The Soul of Europe; A Character-Study of the Militant Nations (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II THE THREE RACES OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY Austria as a colony of aged gentlefolk?The early peopling of the Danube plains and making of the Empire?Character-studies of the Austrian, the Slav, the Magyar, and the Ruman?Pride and fall of Austria?Career and character of Francis Joseph?His ambition in the Balkans?The struggle of the Slavs for national life?Corrupt repression by Austria and Hungary? Attempts at judicial murder of Serbs and Croats?the Slavs combine and Francis Joseph joins the great adventure?Attitude of the people on the war ?The future of the Empire. Following the Danube valley from Bavaria into Austria, one does not need any learned assurance of science or history that one is still amongst the same people, though one has crossed the frontier of another nation. Here is the last stage of German character. In the far north we noted chiefly the marks of sturdy and ambitious adolescence. There was assuredly much boasting of things done, but they were things of recent date, the presage of greater things to come. In central Germany we found a character fresh, genial, and robust, young in its native strength and its frank enjoyment of life, but not fired by any towering ambition or any sense of a great task. In Bavaria we seemed to meet the middle-aged German: a man who had never staked his life on any hazardous ambition, who would, if he were left to his kindlyimpulses, welcome the world to sit in peace under his elms. When you pursue your journey into Austria, you fancy that you meet the German of sobered age and disillusioned mind. There is even more enjoyment of life than in Bavaria?it is an Austrian writer who remarks that Austria unites the soul of a child with that of an old man. Yet there is a distinct impression of a man who has played his part in the l...