ZITA'S AMBITIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 99, 29 April 1933, Page 9 (Supplement)

ZITA'S AMBITIONS.

CROWNS FOR TWO SONS.

HUNGARIAN'S FEEL SLIGHTED,

NON-ROYALISTS SCOUT SCHEME.

Ambition to place crowns on the heads of two of her sons instead of only one is now directing the plans of Empress Zita, widow of Charles, last Hapsburg to rule Austria-Hungary, according to rumours in Budapest royalist circles.

Ancient enmities between Hungary and Austria, to the crowns- of both of which her eldest son, Archduke Otto, has claims as the head of the house of Hapsburg, are cited as the reason for the change of procedure on her part. It is said £liat the ex-empress, having been convinced that the Hungarians and Austrians lannot be persuaded to unite again under one monarch, now desires to make Felix, her second son, king of Hungary, reserving the Austrian throne for Otto.

~ These rumours have irritated some Hungarian monarchists. Willing enough to work for Otto as the king of Hungary, they feel that to offer them the younger son would be again to reserve for Hungary the secondary place which was found so irritating under the old dualist 6ystem, and which was among the causes of the revolution of 1848.

They are further annoyed by the fact that the new royalist scheme would bring territorial increases to Austria, while offering no encouragement to Hungarian dreams of winning back some of the territory lost to Czecho-Slovakia and Rumania through the Treaty of Trianon.

Austria, it is said, would get back the southern Tyrol from Italy through a marriage of Otto with an Italian princess, and an attempt would be made to persuade the Czechs to return to the Hapsburg fold under Otto. Non-royalists say that, however romantic and interesting monarchical schemes may be, they are outside the realm of practical politics. Plans for Austria to obtain a return of territories from intensely nationalist Italy, or to win over the Czechs, are characterised as particularly chimerical.