There is a kingdom in the Austrian Empire which arose at one time to such a height of power that it might well have been the one eventually to overshadow the others and assume, as Prussia did, the leading position in the German confederation. This is Bohemia, at first a duchy, which became a kingdom about the thirteenth century. At one time its king had so extended his dominions by purchase and conquest that they included almost all the Empire of Austria as at present known, the kingdom of Poland, and more besides, and reached from the Adriatic to the Baltic Sea.

It is well known that Shakespeare in The Winter’s Tale gives Bohemia a sea-coast, a thing which at the present time, when many countries intervene between Bohemia and the sea, seems absurd. There is, however, no real absurdity in it. The date of the play is not fixed, and the traditions of Bohemia’s ancient dominions existed long in the minds of those who had known them. It is true that even in the “long ago” the sea-coast can hardly be described as Bohemia itself, but it was under the rule of the king, and therefore the “absurdity” at all events disappears.

The word “Bohemian,” which has become so deeply rooted in our language as a synonym for those who despise convention and live careless artistic lives, has nothing to do with the real Bohemians, who, artistic as they undoubtedly are, especially in the direction of music, cannot be described as unconventional in any unusual way. It arises from the fact that certain wandering gipsies were supposed to have come from Bohemia in the Middle Ages, whether with truth or not seems unascertainable, and “Bohemian” was thenceforth used as a synonym for gipsy.

There is another point which tends to make Bohemia known even to those who have no taste for European geography, and to whom the middle of Europe is for the most part only a confused welter of nationalities, usually German-speaking, and at any rate quite uninteresting. This is the fact that the motto of the English Prince of Wales, “Ich dien,” with its proud humility, and the crest of three feathers were taken from those of the blind king of Bohemia, who was killed at the battle of Crécy in 1346 while fighting for his ally, King Philip of Valois. The Black Prince, his conqueror, adopted as his own the crest and motto, which have been held by successive Princes of Wales ever since.

This compact little land of Bohemia, lying surrounded on three sides by mountains, now forms the north-western corner of the Austrian Empire. It contains much beautiful scenery and is more varied than many other parts of the Empire, being hilly and level, wooded and cultivated in different places, so that every kind of landscape is met with. Bohemia has always had a struggle to preserve its national unity, for it was surrounded on the one side by the German-speaking peoples of Bavaria and Saxony and on the other by the Magyars of Hungary, and it had to sway into alliance with one or the other accordingly as the opposite one attacked it. Moravia has always been closely associated with it, and Poland and Hungary have frequently in the course of history been ruled by the same king.

Many times before the ruler of Bohemia adopted the title of king had it been offered to him by the Emperor of “The Holy Roman Empire.” Once this was in the reign of Ottakar II. one of the best remembered and most loved of the rulers of Bohemia. He was of the Premsyl dynasty and succeeded to the throne in 1253.

The ancient tradition of the origin of this dynasty, which gave a long line of rulers to Bohemia, beginning before authentic history and continuing to 1306, is too picturesque to pass over. One of the semi-mythical rulers of Bohemia, Krok, is said to have left no sons but only three daughters, the youngest of whom, Libussa, a woman of intrepid spirit and masculine force, succeeded him. However, in spite of her fine qualities, her subjects disliked being ruled by a woman and some of them questioned her judgments. At length, to satisfy them, she agreed to select a husband, and standing in the midst of her nobles she pointed to the hills and told them to go to such and such a place where they would find a man ploughing with two oxen; him they must bring and him only would she marry. His name was Premsyl. The peasant was found as described, and readily took up the rôle allotted to him, becoming the husband of Libussa, ruler of Bohemia, and founder of the greatest dynasty in his country’s annals.

Ottakar, his descendant, brought the fame of Bohemia to its highest pitch, for he possessed himself of the dukedom of Austria, and became lord of all the territories now included in the Austrian Empire on the western side, with the exception of the Tyrol. Mr. James Bryce, in his Holy Roman Empire, speaks of him as “the rampart of Christianity, a lion in bravery, an eagle in goodness.”

Ottakar was offered the dignity of Emperor when it became vacant, but refused, and Rudolph of Hapsburg, whose domains lay in Switzerland, and who until that time had been comparatively unknown, was chosen instead. Curiously enough this man was to found a dynasty ruling not only over all the lands held by Ottakar, but also over Hungary, which had not even acknowledged his lordship. It seems almost as if Ottakar must have had some intuitive dread of this new candidate for the high honour, for he protested violently against his election, basing his protest on the ground that he himself, though an elector, had not cast his vote. He appealed to the Pope, but was overruled on the ground that even had he cast it he would have been in a minority. His fears were quickly justified, for Rudolph was no sooner in firm possession of the Imperial dignity than he attacked Ottakar, claiming that Austria, Styria, Carniola, and Carinthia should be restored to the German Empire, of which they had formerly been a part. When his claims were refused he made war on Ottakar, and quickly got the best of it, using the forces of the German confederation to enforce his claim. Ottakar was compelled to yield up his latest acquired provinces on condition of being allowed to keep his older dominions of Bohemia and Moravia, and Rudolph made the Austrian lands hereditary in his own family, even though they had been won at German expense.

