ON THE DANUBE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 9, 10 July 1935, Page 16

ON THE DANUBE

PUZZLING SITUATION

THE FUTURE OF AUSTRIA

UNIOX WITH GERMANY ?

Professor R. W. Seton-Watson, of London University, addressed sessions of a weekend school upon the Danubian situation at Buxton, and made three or four general suggestions to the trade union members who attended the school, says the "Manchester Guardian." The fall of Austria-Hungary he described as the biggest territorial change which had occurred in Europe since the fall of the Western Empire in 476; but '■Austria-Hungary was not broken up by the Allies; it broke down, it disintegrated, and some of its diverse parts might now be seen in Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Yugoslavia, none of whom was at all willing to go back to the old relation. The Balkans were conducting themselves peacefully; the danger was not there nowadays, uut in the middle Danube, in Austria. What solution would Austria find for its difficulties? Would it be a German solution, a Danubian solutidn, or a solution with Italy? These were the questions to which Professor SetonWatson directed the attention of the school. The meetings t were arranged by the Workers' Educational Trade Union Committee in ' the North-west. OBSTACLES TO UNION. Everybody in this country, Professor Seton-Watson said, asked why the five Danubian States did not make a common economic union. The obstacles were political, national, and racial. These interests came first with all these countries. There had been a population of 52,000,000 split in seven pieces after a revolution on the grand scale. They had recovered independence in territories which, whether by accident or design, did roughly correspond with old States. Austria, it should be remembered, was only expelled from Germany in 1866. In theory every Austrian was in favour, of German unity, but today the country was divided into three parties, the Black (clerical) and the Red (Socialists) being the strongest, and the remnants of the old Pan-Ger-man party. At one time this party, seeing that Bismarck would not have Austria- (being Catholic), began the "Away from Rome" movement, which had some temporary success, and this movement, the professor said, showed again some signs of life. The Nazis in Austria today were trying a more insidious form of agitation than their predecessors inside the Church. Feeling became strong and the private armies were created. The Heimwehr made their Putsch. One of the three groups of the State, the Socialist group, was deprived of the most elementary liberties. "Then, when it was too late," Professor Seton-Watson said, "the saner people among the clericals looked »ound and saw that they had stamped brutally on the heads of their natural allies in saving Austria the Nazis." If it had not been for the extraordinarily maladroit and brutal tactics of the Heimwehr in April, May, and June of 1934 it might have been that the Nazis would have been reinforced and the union with Germany in sight. But then the events pi June in Germany pointed in the opposite direction, and the assassination of Dollfuss with help from Germany, which was clearly indicated in Austria, and specially by the trial of Dr. Rintelen, had a strong effect and,had checked the possibility of a stampede into the Nazi camp. The tax of 1000 marks which Hitler had put on Germans going into Austria with the intention of trying to force Austria had also had a large effect in creating a gulf between the countries. AUSTRIA'S PROBLEM. The problem was.^could Austria live alone? The answer certainly was yes. It was quite as capable as Denmark or Holland. The answer would be quite obvious' if we were out of the economic slump. The real trouble was the disillusionment of the younger generation, who asked how life in a small nation could compare with life in the great German nation. "Hitler will go but Germany will remain," they said. "You have to reckon on the coldness of everyone under twenty-five," Professor Seton-Watson remarked. \ . The second solution was the hybrid solution with Italy; Austria would become a protectorate of Rome. No serious Austrian would accept, this solution. The serious question . was whether a Danubian solution was possible; not the reversion to the old empire but an economic union of the five Danubian States. Hungary was the obstacle here. Hungary bitterly resented the 'terms of the Treaty of Trianon, and demanded the return of land shared out to Czechoslovakia, Kumania, Yugoslavia, and Austria. Hungary made revision a condition of any economic agreement. .In the whole of the Danubian States it was impossible to make clean-cut ethnographical frontiers. His own estimate was that populations making a total of 500,000 could be restored to Hungary by rectifications of the frontiers; but Hungary claimed over 2,500,000. Some time ago, just as the situation was becoming ripe for some sort of agreement, Hungary was encouraged in the opposite direction by Mussolini and a misguided Press campaign in England. The Italian idea was to drive a wedge into the 'Danubian territories. But the events of June and July in Germany and Austria, the murder of Alexander, and Mussolini's conversations with Hitler had brought home to Mussolini that he had made a mistake in supposing that they could* work together. "Mussolini saw fire springing up under his feet," Professor SetonWatson said. Since then Mussolini .had met M. Laval and had been nttempting to transform his plan into something which might better favour the creation of economic agreement between the Danubian States. UNDER THE HABSBURGS. Professor Seton-Watson had prefaced this view of the present situation by a sketch of the history of the countries. He explained that the Habsburgs accepted the duty of keeping' Turkey out of Europe after the Battle of Mohacs, in 1526. The blood of the people of Austria-Hungary and the Balkans was, in fact, the mortar of Europe's walls. National revivals followed the decay of Ottoman power and the Western Powers intrigued among the nationalist movements, so that moments of acute European danger were often created from 1839 onwards, and one of them produced the Great War.' The war ended one phase. The Balkan States were" now free to pursue their own ends and were conducting themselves peacefully. The result was that there was no longer a Balkan question. The danger had transferred itself to the middle Danube, to Austria, whose relations, first to Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, and Yugoslavia, second to Germany, and third to Italy and the Adriatic, were of the.greatest importance. , • "I would contend," he said, "that the fall of Austria-Hungary was the biggest territorial change which has occurred in Europe since the fall of

the Western Empire in 476^" Professor Seton-Watson briefly described how the Habsburgs attempted to unify the differing races in the three countries. The failure of the Habsburgs, he believed, largely derived from Francis (1792-1845) and Francis Joseph, lover of half-measures, who put through the famous "compromise" which appeared to unite Austria and Hungary under one crown, though each had its Government leaving the Emperor in control of the army and foreign affairs. In fact, though not in appearance, the dual system gave control to the Germans in Austria and the Magyars in Hungary. In Austria the Poles were bought off by control of Galicia, which meant authority over the Ukrainians of that region. "This is a situation of which we shall hear much more," he said, "for the Ukrainians were better off then thnn they are now under the Poles, who have torn up their rights." From the initial differences created by the compromise between the different nationalities others developed. Austria was overtaken by the industrial revolution; Hungary remainad medievaj B Power was in the hands of the nobility. In 1906 universal suffrage was introduced in Austria, and 86 Social Democrats were elected. . NOT SITTING. In Hungary the first Socialist was elected in 1922. When the war broke out the Austrian Parliament was not sitting, and was not summoned till it appeared that Austria was disintegrating. If it had met in October of 1914 there would without doubt have been a majority against war. The Hungarian Parliament was in session, and it was wholly in favour of war. For a large part of the population of these countries the war was a civil war. The Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes were fighting their blood brothers. Fcr the Czechs it was almost equally as bad. Out of that situation came the wholesale surrender of Austro-Hun-garian troops and the formation of the Yugoslav, Czechoslovak, and Polish legions. The American notes of October, 1918, which were based upon the known course of events in the empire, were directed to this state of affairs. The Emperor Charles declared for a federal Austria, and at once local councils sprang up everywhere, which had been ready for the occasion, and the Allies found it extremely difficult to find anyone with whom to negotiate. "Thus it is not a correct statement that the Allies broke up Austria-Hungary," he said. "Aus-tria-Hungary broke down from within as a result of an overwhelming movement of revolutionary enthusiasm from all her peoples except the Germans and Magyars." *