The World War and What was Behind It; Or, The Story of the Map of EuropeBénézet, Louis Paul
History
The World War and What was Behind It; Or, The Story of the Map of Europe
Bénézet, Louis Paul
Europe -- History; World War, 1914-1918 -- Causes
The main source of the present trouble in Europe is that kings
and their ministers and generals, like their ancestors, the
feudal lords, never considered the wishes of the people when they
changed the boundaries of kingdoms. Austria-Hungary is a good
example. The Austrians and Hungarians were two very different
peoples. They had nothing in common and did not wish to be joined
under one ruler, but a king of Hungary, dying, left no son to
succeed him, and his only daughter was married to the archduke of
Austria. This archduke of Austria (a descendant of the counts of
Hapsburg) was also emperor of Germany and king of Bohemia,
although the Bohemian people had not chosen him as their ruler.
The Hungarians, before their union with Austria, had conquered
certain Slavic tribes and part of the Roumanians. Later Austria
annexed part of Poland. In this way, the empire became a jumble
of languages and nationalities. When its congress is called
together, the official announcement is read in eleven different
languages. Forty-one different dialects are talked in an area not
as large as that of the state of Texas.
We must remember that besides the literary or written languages
of each country there are several spoken dialects. A man from
Devonshire, England, meeting a man from Yorkshire in the north of
the same country, has difficulty in understanding many words in
his speech. The language of the south of Scotland also is
English, although it is very different from the English that we
in America are taught. A Frenchman from the Pyrenees Mountains
was taught in school to speak and read the French language as we
find it in books. Yet besides this, he knows a dialect that is
talked by the country people around him, that can not be
understood by the peasants from the north of France near the
Flemish border. The man who lives in the east of France can
understand the dialect of the Italians from the west of Italy
much better than he can that of the Frenchman from the Atlantic
coast.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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