Intellectual Forces Most Effective 209 



the military force which they control, had been 

 utterly unable to resist. 



In the same way if the disintegration of the 

 Hapsburg Empire should follow the war the 

 cataclysmic theory will hold this to be the result of 

 the war, while the real causes : the steady growth 

 of the consciousness of nationality, the spread of 

 education, the influence of a cheap popular press, 

 the renaissance in the Slavic literature among the 

 racial elements of Austria, the fact that for many 

 years organization has been going on which upon 

 an agreed signal — the death of the Emperor, Franz 

 Joseph — had planned a simultaneous uprising 

 against the military force by which the hetero- 

 geneous elements of the Austro-Hungarian Em- 

 pire alone were held together, — all these slow and 

 invisible causes, in which the true explanation of 

 the inevitable decentralization of the Hapsburg 

 military empire must be found, will be almost 

 certainly disregarded in favour of the simple and 

 superficial explanation of the cataclysmic theory. 

 It is significant that in recent years the Junkers of 

 Germany and the military ruling class of Austria- 

 Hungary had begun to recognize the relative 

 futility of physical force and had been compelled 

 themselves to take up the more effective, intellec- 

 tual weapons, organizing counter-propaganda and 

 educational campaigns, removing some of the more 

 flagrant injustices which served their opponents 

 as effective arguments, and making many conces- 

 sions to the spirit of liberty and nationality, 



14 



