“Austria as a great power,” said Rieger,[18] in a speech delivered in parliament in 1861, “dates back only to the days when the Bohemian Crown and the Hungarian Crown united with Austria. We Bohemians raised it to the dignity of a state of the first magnitude when, by a free election, our diet summoned, on October 23, 1526,[19] Ferdinand I. to the sovereign throne of our kingdom. Our action was followed on November 26th of that year by the Hungarians, who placed the crown of their country on the head of this Hapsburg. From that time on Austria, composed of three states in one, started on its career of a world power. The three units were the basis, the origin, the rise of the Austrian Empire. All else is really the result of accident. Eastern Galicia has belonged to Austria only since 1772, Bukovina since 1777, Western Galicia since 1795, Venice and Dalmatia since 1797, Southern Tyrol (Trient and Brixen) since 1801, Salzburg and other smaller lands since 1814, while Cracow is part of Austria only since 1846. All these possessions have not made Austria a great power, for even without them it would still be one; however, an Austrian Empire is unthinkable and Austria as a great power is inconceivable without one of the three crowns--that of Austria, Bohemia, or Hungary.” AUSTRIA’S FUTURE DARK What is Austria? A land that has a German head and a Slavonic body, in which minorities rule and majorities are made to obey, the homeland of a dozen races, every one of which is dissatisfied or jealous of some other race. There was a time when Austria had a mission to perform. That mission was to serve as the advance guard of Germandom and as a Catholic power. The first came to an end at Sedan when the Prussians assumed leadership among Germans; the second terminated when Prussia gave up its Kulturkampf against Rome. Now Austria is a country without a mission, unless it be a mission to thwart the legitimate aspirations of the Slavic races to national freedom. For Austria to pursue further its policy of Teutonism is madness. If the monarchy wishes to live it must be neither German, for there is no room in Europe for two Germanic Empires side by side, nor wholly Slavonic, like Russia. Her manifest destiny is, or rather has been, to form a bridge between Germany and Russia, between the Slavs and Teutons, between the west and the east. For Germany to go to war to fight the Slavic peril is conceivable, even justifiable; but for Austria, more than 60 per cent. Slavonic, to draw her sword to combat Slavism sounds very much like the familiar story attributed by Plutarch to Menenius Agrippa, according to which various members of one’s body determined to down the stomach as the source of all their troubles. To fight the Slavs Austria must fight herself.