Rudolph had a numerous family of daughters, and he was accustomed to cement peace or buy over a foe by offering one of them in marriage as a prize. As Ottakar had already been married more than once, his present wife being a daughter of the King of Hungary, it was on behalf of his son, then a child, that the bribe was offered. It seemed for a while as if peace might be secured, but not so; there was between the two men a deadly and ineradicable antipathy, and it was not long before the smouldering flame burst out again. With the fire of despair Ottakar collected his troops and flung himself into a contest with the conqueror and was slain at the battle of Marchfeld.

Rudolph did not act vindictively; he arranged that the dead king’s son should succeed to the Bohemian throne, ruling in subordination to himself as overlord, and that when he was old enough he should still marry the promised bride. But Queen Kunegunda, his mother, restless under this submission, called in help from outside in the person of Otto of Brandenburg, who promptly repaid her by grinding Bohemia into misery and carrying away her and her son as prisoners. The Queen, however, managed to escape, and the young King Wenceslaus was at length ransomed, and returned to Bohemia in 1285 as a boy of twelve to begin his reign. Two years later he married Rudolph’s daughter.

King Wenceslaus became King also of Poland and eventually, when the male line of the Hungarian kings died out, he was offered the crown of Hungary as well. He accepted it for his son, who succeeded him, but who turned out to be a weak and dissolute man, and with his death ended the male line of the house of Premsyl.

Various experiments in rulers followed, more or less unsatisfactory, including John of Luxembourg, who became blind, and was killed at Crécy, as mentioned above. His son Charles held the dignity of Emperor (as Charles IV.), as well as that of King of Bohemia. Charles founded the first German university, that of Prague, and was the originator of the Golden Bull, a charter which settled—so far as it could be settled—the difficult question of the right of election to the position of emperor. He was succeeded in turn by his two sons. In the reign of the second, named Sigismund, arose the celebrated reformer John Huss, or Hus, a Bohemian, whose fame is second only to that of Wyclif in England. He was born in 1369 at the village of Huss, from which, as was common in those days, he derived the surname which distinguished him from other Johns.

The people of Bohemia are the Czechs, the most important branch of the Slav race, and they have a burning sense of their national dignity, which seems to be centred more in the preservation of their language than in anything else. Up to the Middle Ages Latin had everywhere been the language of communication in Bohemia for all official and religious purposes, as it had in Austria and Hungary, but when John Huss came into prominence it was chiefly because he fanned the flame of nationalism, and was the first to bring out in Czech books and pamphlets stirring up patriotism and appealing everywhere to the strong sense of nationality in the people. Consequently he was adored by them. He was a disciple and follower of Wyclif, who was a little senior to him. Mr. Geoffrey Drage, in his interesting book Austria-Hungary, thus sums him up:

Huss denounced the abuses then to be found in the Church strenuously and at all times. Papal wrath was aroused against him. He was summoned to the Council of Constance, and went under a safe-conduct, but was imprisoned and, after some time, burnt to death on July 6, 1415, his birthday, a fate which fell also on his fellow-citizen and follower, Jerome of Prague. The end of these two earnest men aroused a storm of wrath in their native country and the doctrines of the Reformation swept over the land. Civil war followed, and continued until the demands of the Hussites were granted. The great leader of the Hussites was Zizka, who showed admirable judgment and courage. His name is held in little less reverence than those of Huss and Jerome themselves.

Though the kings of Bohemia were nominally elective, yet as a rule the crown descended from father to son as smoothly as in countries where the dignity was hereditary. That is to say, when there was a son to succeed, but it very frequently happened that, as in the case of other titles when heirs are earnestly desired, heirs very often failed to put in an appearance. As Sigismund had no sons, he managed to secure the succession of the throne to Albert, Archduke of Austria, who had married his daughter. Albert, however, reigned a very short time. A posthumous son was born to him, and after considerable debate, he was crowned king at the age of fourteen, only to die unmarried five years later, as a result of the terrible plague which acted as such a scourge in the Middle Ages.

