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2022 m. rugpjūčio 21 d., sekmadienis

Dairy Farmers in the Netherlands Are Up in Arms Over Emission Cuts

"Goals of cutting nitrogen emissions in half by 2030 have caused an uproar in the Netherlands. Climate activists say the cuts are necessary to preserve nature.

WOUDENBERG, Netherlands — The dairy farmers of the Netherlands have had enough.

They have set fire to hay and manure along highways, dumped trash on roads to create traffic jams, and blockaded food distribution centers with their tractors, leading to empty shelves in supermarkets. Across the country, upside down flags wave from farmhouses in protest.

The anger of the farmers is directed at the government, which has announced plans for a national 50 percent reduction of nitrogen emissions by 2030, in line with European Union requirements to preserve protected nature reserves, that they believe unfairly targets them. Factories and cars also emit large amounts of nitrogen and have not been targeted, they say, although the government said that cuts associated with both polluters would be addressed in the future.

Agriculture is responsible for the largest share of nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands, much of it from the waste produced by the estimated 1.6 million cows that provide the milk used to make the country’s famed cheeses, like Gouda and Edam.

To realize those planned cuts, thousands of farmers will be required to significantly reduce livestock numbers and the size of their farming operations. If they cannot meet the cuts the government demands of them, they may be forced to close their operations altogether.

The Dutch government has set aside about 25 billion euros, about $26 billion, to carry out its plan, and some of that money will be used to help farmers build more sustainable operations — or buy them out, if possible.

“My livelihood and my network is being threatened,” said Ben Apeldoorn, whose farm in the province of Utrecht has about 120 cows producing milk for making cheese. “You’re just no longer allowed to exist,” said Mr. Apeldoorn, 52, who has been a farmer for 30 years.

But activists and ecologists say that drastic measures are needed to cut emissions and allow the Netherlands to do its part to address global warming — an aim that has become all the more urgent this summer as Europe faces record temperatures and drought.

And they say that the agriculture sector has to change.

“If you have less livestock, you have less manure and less production of nitrogen,” said Wim van der Putten, a researcher at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology.

Ammonia gas emissions can negatively impact water quality through eutrophication and acidification and air quality through the formation of fine particles.

The World Wide Fund for Nature and other environmental organizations wrote in a letter to the Dutch minister of agriculture this month that “the transition to a sustainable agricultural and food system is urgent and necessary.” The letter also said that consumers in the Netherlands needed to do their part to make sure emissions targets were reached.

 “Consumers also have to take responsibility,” it said. “Dutch people will have to consume more vegetables and fewer (-70%) animal proteins.”

All of this comes as wrenching change in the Netherlands, where dairy farms have long been as much of the national identity as the country’s windmills and canals. It is also a major producer and exporter of milk and milk products. Last year it sent €8.2 billion worth of dairy products abroad and produced a total of 13.8 billion kilos of milk, according to ZuivelNL, a Dairy organization.

But while many in the nation of 17 million people have sympathized with the farmers, support for them seems to be dwindling. In July, about 39 percent of Dutch people said they supported the farmers’ protests, down from 45 percent the month before, according to a survey by a Dutch research firm.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who this month became the country’s longest-serving prime minister and has grappled with what is known in the Netherlands as “the nitrogen crisis,” has condemned the protests, calling them “unacceptable.”

“Willfully endangering others, damaging our infrastructure and threatening people who help clean up goes beyond all limits,” Mr. Rutte, who has met on several occasions with farmers, said recently on Twitter.

Helma Breunissen, 47, a dairy farmer who with her husband also runs a veterinarian’s office, attended one of the meetings with Mr. Rutte to make her anger known.

“If half of the cattle needs to disappear, then my veterinary’s office will also end,” Ms. Breunissen said by telephone. “I don’t want a bag of money from the government, I just want to do my job.”

Farmers also say they are frustrated that the government is not doing enough to find technical innovations or other ways to cut down emissions to avoid reducing livestock numbers.

But, said Mr. van der Putten from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, technical solutions are not enough to realize the level of cuts needed given the amount of nitrogen the country pumps out, much of it from the production of eggs, dairy and meat.

