William Tyler
Imperial Grandeur to The Sound of Music
William Tyler - Imperial Grandeur to the Sound of Music
- Welcome to everyone.
Thank you.
This is the final talk in our series on the Habsburgs and on Austria. And I’m going to begin with a brief resume to lead us into this final talk. There’s been much speculation in the last few weeks about a new world order, although no one is clear as to how the Russian-Ukraine war will work out or to its consequences. History is, of course, silent on the matter as this is a matter that lies in the future. What history does tell us is that the First World War did lead to a reordering of Europe. Four empires ended during or after the First World War; the Russian empire, the German empire, the Ottoman empire, and our particular interest on this course, the Habsburg empire. The Russian empire simply metamorphosed into the Soviet empire from the old tsarist one. The German empire briefly became a modern democratic state, the Weimar Republic, until the arrival of a new and dark empire of the Third Reich. The Ottoman and Habsburg empires, by contrast, were broken apart into their constituent elements. The old Habsburg empire, which you’ll remember, was divided in 1867 into two administrative areas, those of Austria and of Hungary, was broken asunder in the name of nationalism and according to the doctrine of self-determination, as pronounced by American President, Woodrow Wilson, at the Conference in Versailles. Austria, as we’ve noted, became a small alpine republic with an imperial capital marooned within it. Austria had a difficult birth. Why? Because it neither fitted the criteria of nationalism, there was not a big cry, “We want Austria!” nor was it for self-determination. Given a choice, Austria would have stuck probably with Germany. But it was established as an independent small state because the Allies forbade it to unite with their fellow Germans in Germany. Hungary was very different.
Hungary had many Hungarians, ethnic Hungarians, now living post-1918 in other countries. And Hungary itself, the Hungary that we recognise today on the map, Hungary nurtured a great grievance against the Allies at the loss of what it regarded as its right to what they called a Greater Hungary. Now Austria never claimed for a Greater Austria. It knew that it had lost. It knew that it could never bring back the Austria half of the Habsburg empire. It would have preferred to have merged probably with Germany. But Hungary, on the other hand, resented the loss of the power that it had first obtained in the dual monarchy of 1867. But both Austria and Hungary rejected the Habsburg family. Austria became a republic. They were done with the Habsburgs. Hungary was in a very odd situation. It remained a kingdom but without a king. And the leader of Hungary, Admiral Horthy, was an admiral without a navy. And he wasn’t a president of a republic. He was a regent of a kingdom that didn’t exist. It’s one of those extraordinary mad things in history. But to all in intents and purposes, the Habsburgs are finished by the early 1920s as a ruling royal House in both the Austrian and the Hungarian parts of their old empire. Austria, it’s true, found its new identity in 1938 with the Anschluss when it became integrated within the Third Reich as Germany. And therefore, for seven years between 1938 and 1945, Austria ceased to exist, rubbed out on the map of Europe. It regained its independence in 1945. And as we’ve seen it, sort of middle way of central coalitions in politics.
And it sought gradually to lean westwards towards Western Europe rather than northwards towards Soviet Russia. And finally, of course, in the 1950s, it joined the European Union. And Hungary, once it was free of Soviet involvement and of Marxism, itself joined the European Union in the early years of this century, 2004. So that’s the introduction. That’s to sort of set the scene. I know you all knew that and you could all have done it and probably a lot better than I’ve done it. But I just wanted to sort of bring us to the starting gate, if you like. And I’m going to talk in this particular lecture under four headings. Firstly I’m going to say something about the Habsburg family after the death of the last Emperor Charles, you will remember, on the island of Madeira where the British had taken him to exile in 1922. Then secondly, I’m going to look at Austrian tourism and the “Sound of Music.” And thirdly- Uh, don’t worry. No, no singing from me. And thirdly, I’m looking at the rising threat of the far-right in Austria today. And then the final bit is the Visegrad Group within the EU, to all intents and purposes, headed by Hungary. Visegrad is simply a name of a town where it all began. It’s spelled V-I-S-E-G-R-A-D. If you haven’t been aware of it, and if you don’t live in Britain or Europe, you may not be aware of Visegrad. And even if you do, you may not be aware of it but I promise you it’s important. So if you are listening in Israel or America or Canada or Australia, please forgive me if you know everything about the Visegrad Group. But if you don’t, and I suspect most of you don’t, it’s worth listening to that part of the talk. So then let me begin with the Habsburgs. As we said Emperor Charles, the last emperor, died in 1922. And he was succeeded by his son, Otto. When I say succeeded, he succeeded to a non-existent thrones. He was simply a pretender to the Austrian throne and the Hungarian throne. And he was only 10 years old when his father died. He was born just before the First War in 1912. He is regarded by monarchists that exists still, although very, the monarchist movement in either Hungary or Austria is tiny.
It’s more like a sort of, um, a bit of fantasy, really. And, of course, they sell models of Franz Joseph, and there’s pictures of his wife everywhere. Yeah, they’ve got all of that. But as a political movement, I think we can confidently say that monarchism in the old Austria-Hungarian empire is dead. They didn’t, of course, realise that in 1922. And his mother, the Empress Zita, took the family to Spain. And there, he didn’t receive a Spanish education. Otto received a Habsburg education. In other words, a German education, overlooked by his mother because they expected one day to return to the thrones of Austria and Hungary. Or if not Austria, at least they hoped to return to the throne of Hungary, which still had the potential, remember, of being a kingdom. In fact, he spent most of his life in other countries. He lived in Switzerland, in Madeira, in Spain, in Belgium, in France, and the United States. And then from 1954, until his death in Bavaria in Germany, in a house, or rather an estate, called by him, the Villa Austria. They can’t ever forget the past. And how could they, after 700 years of Habsburg rule in Central Europe? The Austrian government passed what they call the Habsburg Act in 1919, which banned the imperial family from returning unless they renounce all claims to the throne and accepted the status of private citizens. And that left a sort of void really in Otto’s life. They couldn’t bring themselves to accept those conditions. However, between 1931 and the Anschluss of 1938, Otto was made a honorary citizen of no less than 1,603, 1,603 Austrian municipalities! That’s quite extraordinary when you think about it.