The Bohemians were therefore once more in the unenviable position of having to choose a king, and the influence which the Reformed doctrines had by this time gained is shown in the choice of the first “heretic” king, a national leader called George of Podebrad. After Podebrad’s death thirteen years later, there was great rivalry for the vacant place, numberless claimants starting up in the persons of the rulers of the small kingdoms adjoining Bohemia, but at length the son of the King of Poland was selected, as there was a very close community of interest between Poland and Bohemia. He eventually became King of Hungary also, and was succeeded in all three kingdoms by his son Louis.

Louis was the unfortunate monarch who perished in the debacle at the battle of Mohács in Hungary, when the Turks swept in like a tidal wave and submerged the unhappy country for generations. So fearful an impression did this disaster make upon the minds of the Hungarians that even to this day, when a man loses house or land or parents or children, it is a saying, “More was lost on Mohács field.”

On the death of Louis the same strenuous competition for the vacant throne was aroused as before his father’s accession, and this time the Archduke Ferdinand, brother of the reigning Emperor, Charles of Austria, was chosen. Ferdinand became also King of Hungary and Archduke of Austria, thus uniting in the person of a common ruler three kingdoms inhabited by different nationalities. This settled the matter as to the succession for a while, for the throne passed from Ferdinand’s son to his grandson Rudolph. Rudolph was eventually deposed in favour of his brother Matthias. During all this time the ceaseless warfare between the Roman dominion and the Reformed doctrines went on, and the rival parties were ever striving to gain power and to swing the balance over to their side. The country was restless, families were divided against themselves, and no one felt safe.

It was during the reign of Matthias that the curious incident about throwing the councillors out of the window of the council-chamber took place, a scene unequalled in any other assembly in any age.

The soreness between Protestants and Catholics had reached a head in regard to the succession to the throne, for King Matthias was another of the many childless monarchs. The Catholic councillors had therefore arranged that he should be succeeded by Archduke Ferdinand of Styria, a determined persecutor of the Protestants. The Protestants took immediate action in protesting, but were checkmated by a royal message prohibiting the meeting of their “Estates” or council. Their leader was Count Thurn, who had been Burgrave of the Karlstyn, but had been superseded by a Catholic called Martinic. The Estates usually met in the Hradcany Palace at Prague, but when they issued a manifesto attacking the royal councillors they were forbidden to meet there any more. Accordingly they met elsewhere secretly. Count Lutzow, in his charming little book The Story of Prague, thus describes what followed:

About a year after this incident King Matthias died and was succeeded by Ferdinand of Styria, who was not recognised by the Protestants. They chose instead Frederick, the Elector Palatine, who had married the daughter of James I. of England. About two months after his coronation in Prague his wife Elizabeth gave birth to a son called Rupert; he lived to be known as the dashing Prince Rupert, who played such a gallant part in the English Civil Wars. He and his brother Maurice both died without children, and it was through their sister Sophia that the Hanoverian kings of England came to the British throne after the unhappy termination of the Stuart line. Sophia’s son was George I. of England.

The Elector Frederick is known as “the Winter King,” because hardly had he assumed the crown than the forces of the Austrian Empire met the Bohemians in a severe battle, called the Battle of the White Mountain, near Prague, in which the Bohemians were completely routed and their newly made king was forced to fly. His brief reign therefore extended only over a few winter months. The battle was followed by wholesale executions and confiscations among the Protestants; in the market-place at Prague, on June 21 in the same year, twenty-six leading Protestants, headed by Count Slik, were executed.

After this, national aspiration was crushed, and the country was Germanised by its rulers; the House of Hapsburg was in the ascendant and became the reigning hereditary rulers of Bohemia. It is only since the settlement of 1867 that there has been a revival, and the Czechs have once more been warmed into animation in the desire to keep alive their national tongue within the Empire.

Prague is a mediæval town and one of the most interesting existing, in spite of some very unsatisfactory buildings dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Though it has been again and again the scene of conflict, there is still enough remaining from the past to afford a rich feast to the lover of antiquities. The castle of Vysehead, built of the stones of a still older fortress, stands high above the city, and is a monumental chapter of history in itself if properly studied. The town is on the river Moldau, and overlooking this is the Hradcany Palace of the ancient kings, dating mainly from the fourth century, but since greatly rebuilt and added to. The fine bridge of Charles IV., fourteenth century, has a high ornamental tower at one end, a very leviathan of its kind, rich in decorative effects, though simple in general style. The Cathedral of St. Vitus is only one of numerous religious buildings well worth seeing. Many of the houses are quaint and irregular, but the modernisation of the town, and the inevitable arrival of trams, has given a certain veneer which sits oddly on the ancient framework.

