

 with France in his desire to thwart the aims of 

 Bismarck and, by crippling her victorious rival, 

 regain for Austria her dominant position in 

 Germany. This traditional and apparently in- 

 evitable policy Count Andrassy, as the repre- 

 sentative of Magyar antipathy to the Germans 

 and to Prussian absolutism with its leanings to- 

 ward Russia, could have been expected heartily 

 to support ; yet he exerted his whole influence to. 



resist it, because he foresaw that if Austria re- 

 sumed her preponderant position' among Ger- 

 man states the revivified Hungarian institu- 

 tions would be swept away by a new tide of 

 Germanization. The man who shaped the pol- 

 icy of strict neutrality naturally succeeded to 

 the direction of the Foreign Office when the 

 speedy downfall of the military power of France 

 demonstrated its success and obliged Count von 

 Beust to retire. He was anxious to knit Ger- 

 many to Austria-Hungary in an indissoluble alli- 

 ance, and with deep prudence and penetration 

 allowed Bismarck to draw him into the sem- 

 blance of a triple alliance between the three 

 absolute monarchies Austria, Germany, and 

 Russia at the same time working to defeat 

 Bismarck's hidden purpose of annihilating 

 France, 1 annexing the Low Countries, and drag- 

 ging German Austria into the empire ruled by the 

 Hohenzollerns, allowing Russia to compensate 

 herself by going to Constantinople, and eventu- 

 ally engulfing the Slav nationalities. While as- 

 sisting at the imperial interviews, he protested 

 against Russian activity in the East, and when the 

 decisive moment came, rejected Bismarck's pro- 

 posal of compensation by marching to Salonica. 

 As the guardian of Hungarian interests, An- 

 drassy circumvented the subtle schemes of the 

 German Chancellor, whose eyes were not opened 

 until, in 1875, he received the distinct warning 

 that Russia would intervene in the event of an 

 aggressive attack against France. The pros- 

 pect of a Franco-Russian alliance compelled 

 Bismarck to reflect upon the consequences of 

 Andrassy's declared policy of absolute neutral- 

 ity, though with characteristic toughness, each 

 clung to his preconceived aims. When the 

 Russian army stood before the gates of Constan- 

 tinople, it was Austria and England who or- 

 dered a halt, and in the Berlin Congress Count 

 Andrassy took the leading part in compelling 

 Russia to recede from the treaty of San Stefano. 

 In accepting the mandate to occupy Bosnia and 

 Hervzegovina as compensation for the Russian 

 gains, he desired to defeat the Panslavistic idea 

 and make valid geographical and strategical, 

 rather than ethnological principles in respect to 

 the eventual partition of the Turkish Empire. 

 The occupation was unpopular with the Austri- 

 ans, and still more so with the Magyars, who 

 were indignant at their countryman for taking 

 part in the dismemberment of the Ottoman Em- 

 pire. He anticipated no difficulty in taking 

 possession of the provinces. It would be simply 

 a military promenade, he promised, " with bands 

 playing." The Ministry of War was as unready as 

 usual, drawing from him the jibe that it was 

 " with horses, not asses " that he expected to 

 march to Serajevo in a few days. The revolt of 

 the Bosnians rendered the role of joint protec- 

 tress of the Christians of Turkey ridiculous for 

 Austria, and the ridicule was borne by the min- 

 ister whose shrewd stroke of policy had appar- 

 ently miscarried. In 1879 the Austro-German 

 alliance was concluded not in the form that he 

 desired of a solemn treaty, ratified by the Reichs- 

 rath and the Hungarian Parliament, but as a 

 secret pact between the princes. It was Bis- 

 marck who dominated the situation that An- 

 drassy had labored to bring about. Two great 

 minds were not needed to direct the course of 



