NEW DISCLOSURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17568, 19 June 1925, Page 11

NEW DISCLOSURE.

WAR-TIME SECRET. GERMAN THREAT TO INVADE AUSTRIA. Row Germany nearly added one of its. own Allies to the countries alreadv arraigned against it in the World 'War is revealed by Dr Otto Bauer, the Austrian Socialist leader add Foreign Sccretary in. tho first Republican Government, in his just-published book, •• The Aust ri a n Re volution. ’ ’ On tho thesis that tho whole modern, history of German Austria is coloured by tho opposition between German and Austrian mentalities, Dr Bauer argues that this antagonism was only neutralised by the fact that, from 1897 onwards, Austrian patriotism saw its Empire threatened by the menacing agitation of the Slav races within its frontiers. How artificial was the apparent resulting unity, and how fundamentally different tho outlook of German and Austrian, was clearly shown in January 1918. when, following the Brest-Litowsk Troat.y, the Austrian people demon* strated against tho continuance of tho war against Russia to fulfil that T reaty and, by a great general strike in Vienna, presaged a revolution that would enforce peace. A SEPARATE PEACE Dr Junior discloses liow this movement was quenched mainly by tho knowledge that the Germans were actually ready to invade their Ally’s country and suppress the threatened rebellion by armed force:— , Tho military authorities managed to throw forces into tho strike areas very quickly . . . Even if Austrian militarism had no longer had at, its command sufficient tore© to repel n. revolutionary’ insurrection, at the moment when German Imperialism disposed of a larger reserve army thau at any other timo during the who!« war, an Austrian revolution could have had no other result, than an iuvasion of Austria by the German armies. ( German armies would have occupied Austria in. the same way as they shortly afterwards occupied an incomparably larger territory in Russia and tho Ukraine. And, as a revolution would simultaneously have ( broken lip the southern front, tho Entente armies advancing from the •south would have encountered or; Austrian soil tho German armies breaking through from the north, and Austria would have become a theatre of war. We realised how’ serious was the danger of a German invasion. Dr Bauer makes the further assertion that it was known to his party that ‘‘only the fear of a German invasion kept the Viennese Court from making a separate peace.”