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date would be March 1, 1906-Austria would know how to protect her interests, and the Government would duly submit to the House Bills to meet the changed situation. And should the Delegations not be able to perform their task in providing for common affairs, the Government would present a Bill to maintain the Austrian contribution to common supply from January 1 onwards.

The Pan-German members, on the other hand, pleaded for economic separation from Hungary and economic union with the German Empire. Without Hungary, they said, Austria could attain a much better relationship to Germany. The latter could not refuse to admit Austria to an economic alliance, since the competition of America, England, and Russia was gradually driving the States of Central Europe to create a Central European Customs Union. When Austria was backed by Germany, Hungary would be compelled to make some kind of commercial treaty with the two. The Austro-Hungarian Army must, however, remain united, as the Emperor of Austria could not be exposed to the danger of having to make war upon the King of Hungary. A pamphlet published at Berlin under the title of The Hungarian Crisis and the Hohenzollerns," which was attributed to the inspiration of the Pan-Germans, suggested that a member of the Hohenzollern family should be elected King of Hungary. Its author, a Hungarian, was tried at Buda-Pesth for high treason, but acquitted. The German Ambassador repudiated all connection with the pamphlet, and the Cologne Gazette published an interesting article on the future of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy combating, on many weighty grounds, the view that its disruption would result to the advantage of Germany.

Although the Austrian Parliament passed in May the AustroHungarian tariff upon which the commercial treaties with Germany and Italy were based, neither the tariff nor the treaties were accepted by the Hungarian Parliament, and they could not therefore be carried into effect. Much bitter feeling was expressed at the obstinacy of the Hungarian Coalition, but the agitation for universal suffrage overshadowed all other considerations. Demonstrations were made in November in all the principal Austrian towns in favour of the suffrage, and at a mass meeting at Buda-Pesth on November 5, M. Bokanyi, the Hungarian Socialist leader, declared that the Socialists of Hungary would act in close accord with their Austrian comrades and would not desist from their struggle until universal suffrage was won. On November 28 a great demonstration of working men and women marching with red flags took place before the building of the Austrian Parliament at Vienna while the Chamber was sitting, and the Premier, Baron Gautsch, at the same time announced that the Government would lay before it, probably towards the end of February, a Franchise Reform Bill based on the principle of universal suffrage, but so framed as to give due representation to provinces which have especial

claim to consideration on account of their highly developed industries or the amount of their contribution to the Imperial revenue, and also to protect racial minorities against being outvoted. He further stated that a Bill would at the same time be introduced to revise the standing orders of the Chamber in order to prevent obstruction in the new Parliament, and also one for altering the constitution of the Upper House, so as to give protection to interests which might be threatened by the introduction of universal suffrage. Shortly after considerable agitation was produced among the members of the Coalition in Hungary by an article by M. Kossuth accepting the idea of universal suffrage for Hungary also. The Clerical members of the Coalition, who feared that such an extension of the franchise would deprive most of them of their seats, were especially hostile to this proposal, and M. Kossuth had to explain that although he himself and his party, which was twice as large as all the other Coalition groups taken together, were in favour of universal suffrage, they would remain in the Coalition and accept its decisions. Meanwhile the condition of the country was such as to inspire serious alarm. Great financial difficulties were impending in consequence of the taxes having so long remained unpaid; the peasants were spending the money which they would otherwise have paid to the State, and it was feared that when regular Government was re-established there would be a heavy deficit, as it would be impossible to recover the arrears of taxation. Notwithstanding this the Coalition persisted in its attitude of passive resistance. On December 19 the Hungarian Parliament was prorogued until March 1 by a Royal rescript; but the House unanimously adopted a resolution protesting against the prorogation on the ground that it was illegal, as the estimates had not been voted. Baron Fejervary then resigned, but the Emperor refused to accept his resignation.