Bohemia has produced many musicians, and at the present day the leading professor Sevcik attracts pupils from all over the world; while Kubelik, with his melodious violin, was a pupil at the conservatoire and is the son of a Czech. The best-known Bohemian composer is Dvorak, and rather less known, but little inferior in merit, is Smetaud. Many other names might be added. Anton Dvorak was born in 1841 at Nelahozaves and was the son of an innkeeper, and from the first was wild to follow music as a career. He went to Prague, and as a mere boy kept himself by his violin, playing in orchestras. He married, and as a means of adding to his small earnings took pupils. He was very energetic, and turned out a multitude of compositions. At the age of thirty-four he was lucky enough to secure a position which relieved him from the fear of want, and from thenceforth gave himself up to producing larger works, symphonies and operas. He visited England frequently, and for three years lived in America, holding the post of head of a conservatoire in New York. He died in 1904. His best-known works are the Stabat Mater, Symphony in D, and the opera Jacobin.

The political history of Moravia is so bound up with that of Bohemia that it does not need telling separately. Since 1029 the country has been incorporated with that of Bohemia and has shared its fortunes. The people are Slavs, and are generally known as Slovaks or Moravians, but are really very much like the Czechs. There is also a strong German element, and the German and Slav electors choose their deputies separately, voting according to their nationality. The country sends forty-nine deputies to the Austrian Parliament. The Moravians are very industrious, and their commerce and manufactures compare favourably with the rest of the Empire. Linen, cotton, and woollen goods are manufactured in the capital, Brunn; and beet-sugar, leather, and brandy are also reckoned in the output. The name is derived from the river March or Morava, which runs through the country.

The principal idea which has reached the mind of the world at large in connection with Moravia is the use of the word Moravian to distinguish the sect of an extreme evangelical type started in the times of Huss, which has since spread far and wide. The Moravian Church has no formal creed, but believes in simplicity of life and above all in missionary effort.

The country is cut off from Hungary by the North-West Carpathians, which form a high ridge between, and several of the spurs of these mountains run down into Moravia.

The three duchies, with beautiful poetic names, Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria, are comparatively unknown to strangers outside the borders of the Empire. Seamed by ranges of the Alps, cut by torrents, and clothed in rich forests, they include some of the most glorious parts of the country, and as they get better known will probably be as popular with tourists as the Tyrol or Switzerland. The two first-named average about 4000 square miles each, and the last over twice as much. In Carinthia the largest proportion of the inhabitants are Germans, and in Carniola all but 5 per cent are Slavs, known as Slovenes. In both countries the bulk of the people are of the Roman Catholic religion.

The title Duke of Carinthia first appears in the tenth century and is to be found in the chronicles of many of the local disturbances throughout succeeding centuries. The celebrated Margaret Maultasche, mentioned in the account of the Tyrol, received the province as part of her patrimony from her father the Duke, but it was taken from her by the King of Bavaria and handed over to the Austrian princes. On the death of Ferdinand of Austria in 1564 his third son, Charles, became Duke of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. When Buonaparte created the province of Illyria, these three countries were incorporated in it.

Carinthia is cut in two by the river Drave. Its capital is Klagenfurt. Carniola, which has always been closely connected with it, is traversed by the river Save. Its capital is Laibach.

The Slovenes of Carniola are very near akin to the Croatians, and the two languages are sufficiently alike for the people to understand one another without much difficulty. In uniting these provinces as Illyria, Buonaparte aroused national aspirations which still linger.

Carniola is desperately anxious to preserve alive her nationality and to cultivate her own tongue. The writer in the tenth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica says:

In both these provinces the mountains are honey-combed by caves, grottoes, and subterranean passages. The grottoes of Adelsburg are among the most remarkable in the world. The Terglou peak in Carniola rises to a height of 10,000 feet. The celebrated Tauern line, already mentioned as being one of the most recent of the State enterprises, runs through both countries. It leaves the main east and west line at Schwarzach. Its construction was the result of the law of 1901, which secured to the State the construction of a number of new lines and the linking up of others. Nine years passed before this particular line, which presented enormous difficulties, was completed; it pierces no less than three of the ranges of Alps. It may not be generally realised, we may remark in passing, how very large a portion of the Alpine system is included in Austria. Nearly one-quarter of the Austrian dominions is embraced by these mountains. They extend through the Rhaetian, Noric, Salzburg, Carnic, Dinaric, and Julian, and other chains, and the new railway traverses no less than three, the Tauern, Karawanken, and Julian chains. The tunnels cutting these mountains are respectively 8520 metres, 7976 metres, and 6399 metres in length.