But I think you’ll have to look at it as nostalgia for a past that isn’t going to come again. When Nazism arrived in Europe, Otto denounced it in no uncertain terms. He said, “I absolutely reject fascism for Austria. The un-Austrian movement promises everything to everyone, but really intends the most ruthless subjugation of the Austrian people. The people of Austria will never tolerate that our beautiful fatherland should become an exploited colony, and that the Austrian should become a man of second category.” And yet, of course, they did. The journalist Gerald Warner has written, “Austrian Jews,” this is according to the journalist, Otto said: Austrian Jews were among the strongest supporters for Habsburg restoration since they believed the dynasty would give the nation sufficient resolve to stand up to the Third Reich. For all his efforts, all his speaking efforts to reject the Anschluss, Hess put an order on him that if he was captured, he would be immediately executed without trial. At the end of the war, he’d been in America, at the end of the war, he gained Churchill’s permission. But then Churchill is always the romantic for what Otto called a Danube Federation; in effect a restoration of Austria-Hungary with or without a monarch. And Churchill went along with it. Again, I think, Churchill were romantic. But Stalin said, “Nyet!” And it was no. And I think Otto realised then there was no chance of the clock being put back to 1917, 1918. And eventually he agreed to the condition set by the Austrian government. And in 1966, he was issued an Austrian passport. And for the first time, and for the first time in 48 years, he returned to Austria. But he didn’t settle there. He had by this time, post-war, post-Second World War, become an internationalist. He was President of the International Pan-European Union from 1973 to 2004. From 1979 to 1999, he was a member of the European Parliament, an MEP. Not for Austria, but for a centre right party from Bavaria in Germany where he lived.
Sometimes people, I’ve seen it said that he was on the fascist-right. It’s absolute nonsense. He was center-right. In British terms, a Conservative. He was definitely not on the far-right by any stretch of the imagination. In the early 2000s, very interestingly, this is a shrewd man but then perhaps you might expect that, he warned of Putin as an international threat and as cruel and oppressive and a stone-cold technocrat in a number of interviews he gave between 2002 and 2005. He died in 2011 at his home in Germany, age 98. He was eventually buried with the Imperial Arms of Austria on his coffin in the family crypt in Vienna, whilst his heart was buried in a monastery in Hungary, which was the norm for rulers of the House of Habsburg. In mediaeval Christianity, very important people often had their hearts buried somewhere else than the body. It gave two places that you could go and revere them, even if they were made saints. Worship them, I suppose. And you can find that in Britain, for example. You can find churches which have a heart sepulchre, They’re tiny normally. Obviously they’re tiny. But you can see them on a wall because they weren’t destroyed at the Reformation. There is a claimant to the Habsburg throne today, and that is Otto’s son, Karl; another Karl. Karl von Habsburg. He was born in 1961 in Strassburg. And he really doesn’t claim anything in terms of a throne. They’re just different now. He said, “I don’t refer to titles, I’m not that vain. People use these titles out of respect for history and the role of my family in history.”
He did his military service in the 1980s in the Austrian Army, and later in the Austrian Air Force. In 1986, he became President of the Austrian branch of his father’s Pan-European Union. He lives just outside the city of Salzburg in Austria and has lived there since 1981, again, in a property called Casa Austria; like his father’s in Bavaria, was called Villa Austria. He’s divorced but he has three children, including an heir called Ferdinand. But it’s finish. There is no coming back for the House of Hapsburg. It’s now firmly part of history. But if Karl, which he has, and his son, Ferdinand, continue the traditions of the family, then they will continue. Then they will continue to play a role in European affairs, like Otto, as a member of the European Parliament. So that wraps up the story of the House of Habsburg. It doesn’t end in blood. It ends, well, quietly. And they are aristocrats living in the Europe of the 21st century, along with many other aristocrats. And their lifestyle is more middle class than aristocratic. My second topic, I said I’m doing four topics today. Don’t look for them interweaving. But this is to try and pull some ends together as I said at the end of last week. My second topic is tourism. And tourism has become vitally important to Austria, post-1945. It’s a major part of its economy. But also it’s important as Austria has tried to slough off its Nazi past. This is what TripAdvisor says for 2022, and I thought this was a rather well-written paragraph. It says about Austria: As home to majestic mountains, opulent palaces and high culture, Austria’s attractions are classically sumptuous and enduring. But beyond the waltzes, the strudels, the alpine summits, and Habsburg architecture, its modern cities are proof of just how easily Austria combines the contemporary with the historic. And as a historian, I could add, and has managed to flatten its past. This is tourism Austria, the Austria food and drink and dancing and holidays and fantastic, and skiing and all the rest of it.
