AUSTRIA’S PEACE OFFER.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXI, 9 August 1921, Page 6

AUSTRIA’S PEACE OFFER.

THE CRIME OF 1917. SOME INNER HISTORY. How Austria’s peace offer in 1917 was criminally bungled is shown in a hook written by Prince Sixte de Baur* bon, on “ Austria’s Peace Offer, 191617,” which is reviewed as follows by the “ Saturday Review”; —

The Prince Sixte de Bourbon, son of the. Duke of Parma, is a brother of Zita, late Empress of Austria. It is evident from this authentic and very interesting book that the Emperor Charles and his wife both trusted and loved the young prince. The Emperor no sooner succeeded Francis Joseph in 1916 than he determined, if possible, to escape from the clutches of the Kaiser 'William, and to draw Austria out of a war with which he had no sympathy, and which he saw was ruining his empire. He selected his brother-in-law to be the instrument of making a separate peace in 1917 between Austria and the Entente Allies. The Prince Sixte was by this time an officer in the French Army, having entered the war as a Belgian officer, owing to the almost incredible refusal |of the French Government to allow him to enlist- in the French army. He was, however, influential enough to obtain special facilities for visiting his relatives in Vienna, where he went twice for the purpose of discussing peace negotiations. The Emperor Charles wrote two letters to the Prince, of which facsimiles are given in this book, authorising him to negotiate a separate peace for Austria with the Entente. The bases of his peace were to be a recognition of France’s claim to Alsace and Lorraine, the evacuation of occupied territory in France and Belgium with reparation and indemnities, and the cession to Italy of the Trentino, Trieste being left over for discussion, with the wish that it should be made s free port. The only stipulation which the young Emperor made for himself was that the integrity of his empire should be preserved, and that he should be protected by the Entente from the possible consequences of German punishment. These letters were laid before the President of the French Republic and the Prime Minister of England in the first six months of 1917.

Let us consider for a moment what would have been the result of the acceptance of the Emperor Charles’s offer. With the withdrawal of Austria from the war, Turkey and Bulgaria would also have disappeared jqjnU at ants. Germahy Would then have found herself cut off from the supplies of corn and oil from Galicia and Roumania, and would have bean left to fight England ahd France alone on the Western front, without lubricants and without wheat. The political results would have been hardly less momentous. The Emperors of Austria and of Russia would have been saved; in short, east of Berlin there would have been a Europe to deal with. It is impossible that Germany could have continued the fight single-handed against France and England for more than a few months. Millions of lives, thousands of millions of pounds, and the very principle of Government, would thus have been saved. This offer of peace, having been duly considered by the Governments of the Entente, was rejected. Surely the

future historian will say that no greater crime was committed during the war. Whose fault was it? Prince Sixte came to London, stayed there some weeks, and saw the Prime Minister several times. As a touch of comedy in a otherwise sombre and tragical miscarriage, the Prince records that having cqlled one day in Downing Street, and finding the Prime Minister engaged, Mr Davies, one of his private secretaries, consoled him for waiting in the ante-room by giving him a cigar, which ■file Prince describes as “ moderately good.” To do him justice. Mr Lloyd George seemed to be really keen on making a separate peace wjth Austria, and we think he must lie acquitted of blame in this matter. The personages

between whom the responsibility of this awful blunder must be divided are M. Ribot (the French Premier), Baron Sonnino (the Italian Premier), and Count Czerin (the Foreign Minister of the Emperor Charles)'. The last-named was a coward, and terrified of Ludendorff ; of Mfl Ribot it is enough to say that he was an old and fumbling politician, whose only thought was to keep his majority in the Chamber. Baron Sonnino, whom Mr Lloyd George described as “ violent, very violent,” must bear the chief share of the obliquy. Sonnino is the son of an Alexandrian Jew by a Scottish mother, and the offspring of such a union is likely to be a hard bargainer. As a matter of fact, Sonnino it was who vetoed the separate peace with Austria, because the so-called claims of Italy were not satified by the Austrian proposals, and those claims were unconscionable, including as they didi not only the Trentino, but Trieste, Fiume, the Adriatic Islands and Dalmatia, besides the Dodekanese, and a large slice of Asiatic Turkey. As Prince Sixte observed, with caustic common sense, let Italy take with her armies the territories which she claims! But it was just before Capareto that these impossible claims were pushed by Sonnino upon England and France. And so the war was continued; for two years more. Ribot has disappeared. Sonnino has disappeared. The three Emperors have disappeared, and the spring of subordination, the principle of all authority has been destroyed, probably for a generation. We congratulate the Baron Sonnino in his retirement upon the results of his diplomatic triumph.