Written by Luca Cancelliere
Franz Joseph Karl von Habsburg-Lorraine, Emperor of Austria and Apostolic King of Hungary, in his 86 years of life (1830-1916) and 68 year reign (from 1848 until his death), marked an entire era of European history, not only from a political and diplomatic point of view, but also from a cultural and social point of view. One school of thought, enamored by literary myths and historical idealizations, has identified in Franz Joseph the incarnation of the Mitteleuropean myth of Felix Austria, a dreamlike representation of an idyllic world in which—prior to the prevailing "nationalisms"—peoples and ethnic groups of very different origin, language and religion supposedly peacefully coexisted in a climate of tolerance and harmony under the wise and paternalistic government of an elderly Emperor, the representative of an ancient and legitimate dynasty, assisted by an efficient bureaucracy and by strong and faithful armed forces.
This myth has as its corollary the inevitable nostalgia for that "world of yesterday" (Stefan Zweig) overwhelmed by the defeat of the "Central Empires" in the face of "nationalisms" and the consequent rise of totalitarianism in the 1920's and 1930's. The underlying implication, politically useful to the strong powers behind the process of European integration, is that multinational entities (yesterday the Habsburg Empire, today the European Union) guarantee better conditions of peace, prosperity and profitable cohabitation among peoples, while the "Nation-States" would be intrinsically oppressive within and inclined to trigger conflicts without. A further corollary, dear to certain traditionalist or generically conservative Catholic circles, obsessed with conspiracy theories present in European political thought from Abbot Barruel onwards, consists in the vision of the modern Nation-State (in particular post-Risorgimento Italy, inexplicably compared to Revolutionary France, with which politically and culturally it had very little to do) as the quintessence of every "sectarian", "Jacobin" and "nationalist" atrocity, in opposition to the irenic world of the "traditional monarchies", multinational and founded on the concept of "divine right".
This naive oleographic image ends up dissolving like snow in the sun when faced with a correct historical analysis. In primis it appears totally abusive to attribute a supposed and mythological "traditional legitimacy", in an imperial sense, to the House of Habsburg. Already in 1273 it was a Habsburg, Emperor Rudolf, who liquidated the pretensions of the Holy Roman Empire to Rome, the natural capital of the Empire and of the Italic Kingdom, to the advantage of the Pope and against the authentic imperial Ghibelline tradition represented by emperors such as Frederick II of Swabia. The Austrian Empire—now no longer the Holy Roman Empire, and victoriously emerging from the Congress of Vienna in 1815—was the result of a period of strengthening and consolidation of the Habsburg dominions, which occurred thanks to 18th-century diplomatic intrigues, overthrowing of alliances and various opportunistic maneuvers; very comprehensible in light of the "Realpolitik" of the time, but not coherent with the emphasis that certain devotees place on the ethical superiority of legitimism. It suffices to recall episodes such as the granting of Marie Louise's hand to the "plebeian" Bonaparte, elected as the main ally of the Empire, only to then turn against the latter after the unfortunate Russian campaign.
Certain counter-revolutionary "conspiracy theories" are blatantly contradicted by the very tight political-financial link between the House of Austria and the Rothschild bank—the central financer of the "Holy Alliance"—which, with its decisive economic support, had prevailed over the France of Napoleon. The Rothschilds, already masters of the finances of the Austrian Empire and the Papal States, acquired control over the finances of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies as a reward for their decisive support for the Austrian expedition against the Carbonari insurgents of 1820-1821. The historical falsification continues with the nostalgic and unfounded representation of Lombardy-Venetia as being well-administered by Austria. The great historian Giorgio Candeloro recalls that the Austrian regime imposed upon its Lombard and Venetian subjects a heavy tax on exports to the rest of the Empire, yet did not impose taxes on shipments coming into Lombardy-Venetia from the rest of the Empire: this was a condition of true and proper colonial exploitation which, together with the police oppression exerted on the population, was the origin of the insurrections of 1848-1849, which was conducted mainly by the people of the big cities (remember the Five Days of Milan, the Ten Days of Brescia and the insurrection of Venice) but also by people of the smaller cities and the countryside (recall, for example, the insurrection of Cadore).
Moreover, Lombardy was already very much flourishing before being annexed by the Habsburgs in 1706, which ensured the latter a substantial tax revenue. On the other hand, regions such as Veneto and Trentino-Alto Adige were very poor when they were united to Italy (in 1866 and 1918, respectively), and it was only under Italian governance—thanks to Italian investments—that these two regions reached their current level of well-being. Contrary to what certain anti-Italian propaganda would have us believe, after 1918 Italy contributed considerably to the further development of the already prosperous Trieste, with an impressive series of public investments including the University, the road and rail links, public housing, public buildings (Courthouse, Police Headquarters, etc.), the New Port and the Ursus, while new development was given to pre-existing realities such as the San Marco Shipyard and Lloyd Triestino.
The Italian Unification of 1861 and the acquisition of Veneto, which took place with the controversial Third War of Independence in 1866, intimidated the government of Vienna and unleashed its persecutory intent towards those Italians who remained subjects of the Austrian Crown: the Trentines, the Julians and the Dalmatians. Radetzky proclaimed that "we must slavicize Dalmatia in order to remove it from the dangerous intellectual influence of Venice, which the Italian population looks to with excessive admiration", while at the Council of the Crown on November 12, 1866 Emperor Franz Joseph gave precise instructions to "decisively oppose the influence of the Italian element still present in some Crown lands, and to aim unsparingly and without the slightest compunction at the Germanization or Slavicization – depending on the circumstances – of the areas in question..."