Tourism in Austria accounts for just under 10% of the Austrian Gross National Product. It’s therefore an important item in the Austrian economy. It’s said that Austria has one guest bed for every six Austrian inhabitants. It’s certainly true that Austria boasts the highest per capita income from tourism in the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It has enormous number of holidaymakers because it has two seasons. It has a summer season, and, of course, it has a winter alpine season. You’re very lucky if you manage to have two seasons and two bites of the cherry. And they do. It’s not surprising to learn that Vienna attracts the most tourists, followed by Salzburg. But they also of course have, as it said in that TripAdvisor little piece, that little paragraph, it also has a number of cultural events, many of them musical, which also attract large numbers of overseas visitors. So Austria has done well out of its tourist industry. You won’t be surprised to hear that the greatest number of tourists come from Germany. United Kingdom ranks fifth as the greatest number of tourists after Netherland, Switzerland and Italy. And the United States ranks eighth, below United Kingdom at fifth. Sixth is China. China. And seventh is the Czech Republic. So it’s got local visitors plus UK, which really it, well, I don’t know whether you can call it local. Well perhaps post-Brexit, you can’t call it local. Although in time, to get there, it’s a quick journey. But the China and the United States represents a far more distant places, and it shows the attraction.
And I think the attraction for the Chinese and the Americans is the culture, is Vienna, and the Habsburgs; rather than perhaps the alpine sports and so on, which are much near at hand in both China and the States. And not in Britain. A large number of British go to Austria in order to ski and so on. I mentioned in passing last week the “Sound of Music.” And I rather described Austria as having succeeded to bury its Nazi past under the “Sound of Music.” So I’m linking “Sound of Music,” the American musical film of 1965, along with tourism. After all, there are “Sound of Music” tours and goodness knows what. If you go to Salzburg, you’re pestered by people trying to get you to buy a ticket for one of these. To me it would be like living death but that’s me. The filming took place in Salzburg, but also took place in Los Angeles. You all remember the story, I guess, that Maria is a rather high-spirited young woman who isn’t cut out to be a nun. And there’s a officer, a retired naval officer from the First War, who’s been widowed and left with children and he wants someone to come and give some discipline to them. And so the abbess sends Maria to work for Captain Georg von Trapp. And, of course, they fall in love. But the interesting thing actually is this is a story that’s based on truth. Now the film isn’t absolutely word for word and scene by scene the truth, but it is in essence a true story. And you know what happens. The Anschluss comes and he receives a telegram and he’s told to report to the German naval base at Bremerhaven. And the children are about to perform at Salzburg in a music contest. And he, and now his wife Maria, take the children, but they are stopped as they attempt to flee. And they say, “Well, we’re on our way for this festival.”
So the Gauleiter, a man called Hans Zeller, says, “Well I’ll accompany you to the festival in Salzburg and then the Captain will come with me to Bremerhaven and the rest of you will go home.” And during their performance, in the last part of their performance, they escape and they hide or are hidden by the abbess in the crypt of the abbey. The Germans come and do a search but the family escape using the caretaker’s car. And the Germans can’t follow because the nuns have nobbled the Germans’ cars. They all make their escape safely to Switzerland. And there isn’t a dry eye in the house. It really suited the Austrian version of Austrian history. It happens to be true, which makes it better for the Austrians. But my goodness me, does that not sell the idea that Austria resisted the Anschluss? That Austrians hated the Third Reich? When we know that that is simply not true. As a broad statement, it is not true. The Trapps belong to a minority, not to a majority. But it all feeds in. It all feeds in to this story that Austria was forced into the Anschluss and didn’t want it. The sort of rosy-eyed view that Otto Habsburg had expressed himself. At the time of Anschluss, which I read to you. But the reality is different. Now, does it matter? You might say it’s in the past. Well, yes. Except the past has a habit of coming and biting you again when you least expect it. And certainly that has happened in the Austria that is now around in contemporary Europe. I found, in preparing this, a very interesting article by the CourtHouse News Service which I must admit I haven’t come across before, which is an American news service aimed at lawyers. It’s a respectable and perfectly objective news service aimed at American law and American lawyers, basically. And it had an article. And the article was published two years ago. And the heading was, “Sleeping Dogs Begin to Growl. A study probes the persistence of Nazism in Austria, 2020.” The article was reissued by the CourtHouse News in 2022. And it’s quite a long article. I won’t bore you with the whole article, although in truth it isn’t boring. But I selected a paragraph.
And I began to make a synopsis of the paragraph and I thought, this is ridiculous. Because this paragraph is extremely good. Says he is a lawyer, commenting about other lawyers’ writing. Always depend on lawyers to be clear. Well, that’s what they claim. But I think this is clear. And it writes this: Today, the Freedom Party of Austria remains characterised- Now the Freedom Party is the far-right party. The other two parties that have usually formed coalitions have been center-left and center-right. In British terms, Labour Party and the Conservative Party. This is a far-right party. And if you ever see the word freedom, be careful. Because it’s used by the far-right. Today, the Freedom Party of Austria remains characterised by nationalistic anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric. Former members of the Nazi Party lost their ability to vote from 1945 to 1949. In 1949, however, 83,000 former Austrian Nazis regained their ability to not only vote, but influence politics more broadly. So the far-right, the Nazi right, never died. Never died. And when it could be brought back into the light in the 1950s, it emerged. Changed? Hardly. Austria has historically exhibited three main political schools of thought, Social Democrats- Social Democrats, equivalent to the British Labour Party. Catholic Conservatives, equivalent to the British Conservative Party. And the far-right, of which really we don’t have as a significant force in Britain. And all have their roots back to the second Great War, World War II. About 13% of Austrians identified with the Nazi Party at the end of World War II. Now, you didn’t have to identify. This is a self-identification.
