The countries sometimes inaccurately styled ‘Succession States,’ in allusion to the late Hapsburg Empire, still suffer from the gangrene of a decaying system, as well as from their own inherent defects. A century ago Joseph de Maistre described the existence of Austria as ‘an insult to God and man’; and at a later date, Montalembert, called her the high priestess of oppression who managed to survive by pitting race against race. One is sorry to see the Irish name of Taafe among the prominent Austrian statesmen who upheld the view that this Empire ‘which, did it not exist, would have to be invented,’ could only live by fostering mutual hatreds.

The terse qualification of Austria as ‘the greatest foe of mankind’ was too convenient to be let drop. It is now being currently applied to Poland, on account of its land-bound frontier; to Czecho Slovakia because of its ‘ridiculous’ configuration; to Rumania, because of its absorption of Bessarabia and Transylvania so long held by Russia and Hungaria respectively; to Yugoslavia because of its political reunion of Slavs belonging to different creeds. There is no doubt that the self-styled ‘superior’ races are hard put to it for hewers of wood and drawers of water since the Slavs and Latins were withdrawn from their domination. Poland, however, was a political entity before Rudolf the Freebooter had laid the foundations of the mighty Austria of the future. The Czechs were already an independent community in the tenth century. The Southern Slavs, rampart of Austria-Hungary against the Turks, with dauntless little Serbia as standard-bearer, wrested independence from Turkey by several stages in spite of the ‘Christian Protectors’ who so often shook hands with the Sultan over her bleeding