WAR TIME FIGURE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 108, 7 April 1932, Page 2

WAR TIME FIGURE.

DEATH OF COUNT CZERNIN

Received April 6, 12.10 p.m. VIENNA, April 5.

Tho death has occurred of Count Czernin, Austro-Hungarian statesman.

COUNT CZERNIN’S CAREER

Count Ottokar Czernin, the AustroHungarian statesman, whose death has occurred, was born in 1872, and in 1912 he became a member of the Austrian Upper House, attaching himself to the Constitutional Party. In October, 1912, he went as Austro-Hun-garian Minister to Bucharest. Even at that time he was convinced that, despite the treaty signed by the King with tho Triple Alliance, Roumania would not support tho Central Powers in the event of war except at a price; and on the outbreak of the AA'orld War he attempted to persuado his Government to pay such a price. He was unsuccessful, but kept Roumania neutral for a long time. At the end ol 191 G, Czernin succeeded Burian as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and from the first attempted to persuade the German Emperor and the high command to make a peace which should preserve Germany and Austro-Hun-gary as great Powers, oven though Germany must mako sacrifices in Al-sace-Lorraine and Belgium, for which he suggested that Germany, should receive compensation in the East, chiefly by tho acquisition of Polish territory. Ho was aware of and approved of the peace negotiations which the Emperor Charles opened with England and Franco, and during the negotiations at Brest-Litovsk from December, 1917, to March, 1918, the divergence of tho views of the Austro-Hungarian delegation, led by Czernin, from those of tho Germans became increasingly manifest. In the negotiations leading up to the signature of the treaty between Russia and the Quadruple Alliance, concluded on March 3, 1918, Czernin took a conspicuous part. A few weeks earlier peace had been concluded with the newly-formed Republic of the Ukraine, and the fact that Czernin, in order to secure this “bread peace,” had ceded to Ukraine a district to which the Poles laid claim, resulted in unsparing attacks upon him by the Austrian Press, so that by April his position was no longer tenable and he had to resign.