Oh no, I was never a member of the party. How dare you suggest such a thing! But 83,000, with their uniforms in the cupboard, were only two pleased to say we remain Nazi. About 13% of Austrians identified with the Nazi Party at the end of World War II. And while the country’s political view shifted towards liberalism through the 1980s, there was a marked rise towards populism during the 1990s and 2000s. During the 1990s and 2000. Populism. Now one of the problems of isms in politics is they’re not clear-cut. They tend to be on a continuum. And the far-right continuum in Western democracies today stretches from populism at one end to fascism at the other. And in any given case, academics and other politicians argue, how far along this line are they? Are they really just populist, you don’t need to worry about it? Are they fascists? And where does nationalism lie in that line? That’s the big debate in the democracies of Europe today. The Freedom Party in Austria, more worryingly, obtained power in a coalition government between the year 2000 and 2005. It obtained power in a coalition government between 2000 and 2005. And then again, it gained power in a coalition between 2017 and 2019. Now, if that doesn’t frighten the horses, I don’t know what does. If you’re not listening in Britain or Europe, you may be at a second stage removed from the development and spread of the new right, the alternative right, neo-fascism, all these phrases are used. But when you think Austria and you think “Sound of Music” and you think exactly like that TripAdvisor’s paragraph about strudels and skiing and, oh it’s wonderful, did you know that already this century, that far-right fascist party has been in power in Austria seven times?
Okay, in coalition. But in coalition. For those who argue for proportional representation, this is the danger that if you have proportional representation, then extremist parties can be elected and liberal centre of the road parties of the left or right, in order- Well, in order that government continues often, but in order to hold power or remain in power, have to do deals, well Churchill, I think, would have used the phrase, with the devil. And whilst the Freedom Party in Austria was part of the government, Austria itself was a member of the European Union, which clearly does not, in any of its constitutional paperwork, talk about anything other than democracy in the sense of a liberal democracy in the way that most of us understand it. And in Britain, those who voted for Brexit will point to the ever-increasing rise of the far-right in Europe as a good reason be out of it. Whilst those who voted to stay in think it would have been better if Britain attempted to deal with such issues inside Europe. And some of those who voted remain in Britain, are concerned that our present government is moving too fast towards a populist right. Now, the Freedom Party in Austria today, you know Austria, and we mentioned before, has two Houses in its constitution, a Lower House and an Upper House. House of Commons, House of Lords. House of Representatives, the Senate. In the Lower House, the Freedom Party holds 71 out of 183 seats.
Now remember, this is not like Britain or America where there are two huge major parties. There’s lots of parties. And the Freedom Party holds 71 out of 183 seats in the Lower House. In the Upper House, it holds 25 out of 61. But in terms of Europe, interestingly, it only holds 3 seats out of 19. Because one of the things these far-right parties in Europe want is out of Europe. That means. Sorry. I mean by that, out of the European Union. Sorry, I’m short-circuiting that. I’m so used to saying it like that. So 71 seats out of 183 in the Lower House, 25 out of 61 in the Upper House, and 3 out 19 MEPs. I think you can discount the MEPs because that’s something that, as I say, they’re opposed to. But that they’ve got these large numbers in the two Houses of the Austrian parliament is or should be a matter of concern for everyone. Now I’m turning, because I need a bit more time for this, I’m turning to my final point, which is this Visegrad Group. I’m turning to Hungary. Visegrad. Let me spell it again for you. V-I-S-E, Vise; grad, G-R-A-D. Name of a town, nothing odd about it. But let me begin with the connection between the old Habsburg empire and the modern European Union. Many people have sought to draw a comparison between the European Union of the 21st century and the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian empire of the 19th century. I don’t know about any of you, but I keep commonplace books where I write all sorts of things. And this is one of my history commonplace books, volume six. And in it, I’ve got a number of things that I thought, I got three quotations which I thought were worth sharing with all of you. They come from a lady called Caroline de Gruyter in an essay she wrote for the British newspaper, “The New European.”
And Caroline de Gruyter writes this: The Habsburg empire was a state with an army and a foreign policy. The European Union is not a state but it has competencies and procedures that makes it look like a federation. Both are multi-ethnic entities functioning in a similar way by procrastinating and muddling through, because they always unfailingly go for compromise. The result is, by definition, always imperfect. So that’s interesting. So you can judge the imperfectness of the EU, which many in Britain feel, against the Habsburg empire, which was also ineffective. And we, or I, labour that point about the ineffectiveness because they couldn’t come to terms with the various ethnicities. And she is saying this is exactly the problem that the European Union face. She also wrote this: If there is one thing Europeans can learn from the Habsburg empire, it is probably that they should accept the European Union more as it is. Too often, European debate is hijacked by federalists and nationalists. Federalists and nationalists, people who want to break up the European Union into smaller units and have it as a federal. Well, the one thing, the one thing that really seems to bug the British, and I have to say when I did constitutional law at Oxford so many years ago now, it was a big topic, was federalism. And the British don’t care for federalism. I think they think about the United States. But we don’t, somehow or other federalism seems to be a naughty word. And I’m not sure that’s fair. Now let me tell you a story.