“The problem is that a solution now needs to be found in a very short term,” he said. “This isn’t a problem that arose in a few years, this is a problem of decades, and everyone just kicked the can down the road.”

“We have to meet goals, those are set by European laws,” said Erwin Wunnekink, a farmer and the chairman of LTO, a farmers organization. “It’s not that we don’t want to meet goals, but it’s mostly the way this has happened.”

The Netherlands is also required under a 2019 law to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to levels that are 95 percent lower than they were in 1990. Other plans include generating more electricity from wind turbines and solar panels — by 70 percent in 2030, and completely by 2050, according to the government.

In June, the government released a color-coded map of the country that laid out which areas would need to cut the highest percentage of emissions, depending on their proximity to nature reserves. The percentages range from 12 percent to 95 percent.

“The impact of that was gigantic,” said Wytse Sonnema, a spokesman for LTO. That map was not just about individual farmers, he added, but about “the social future of the countryside.”

The realization of the cuts will be carried out by provincial councils in cooperation with farmers. The deadline to complete the plans is July 1, 2023.

Christianne van der Wal, the minister of nature and nitrogen, has made clear that the government’s goals are fixed. She emphasized that the Netherlands needs to adhere to E.U. agreements, one of which includes the protection of nature in member states. “Structurally, we haven’t been keeping to those agreements for about 20 or 30 years,” she said in July.

Wilhelm Doeleman, a spokesman for Ms. van der Wal, said that details on how to cut emissions for other industries would be released in January.

But, he said, “agriculture has the biggest share of the responsibility of nitrogen emissions.”

The Dutch government has long supported and stimulated agriculture with subsidies and other incentives in an effort to secure the country’s food supply and promote the export of agricultural products.

While many Dutch support the aims of a greener Netherlands, some right-wing groups have expressed support for the Dutch farmers as a way of opposing climate activism. The right-wing Forum for Democracy has declared that “there is no climate crisis” and opposes the government’s plans.

And the Dutch farmers have also received some support from abroad.

“Farmers in the Netherlands — of all places — are courageously opposing the climate tyranny of the Dutch government, can you believe it?” former President Donald J. Trump said at a rally last month.

For now, a government-appointed mediator is engaged in negotiations between the farmers and the government. The mediator has said there is a “crisis of confidence” between the two sides.

“We’re not going without a fight,” said Mr. Apeldoorn, the dairy farmer. “That’s how most farmers feel right now.”"


2022 m. rugpjūčio 20 d., šeštadienis

Kaip Habsburgai valdė Austrijos-Vengrijos imperiją

„Civilizacijos kryžkelė

    Autorius Angusas Robertsonas

    Pegasas, 448 puslapiai, 29,95 doleriai

    Nuo XIII amžiaus iki Pirmojo pasaulinio karo pabaigos Habsburgai valdė Austrijos-Vengrijos imperiją, kurios sostine buvo Viena. Porą šimtmečių Ispanijos imperiją, kurios sostine buvo Madridas, valdė kita šeimos atšaka. Jokia kita karališkoji dinastija neturi pasiekimo, kuris galėtų prilygti Habsburgų dinastijai. Vienos centre esančioje kapucinų bažnyčios kriptoje yra susimąstyti skatinantis memorialas, kuriame yra 149 Habsburgų šeimos narių karstai, iš kurių 12 yra imperatoriai.

 

    Habsburgų imperatoriai buvo visais atžvilgiais konservatyvūs; beveik be išimties jie palaikė status quo. Tikri reakcionieriai, jie turėjo armiją, kuri darė tai, ką turėjo padaryti. Katalikai, jie buvo popiežiaus gynėjai. Liberalai niekada negalėjo nuspręsti, kas buvo blogiausias jo pavaldinių engėjas – imperatorius Habsburgas, caras Romanovas ar osmanų sultonas. Ministras pirmininkas Williamas Gladstone'as buvo labai pagirtas, kai pasakė: „Nėra vietos visame žemėlapyje, kur galėtum paliesti pirštu ir pasakyti: „Austrija padarė gerą!““ Henry Wickham Steed, The Times redaktorius ir autoritetas. darydamas įtaką visuomenės nuomonei, ragino panaikinti Habsburgų monarchiją. Jis galėjo parašyti: „Pavadinimas „Austrija“ reiškė kiekvieną prietaisą, galintį nužudyti žmonių sielą, sugadinti jai nedidelę gerovę, atimti iš jos sąžinės ir minties laisvę, sumenkinti jos tvirtumą ir atstumti ją nuo savo idealo siekimo“.

