Austrian Political Intrigue

Northern Advocate, 8 February 1936, Page 5

Austrian Political Intrigue

PUZZLING MOVES IN PARIS

l United Press Association.-By Electric Telegraph. — Copyright .] (Received i p.mj LONDON, February 7.

The “Manchester Guardian’s’’ Paris correspondent says that the Quai d’Orsay heaved a sigh of relief as soon as Prince von Starhemberg, ViceChancellor, departed for Vienna, as Paris was fast becoming a hotbed of Austrian political intrigue, culminating in the dash of Archduke Otto, Pretender to the Throne, from Belgium to Paris, despite plain advice that a meeting with Prince von ''Starhemberg would do the Hapsburg cause more harm than good. It is almost impossible to get the real truth of the situation, which is abounding in contradiction and blunder. The arch-blunderer seems to have been Otto, but everyone else concerned made mistakes.

Prince ' von Starhemberg’s reported assurances to M. Flandin, French Foreign Minister, that Austria would not attempt to restore the Hapsburgs 'without first consulting the little Enene, is now hotly denied by an Austrian Government spokesman. Unworthy of Tradition.

It is pointed out that for Austria to ask permission of States formerly part of her Empire would be unworthy of the great traditions of the past. Everyone now is asking whether M. Flandin misunderstood Prince von Starhemberg, or whether journalists misunderstood M. Flandin, or whether Prince von Starhemberg, in a moment of aberration, actually made the promise which he now wants to recall. Prince von Starhemberg declared at a final interview that Austria had not abandoned the monarchic! principle. She intended, as a sovereign state, to order her own affairs, which included the monarchist question. Nevertheless, she nothing to disturb the peace of Europe It is equally obscure whether Archduke Otto saw Prince von Starhemberg. Though the Austrian legation flatly denied a meeting, there appears to have been some direct contact, if not between Prince von Starhemberg and Otto, at least between Prince Prince von Starhemberg and Baron Weisner, head of the Monarchist party, who also “happened to be in Paris,”

Baron Weisner made a statement to the press admitting a conversation with Prince von Starhemberg, and repeating almost the identical words of Prince von Starhemberg’s final interview. He emphasised that the restoration of the monarchy could be carried out at a moment’s notice.