When I was in my first job, I had to look after a lady that came and was running a course in the residential college where I was a tutor. And her name was Monica. And she was a just retired head of a teacher training college. But her brother had been Orde Wingate, the great British hero in World War War II in Burma. And people that knew her and him said she was the more difficult of the two. And he was blank, blank, blank, difficult. And she was difficult. I’d never met the woman, she had never met me. I was in my first job, wet behind the ears. And it was my job to meet her at the front door, take her case, show her where the room was, and explain what time supper was, that was all. And oh, show her the classroom. That’s all I had to do. So I went up to her and I said, “Oh, Miss Wingate,” she was Miss Wingate, “Miss Wingate,” I said, “I’m here to show you your room.” “Stop, young man!” she said. “Show me your copy of the United Nations charter.” What? She was a great federalist and a great internationalist. And I said, “Well, it, it…” I actually had a copy ‘cause I’d been using it at university. I said, “Yes, it’s in my room upstairs.” “In your room?” she said. “It should be here!” clutching her breast. “It should be here, next your heart.” And for one awful moment, I thought she was going to produce, she was no spring chicken. I thought she was going to produce from her bra a copy of the United Nations charter. And her movement never got off- Internationally and in terms of federalism, the British aren’t there. But there are people in Europe talking about it. And that would have been a solution for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as we’ve said in the past. Finally, she’s write: Federalists are constantly disappointed that the European Union is not powerful enough. Nationalists by contrast, portrays as a super state that is too powerful.
Both camps are permanently disappointed and impossible to please. Instead of dreaming of an EU they will never get, Europeans should learn to accept that muddling through is in the European DNA. It has helped them to become peaceful and prosperous. Muddling through. Well, we know what happened to the Habsburg empire and its policy of muddling through. It ended. Now within the European Union, as those extracts underline, there are differing views. There are subgroups of nations. Wherever you have an international organisation, you have subgroups. And the EU is no different than other international organisations. And one subgroup is this Visegrad Group. And that subgroup, well, let me tell you what they say they are. This is from their website: The Visegrad Group, also known as the Visegrad Four or simply V4 reflects the efforts of the countries of the Central European region to work together in a number of fields of common interest within the all-European integration. Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia have always been part of a single civilization sharing cultural and intellectual values and common roots in diverse religious traditions, which they wish to preserve and further strengthen. The Visegrad Group wishes to contribute towards building the European security architecture based on effective, functionally complementary and mutually reinforcing cooperation and coordination within existing European and transatlantic institutions. They say they want to preserve and promote cultural cohesion and cooperation within the group will enhance the imparting of values in the fields of culture, education, science and information.
All sounds very, very positive. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. But what Hungary is doing is very clearly trying to establish the old Hungary, Greater Hungary, to command these nations who we may assume are lower than they are. If they were a single nation, the Visegrad Group, they would be 5th in Europe, and 15th in the world, according to GDP. They have over 64 million inhabitants between the four of them. They set up an international Visegrad Fund to strengthen ties. And who’s got a large amount of money? From those ties, the Ukraine. Because Hungary seeks to pull back the Ukraine into this Greater Hungary. And some of you may have read recently in the press of Novak, current leader of Hungary is, well, he is two-faced. Because he’s within the EU but he’s also apparently dealing with Putin in the hope that if the Russians were to win, he could grab a bit more territory. Greater Hungary again. It’s very strange. But stranger still is that it’s set up a grouping or within its group, a subgroup, following Russia’s invasion of the Crimea in 2014, to look at mutual protection, defence planning, joint training, joint procurement, military education, joint airspace protection, coordination of positions, communication strategy. Now the EU has no army. They’re members of NATO, but this is now not only a subgroup of the EU, it’s a subgroup of NATO saying, come on, we’ve got to get our act together. That’s 2014. In 2015, there was a further group called the Austerlitz Group because it met at Austerlitz. And that consisted of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria. And because Austria woke up to the fact that Hungary was trying to recreate the Hapsburg empire to the east, and so they try and do the same in the west with Slovakia and Austria. And they emphasise they were not a competitor to the Visegrad Group, but an addition. But this is Austria.
Not, I think, pulling back Hungary, but trying to jump into the water to share some of the prize were they to bring something like the Austro-Hungarian empire back. Now all of that is, I think, fascinating, and it may be quite new to some of you. So those of you who are sceptical, I don’t believe- Read up about the Visegrad Group. Now this next piece, and I’m going to read from a document, is, to a Britain, worrying. And it should be worrying to Americans as well. This is a press release from Number 10 Downing Street on the 8th of March, 2022, after the Russian invasion. Now remember, Orban is a neo-fascist. Poland’s party in power is on the extreme right. And the Visegrad Group includes those two plus Slovakia and there are- Slovakia. And there are questions about Slovakia and the Czech Republic. But this was a press release from Number 10 Downing Street, a matter of a couple of weeks ago, 8th of March, 2022. Now I’m not going to read you the entire press release but I’m going to read you three short paragraphs to give you a flavour. You can always look it up on the Downing Street site, the Visegrad Group meeting, 8th of March, 2022: We, the leaders of the Visegrad Group countries and the United Kingdom stand united in condemning Russia’s aggression on Ukraine. At today’s Summit, we also committed to continued UK-V4, V4, Visegrad, V4 collaboration on cyber security, a key priority of the Hungarian V4 Presidency and a vital area of cooperation in the current climate. We agree to work together via further policy dialogues and a joint commitment to strengthen our collective cyber resilience, coordinate approaches on cyber governance, and respond to and deter malicious cyber activities, including the spread of disinformation.
