The New Central Europe

Introduction: From Habsburgs to Soviets -- and Beyond

Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, founder of Czechoslovakia and one of the principal "New Europe" architects after the First World War, wrote his war- memoirs under the Czech title "Svetova revoluce, " or world revolution. Henry Wickham Steed, who prepared the English version of the Masaryk memoirs, and was one of the principal English propagandists of the "New Europe" project, pointed out: Masaryk was "fully alive to the world- wide significance of the new order in Central Europe." [1]

The issue of regional reorganization in Central Europe has been raised long before World War I. The impact of war forced it to happen, and the course of the war affected the crucial decision whether it should be carried out according to the principle of federation or nation- state. Masaryk was proven right in coming to the conclusion that nationalism was the world revolution of the twentieth century. But the true task of statesmanship in Central Europe should have been to stem the dangerously swelling tide of nationalism rather than to jump on the bandwagon of nationalism. Before the war, Masaryk himself had been an advocate of Austria- Hungary's democratic federalization. It was in the emotionally heated atmosphere of the World War that he changed his mind. Masaryk triumphed as one of the architects of a new order of nation- states in Central Europe. His triumph turned out to be a tragedy. Reflecting on the humanistic optimism of a memorandum Masaryk prepared for the British Foreign Office on the future of a new Central Europe of nation- states, Hans Kohn, the Prague- born American historian, remarked: "Rarely have so few sentences contained so many unwarranted predictions."[2] Essentially, my essay is a federalist critique of the post-World War I so- called "New Europe" nation- state design. It is focused on Central Europe, originally the focus of the "New Europe" design itself": But the problems of a new regional order in Central Europe from World War I to the present are viewed within the framework of Great Power politics. For, as Masaryk himself foresaw, the Great Powers continued to play a prominent role in Central Europe after the breakup of Austria- Hungary and ever since. With Austria- Hungary's defeat in the First World War, in the autumn of 1918, the Habsburg Empire fell apart. The force that destroyed the Empire was primarily the nationalism of its peoples. The blunders of the Habsburgs, and of the ruling classes upon whom they relied, precipitated the catastrophe. Defeat in the First World War carried out history's death sentence against the Empire. The great empire of fifty-three million people was broken up into its ethnic components. Parts of the Empire's territory were made into Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, while other parts were incorporated into Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia and Italy.

Although the breakup of the Habsburg state was seen by some as a tragedy, others saw it as a triumph. While the victims and critics of the peace settlement following the First World War spoke disparagingly of Central Europe's "Balkanization," the victorious nation- states which succeeded the Habsburg Empire believed truth and justice had prevailed. There is no doubt that the Habsburgs had failed to create a just order for the peoples of their empire. The Compromise of 1867 had transformed the Empire into an Austro- Hungarian Dual Monarchy, and the political and social structure of the Monarchy was such as to frustrate the various peoples' aspirations for democratic freedoms and to block evolution toward national equality and federalization. This was especially the case in the Hungarian half of the Monarchy, where the Hungarians insisted on transforming, by excessive means of assimilation, their multinational kingdom into a unitary Hungarian nation- state. But the Paris peace settlement after the First World War, though it was supposed to cure the evils and injustices of the past, was itself neither good nor just.

The very program of the nation- state, idolized by the oppressed nationalities who owed their triumph over the Habsburg Empire to the victory of the Western Powers over Germany, was of doubtful value as a foundation for lasting peace in the Danube Valley. This program paid no heed to warnings that only a federal union could safeguard the peace and security of the smaller nations in Central Europe, lodged as they were between a menace from the west by the Germans and from the east by the Russians. Furthermore, the territorial settlement resulting from the partition of the Habsburg Empire grossly violated the very principle of the ethnic nation- state by virtue of which the new order had been created. By a double standard in the application of this principle the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 gave extensive advantages to the victors and inflicted grave injustices on the vanquished.