As, owing to the obstruction of the majority in the Hungarian Parliament, it was not possible to carry out the election of members of the Delegations, Count Goluchowski, the Foreign Minister, did not make his usual annual statement of foreign policy. Friendly relations were maintained with all the Powers, especially Italy, with whom a close understanding was established on all pending questions by Count Goluchowski at his meeting at Venice on April 28 with the Italian Foreign Minister, Sgr. Tittoni. In exchanging toasts on this occasion the Italian Minister referred to Count Goluchowski's work as being "precious to the cause of peace," while the latter spoke of M. Tittoni as his "illustrious collaborator in the work of peace, which forms the object of our constant solicitude," adding that this afforded "fresh testimony to the complete unanimity of views which presides over the excellent relations between Italy and Austria-Hungary.”

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CHAPTER III.

RUSSIA, TURKEY AND THE MINOR STATES OF EASTERN EUROPE.

I. RUSSIA.

THE year 1905 began in Russia with the most terrible massacre of modern times. The fall of Port Arthur had increased the public discontent and given additional force to the demand for a representative assembly. Father Gapon, a priest who had for some time been inculcating liberal ideas among the working men, organised a series of strikes with a view not only to an increase of wages, but to the institution of liberal reforms; and a rebellious spirit began to manifest itself in the Army. Great alarm was caused by a charge of shrapnel having been fired by the artillery against the windows of the Winter Palace, where the Tsar was performing the annual ceremony of blessing the Neva, though it afterwards appeared that this had been merely an accident due to the carelessness of the officer in command. Prince Troubetskoi, Marshal of the Moscow nobility and President of the Moscow Zemstvo, warned the Tsar in emphatic terms that what was taking place in Russia was "not a simple disturbance but a revolution"; and on January 21, the day before"Red Sunday," as it was afterwards called, Father Gapon sent a letter to the Tsar informing him that the strikers would march in a body to the Winter Palace to confer with his Majesty personally as to their grievances, as they had no faith in the bureaucracy or in his Ministers. A petition was at the same time sent to Tsarskoe-Selo for presentation to the Tsar, stating that the working men had arrived at the extreme limit of endurance," and had reached "the terrible moment when death is to be preferred to the continuance of intolerable sufferings"; that "the bureaucracy has brought the country to the verge of ruin, and by a shameful war is bringing it to its downfall," and that the people "have no voice in the heavy burdens imposed upon them," and "do not know for whom or why this money is wrung from the impoverished masses, or how it is expended." The petitioners, therefore, urged the Tsar to "throw down the wall that separates him from the people " and to "order at once the convocation of representatives of all classes, including the working class." Next morning a huge mass of unarmed men, women, and children, with Father Gapon at their head, marched through the streets, singing hymns and carrying crosses and other religious emblems. The approaches to the Winter Palace were guarded by troops, who at first strove to disperse the people with the whips of the Cossacks, but finding this ineffectual used their rifles and swords. The massacre lasted for some hours; unarmed men, women, and children were shot or cut down by hundreds as they pushed on

towards the palace square. Those behind, infuriated at the terrible sight, tore up the pavements, stoned the officers, and then proceeded to the working men's quarter, where they armed themselves with knives and carpenters' tools and erected barricades. The fighting continued all day, and several hundreds of persons were killed and some thousands wounded. An aged general was beaten and trampled to death by the crowd, and further conflicts between the military and the workmen took place on the following days.