The Visegrad 4 Countries and the United Kingdom are bound by deep historic ties. Uh, deep historic ties? Oh? Who the hell with? Czech Republic? Slovakia? Poland? The Visegrad 4 Countries and the United Kingdom are bound by deep historic ties and our shared values of democracy, rule of law, human rights, and the preservation of peace in Europe. Nonsense! The Polish and Hungarian governments at the moment are being pursued by the EU in Brussels because they are not sharing the values of democracy within the EU. But Britain, outside of the EU, a couple of weeks ago is able to say, “share values of democracy, rule of law, human rights and the preservation of peace in Europe.” It’s nonsense! We have today resolved to further deepen and strengthen these bonds, as a significant contribution to European peace and security and to work together to protect NATO Allies. Wow. What we have here is, first, Hungary taking the opportunity of the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 to bring together a grouping of four ostensibly for cultural purposes, and then broadening that out into defensive purposes. We then see Austria muscling in on this with the Austerlitz Group. And then we see Britain excluded from EU summits dealing directly with four EU members. You would have thought, would you not, that Britain would have dealt within NATO, with France, where we have very strong military treaties. Nothing to do with the EU. Separate bilateral treaties with France on training, equipment and so on. But you would have thought we would have done a deal with France and Germany, but instead we’re doing it with Hungary and Poland? It’s a very, very strange development and one that was, of course, largely missed or omitted by the British press. I just find these developments fascinating.
And if we’re talking about a new world order, which is where I began, then this is part of a new world order; that independent Britain, rather than turning its back on Europe, which is what Europeans see, has actually walked in through the back door. I wonder if the British government informed the American government of this meeting in advance. Well there’s a problem with all of this. Because most commentators say that the V4 isn’t V4 at all. It’s V2 plus two. That is to say that, Poland and Hungary are so non-undemocratic that the other two, Slovakia and the Czechs, don’t want anything to do with the Poles and Hungarians. In fact, the Czech Minister for European Affairs, a man called Bek, said earlier this year, well this month actually, he said, quote: Hungary and Poland are nowadays in a serious dispute with the rest of the EU, while the Czech Republic and Slovakia are not playing the same notes. And yet all four were in Downing Street? This Russian invasion has stirred up a great deal. It stirred the pot. And we do not know the end result of that for the old Habsburg empire, for the EU, for Britain, for the US or NATO, for the wider world. Keep your eyes skinned for these sorts of things which go under the radar. Maybe I was the only one that it went under the radar with. But until I came to prepare this talk and came across this, I had no idea that such a meeting had been held. Now I come to the final minutes of this whole course and I want to share the thoughts of two authors as I finish. First that of the contemporary writer, Simon Winder, from his book “Danubia.” Now his book, “Danubia,” is subtitled, “A Personal History of Habsburg Europe.”
A Personal History of Habsburg Europe. I find it a absolutely fascinating book. “Danubia.” “Danubia” by Simon Winder. And he writes this, um, I’ve got a couple of things from his book to share: The speed of the collapse from 1914 to 1950 or so engulfed virtually everyone within the Habsburg empire for different reasons. Hundreds of instances raced through my mind all the time and could just turn everything into a jumbled catalogue of horror of a pointless kind; the German towns with no Germans, the Polish towns with no Poles. Oh incidentally, Lviv, that we hear so much about, the Ukrainian city which is on the escape route, is one of those. It was Polish. Lwow! And in the Habsburg empire, it was Lemberg. And the Poles were driven out by the Ukrainians. Nothing is ever clear-cut in politics. The German towns with no Germans, the Polish towns with no Poles, the Hungarian towns with no Hungarians. But also, of course, the countryside. The countless tiny Jewish villages scattered across Galicia and Bohemia. In London, a museum in the Westminster Synagogue preserves 1,564 Torah scrolls, mainly from Jewish villages in Bohemia, and which are in most cases all but remains of places, which until the creation of the Nazi protector, were an integral, quintessential element in the Hapsburg empire. From the end of the Great War onwards, there was always a sense of puzzlement in the West as to why the new post-Habsburg politicians seemed so unreasonable. Why the occasional pleasant figure, generally an aristocrat of goodwill, would so rapidly be submersed by others who seem little more than wild beasts.
Red terrorists and white terrorists, mass mobilizations, ethnic violence, and an obsession on both left and right with military posturing, plunged most of the old Habsburg empire into a nightmare. Which, with evermore invented twists and turns, went on for generations. But these were all figures fighting over a faded and decaying remnant. We’ve never really yet come to terms with the collapse of the Habsburg empire. We’re still living with the consequences of that. And the final quote from Simon Winder’s book: Austro-Hungarian liberalism rapidly splintered with the end of the empire into mutually enraged forms of exclusionary, nationalism or communism. The number of those who remain committed to something even slightly inclusive, rapidly dropped to almost zero. And finally, I’ll turn to that great writer of the first half of the 20th century, Karl Zweig and his magnificent book, “The World of Yesterday,” which we’ve mentioned before and I’ve put on the list. Karl Zweig, “The World of Yesterday,” published in the year of his suicide, 1942. And I wondered how I could end this whole series. And I thought, I can’t really do better than to read a short passage from Zweig’s great book, “"The World of Yesterday.” And in his penultimate paragraph, Zweig writes, 1942, middle of World War II: And I knew that yet again, all the past was over, all achievements were as nothing. Our own native Europe for which we had lived was destroyed. And the destruction would last long after our own lives. Something else was beginning, a new time. And who knew how many hells and purgatories we still had to go through to reach it. I can think of no better quotation to read on Central Europe at a time of the Russian invasion and potential genocide within Ukraine. Something else was beginning, a new time. And who knew how many hells and purgatories we still had to go to reach it. Churchill would always describe a new time as the sunlit uplands during the Second World War.