The ethnic composition of the post- war nation- states in the Danube Valley duly reflected the distinctions which the Peace Conference made between the rights of the victors and those of the vanquished. The nation- states created or enlarged by the victors included territories which they could claim only partly, or not at all, by virtue of the ethnic principle. Whenever the ethnic principle was insufficient to justify their demands, they claimed other titles, such as economic and military reasons, or ancient historical rights. Thus the German- inhabited frontier lands of historic Bohemia were awarded to Czechoslovakia, multinational Transylvania to Romania, frontier strips of Hungarian ethnic territory to Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia. On the other hand, defeated Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria were cut down in territory, thus losing populations many of whom were ethnically their own people. As a result, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria (with total populations respectively of 6.5 million, 8 million and 5 million) were ethnically almost homogeneous (respectively 96, 90 and 83 percent), but in Czechoslovakia the three so- called state- making ethnic elements, the Czechs, Slovaks and Ruthenes together made only 69 percent of the country's total population (13.4 million), the Romanians made only 72 percent of Romania's 16 million, the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes together only 83 percent of Yugoslavia's 11.9 million, and the Poles only 69 percent of resuscitated Poland's 27 million.

The inequities inflicted upon the vanquished seemed merely minor flaws when compared with the freedom and national independence attained by the former oppressed peoples; and the inequity of the post- Habsburg territorial settlement in the Danube Valley seemed particularly negligible, for the triumphal chorus of the three victors, Czecho- slovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia, drowned out the protesting voice of one defeated nation, mutilated Hungary. To the Hungarians, however, the consequences of defeat seemed catastrophic. The loss of 71 percent of Hungary's territory and 60 percent of her population included over 3 million ethnic Hungarians (almost one- third of the nation), who were incor-porated into Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia. This dismemberment of the Hungarian nation by the peacemakers, whose avowed aim it was to unite and free the oppressed nations, was no work of absent- mindedness: rather it was a clear case of a punitive peace. It was the price Hungary paid for her defeat as an ally of Germany, a price which incidentally was relatively greater than that paid by Germany herself. It was also the neighbors' revenge inflicted upon Hungary for her pre- war attempt to transform a multinational historic kingdom into a nation- state in which only about half the population was Magyar, not counting those loyal to Hungary but ethnically not Hungarian.

But the vindictive peace punished not merely Hungary. By ruining Hungary, the geographical center of the Danube Valley, Hungary's neighbors also ruined the prospects of their own peace. Their vindictive policy precipitated the downfall of the Hungarian post- war democratic regime, which was headed by Count Michael Károlyi and which advocated cooperation among the Danubian peoples in the spirit of Professor Oscar Jászi's confederation plans; and the collapse of the Károlyi regime proved in turn disastrous both for Hungary and for all neighbors. A short- lived Communist revolution followed, and then a counter-revolution which under Admiral Nicholas Horthy's regency restored to power the pre- war ruling classes. This regime signed the humiliating Trianon Peace Treaty on June 4, 1920, but did not concede old Hungary's defeat. While extolling historical fraternity among the peoples of the old kingdom, which was a fact, the Horthy regime bent its energies toward restoring Hungarian domination in the Carpathian basin, which was wrong. Post- war Hungary was an implacable foe of the new order in Central Europe. On the other hand, the chief pillar of the new system was Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia served both as a center of alliances concluded under France's leadership for the maintenance of the status quo, and as a center of propaganda on behalf of the new order in Central Europe. The stock of the Czechs, as a democratic nation, stood high in the West. In turn, sympathy for democratic Czechoslovakia strengthened the West's belief that the post- Habsburg settlement in Central Europe was a triumph for democracy, a belief which, unfortunately, has not been borne out by reality.

Czech propaganda had also played a paramount role previously in the crucial period of the new system's creation as a "Slav barrier" against Germany. It should be noted, however, that the Habsburg system was destroyed primarily by its own shortcomings. The founders of Czechoslovakia, Thomas G. Masaryk and Edvard Benes, were not solely responsible for the destruction of the Habsburg Monarchy as their Austro- Hungarian adversaries often charged. Their primary historical role was convincing the Entente Powers of the viability of the new system. The Czech leaders in exile during the First World War were the chief protagonists of the idea that the nation- states of the liberated Slavic east would serve as a natural counterpoise to Germany. And they also led the campaign against Hungary, denouncing her as an inveterate ally of German imperialism, and advocating her severe punishment.