 

    Kai monarchija buvo panaikinta, apgailestavo nedaug kas. Ilsos Barea „Viena“ (1966), šiaip sąžiningiausias pasakojimas apie miestą ir jo gyvenimą, vargu ar nesivargina daryti daugiau, kaip tik vertinti Habsburgus. Kai paskutinėmis 1918 m. dienomis monarchija virto respublika, Ilsa, socialistas, prisijungė prie demonstracijos; Kai policija atidengė ugnį, ji atsistojo ir pamatė, kaip kiti pabėgo šonine gatve.

 

    Angusas Robertsonas knygoje „Civilizacijos kryžkelė: Vienos istorija“ siekia suteikti Habsburgams garbę, kurios, jo manymu, jie nusipelnė. Žurnalistas dirbo Austrijos transliuotojų korporacijoje ir už savo paslaugas gavo aukščiausią šalies apdovanojimą. Tada jis buvo Didžiosios Britanijos parlamento, o vėliau ir Škotijos parlamento narys. Kaip rašytojas, jis kalba apie superlatyvus. Habsburgų dvaras buvo „vienas galingiausių ir didingiausių Europoje“. Imperatorienė Marija Teresė buvo „viena didžiausių kada nors karaliavusių Europos monarchų“. Josefas Schoneris, valstybės tarnautojas, vedęs karo laikų dienoraštį, tapo „vienu didžiausių Austrijos pokario diplomatų“. Stalingradas yra „ne tik didžiausias Antrojo pasaulinio karo mūšis, bet ir didžiausias mūšis žmonijos istorijoje“.

 

    P. Robertsonas mano, kad raktas į Habsburgų didybę buvo grynas tęstinumas ir su juo susijęs stabilumas; jis netgi priskiria jiems misijos jausmą. 1618–1638 m. trukęs Trisdešimties metų karas, kurį jis paprastai apibūdino kaip „vieną kruviniausių karų žmonijos istorijoje“, baigtas Vestfalijos sutartimi. Tai įtvirtino politinį ir religinį valstybės suverenitetą, kuris ir šiandien yra esminė pasaulio tvarkos dalis. J. Robertsonas daro skubotą išvadą, kad nuo tada „buvo aišku, kad Viena buvo pagrindinė diplomatinė sostinė“.

 

    Istorinis Habsburgų laimėjimas buvo išlaikyti liniją prieš osmanų turkus. Kitoje Vengrijos sienos pusėje mečetės ir minaretai vis dar išlikę nuo Osmanų okupacijos šioje šalyje. Osmanai Vieną pavadino „Auksiniu obuoliu“, o 1683 m. 150 000 žmonių armija apgulė miestą. Tai buvo kybojimas ant plauko. Lenkijos karalius Jonas Sobieskis III išgelbėjo situaciją, vadovaudamas „didžiausiam kavalerijos žygiui istorijoje“.

 

    P. Robertsono pritarime miestui, kaip civilizacijos kryžkelei yra kažkas pagrįsto. Vienos arsenale, dabar muziejuje, ant sienų išvardijami nuotykių ieškotojai ir samdiniai prancūziškais ar airiškais vardais, atvykę tarnauti Habsburgams ir apdovanoti titulais. Pavyzdžiui, airis Francis Taaffe tapo feldmaršalu ir buvo išsiųstas į diplomatines misijas. Jo palikuonis, 11-asis vikontas Taaffe, žinomas, kaip Eduard Graf von Taaffe, laimėjo dvi kadencijas Austrijos ministro pirmininko poste.

