Evening Post. SATURDAY, MAY 16, 1936. A SATRAP GOES TO CAESAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 115, 16 May 1936, Page 8

Evening Post. SATURDAY, MAY 16, 1936. A SATRAP GOES TO CAESAR

, Prince Starhemberg's visit to the Duce is a proclamation to the world that the Italian lightning that has struck in Abyssinia can strike in Austria. Last year it took the Italians many weeks to get into striking position in Eritrea and Somaliland. Their war-at-a-distance had to be prepared for by long voyages in the sight of the whole world, so that nothing was more obvious than, that war was coming, slow but sure. Yet the League of Nations proved powerless to prevent it, and to prevent the aggressor's success. What, then, would be the prospect of preventive League action should, a clash between Starhemberg troops and Schuschnigg troops—a clash easily enough arranged—be made a ground for Italy's or Germany's intervention? It took the Duce's aeroplanes months to reach Addis Ababa,, but they could be' over, Vienna, or some other European capital, in a matter of hours.- This difference in the time factor seems to be vital. The Abyssinian fire fizzed, and spluttered, and waited for the fire brigade: but could any fire brigade that the League might improvise keep pace with the suddenness of a war in crowded Europe, where calamity can be precipitated by the pressing of a ' button? Because the League of Nations failed to prevent a little, slow war, Mr. Baldwin expects that the League will be remodelled, in the autumn (our spring). That is a long-time job, and Mr. Forbes and Mr. Savage have ideas about it, somewhat indefinite. But meanwhile there are criss-crossing wires in Austria that could produce a conflagration in a. single night. Peacelovers of long vision do not doubt that a' real League., of Nations, with preventive power, will come in the long run. But reformers full of longrun confidence may well fear the short-run perils of a situation many times more dangerous than, the Abyssinian. Perhaps it is not realised that Austria has been dominated by something unthinkable in New Zealandprivate armies. If it is true that armament firms are ever alert to stir up war, one could hardly believe that any armament seller bent on provoking belligerence could ask for a • better opportunity than a small uneconomic State where, power is regionally divided among levies under private command, and supplied with arms from sources outside/ the country. >If it is true that a- great armament seller financed' Greece's last—and most unfortunate—r-war on Turkey, then 'probably a mere fraction of his reported expenditure would be enough to buy a Avhole organisation in a country whose main industries are described as "skiing, musical festivals, and sanctions-de-feating." But, according to neutral (American) observation on the spot, the strings that pull the military puppets in Austria are high political strings, and most of them lead to Rome. At the end of January, Louis Fischer wrote from Vienna to "The Nation" (New York) that "Prince Starhemberg's Heimwehr, a para-military formation"- was paid for "either by Starhemberg, who is a big landlord, or from the profits of Italian j • arms • shipments to Hungary" (which shipments must go via Austria). The late Dr-. Dollfuss, he adds, "often %vent to Mussolini for advice, and Prince Starhemberg prides himself on being the Duce's pupil." The Duce definitely instructs his pupils: as to Austrian domestic politics. - '■■■■-■'.■■ One third of Austria, good observers estimate, is Socialist and Communist, one-third Christian Socialist, and 30 per cent. Nazi; the rest, perhaps 2 or 3 per cent, of the total, would vote Schuschnigg, if they could vote. The. Schuschnigg Cabinet is backed by the bayonets; of Prince Starhemberg's Heimwehr. That was in January, when Prince Starhemberg was Vice-Chancellor, and possibly aspiring to be Regent. -Today, the Chancellor Schuschnigg has reconstituted his Cabinet, dropping the ambitious Prince. This challenge to Mars, and to Italy's favourite, lends: special interest to Starhemberg's pilgrimage to Rome. There is no one in Austria with legitimate democratic title deeds, and the power of each faction is so largely built 'upon the .arms and money of people outside Austria that almost anything might be accomplished by external pulls. Where the people of a country have no say, it seems to be idle to rely for peace on ordinary people's human dislike of war; and if. the.League of Nations, as now constituted, cannot prevent slow-footed war in Africa, how can it prevent lightning war in one of Europe's powder magazines? What, then, may 'be relied on to preserve the peace during this European summer, when the German dictator will be pondering his next coup, while the Italian, dictator is celebrating his triumph, and while the League is licking its wounds? Some people rely on a quiescence of the dictators due to their mutual fear. "Mussolini," writes Mr. Fischer, "does not want Austria: But he wants to make sure that Germany will not absorb it and then look down menacingly, on Italy from the Brenner Pass, which would thus become the common frontier of the two Fascist States," Mussolini's territorial ambi-

tion is assumed to lie in Yugoslavia and the Balkans. "An independent Austria" is needed for a buffer between him and Hitler. But "an independent Austria" is not. the same thing as Austria for the Austrians. It means an Austria not for the Germans. Could any set of circumstances arise whereby the German dictator and the Italian dictator might agree to a co-operative spoils-sharing. war in the Danubian and Balkan regions? The best evidence that, M. Laval feared German-Italian accord was the attitude he forced on Fiance in the matter of the Abyssinian war, straining French ties with England! Rumours of an Italo-German entente have from time to time been circulated, but as they constitute an excellent means of exerting Italian pressure on France, no one knows whether they amount to more than that. It may be that the designs of Hitler and Mussolini in middle, south, and eastern Europe are incompatible and mutually preventive. But both are men who attempt things apparently impossible^—and with an astonishing degree of success. Both have been accused of direct interference (such as the Nazi putsch) in Austrian afiaivs; one of them is the acknowledged patron of the offended Prince Starhemberg; and neither of them is above feeling temptation to profit by the admitted present weakness of the League, and by Austria's special susceptibility to external exploitation. Separately they are each dangerous; together they would be a European peril of the greatest magnitude. While these two dictators exist the rises and falls of sub-dic-tators in Austria are not mere Austrian happenings. They can be events fateful to Europe ,and to the world's civilisation.