It was a disaster that Hungary, a geographical center of the Danube region, did not offer progressive and enlightened leadership; but it was no less a disaster that Czechoslovakia, which became the real center of the post- Habsburg settlement in Central Europe, also failed in her role of leadership. Czechoslovakia was a multinational state. According to the first census, taken in 1921, her ethnic composition was: Czechs, 50.8 percent; Germans, 23.4; Slovaks, 14.7; Hungarians, 5.6; Ruthenes, 3.5; Poles, 0.5 percent. Nationality statistics were unreliable in Central Europe, for as a rule they favored the nations in power conducting the census; but whatever allowance was to be made for the distortion of the statistics, one fact stood out clearly: Czechoslovakia's ethnic composition showed a striking resemblance to that of pre- war Hungary. According to the last census, taken in 1910, Hungary's ethnic composition was: Hungarians, 54.5 percent; Romanians, 16.1; Slovaks, 10.7; Germans, 10.4; Ruthenes, 2.5; Serbs, 2.5; Croats, 1.1 percent. Furthermore, at the time of the peace conference, in 1919, it was questionable whether in a plebiscite to test multiethnic loyalties newly founded Czechoslovakia would have done better than historic Hungary.

The Hungarian democrats of 1918 had been anxious to transform multinational Hungary into a democratic federation; but their attempt to create this "Eastern Switzerland," in accordance with the plans of Professor Jászi, had failed. No more successful was the program of the Czech democrats, who planned to make Czechoslovakia into "a sort of Switzerland," as Benes had outlined the future of the new state before the Paris Peace Conference.

Sincere as Benes's hopes may have been in envisaging Czechoslovakia as "a sort of Switzerland," he was wrong in assuming that Czechoslovakia would be capable of carrying out such a program. In a sense, Czechoslovakia was too small for a Central European "Switzerland." In order to build a Central European Federation on the Swiss model a much broader basis would have been needed--the partnership at least of Czechoslovakia, Austria and Hungary. Only a broader combination such as this could have spared Czechoslovakia the insoluble problems of hostile minorities which caused her ruin; only a broader combination such as this could have launched the Danubian nations on the road to federal union. This would have meant of course the partial preservation of the Habsburg Empire--without the Habsburgs--a program which neither Benes nor anybody else advocated at the Paris Peace Conference. What had been advocated was the creation of national states--the very opposite of a federation of nations. Czechoslovakia herself had in fact been founded as a national state--that is, as a national state of Czechs and Slovaks; and as such she was too big.

It was a blessing in disguise that, under the Germanizing influence of Habsburg rule, the Czechs had lost their feudal nobility. Their good luck, too, had brought more benefits from the industrial revolution to their lands than to any other parts of the Habsburg realm. These two circumstances, coupled with the Hussite tradition of egalitarianism, accounted for the miracle that during the last fifty years or so of old Austria's declining life a young democratic Czech nation was born, full of vitality and energy. But when the Czechs departed from Austria to lead the new Czechoslovakia they carried with them another legacy of the Habsburg past: the virulent nationalism of the Habsburg- dominated peoples. This had been the doom of the Empire, and was to become the doom of the new order of national states in Central Europe.

The nation- state, acclaimed as the fulfillment of President Wilson's celebrated principle of national self- determination, was a doubtful means of safeguarding the peace and security of the small nations wedged between Germany and Russia. In addition, the way in which this program was implemented could only increase the doubtfulness of its value. Its compromises, made for the sake of expediency, failed to solve the national conflicts of the past. Rewards and punishments alike inflated notions of national "rights." Rewards inflated the sense of national justice, and punishments the sense of national injustice. Indeed the new system of nation- states, not unlike the old Habsburg system, carried within itself the seeds of its own destruction. And the nations that hailed their liberation in 1918 from the "tyranny of the Habsburgs" were yet to experience the tyrannies of those who rose to dominate Central Europe largely as the result of the anarchy of national states.

