268
PARTISAN REVIEW
failed.
It
did so in part because of the curiously abstract, non–
political, and ahistorical self-image contained in the Austrian and
Viennese supranational ideal, a characteristic reflected even in
Werfel's own comparison . But what of the presumptive American
counterpart, today, when we find ourselves recalling with affection
Vienna before 1914? Is our culture, like Vienna of 1900, expressive of
our memory of, rather than our confidence in, ourselves as a
towering international power?
In international politics, the broadest context for an historical
analogy, pathetic if somewhat cheap comparisons occur. In 1900,
Austria-Hungary appeared to be a world power. But it was viewed
by its fellow world powers as essentially second-rate, on the verge of
internal dissolution, burdened with a huge, cumbersome, and weak
military and internal bureaucracy and a faltering, underdeveloped
economy. The Hapsburg defeat at Sadowa in 1866 and the loss of
Austrian-controlled provinces in Italy pierced the veil of Hapsburg
power. Since Vietnam, America has lost credibility, despite
appearances and official claims, as an effective world power with
maneuverability. It appears to be a lumbering giant, like Austria–
Hungary, incapable of swift, decisive action. Its status in the
international economy is steadily weakening as a result of its
dependence on OPEC, the vulnerability of the dollar, and the aging
of its industrial capacity. The contrast of apparent power with actual
ineffectiveness (for example, the Iran rescue escapade, impotence in
the wake of Polish repression, inability to marshall international
support for our official views of South America, South Africa and the
Middle East) also marked the huge Hapsburg Empire in the decades
before its collapse . The failure of serious, effective national
leadership then and now can be compared. The utility of the old
Emperor Francis Joseph as a symbol of unity reminds one of the
fading but continuing myth of the power of the presidency to hold us
together and lead us forward in the face of disintegration and
decline . Reagan's initial success, one of appearance, in reasserting
the power and magnetism of the office of the president and the
glamor of America has faltered severely. The economic chaos and
the bankruptcy of a polity based on a romantic and wrongheaded
version of a splendid American past highlights the irony of
powerlessness in the face of all the trappings of might all too harshly
for comfort.
Internally, turn-of-the-century Vienna mirrored the frag–
mentation of an empire. Politics were dominated by competing