Well, maybe we will with optimism reach the sunlit uplands again in Central Europe. But how we get there and how long it takes us to get there, who knows? So as they say, here ends the sermon. But can I just have a quick word? Very quick. Trudy, Trudy Gold, has unfortunately contracted COVID. She rang me up yesterday and said in panic, could I do a talk tomorrow when she was meant to be talking at half past five? So I’m doing a talk tomorrow called “The Crisis in Liberal Democracy.” Now it’s one of those talks in which I will throw it open so that people can say, well, what you’ve talked about is nonsense. And I’ve written to myself here: Please note, some may approve of everything I will say, some may approve of something I say, some may disapprove of something I say, but the majority of you may disapprove of all that I say. So I’ve got my flak jacket in the cupboard, I’ve got my helmet in the cupboard, and I’m ready to go at half past five tomorrow. If any of you want to join me for a, what I hope will be an interesting romp through the issue of the crisis in liberal democracy. And that includes America as well as Europe. So thank you for listening to this course. Hope to see some of you tomorrow. And I’ve probably got lots of questions, haven’t I? Yes.
- Yes, there are quite a few, William, thank you.
Q&A and Comments:
- No, no, no. Nothing, nothing at all to-
Q: Does Visegrad have any connection with Visigoth?
A: No, no, no, no, no. What happened to all the deposed monarchs? I think I’ve explained about the Habsburgs. You know about the Tsar and his family were butchered. The Ottomans simply went into exile. What do we got? The Germans, exactly the same.
Q: Did Otto also have a Jewish wife?
A: I don’t think so. Oh yes, sorry! He did. Beg your pardon. Yes, he did. I know someone who went to the wedding. Sorry.
No problem how to bury Putin. He has no heart. Oh, well thanks.
When Chinese tourists in Austria, China has exactly replicated the Austrian town of Hallstatt as a new residential community. Really? The Chinese. I didn’t know that. Thank you, Jeff. The Chinese tourists in Austria. China has exactly replicated the Austrian town of Hallstatt as a new residential community. The Chinese seem to borrow culture, which is very strange because Chinese culture is one of the most ancients in the world.
Joe, we took a driver to go to Attesey, but he was a “Sound of Music” guy. He pointed out that the direction that the Trapps took to cross the alps in the movie was actually leading to Berchtesgaden. The Trapp family actually took a train to Switzerland. Oh, wonderful.
Paula, when I was in Austria in a bar, well, you don’t need to go into it to explain that. When I was in Austria in a bar, I sat next to some men. Really? Paula, this is getting- Is it all right for me to continue? When I was in Austria in a bar, I sat next to men who were telling me how they only followed orders and were innocent of any wrongdoing in the war. This was 1963. How often, to be serious now, how often have we heard that? How often? Is that what the Russian soldiers in Ukraine are saying? We were told to fire on the schools, so we fired. I was only obeying orders. This person only has a number and not a name. I sincerely hope that doesn’t mean you’re you’re sending this from prison.
In the '70s, we were on a trip to Europe, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. My husband and I opted out of going to Austria because of the then current virulent in the antisemitic leader. We would have loved to have visit Vienna but couldn’t morally step foot in that country. Well, the answer is you’d have been all right in Vienna. It’s the countryside which is so fascist, in the Tyrol in particular.
Q: How does the crisis in Ukraine affect Nazism?
A: Well, Nazism doesn’t exist. National socialism, doesn’t exist. We’ve got to look at this continuum from populism, to nationalism, to far-right. How does it affect that? We don’t know. We have no idea. Some people think it will lead to a strengthening of democracy within the European Union and within NATO. And some people believe it will lead to the opposite. We simply don’t know. Watch this stage.
Suzanne. Viktor Orban perhaps should worry about his closeness with Putin in the upcoming elections. Well, the elections in Hungary are not necessarily entirely clean.
Q: Myra, shivers down my spine, re the political scene in Austria. What about the threat from the left?
A: A threat from the left where? In Austria? There is no threat really from the left in Austria. The threat from the left in Europe is pretty well at the moment, dead. The threat is not at the moment from the left. The threat is from the right, not the left.
Tanya, I think you’re correcting my pronunciation and you’ll be absolutely right to do so. But the spelling is as I gave it to you.
I don’t know, Harold. I can’t- I don’t understand. I don’t, I can’t read- I’m not sure what it says. National rats. I think something’s got mistyped. I’m sorry, I can’t read it.
Jonathan says: The magnificent movie, “The Third Man,” is an accurate portrayal of post-Austria and the pervasive cynicism and revisionist history. It can be found on YouTube. Yes, we spoke about that. And thank you, Jonathan, for agreeing with my assessment of that.
Oh, people are giving- Sorry, people are now giving- How many people, seats there are in different places for Austria? I see what you’re saying. Sorry, my stupidity.
Q: What can or should be done to de-Nazify Austria?
A:We shouldn’t use the word Nazi, we should use the term far-right. Well, the only people that can do that are, A, the Austrians by voting; and B, the European Union who have distinctly failed to do it in Poland and Hungary. And it’s worrying.
Ooh Judith, Lorna Wingate, Orde’s widow, came to speak on our Jewish People’s Screen, Montreal, in the early '50s. I wonder what she was like. Judith, you must tell me what she was like.
Monica, I was petrified of Monica. And she had, she was just retired. She was about 66 and she had an elderly gentleman friend, I suppose he was my age in his mid-70s who trailed around literally carrying her handbag for her. Wingate was a hero to those who fought for a Jewish state. Her brother.
