Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor

If Germany does not let slip her chance, but puts it into her pocket before the Cossacks can dip their hands into it, she will soon have the best share in the partition of the world.

As soon as some thousand armed German colonists begin to till the splendid soil, the fate of Near Asia will be in the hands of the Emperor.

This was written in 1886.

I will not detain you by recalling how these ideas were realized.

I suppose you know all about the friendship of William with the Red Sultan, about the Emperor's theatrical journeys in 1898 to the tomb of Saladin in Damascus and to the holy places in Jerusalem, with all that display of German splendor and with the profession by the Emperor that he is the only and the best friend of the Sultan, the only one who does not think of any partition of Turkey, and that because he wants her all for himself, the Emperor the true and faithful protector of the Moslem all over the world.

And then after the Emperor came the Krupps and Von der Goltz, instructors for the Turkish army and concessions for German capital, the railway line, very short at first, from Haidar Pasha to Izmit, then just a little further to Angora, then by a shortcut down to the south to Konay, and finally in 1899 from Konay to its terminus on the Persian Gulf.

This is, in a few words, the story of the Baghdad railway.

I am not going to dwell on all these developments which I suppose to be known, and I pass on to my chief point.

1688-1697, France entered by Pace of Reiswick.

Joseph I, 1705-1711.

1791-1714, France entered by Pace of Rastelt.

1701-1711, Revolt of Francis Recoxy II entered by Treaty of Sultmar.

Charles VI, 1711-1740, 1716-1718, Turkey ended by peace of Peselowitz, 1718-1720, Spain, war of quadruple alliance, 1733-1735, France and Poland, war of Polish succession, 1737-1739, Turkey ended by peace of Belgrade, Maria Theresa 1740-1780 1740-1748 France ended by a peace of Auxerre-Capel 1740-1742 Prussia ended by a peace of Breslau 1744-1745 Prussia ended by a peace of Dresden 1756-1763 prussia ended by a peace of herbertburg third salesian war 1778-1779 prussia ended by a peace of tessin mediated by russia Joseph II, 1780-1790, 1787-1791, Turkey ended by peace of Sistova, 1787-1790, revolted Belgian provinces, especially in Brevent.

Leopold II, 1790-1792, Francis II, 1792-1835, 1792-1797, France ended by peace of Campo Forneo, First Coalition.

seventeen ninety eight eighteen o one france ended by a peace of lumenville second coalition eighteen o five france ended by a peace of prezberg third coalition eighteen o nine france ended by a treaty of schoenbrunn eighteen o nine russia eighteen twelve eighteen thirteen russia eighteen thirteen eighteen fourteen france and by first treaty of paris and in fifteen france les cent joues eighteen fifteen naples and by flight of morat eighteen twenty one intervention naples and sardinia eighteen thirty one eighteen thirty two rising in modena parma and the romagna fernand i eighteen thirty five to eighteen forty eight eighteen forty intervention egyptian in broglio eighteen forty six rising in galicia and cracow put down by the powers eighteen forty eight second vienna insurrection in white capture of vienna by francis joseph eighteen forty eight eighteen forty eight ten forty nine sardinia campaign of novara eighteen forty eight eighteen forty nine hungarian insurrection put down by russians at villegosse eighteen forty eight denmark austria took part as member of germanic confederation eighteen fifty nine france and sardinia ended by peace of zurich eighteen sixty four denmark austria and the ally of prussia peace of vienna eighteen sixty six prussia ended by peace of prague the seven weeks war eighteen sixty nine eighteen seventy rising at dalmatia eighteen seventy eight eighteen seventy nine occupation of bosnia and the 1881-1882 Risings in the Herzegovina Bosnia and Southern Dalmatia 1897-1898 Intervention in Crete 1914 Serbia, Russia, France, England, Belgium, Japan, Italy End of section 3

Nor could she with safety attempt to exercise direct political influence in Germany.

The history of the Fürstenbund had proved that any such attempt would be resisted by Prussia, and the lesson of the failure of Joseph II was not lost on his successors.

The Habsburgs were bound to rely on the rivalry between the smaller states which invited their intervention, and on the jealousy with which the ever-growing power of the Hohenzollerns was regarded.

But most of all, they placed their trust in the feeling of traditional loyalty to themselves as the recognized heirs of the medieval emperors, a feeling which twenty-five stressful years had not sufficed to eradicate.

Radetzky, commanding the imperial forces, was compelled to retire behind the lines of the quadrilateral, and when Charles Albert declared war, when the armies of the other states hastened to the help of Sardinia, when the Austrians were actually beaten in the field at Goito, the overthrow of Habsburg power in Italy seemed to be imminent, if not complete.

Nor could help be sent from Vienna, since upon the whole Austrian Empire burst the storm which had been brewing for nearly a hundred years.

Joseph II had pursued the ideal of centralization, not wisely but too furiously.

He had accentuated diversity in his search for uniformity, and his successors reaped the fruit of his unwisdom.

He conceded for the sake of argument that such indulgence might be a fatal error.

But he insisted that if Pitt's character was to be blackened because he used parliamentary corruption, the same censure ought in justice to be extended to the greatest monarchs of past times, Louis XIV, Joseph II, Frederick the Great, who to serve their own ends outraged the immovable principles of humanity and morality in a far graver manner than could be laid to the charge of the illustrious statesman who consolidated the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

On Cavour's own grounds, those of expediency, it might be objected that a bargain which on one side you allow to be discreditable leaves the legacy of an indestructible desire on that side to wipe out the discredit by tearing it up.

Though Cavour became great by his connection with the movement which before all things was swayed by sentiment, he never entirely recognized the part that sentiment plays in politics.

At this first stage in the long struggle, the Roman Curia might have settled the matter in a friendly way, but it would not.

Cardinal Antonelli replied to a respectful invitation that the Holy Father was ready to go to the antechamber of the devil's house to please the king of Sardinia, but he really could not go inside.

Yet at the same date, the Archbishop of Paris, Cibourg, admitted to a Piedmontese visitor that the Sardinian government had no option under the new institutions but to establish the equality of all citizens before the law, and in Austria they were laughing at the progressive monarchy in its laborious efforts to obtain reforms carried out in the despotic empire by Joseph II.

The reason that Rome refused to treat was that she thought herself strong and Sardinia weak.

Unsuspected conditions.

Joseph II.

Reforms by a progressive Habsburg

are a failure.