Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Bismarck, Vol. 2 of 2: Some Secret Pages of His History
August 23m'. -the following suggestions for the semi official press were sent by the Chief to Thile, who handed them over to me: The domestic complications in the cisleithan half of austria-hungary give rise to frequent misconceptions abroad, too much importance being given to the national aspect. The issue turns upon governmental and constitutional questions, and the relations of the various parties, rather than upon the struggle between the Germans and the Slavs. It is mainly a fight between the Conservative and Liberal elements. The German landed proprietors support the Slavs because they themselves are conservative or reactionary; and among the leaders of the Slav party and those who are promoting the com promise there are a great number of prominent aristocrats who do not understand a word of Bohemian or any other Slav lan guage. Men like Thun and Hohenwart are in the first place conservative, and are only Bohemian in so far as they regard the Slavs as useful tools for advancing the views of the aristocracy and of the Church. That they further the Slav national move ment at the same time, and even apparently adopt its principles, is due to the fact that the Slav peoples prove themselves to be more capable and willing instruments of aristocratic, absolutist, and clerical tendencies than the German element. The latter, owing to its entire education and to the circumstance that it includes the real bourgeoisie and prosperous middle classes of Austria, gravitates unmistakably towards Liberalism. It is in this way that the struggle assumes a national character. This condition of affairs will be more readily understood by compar ing it with similar occurrences in Germany and elsewhere, where the reactionary as well as the democratic and revolution ary groups, irrespective of nationality, have thrown in their lot with kindred parties in other countries (poles and Frenchmen) for the purpose of forwarding their party schemes against their opponents at home.
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