December 26, 1914. 
LAND AND WATEK 
between the Magyar-Hungarian realm and the 
German-speaking Austrians, the breaking point 
comes much sooner than in most confederations or 
alliances. The Hungarian realm is a district 
wherein a number of men feeling themselves a 
ruling race (or having so felt themselves in the 
past) and controlled by a very wealthy aristocracy, 
still speaking a partly Asiatic language (though 
most traces of Asiatic blood have disappeared), 
are proud to rule over more or less discontented 
and separated groups of Slavs, both Orthodox and 
Catholic, and of Roumanians, both Orthodox and 
Uniate ; and this Magyar, hitherto governing, and 
geographically central element, is barely one-half 
of the whole. It has no affinity with, still less any 
liking for, the German-speaking nation with which 
it is politically connected. That nation, the Ger- 
man-speaking peoples of the Upper Danube and 
of the Alpine valleys thereto attached, Upper and 
Lower Austria and the Tyrol, has itself something 
of a similar, though milder, feeling of superiority 
over subject peoples. The crown of Bohemia is 
in the same hands as that of Austria, and the Slav 
population of Bohemia, though similar in religion 
to the German population of Upper and Lower 
Austria, is distinct in language and in national 
feeling. ' All round this Slav population, which 
occupies the centre of Bohemia, are mountains to 
which the Germans were driven centuries ago, 
when the Slavs burst in, and wherein the main 
element is German-speaking. The problem is, 
therefore, complicated, but the general position is 
that a German-speaking nucleus feels itself, nomi- 
nally at least, the superior of a large Slav popula- 
tion in the north, Bohemian, Polish, etc. (of which 
the latter part are less disaffected than the 
former), and a large Slav population in the south, 
the control of which it shares with Hungary. 
But in all this it is the Hungarian love of domi- 
nation which is the driving force for the oppression 
of the southern Slav ; and it is precisely as against 
the southern Slav that the original quarrel was 
picked — but it is the southern Slav who has proved 
the hardest customer against such forces as were 
sent against him. 
The effect of the war so far upon civilian 
opinion in this Austro-Hungarian combination 
seems to be somewhat as follows : — 
The German-speaking part, of which Vienna 
is the centre, certainly now wishes that the war 
had never been begun. It has seen Galicia over- 
run ; great masses of its armies taken prisoner into 
Russia, and it cannot, of course, discover any 
future advantage to proceed even from victory. 
The Government at Vienna would not have pro- 
voked actual war, though egged on to it by Berlin. 
They tried at the last moment to reopen negotia;- 
tions with Russia, when Berlin forced the pace by 
its double ultimatum to Russia and to France. But 
this German-speaking element in the East is sujfi- 
ciently bound in sympathy with the whole German 
race as still to prosecute the war without failing, 
and the recent successes in Galicia to which the 
victorious German action in Central and Northern 
Poland has largely contributed, strengthened this 
feeling. The attitude of the German-Austrians 
seems to be, if one may judge by newspaper articles 
and private letters, a hope that the war may come 
to an end when it has achieved its defensive pur- 
pose; a conviction that Russia is stronger than 
was imagined ; some alarm for the future ; a great 
disgust at the recent collapse of their armies in 
Servia ; and a pride in the new successes in Galicia. 
What the Czech feeling is in all this, that is, the 
feeling of the native Bohemian, and what the feel- 
ing of the Poles, we do not know. We have 
nothing but uncertain, possibly exaggerated, and 
often obviously false stories of risings, which do 
not lit in with the co-ordination and progress of 
the Austrian Armies hi the present phase of the 
war. 
The civilian opinion of Hungary is something 
quite different from this. The soil of Hungary 
has twice been invaded by Russian cavalry, and, 
much more than the actual damage done by the 
invader, there has twice been sharp panic in Hun- 
gary as the result of it. The national leader of 
Hungary at this moment has spoken, with extra- 
ordinary violence for a man in his position, sepa- 
rating Hungarian from Austrian interests. The 
use of Hungarian troops in defence of German 
policy, the absence of their cavalry in the western 
field of war, and the enormous losses of their half- 
trained reserves — to no national purpose— had 
already profoundly affected the Magyars when, 
apparently in deference to their clamours, three 
Army Corps were recently withdrawn from Servia 
to force the passes of the Carpathians and to free 
the Hungarian plains from menace. The result 
of this move was indeed to free those plains from 
menace, and it largely contributed to the success 
which the Austrians are now enjoying east of 
Cracow, and to the Russian retreat in that same 
field. But on the other side of the account is the 
great defeat in Servia, and that seems to have had, 
if anything, an exaggerated effect upon Hungarian 
opinion. We must remember that the anti-Ser- 
vian policy is mainly Hungarian in motive and 
origin, that the Magyar took for granted the hope- 
less inferiority of his Slav neighbour and subject. 
The sudden retirement from North Servia and the 
loss of Belgrade have led to riots in Budapest, 
which are not journalistic fictions, but a sober and 
known part of contemporary history. In a word, 
Magyar opinion is now shaken. Nothing will 
restore it but some decisive Austro- German victory 
in Poland. And if that victory does not come, it 
is almost certain that the Hungarian Government 
will approach, if not sue for, peace separately 
from or earlier than its Allies. For in case of an 
uncertain war, or in the beginning of an Austrian 
defeat, Hungary alone would have very serious 
advantages to gain by a separate peace, and 
nothing to lose. 
If this be a summary of civilian opinion in 
the two leading centres of Austria-Hungary, what 
are we to say of the moral of the army ? There 
is everything to show that that moral has not lost, 
but gained in the last two months. We do not yet 
know the effect upon it of its defeat in Servia. But 
that victory was only gained over a very small 
proportion of the total Austro-Hungarian forces. 
And for the rest, there is a determined, and for the 
moment successful, offensive being carried on in 
Southern Poland ; the new formations of Austria- 
Hungary are achieving more than did the older 
and better trained, possibly because the discord- 
ant racial elements have already been weeded out 
in the shape of the earlier (and largely voluntary) 
surrenders in the field. There is nothing to show 
Z» 