Debates about the liquidation of the Habsburg Empire and the creation of the system of nation- states at one time aroused controversies as heated as the debates of our own days on the Yalta decisions of the Big Three in 1945; and as a matter of fact, the Yalta debates, insofar as they dealt with the Soviet satellites' story, were merely a continuation of a long debate on the state of Central Europe in our stormy twentieth century. The debate began with examinations of the perplexing problems of the Habsburg Empire; it went on, following the collapse of the Empire, with never- ending disputes between the victors and the vanquished of the First World War; after the Munich Conference in 1938 a new series of debates flared up with investigations into the causes of the breakdown of the peace settlement, and then after the Second World War a much longer series followed, with the Yalta conference as the chief subject for argument.

In these debates all sorts of views have been heard, examining the great mistakes of the living and reviving the lingering ghosts of the past. Even the ghosts of the Habsburg past have made their periodic appearance. They appeared, for instance, in the thoughts of Winston Churchill, who, brooding over the unsolved problem and new tragedies of Central Europe, in his meditations on the Second World War, remarked: "This war would never have come unless, under American and modernizing pressure, we had driven the Habsburgs out of Austria and Hungary and the Hohenzollerns out of Germany."[3]

As a result of the Second World War, vast areas once ruled by the Habsburg dynasty fell under the tyranny first of Nazi Germany, and then of Soviet Russia. More experts than at any time before found the dismemberment of the Habsburg Empire to be the principal cause of Central Europe's tragedies, thus acknowledging the failure of the sovereign nation- states of the post- Habsburg era. But the frequent and sometimes wistful remembrance of the Habsburg past included no desire for a Habsburg future. Except for the romantic few who believed in the possi- bility of Habsburg restoration, these recollections were mainly casual remarks, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes ironic--like the one allegedly made by the late Czech Foreign Minister, Jan Masaryk, in 1946, that "the Czechs had never been so happy as when forming part of the Austro- Hungarian Empire." [4] Actually, most people who remembered the Habsburgs were critical of their rule. Even though appreciation of the advantages which the Habsburg Empire had offered its peoples increased in retrospect, nevertheless censure of Habsburg policy for its grave faults was expressed no less than before. Few people were convinced by the diehard monarchists who on behalf of various vested interests tried to obscure the fatal role that the Habsburgs themselves had played in the dismemberment of their own empire. Detached students of the Habsburg problem have long concluded that the dismemberment of the Empire was the result of a process of dissolution, precipitated to a large extent by Habsburg blunders. Indeed there is no ground for revising the well- established unfavorable opinion about the Habsburg rule in Central Europe. There is much reason, however, for reconsidering the sympathetic opinions about the sovereign nation- states which succeeded the Habsburgs. For these nation- states have also failed, like the Habsburgs, to create a new stable order of independence in that dangerous Middle Zone of Europe situated between Germany and Russia. They too have failed in their alleged mission as bulwarks of peace and security--notwithstanding the opinions of nationalists who readily lay the blame for Central Europe's tragedy on each other, or on Hitler and Stalin, or on the West's appeasement policy toward Nazi Germany which led to Munich, or on the West's collaboration with Soviet Russia which led to Yalta, but who will not admit that the nation- states purporting to solve Central Europe's problem deserve more than an equal share of the blame.

Miraculously, in 1989, the Soviet collapse liberated Central and Eastern Europe from Communist tyranny. It was a gift of good fortune. It was an opportunity for the Western democracies to support the creation of a new regional order in Central Europe. It was a challenge to the nations of the region to liberate themselves from the legacy of their rivalries and bad habits of oppressing each other. The revolution of 1989 was a turning point in European and world history. Will the nations of Central Europe make it into a turning point in their own regional history as well?

The New Central Europe