 

    Evliya Celebi buvo Osmanų diplomatinės delegacijos narys, apsilankęs Vienoje 1664 m. Bernardas Lewisas savo novatoriškoje knygoje „Vakarų musulmonų atradimas“ (2000) parodo, koks išskirtinis buvo Celebi. Jis buvo tyrinėtojas ir kelionių rašytojas ir paėmė pasaulį tokį, kokį jį rado. Smalsu, kada kiti Osmanų keliautojai ar ambasadoriai jaučiasi pranašesni už viską, kas europietiška, jis apibūdino architektūrą, katedrą, laikrodžius ir mediciną. Vis dėlto jis pamatė tai, kas, jo manymu, buvo nepaprasta. 

 

"Jei imperatorius gatvėje sutinka moterį... jis atsistoja mandagiai. Moteris pasisveikina su imperatoriumi, kuris tada nusiima skrybėlę nuo galvos." 

 

Prieš tai turėjo praeiti dar vienas šimtmetis iki Mocartas į savo operas galėjo įtraukti turkus osmanus kaip bajorus arba papročius.

 

    Nemažai anglų vyrų ir moterų paliko įrašus apie tai, ką matė ir girdėjo Vienoje, o ponas Robertsonas daug cituoja iš tokių šaltinių. Viena iš jų buvo garsioji XVIII amžiaus mėlynakojinė ledi Mary Wortley Montagu, britų ambasadoriaus Edwardo Montagu žmona. Ponia Marija pastebėjo, kad Habsburgų imperatorius buvo labai paslaugus ir kad imperatorienė buvo „žavi“. 

 

1820-ųjų pradžioje Martha Wilmot, ištekėjusi už Didžiosios Britanijos ambasados ​​kapeliono, buvo Didžiojo ketvirtadienio ceremonijos liudininkė, kai imperatorius ir imperatorienė nuplovė kojas 12 senų moterų ir 12 senų vyrų. 

 

Williamas Henry Stilesas, Amerikos ambasados ​​reikalų patikėtinis 1848 m. sukrėtimų Europoje metu, parašė tai, kas čia apibūdinama. kaip klasika, nes atskleidžia „JAV principus ir praktiką užsienio revoliucijų atžvilgiu“.

 

    Vienos kongresas 1815 m. buvo džiunglės, užbaigusios Napoleono karus, sukūrusios ilgalaikę taiką Europoje ir palaikiusi tezę, kad Habsburgai buvo diplomatai. Iš tikrųjų 18-metis Franzas Josefas atėjo į sostą po 1848 m. revoliucijos ir suteikė kancleriams Feliksui Schwarzenbergui ir Klemensui fon Metternichui laisvę kurti tokią tradiciškai represuotą visuomenę, kuri taip supykdė tokius, kaip Wickham Steed. Tuo metu aristokratai, bažnytininkai ir intelektualai visoje imperijoje buvo tikri, kad kiekviena tauta turi turėti savo nacionalinę valstybę. Vengrų, čekų, serbų ir kitų imperijos mažumų nacionalizmas turėjo būti derinamas su vokiškai kalbančios daugumos nacionalizmu. 

 

Visiems vokiečiams tapdama nacionaline valstybe, Prūsijos karalystė kariavo su Austrija ir jos imperija. Sunkus pralaimėjimas Koniggreetzo mūšyje 1866 m. paliko Habsburgų imperiją įvykių valioje. Vienu šūviu buvo nužudytas Austrijos erchercogas 1914 m. To pakako imperijai sugriauti.

 

    Franzas Josefas buvo garbingas, bet ribotas ir, dar blogiau, gailesčio vertas. Jo žmona buvo nužudyta, o sūnus ir įpėdinis nusižudė, kartu su jo meiluže. „Man nieko nepagailėta“, – apie save sakė Franzas Josefas. Nepaisant to, jo Viena galėjo pasigirti Johanu Straussu (tėvu ir sūnumi), Mahleriu, Leharu, Freudu, Schonbergu, Gustavu Klimtu, Karlu Krausu, Stefanu Zweigu ir keliais milijonais civilizuotų žmonių. Josefas Rothas, literatūros šedevro „Radetzky March“ (1932 m.) autorius, liko ištikimas Habsburgams iki mirties.

