BRITAIN AND AUSTRIA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17904, 25 September 1918, Page 6

BRITAIN AND AUSTRIA.

The Italian Government’s prompt denial of the German rumour that Rome was 1 negotiating with Vienna tor a separate peace was to be expected. Under the London Paot the Allied nations have agreed not to engage in separate negotiations, and it is obvious that Italy could not move without the express concurrence of her allies. If by any chance, however, Austria and Italy had ratified a separate peace, both would have been in a peculiar position. Thero are Austrian and Italian contingents fighting in France, and it would have been quite possible for the soldiers of the two nations to have met in conflict in spite of the peace existing between tho two countries. Such a position would not have been without parallel in history. At tho battle of Gottingen British tioops fought as tho auxiliaries of Maria Theresa of Austria against the French, although at the time England and France were not at war. Within a few years the diplomatic shuttlecock had rearranged tho belligerents, and Austria and England found themselves in opposite camps. England was at war with Franco, who was Austria’s ally, and was the active ally of Prussia, who was fighting Maria Theresa, but London and Vienna remained at peace with each other. British troops fought under Frederick of Prussia and were largely responsible for tho defeat of the Austrian Empress’s plans, but there is no evidence that the British soldiers ever engaged the Austrians in battle. Indeed, as a recent writer in tho “ Spectator ’’ observed, it is a peculiar fact that until the British troops under Lord Cavan overthrew the Austrian assault on the Asiago plateau this year, the armies of tho two nations had not been in actual conflict on behalf of their own peoples. It is truo that Scottish soldiers in the ranks of Gustavus of Sweden fought with Austrian troops serving under Tilly, and the ancestors of the Buffs probably came to grips with Austrian soldiers in the battles fought for the delivery of the EHitch from Spanish domination, but at that time the British Army was not in being. The first record of engagements between units of the British and Austrian armies is to be found in the seventeenth century, but then the British soldiers were really part of the French army under tho great Turenne. It is an important episode in our history. When Charles 11. was compelled in 1674 to withdraw from alliance against Holland, he left a certain Colonel John Churchill with a regiment of horse and six battalions of foot in the French service. Churchill studied the art of war under the French commander and with his troops played an important part in his chief’s victory over the Austrians under Oeprera at Sintzheim, not far from Heidelberg, a battle of peculiar interest to Britain because its tactics were repeated thirty, years later by Churchill when ho w(on his victory at Blenheim. It is interesting to notice, too, that the British general, by a reversal 'of fate, had the aid of Austrian soldiers in his battles with Eugene. Churchill’s British contingent was also a participant in Turenne’s defeat o f the Austrian Imperialists at Entzheim, in Alsace, holding the enemy’s right at bay while the great French general developed his main blow on the other wing.* Of the regiments who fought with Churchill under Turenne but one remains, the Royal Scots, now the senior regiment of the Line; tho others were disbanded. The Royal Scots have a remarkable history, and they have added many distinctions to it during the present war, but they have been robbed of one. Since Lord Cavan’s victory on June 15 they can no longer claim to bo the only British regiment to have shared in a battle against an Austrian army.