The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1916. AUSTRIA’S DYING MONARCH.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 70, 28 February 1916, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1916. AUSTRIA’S DYING MONARCH.

Tlie old Emperor of Austria, who is again reported, to lie dying, is in his eighty-sixth year, and with one exception his occupation of the throne is the longest in European history. It is recounted of Francis Joseph, whose long career of tragic misfortune now surely draws to a close, that In Mood he mounted big throne in 1848, when a.s a stripling of 18 he was summoned to take the Imperial sceptre from the nerveless hand of that futile Hapshurg, Ferdinand 1., while the Hungarians were thundering at Ids gates. He called in 150,000 Russian bayonets, and with their help struck down the Hungarians, dooming his beaten roes to the bullet and the rope. In blood his long reign ig ending, while his old Allies, the Russians, camping on his territory in Galicia, march across the Carpathians and the Plains of Hungary towards Vienna and the palace in which the wretched Hapshurg lies dying. Though in many wavs a weak monarch a survey of his reign shows what has been termed “his astonishing skill in keeping Austria-Hungary together for the joint advantage of the two widely dissimilar and even bitterly antagonistic countries, and his lamentable incapacity for fathoming the designs of the Prussianism that was planning to drag the Dual-Mon-archy at its chariot wheels. Used as Bismarck’s tool to despoil Denmark the treacherous Prussian soon turned on his old ally. Thenceforward, hoodwinked and dominated by Prussian designs, the Dual-Monarchy has become a mere nupnet in the hands of the Hohenzollerns, ami with that accursed house the last of the Hapsburgs will go under.