 

    Austrijos respublika niekada neturėjo laiko save įrodyti. Scena, kai Hitleris kancleriui Schuschniggui atskleidė savo ketinimą įsiveržti, buvo „viena groteskiškiausių kada nors aprašytų diplomatinių įžeidimų“. Vokiečių nacionalizmo vardu Hitleris sugadino tautą, kuri akivaizdžiai norėjo būti korumpuota. Jo masinių žudynių ir pasipelnymo iš karo programai beveik nebuvo pasipriešinimo. J. Robertsonas pagerbia dabar mažai žinomą, moralinę viziją išlaikiusią vyrą Ho Feng-Shan, Kinijos generalinį konsulą Vienoje. Jis išdavė gelbėjimo vizas į Šanchajų. Uždarytas nacių, jis savo lėšomis atidarė kitą konsulatą.

 

    Po 1945 m., rašo ponas Robertsonas, sąjungininkai Vieną padalijo į zonas ir ji tapo tarptautine šnipinėjimo sostine, šešėliniu Grahamo Greene'o „Trečiojo žmogaus“ pasauliu: ponas Robertsonas skiria skyrių perbėgėliams, žvalgybos agentams ir tokiems išdavikams, kaip Kimas Filbis. Savo zonoje sovietai pastatė statulą Raudonosios armijos kariui, tariamai išlaisvinusiam miestą nuo nacių; jis buvo pastatytas ant stulpo, kuris yra aukštesnis, nei aplink jį esantys pastatai. Šis pavaldumo simbolis vis dar galioja, neišvengiamai komentuodamas nacionalinį charakterį.

 

    Bruno Kreisky, kancleris 1970–1983 m., padarė viską, ką galėjo, kad tiesą, kad austrai buvo entuziastingi Hitlerio gerbėjai, paverstų melu, kad jie buvo jo aukos. Kurtas Waldheimas nuėjo toliau. Trejus metus tarnavo Vermachto štabo karininku Jugoslavijoje; yra įrodymų, kad jis buvo karo nusikaltėlis. Nors tuo metu jis buvo Austrijos prezidentas ir ėjo JT generalinio sekretoriaus pareigas, 1987 m. JAV teisingumo departamentas įtraukė Waldheimą į asmenų, kuriems neleidžiama atvykti į šalį, sąrašą. Kaltė ir gailestis buvo ne jam. Savo pareigose jis išbuvo iki 1992 m., rodydamas savo tautiečiams pavyzdį, kaip nuslėpti atsakomybę už savo veiksmus.

 

    P. Robertsono požiūris į šių dienų Vieną yra atvirai reklaminis. Jame yra troškimo elementas. Miesto istorinės įstaigos ir rūmai vis dar išliko imperatoriškoje formoje, tačiau nebetarnauja tiems tikslams, kuriems buvo pastatyti; gyvenimas juose užgeso. Princų ir grafų vietą užėmė vienokie ar kitokie biurokratai. Daugiau, nei 40 tarptautinių organizacijų turi būstinę Vienoje, o pastaruoju metu jose dirba 6 422 žmonės. 2017 m. 9 400 konferencijų dienų dalyvavo daugiau, nei 142 000 dalyvių. Šie tarptautiniai Nacionalinių organizacijų atstovai reguliuoja dalykus, kuriuos galbūt reikia reguliuoti arba ne, tačiau nepaaiškinama, kad jų nenutrūkstama veikla verčia poną Robertsoną manyti, kad ateitis bus dar šlovingesnė už praeitį.

     ---

     Ponas Pryce-Jonesas, gimęs 1936 m. Vienoje, yra naujausio knygos „Openings & Outings: Anthology“ [1] autorius.” [1]

1. REVIEW --- Books: From Glory To Ruin To Mediocrity
Pryce-Jones, David. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 20 Aug 2022: C.7.

How Habsburgs ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire

"The Crossroads of Civilization

By Angus Robertson

Pegasus, 448 pages, $29.95

From the 13th century till the end of World War I, a Habsburg ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire with Vienna as its capital city. For a couple of centuries, another branch of the family ruled the Spanish empire with Madrid as its capital city. No other royal dynasty has a record that can match that of the Habsburgs. By way of a thought-provoking memorial, the crypt of the Capuchin church in the center of Vienna has the coffins of 149 members of the Habsburg family, 12 of them emperors.