In the following decades, the Habsburgs' policy of de-nationalization of the Trentines, Julians and Dalmatians was manifested in various administrative measures, such as: the Germanization and Slavization of Italian surnames by the parishes (in the Habsburg Empire the birth registers were managed by the clergy); the imperial authorities' active support for German and Slavic political forces in municipal and dietary elections, even resorting to rigging elections (in this way the authorities facilitated the Slavic party's conquest of the majority within the Dalmatian Diet in 1870 and their political conquest of the main Dalmatian cities, such as Sebenico in 1873 and Spalato in 1882); the police authorities' tolerance of violence by Slavic activists against individual Italian citizens and against associations and cultural institutions of the Italian community; the dissolution of Italian cultural associations, such as the "Pro Patria" of Trieste, active between 1885 and 1890; the abolition of the teaching of the Italian language in 450 of the 459 schools throughout Dalmatia; the blatant and gross falsification of census data, in such a way as to diminish the number of Italians in favor of the Slavs; the violent repression of Italian popular protests, as happened in Trieste during the massacres of 1868, 1903 and other occasions.
Even after the signing of the Triple Alliance Treaty, Franz Joseph's attitude towards Italy did not change substantially. In 1904 Austria-Hungary and Russia signed a secret pact by which the two States committed themselves to absolute neutrality in the case of a conflict with a third power. This secret pact was not communicated to Italy, but only to Germany, because, as illustrated by Franz Joseph in one of his letters to Wilhelm II von Hohenzollern, it had been signed precisely in anticipation of a war with Italy. After the Messina earthquake (1908) and during the war of Libya (1911) the Austrian chief of staff Conrad von Hötzendorf twice requested a treacherous attack against Italy, an allied country.
This was followed by repeated violations by Austria-Hungary of Article 7 of the treaty of the Triple Alliance, which provided for the obligation of "mutual information" and "mutual compensation" in the event of "changes in the territorial status quo in the East". This occurred on the occasion of Austria's unilateral annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908, in violation of previous agreements according to which Austria had undertaken to maintain only a protectorate, and on the occasion of Austrian aggression against Serbia in July 1914, concerning which the Austrian Ambassador to Rome wrote: "As the character of the Triple Alliance is purely defensive; as our measures against Serbia may precipitate a European conflagration; and finally, as we had not previously consulted this government, Italy would not be bound to join us in the war." Incidentally, even the outbreak of the First World War demonstrates that most wars, contrary to the common dogma which tends to attribute responsibility to Nation-States, are generally the result of the overpowering ambitions of imperialistic powers, often multinational, to the detriment of Nation-States.
Negotiations were held between Austria-Hungary and Italy concerning the compensation due to Italy according to Article 7 of the treaty of the Triple Alliance, but the Austrian Foreign Minister Stephan Burián assumed a very rigid position, opposing an initial refusal—later only partially revoked—to any concession of Trentino, precluding the sale of Trieste and proposing the postponement of compensations until after the end of the war, a condition obviously unacceptable for Italy. Consequently, on May 4, 1915 the Italian Foreign Minister Sidney Sonnino denounced the Triple Alliance in Vienna. It is hardly necessary to recall that the thesis sustained by Franz Joseph of an alleged Italian "betrayal" in 1915 is today completely rejected by Austrian historiography (Oswald Überegger: "Those Austro-Hungarian circles, both at the outbreak of the war and especially on May 23, 1915, spoke with great disdain about "betrayal" but acted in an entirely similar way when the issue concerned their own interests."). If anything, in light of the above, one could and should speak of Austrian betrayal, if it makes sense to apply these moral categories to relations between States.
On May 24, 1915 Italy therefore went to war—in the words of the King in his proclamation to the Armed Forces—to "plant the Italian tricolor on the holy boundaries that nature placed along the borders of our Fatherland" and to "accomplish at last the work started with so much heroism by our fathers". After the outbreak of hostilities, Austria-Hungary deported tens of thousands of their own Trentine, Julian and Dalmatian subjects to the concentration camps of Katzenau, Wagna, Pottendorf, Steinklamm and Bruck an der Leitha, where they faced hunger, disease and death. The Italian patirots Fabio Filzi, Cesare Battisti and Nazario Sauro supremely sacrificed their lives under the gallows of Franz Joseph, just as Amatore Sciesa, the Belfiore Martyrs, Guglielmo Oberdan and many other martyrs of the Risorgimento had done before them.
Franz Joseph, not missed today except by those who totally ignore historical truth, died on November 21, 1916, harbinger of the fate that history reserved for his Empire, destined to be destroyed by that same Italy that his successor Charles von Habsburg had called his "ancestral enemy". Unfortunately, the ethnic cleansing against the Italians of the eastern Adriatic (Istria, Fiume and Dalmatia) that began with bureaucratic methods by Franz Joseph was completed after 1943 with violent methods by his geo-political heir Josip Broz Tito.
No comments:
Post a Comment