THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, AUGUST 5, 1916. THE WEAKNESS OF AUSTRIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16300, 5 August 1916, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, AUGUST 5, 1916. THE WEAKNESS OF AUSTRIA.

The weakest unit of the Teutonic combination is undoubtedly Austria. It was so at the beginning of the war, and it is so to-day. The Austrians have occupied the attention of large armies of Russians and of • Italians, but it is impossible to point to a single military achieve- \ ment of the Austro - Hungarian armies which has had any semidecisive effect on the course of the war. It may be argued that the subjugation of Servia added prestige to the armies of the Emperor Francis Joseph, but until he received the assistance of the Bulgarians and of the Germans his assaults on the little kingdom of King Peter were always attended with disaster. 111-fortune closely clung to the Austro-Hungarian armies at the beginning of the war, when they retreated from the confines of Galicia to the Carpathian Mountains; ill-fortune still follows them. Since the forward movement of the Russians, begun some eight weeks ago, the Austrians are reported to have lost, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, some 600,000 men. To make good their losses they have called on the Germans, the Bulgarians, and the Turks for help; little or no help has been forthcoming. It may be presumed, therefore, that the Austrian Empire is forced to meet its impending fate single-handed. The armies of Austria, at no time great in proportion to the armies with which the Russians and Italians can oppose her, have been depleted to a condition which borders on the desperate. It is not an exaggeration to say that she is outnumbered by more than two to one on both her battle-fronts. Acting strictly on the defensive on her Italian frontier, she is probably opposing from three-quarters of a million to one million troops against our Italian allies; in Galicia, where her offensive has been turned into a defensive, her defeated armies, which have recently sustained such tremendous losses, do not number possibly more than one million men- The Italians have always been able to place against her their whole strength, which has never comprised anything less than two and a-half million troops, while the Russians to-day can easily bring as great forces to bear against her eastern frontier. Evidently the position of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is hazardous in the extreme. As the strength of a chain is to be judged by its weakest link, so is any military combination to be judged by its weakest essential factor. In the combination controlled by Germany there are two weak factors—Turkey and Austria. If Austria—standing, as she does, between Germany and Turkey— to collapse, it is plain that the fate of Turkey would be sealed; the prospects of Germany would then depend entirely on the measure of her own power of ! resistance. Much, therefore, hinges on the defensive powers of Austria.. On the Italian border she holds a well-nigh impregnable frontier; in the east, her armies are falling back to the strong line of resistance afforded by the Carpathian Mountains. But eighteen months ago the armies of the Tsar crossed this eastern barrier, and to-day we are assured that they have penetrated for a second time into Hungary. The military position is naturallyfelt at Vienna and Buda Pesth to be full of dreadful possibilities.

The aggressive operations of General Brussiloff in Galicia, successful as they have already been to a surprising degree, may result in separating ' the Austrian and German eastern armies, at no very distant date. It is of interest, therefore, to examine the present state of public opinion of Germany as it is expressed by prominent German newspapers, and to surmise what the state of that opinion will be when Austria has suffered the full effect of an unbroken advance of the Russians. The Cologne Gazette recently said: "There is indeed nothing astonishing in the undoubted fact that everywhere in Germany a pessimistic feeling is beginning to manifest itself in regard to our situation. The cause that is mainly responsible for this stato of mind is the German press, which has all along under-estimated the power of our enemies." The Frankfurter Zeitung says: ''There are signs that we are now approaching another portentous, fateful moment, when the fair fame and glory of the German arms will tremble in the balance." It would seem that they are right. "While the nations of. the Great Alliance are confident as to the result.of the issue which is pending, the people of the German Empire are visibly losing heart. The appointment of General Hindenburg to the command of both Austrians and Germans in the east is evidently an attempt to prevent the complete collapse of Austria and to retain as long as possible such assistance from Austrian troops as may assist Germany to withstand the superior Allied armies.

THE HILLS OF AUCKLAND. The fate of the petition from Mount Albert against the further spoliation of that hill by the Railway Department was due to the indifference and even antagonism displayed by Auckland members to a most laudable attempt at conservation. Aucklanders are often charged with being "parochial" in their outlook, but the member for Parnell cannot be accused of displaying any " parochial" spirit in his championship of departmental practices, for Parnell ought to be as concerned as any part of Auckland in preserving several of its most beautiful and characteristic features. There is a breadth of charity which begins far from home in any suggestion from Aucklanders that the Railway Department has no option but to destroy our hills in ballasting its lines. Nobody unduly blames the Railway Department. Its officials tread the easiest path, as did our own local authorities in the early days— which every hill bears testimony. But our local authorities have generally learned better and the Railway Department will learn better as soon as our local members do their duty. Ballast in abundance can be obtained for the North of Auckland and every other line without further destroying our beautiful hills. It is simply a question of paying a very little more. In other words, volcanic cones of Auckland, characteristic of the city and its suburbs, are to be destroyed piecemeal in order that an infinitesimal additional percentage may be added to the 6i per cent, paid by the North Island railway system. The South Island system pays less than 3i per cent., yet they call us "parochial."