The Habsburg emperors were conservative in every way; almost without exception they upheld the status quo. True reactionaries, they had an army that did what had to be done. Catholic, they were defenders of the Papacy. Liberals could never decide who was the worst oppressor of his subjects, the Habsburg emperor, the Romanov czar or the Ottoman sultan. Prime Minister William Gladstone was much applauded when he said, "There is not a spot upon the whole map where you can lay your finger and say: 'There Austria did good!'" Henry Wickham Steed, editor of The Times and an authority on influencing public opinion, urged that the Habsburg monarchy be abolished. He could write, "The name 'Austria' meant every device that could kill the soul of a people, corrupt it with a modicum of well-being, deprive it of freedom of conscience and of thought, undermine its sturdiness and turn it from the pursuit of their ideal."

When the monarchy was abolished, regrets were few and far between. Ilsa Barea's "Vienna" (1966), otherwise the most fair-minded account of the city and its life, hardly bothers to do more than take the Habsburgs at face value. As the monarchy was turning into a republic in the final days of 1918, Ilsa, a socialist, had joined a demonstration; when the police opened fire she stood her ground and saw others run away down a side-street.

Angus Robertson, in "The Crossroads of Civilization: A History of Vienna," is out to give the Habsburgs the credit he thinks they deserve. A journalist, he worked for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation and received the country's highest decoration for his services. Then he was a member of the British parliament and afterward of the Scottish parliament. As a writer, he deals in superlatives. The Habsburg court was "one of the most powerful and grandest in Europe." The Empress Maria Theresa was "one of the greatest European monarchs that ever reigned." Josef Schoner, a civil servant who kept a wartime diary, became "one of Austria's greatest post-war diplomats." Stalingrad is "not only the biggest battle of the Second World War but the biggest battle in human history."

Mr. Robertson holds that the key to the Habsburgs' greatness was sheer continuity and the stability that comes with it; he even ascribes to them a sense of mission. Lasting from 1618 to 1638, the Thirty Years' War typically characterized by him as "one of the bloodiest wars in human history," finished in the Treaty of Westphalia. This established the political and religious sovereignty of the state, still today an essential part of world order. Mr. Robertson jumps to the conclusion that from then on it was "clear that Vienna was a key diplomatic capital."

The historic achievement of the Habsburgs was to hold the line against the Ottoman Turks. Across the border in Hungary, mosques and minarets still survive from the Ottoman occupation of that country. The Ottomans called Vienna "the Golden Apple" and in 1683 an army of 150,000 laid siege to the city. It was touch-and-go. John Sobieski III, king of Poland, saved the day by commanding "the largest cavalry charge in history."

There is something valid in Mr. Robertson's endorsement of the city as a civilizational crossroads. The Vienna Arsenal, now a museum, lists on its walls the adventurers and mercenaries with French or Irish names who came to serve the Habsburgs and were rewarded with titles. The Irishman Francis Taaffe, for instance, became a field marshal and was sent on diplomatic missions. His descendant, the 11th Viscount Taaffe, known as Eduard Graf von Taaffe, won two terms as prime minister of Austria.

Evliya Celebi was a member of an Ottoman diplomatic delegation on a visit to Vienna in 1664. Bernard Lewis, in his ground-breaking book "The Muslim Discovery of the West" (2000), shows how exceptional Celebi was. He was an explorer and travel writer and took the world as he found it. Curious when other Ottoman travelers or ambassadors felt superior to everything European, he described architecture, the cathedral, the clocks and the medicine. All the same, he saw something that he thought extraordinary. "If the Emperor encounters a woman in the street . . . he stands in a posture of politeness. The woman greets the emperor who then takes his hat off his head." Another century had to pass before Mozart could put Ottoman Turks into his operas as either noblemen or buffoons.

A good many English men and women left records of what they had seen and heard in Vienna, and Mr. Robertson quotes extensively from such sources. One of them was the famous 18th-century bluestocking Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of Edward Montagu, a British ambassador. Lady Mary found that the Habsburg emperor had a very obliging manner and that the empress was "charming." In the early 1820s, Martha Wilmot, married to a chaplain in the British embassy, witnessed the Holy Thursday ceremony of the emperor and empress washing the feet of 12 old women and 12 old men. William Henry Stiles, charge d'affaires in the American embassy at the time of the 1848 upheavals in Europe, wrote what is described here as a classic because it sheds light on "the principles and practice of the United States towards foreign revolutions."