Yep. Federalism. Canada’s been managing a pandemic. 14 governments were competing and combating values. A 19th century system of government struggling with 20th century challenges. That’s a very interesting observation, Harriet, given that your federalism is actually confederalism as compared to American federalism, if we get into the intricacies of what federalism is. Federalism is a very difficult thing. You’re managing, in federalism, conflicting interests. And many of those conflicting interests will prefer not to be federalised at all. And yeah, it’s very, very difficult. Of course, we know why it happened in Canada. It was because of the size of it. And in those days, a smaller population, lack of transport, all the things that don’t, lack of communication, all the things that aren’t there. Actually 21st century Canada, living in the past. Yes.
Q: How does a deposed monarch support itself financially?
A: By working like the rest of us. Do you mention a prime aggravating presence seeing coming entrance of refugees from Muslim. No; Mitzy, you’ve got to be very careful about saying refugees from Muslim countries, their disruptive actions. Most of the Muslims that come do not participate in disruptive actions. And they’re like any other refugees. We should be very careful. Because if we say disruptive actions, we are fueling the far-right. Because anti-immigration, as we’ve seen with Poland, is actually anti-Muslim. We must be very careful what we’re saying in that context.
Q: Do I think Johnson’s playing a dangerous game?
A: Yes, I do. He’s a threat to the constitution.
Oh, Valerie, age 81, would have loved to have studied history A-level with you. I don’t think you could have done, Valerie, because I’m, I, I, I- You’re even older than I am 'cause I’m 76. So I think it would have been you teaching me, Valerie, which would have been very nice.
Marcia, on the 15th of March, Johnson convened the Joint Expeditionary Force, UK and issued a similar . Number 10 is into this kind of thing as a platform, is needed for a man who has been out-Churchilled by Velenski. Yeah, yeah. Don’t ask me what Johnson- Johnson is, yes, out for Johnson.
Stefan Zweig. Yes. Did I say that wrong when I said it? I might have done. I said, Karl. I’m sorry. I don’t why I said Karl. It’s Stefan Zweig. Of course it is. Thank you. That’s very nice of you, Linda. Eli. Ellie, sorry.
Ellie. Interesting what you’re describing about UK coming into EU via a backdoor. That’s what the Swiss did. They voted against membership and then proceeded to make bilateral agreements. They got the best of both worlds. Everyone thought that the vote against joining was idiotic. Yes, but Britain, of course, has not got a bilateral agreement and looks very unlikely at getting one in the near future. And perhaps never with the present government of Johnson. Yes. A lot to think about. Thank you for saying that because that was at my intention. Not that you agree, but you think about it. You hadn’t heard of Visegrad. Don’t worry. Majority of people had not heard of Visegrad. Just, ooh. This is Fire Tablet. I’m sure that can’t be your name, but if it is, fantastic! Just a footnote about the Czech scrolls. Most of the 51,564 scrolls are out on loans to synagogues, communities, museums, et cetera, around the world. And the queen has one in Windsor library. About 130 are in the museum at Westminster Synagogue. Thank you very much indeed.
Oh Sheila! you’ve given me your name now. Sheila, thank you very much indeed for that. Feel better, Trudy. I’m sure she’s listening. Well, she won’t be if she’s got any sense. Lovely. And that’s very nice of people. And we all hope Trudy gets better. It’s a nasty thing, this COVID. And many you and I have had it. And some of us have had it less badly than some. Oh, that’s very nice of you. Thanks. Well, I’ve enjoyed doing this course, so in a sense I would have done it and spoken to myself, which is the first sign of madness. And I would have answered my own questions, which would have been the second sign of madness. I don’t need students to start talking.
Oh, this is Nicki. My uncle, formally uneducated, always feared proportional representation is a danger to liberalism. Your uncle, in my opinion, was absolutely and remains absolutely correct.
Oh thank you, Barbara. I do try and weave the past with the present because I think that’s one of the most important jobs that history can do. History doesn’t repeat itself, but if you know the past, you can begin to make judgements about what’s happening. One of the things Trudy would have said if she was here today would be that she’s worried that the whole Ukraine business has taken on a life of its own. And Ukraine is whiter than white. And it isn’t. It isn’t. And Jews in particular know that. We must be very careful about accepting what mass media tell us. It doesn’t mean to say what the Russians are doing isn’t abominable, horrific, Nazi, whatever words you want to use, but it doesn’t exculpate Ukraine from appalling actions in the past.
Q: Do the UK or EU have a law against your company selling planes or tanks to Ukraine?
A: No, not that I’m aware of. But I think the countries would, I think if you sell- No, if you sell arms from Britain, you would have to get government permission to sell arms, even if you were a private firm. Which I think is probably not the same in the States.
Oh thank you, Judith. Lorna Wingate, Monica’s sister-in-law and Orde’s wife, was warm and lovely and very proud of her husband. Oh, yes. How fantastic. Federalism was necessary in Canada, exactly, to satisfy the demands of French speakers in the province of Quebec. So the question is, would it have been better to have let Quebec go? I didn’t say that. But those are the sorts of questions one should ask. I’m not getting into an argument about terrorist attacks. In fact, according to MI5, the biggest threat in Britain for terror is from the far-right and not from Islam, at the moment. That’s what they have said, that’s the fact. Yep, I’ll pass on everyone’s message to Trudy. I think, I think I’ve actually, wow! I think I’ve come to the end.
You’ve got through them. You have!
Oh! I’m exhausted.
[Judi] Thank you so much, William. Thank you to everybody who joined us. And we will see you again tomorrow!
You will! If I’ve recovered.
No need for any- No need for any sort of armour tomorrow, William. No. No problem there.
Well I wouldn’t do it if it was a live audience, I tell you.
[Judi] Oh well, thank you so much and we’ll see everybody in about 45 minutes for Robert Fox. Thank you so much and take care everybody. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye. Bye-Bye everyone.