VIENNA — The desperate migrants and asylum seekers flooding into Europe by the tens of thousands, and the inability to accommodate them in an organized way, may be starting to fray Europe’s commitment to erase old borders. The evidence was on stark display Monday, as the Austrian authorities disrupted traffic from Hungary, causing backups of at least 18 miles, while inspecting vehicles for smuggled migrants. The official explanation was to avert another mass death of migrants like the 71 bodies found in an unventilated truck near Vienna last week, believed to be victims of a smuggling ring. German and Austrian officials also increased controls in their border region, with the official explanation that they were seeking to stop human traffickers. In a continent struggling with a unified response to the Greek debt crisis and the movements of militant jihadists, the influx of migrants — many of them from war-ravaged areas of the Middle East and Africa — appears to have only further deepened frictions. Greece’s coast guard picked up nearly 2,500 migrants from the sea in dozens of search and rescue operations, part of a relentless flow of people seeking the safety of Europe after facing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
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