The Congress of Vienna in 1815 was a jamboree that put an end to the Napoleonic wars, made what looked like a lasting peace in Europe, and propped up the thesis that the Habsburgs were master diplomats. In reality, the 18-year-old Franz Josef came to the throne after the revolution of 1848 and gave the Chancellors Felix Schwarzenberg and Klemens von Metternich the freedom to build the sort of conventionally repressed society that so infuriated the likes of Wickham Steed. By then, aristocrats and churchmen and intellectuals all over the Empire were certain that every people should have a nation-state of its own. The nationalism of Hungarian, Czech, Serb and other minorities within the Empire had to be reconciled with the nationalism of the German-speaking majority. In the process of becoming a nation-state for all Germans, the kingdom of Prussia went to war with Austria and its empire. Heavy defeat in the battle of Koniggraetz in 1866 left the Habsburg Empire at the mercy of events. A single gunshot fatally killed an Austrian Archduke in 1914. That was enough to bring down the Empire.

Franz Josef was honorable but limited and, worse, unfortunate. His wife was assassinated, and his son and heir committed suicide, taking his mistress with him. "I am spared nothing," Franz Josef said of himself. All the same, his Vienna could boast of Johann Strauss (father and son), Mahler, Lehar, Freud, Schonberg, Gustav Klimt, Karl Kraus, Stefan Zweig and a few million civilized people. Josef Roth, author of the literary masterpiece "Radetzky March" (1932), remained loyal to the Habsburgs till he died.

The Austrian republic never had time to prove itself. The scene when Hitler revealed to Chancellor Schuschnigg his intention to invade was "amongst the most grotesque diplomatic dressing downs ever recounted." In the name of German nationalism, Hitler corrupted a nation evidently willing to be corrupted. There was virtually no resistance to his program of mass murder and war profiteering. Mr. Robertson pays tribute to a now little-known man who retained a moral vision, Ho Feng-Shan, the Chinese Consul General in Vienna. He issued life-saving visas to Shanghai. Closed down by the Nazis, he opened another consulate at his own expense.

After 1945, Mr. Robertson writes, the Allies divided Vienna into zones and it became the international capital of espionage, the shadowy world of Graham Greene's "The Third Man": Mr. Robertson devotes a chapter to defectors, intelligence agents, and traitors like Kim Philby. In their own zone, the Soviets erected a statue of a Red Army soldier supposedly liberating the city from the Nazis; it was placed on a pillar that is higher than the buildings around it. This symbol of subjection is still in place, inevitably making a comment on the national character.

Bruno Kreisky, chancellor from 1970 to 1983, did what he could to convert the truth that Austrians had been enthusiastic fans of Hitler into the falsehood that they were his victims. Kurt Waldheim went further. He served for three years as a Wehrmacht staff officer in Yugoslavia; there is evidence that he was a war criminal. Although he was by that point president of Austria and had served as U.N. secretary-general, in 1987 the U.S. Department of Justice placed Waldheim on a list of persons denied entry to the country. Guilt and remorse were not for him. He remained in office till 1992, setting his countrymen an example of how to hide responsibility for their actions.

Mr. Robertson's approach to the Vienna of today is frankly promotional. There is an element of wishfulness about it. The city's historic institutions and palaces still have an imperial look but they no longer serve the purposes for which they were built; the life has gone out of them. Bureaucrats of one sort or another have taken the place of princes and counts. More than 40 international organizations have headquarters in Vienna and employ at the last count 6,422 people. In 2017, 9,400 conference days involved more than 142,000 participants. These international organizations are regulating things that may or may not need regulating, but inexplicably their ceaseless activity makes Mr. Robertson think that the future is bound to be even more glorious than the past.

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Mr. Pryce-Jones, who was born in Vienna in 1936, is the author, most recently, of "Openings & Outings: An Anthology."" [1]

1. REVIEW --- Books: From Glory To Ruin To Mediocrity
Pryce-Jones, David. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 20 Aug 2022: C.7.