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.Every project which aimed at giving the Empire a more federal shape was bound to beineffective because there was no strong central authority which could exercise sufficient power within theState to hold the federal elements together.It must be remembered in this connection that conditions inAustria were quite different from those which characterized the German State as founded by Bismarck.Germany was faced with only one difficulty, which was that of transforming the purely political traditions,because throughout the whole of Bismarck s Germany there was a common cultural basis.The GermanEmpire contained only members of one and the same racial or national stock, with the exception of a fewminor foreign fragments.Demographic conditions in Austria were quite the reverse.With the exception of Hungary there was no42 Mein Kampfpolitical tradition, coming down from a great past, in any of the various affiliated countries.If there had been,time had either wiped out all traces of it, or at least, rendered them obscure.Moreover, this was the epochwhen the principle of nationality began to be in ascendant; and that phenomenon awakened the nationalinstincts in the various countries affiliated under the Habsburg sceptre.It was difficult to control the action ofthese newly awakened national forces; because, adjacent to the frontiers of the Dual Monarchy, new nationalStates were springing up whose people were of the same or kindred racial stock as the respective nationalitiesthat constituted the Habsburg Empire.These new States were able to exercise a greater influence than theGerman element.Even Vienna could not hold out for a lengthy period in this conflict.When Budapest had developed into ametropolis a rival had grown up whose mission was, not to help in holding together the various divergentparts of the Empire, but rather to strengthen one part.Within a short time Prague followed the example ofBudapest; and later on came Lemberg, Laibach and others.By raising these places which had formerly beenprovincial towns to the rank of national cities, rallying centres were provided for an independent cultural life.Through this the local national instincts acquired a spiritual foundation and therewith gained a more profoundhold on the people.The time was bound to come when the particularist interests of those various countrieswould become stronger than their common imperial interests.Once that stage had been reached, Austria sdoom was sealed.The course of this development was clearly perceptible since the death of Joseph II.Its rapidity depended ona number of factors, some of which had their source in the Monarchy itself; while others resulted from theposition which the Empire had taken in foreign politics.It was impossible to make anything like a successful effort for the permanent consolidation of the AustrianState unless a firm and persistent policy of centralization were put into force.Before everything else theprinciple should have been adopted that only one common language could be used as the official language ofthe State.Thus it would be possible to emphasize the formal unity of that imperial commonwealth.And thusthe administration would have in its hands a technical instrument without which the State could not endure asa political unity.In the same way the school and other forms of education should have been used to inculcatea feeling of common citizenship.Such an objective could not be reached within ten or twenty years.Theeffort would have to be envisaged in terms of centuries; just as in all problems of colonization, steadyperseverance is a far more important element than the output of energetic effort at the moment.It goes without saying that in such circumstances the country must be governed and administered by strictlyadhering to the principle of uniformity.For me it was quite instructive to discover why this did not take place, or rather why it was not done.Thosewho were guilty of the omission must be held responsible for the break-up of the Habsburg Empire.More than any other State, the existence of the old Austria depended on a strong and capable Government.The Habsburg Empire lacked ethnical uniformity, which constitutes the fundamental basis of a national Stateand will preserve the existence of such a State even though the ruling power should be grossly inefficient.When a State is composed of a homogeneous population, the natural inertia of such a population will hold theStage together and maintain its existence through astonishingly long periods of misgovernment andmaladministration.It may often seem as if the principle of life had died out in such a body-politic; but a timecomes when the apparent corpse rises up and displays before the world an astonishing manifestation of itsindestructible vitality.But the situation is utterly different in a country where the population is not homogeneous, where there is nobond of common blood but only that of one ruling hand.Should the ruling hand show signs of weakness insuch a State the result will not be to cause a kind of hibernation of the State but rather to awaken theindividualist instincts which are slumbering in the ethnological groups.These instincts do not makethemselves felt as long as these groups are dominated by a strong central will-to-govern.The danger whichexists in these slumbering separatist instincts can be rendered more or less innocuous only through centuries43 Mein Kampfof common education, common traditions and common interests.The younger such States are, the more theirexistence will depend on the ability and strength of the central government.If their foundation was due onlyto the work of a strong personality or a leader who is a man of genius, in many cases they will break up assoon as the founder disappears; because, though great, he stood alone.But even after centuries of a commoneducation and experiences these separatist instincts I have spoken of are not always completely overcome.They may be only dormant and may suddenly awaken when the central government shows weakness and theforce of a common education as well as the prestige of a common tradition prove unable to withstand the vitalenergies of separatist nationalities forging ahead towards the shaping of their own individual existence.The failure to see the truth of all this constituted what may be called the tragic crime of the Habsburg rulers.Only before the eyes of one Habsburg ruler, and that for the last time, did the hand of Destiny hold aloft thetorch that threw light on the future of his country.But the torch was then extinguished for ever.Joseph II, Roman Emperor of the German nation, was filled with a growing anxiety when he realized the factthat his House was removed to an outlying frontier of his Empire and that the time would soon be at handwhen it would be overturned and engulfed in the whirlpool caused by that Babylon of nationalities, unlesssomething was done at the eleventh hour to overcome the dire consequences resulting from the negligence ofhis ancestors
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