Any one traversing this route would do well to spend some days at Salzburg, in order to see the town itself with its cathedral and fortress, and also to visit the Salzkammergut with its galaxy of lovely lakes, including the Attersee and Mondsee, or Gmunden, where is the Duke of Cumberland’s summer residence, and Ischl, where the emperor himself lives at the best season of the year. The railway after leaving Schwarzach passes by many a gorge and viaduct and embankment, across precipices and around hills, to Badgastein, the famous health resort, with its hotels and bathing establishments and wonderful scenery, at the foot of the Tauern range. It is after traversing this range that the railway descends into Carinthia, which can show some scenery as beautiful as any in Austria. The line touches at Mallnitz and runs high above the Möll valley dotted with huts and cottages, which show up like toy dwellings from the heights above. From the station Obervellach climbers can ascend the Great Glockner. Once again by tunnels and viaducts, and an ever-changing panorama of mountain and valley, it reaches Spittal-Millstättersee, the station for Millstättersee, a lake which bathes the wooded hills of the Millstätteralps. From Spittal to Villach the trains run over the lines of a private company, the Sudbahn. This railway deserves a special note. It is part of the line from Vienna to Trieste, and was engineered by Karl von Ghega, an Austrian who had visited America to study the problems connected with his craft. It was built at a time of great commotion and disturbance in the monarchy, 1848–50, and is amazing in itself with its tunnels and viaducts and cuttings and embankments even at this time, but when considered as a feat performed in the early days of railway-making is a positive marvel. Sixteen thousand men were employed on the making, and the blasting of rock-work was mistaken at Vienna for the cannon of an army of insurgents!

Villach is a town which forms an excellent centre, being on the lines connected with Vienna, Venice, Botzen, and Meran. From here there are views of the glacier-covered Ankogel and other mountains in the Seebach valley. Through the Karawanken Alps we come down into the atmosphere of the Mediterranean, and find everything more advanced and smiling than on the northern side. Here we are in Carniola. The line crosses the Save valley by a viaduct 165 metres long, runs through a tunnel, and eventually reaches Veldes—another health resort—with a castle standing high above a lake. Other tunnels follow, and at last we come to the Wocheiner See, lying in a deeply cut cleft and most wonderfully situated. This gives its name to the last of the Alpine tunnels, that through the Julian Alps, and then we arrive at the most difficult and impressive part of the new railway, where the engineering feats make us hold our breath. Through the Isonzo valley we pass, with the river of that name flowing deep-green and curiously bright among water-carved white rocks. The river is crossed by a viaduct not once only, but again, and the second time by what is the largest stone railway bridge in the world at Salcano, 36 metres above the water. Tunnel after tunnel follows, until we reach Gorz, the capital of the principality of Gorz and Gradiska, the houses are grouped round the castle on its hill, and the place enjoys renown as a winter resort on account of the mildness of its climate. It is not until we are through the Opcina tunnel that we emerge to see the panorama of the Adriatic.

Styria lies to the east of Carinthia and Carniola and is no whit less interesting. It is traversed by the range of the Carnic, here called the Styrian or Karawanken Alps. Of these, the highest peak is the Stou, 7346 feet, but higher still is the Hochgolling, 9392 feet, in the prolongation of the Tauern range. The whole country is mountainous, and in consequence it is, like so much else of the Empire, rich in minerals; its iron mines are well worked and produce a large quantity of ore annually. There are also numerous mineral springs, of iron, of alkali, and of brine. Gratz, which is the capital town, has a population of over 100,000. There is a university here, and the inhabitants are almost all Roman Catholic; about two-thirds of them are German. The industrial side of Styria is worked much better than most parts of the Dual Monarchy. There is a good manufacture of iron tools and agricultural implements. The country also produces linen, paper, shoes, glass, and many other things. It was at one time held by Hungary, but has generally shared the fate of the two adjacent provinces. Styria shared in the Reformation, but was re-Catholicised by the determined efforts of the Archduke Charles in the sixteenth century. He settled the Jesuits in Gratz and set up a Catholic printing-press there. “A university for Jesuit instruction was founded in 1586. The nobles were obliged under pain of disgrace and even punishment to send their children to this university, and no one was allowed to attend the heretical schools of Germany.” When Charles died his work was carried on by his successor Ferdinand, who “began by driving all the Protestant preachers from Gratz and other towns; he then took possession of their schools, burnt their books, and forced the members of the Reformed churches to sell their property and quit the country. The Capuchins were sent for to help the Jesuits to bring back the people to the right way, and liberty of conscience was stifled for long years to come” (History of Austria-Hungary, by Louis Leger).