A large meeting of barristers and solicitors was held, at which resolutions were passed declaring their entire solidarity with the strikers, protesting against the action of the Government in provoking bloodshed, and declining to plead in the courts. Numerous professors and literary men, including the celebrated writer, Maxim Gorki, were arrested for expressing sympathy with the movement, and the notorious General Trepoff, formerly Minister of Police at Moscow, was appointed Governor-General of St. Petersburg, with full powers to restore order. Strikes next occurred at Moscow and other industrial centres in the Empire. On January 25 the Government issued a proclamation to the strikers urging them to resume work, stating that the recent agitation among the workmen was caused by "evil-disposed persons who chose them as their tools for the execution of their designs," that the Emperor would continue his exertions for the well-being of the working classes, and that steps had already been taken by him with this object by a scheme of insurance to relieve them in case of disablement or sickness, and the drafting of a law for shortening the hours of labour and enabling them to discuss and declare their needs. This proclamation did not produce any effect; the working men were determined and well organised, and the strikes proceeded simultaneously all over the country, though at St. Petersburg and Moscow a large number of men, probably on account of a deficiency in the strike funds, returned to work. At Warsaw the strikers marched through the streets accompanied by roughs and professional thieves; shops were pillaged and burned, all traffic was stopped, and frequent conflicts took place with the troops. The movement was directed by two Socialistic organisations, an international one, the Bund, composed mainly of Jews, and the Polish Social Democratic party. The Polish Nationalists, both in Russian and in Austrian Poland, held entirely aloof from it, and, mindful of the sad experience of previous Polish revolutions, strongly urged their fellow-countrymen to abstain from revolutionary methods and to endeavour to obtain national institutions by agitation within the limits of the law. On February 1 the Tsar received a deputation of working-men at Tsarskoe-Selo. He told them that they had been "led away and deceived by traitors and enemies of the Fatherland," that to come to him "as a rebel mob to declare their wants is a crime," and that everything possible would

be done to improve their lot. Prince Sviatopolk-Mirski was at the same time relieved of his post as Minister of the Interior, and succeeded by M. Buliguin, formerly Governor of Moscow.

Meanwhile the strike movement was continued at St. Petersburg, in Russian Poland, Finland, and the Caucasus. At Lodz, "the Polish Manchester," 100,000 men went on strike; many of them were armed with revolvers and had frequent encounters with the troops. At Warsaw, railway communication with Vienna and Berlin was suspended owing to a strike of the railway employés, and there was a partial suspension of railway traffic throughout the whole of Russia. The strike movement extended from the kingdom of Poland northwards to the government of Kovno, and thence through Courland, Livonia and Esthonia to Riga and Reval on the Baltic coast; in the east it extended from the governments of Vilna, Grodno, Minsk and Mohileff to Kieff, and from the government of Ekaterinoslaff to the Caucasus, to Saratoff and Samara, and to Irkutsk in Siberia-showing the existence of a widespread revolutionary organisation, based not only on economic distress but on political grievances, over nearly the whole of the Empire. The Anarchists, too, proceeded with their murderous work. On February 6 M. Johnsson, Procurator of the Finnish Senate, a Finn who had made himself very unpopular with his countrymen by aiding in the policy of Russification, was assassinated at Helsingfors by a former student of the university there, and on the 17th of the same month the Grand Duke Serge, uncle of the Tsar, was killed by a bomb thrown under his carriage at Moscow a few weeks after he had given up the post of governor there, in which he had made himself very unpopular by his haughty and reactionary spirit. Towards the end of February the situation was still further complicated by a formidable rising of the Tartars against the Armenians at Baku, Tiflis and Erivan, which continued for several months, the two nationalities fighting desperately with each other and committing atrocious outrages, while the police took the side of the Tartars with a view to suppressing the revolutionary movement among the Armenians.

In March the Kingdom of Poland was placed in a state of siege. The courses in all the Russian universities, training colleges and engineering and other higher schools were suspended, the students having resolved by large majorities to abstain from attending lectures until constitutional reforms should be granted. A delegation of workmen which had been invited to sit on a Government Commission to discuss their grievances was instructed by its electors to demand the liberation of 3,000 workmen who had been arrested since January 22; inviolability of person and domicile during the sitting of the Commission; and liberty of speech in connection with its proceedings, which should be public and should be reported in the newspapers without being subject to censorship. These demands were rejected by the Government, upon which the leaders of the workmen

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