AUSTEIA-HUNGARY. 



CHAPTER I. 



GENERAL ASPECTS. 



IJSTIIIA-HUNGAEY ranks third amongst the European states in 

 area and population, but no common bond of nationality embraces 

 its inhabitants. If the fetters were to burst which now hold the 

 diverse provinces of the monarchy together, the name of Austria- 

 Hungary would be heard no longer, not even as a geographical 

 expression, as were those of Greece and Italy during centuries of servitude. The 

 various provinces composing the Austrian Empire belong to distinct natural 

 regions. The Tyrol, Styria, and Carinthia are Alpine countries, like Switzerland. 

 Hungary is a vast plain surrounded by mountains. Bohemia, on the one hand, 

 penetrates far into the interior of Germany, whilst Galicia slopes down towards 

 the plains of Russia, and the Dalmatian coast region belongs to the Balkan 

 peninsula. The hills of Austria and the Hungarian plain lie within the basin of 

 the Danube ; but considerable portions of the monarchy are drained by the Elbe, 

 the Vistula, the Dniester, and the Adige. The diversity of race adds to the con- 

 fusion resulting from the forcible grouping together of countries geographically 

 so distinct. On one side of the river Leitha, which forms the political boundary 

 between the two great portions of the empire, the Germans claim to be the dominant 

 race ; on the other, the political power is wielded by the Magyars. But Chechians 

 and Ruthenians, Poles, Slovaks, and Croats, Dalmatians, Italians, Rumanians, 

 and others, likewise claim their rights, and object to be sacrificed to the two 

 dominant races. 



Austria-Hungary consists of no less than fifty-six kingdoms, duchies, counties, 

 principalities, towns, and lordships. This chaotic conglomeration, however, is 

 not the result of pure chance, nor has the house of Habsburg brought these 

 old states under its sceptre by " clever marriages " alone. The necessity in 

 which the Christians found themselves to combine against their common enemy, 

 the Turk, has had quite as much to do with it. The general configuration 

 of the soil, and more especially the great valley of the Danube, must also 



