The authorities were rather like those Australian scientists who kept on importing new creatures to eat pests, which in turn became new pests – each clever manipulation and promotion of an ethnic or religious group scuppered the most immediate threat, and then created a fresh problem. By 1914 it is fair to say that the air was heavy with irrationality, but there was little to suggest that the Habsburgs were played out. Mischievous or aggressive public symbolism could be threatening, but it was all a long way from a genuine crisis like that of 1848, and without the War it could have gone on for
...more
