THE GREEN ARMY OF AUSTRIA

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 227, 13 June 1918, Page 5

THE GREEN ARMY OF AUSTRIA

ORGANISED POWER BEHIND THE SLAV | REVOLT !

60,000 FULLY-EQUIPPED TROOPS

„ London, Juno 11. «rT •? ®, eucvil correspondent of (ho Daily News" states that a semi-official statement has teen issued at Vienna warning the population against' the agitation by the lenders of tho smaller nations. ihe iron censorship set up over news concerning the Czech, and Jugobl;iv movements indicates the official nervousness and the delicacy of tlio internal situation. The newspapers in Vienna, budapHst, and Prague are forbidden to publish Mr. Lansing's recent statement or the decision of tho Versailles Council. Various newspapers violently accuse hnglaud of being behind tho new inoTiace. Mysterious, allusions to a socalled "Green Army" crop up in speeches by Austrian Pan-Germans, who urgo the government to crush the movement without mercy. It is understood that the Green Army" consists of GO,OOO limy-equipped Slav soldiers who aro filled with the spirit of revolt. Many Slavs aro deserting the Austrian Army on tho Italian front, and are joining the Gioou Army."— Cablo Assn. THE SPIRIT OF REVOLT ' (By Dr. F. Seftou Delmer in the "Daily Mail. 1 ') Austria is at present a. land of dark surmises. To-day, by a fortwiat© chance, t have had an inten-iew with a man who has just got out of Austria, and I havo obtained from him reliable facts about what is going on behind the curtain of silence. What about all this talk of hunger and revolution in. Austria?" I asked him, "Is there anything in it?" . "Austria, I can vouch from personal contact with revolutionary tocieties," ho answered, "is at this moment seething with the spirit of revolt" but why does tho thins £ot com© to a head ?" "1-or two reasons," ho replied. "First, because there are no lcnily resolute and dauntless leadeis and no means by which the hungry and angry masses can organise themselves into effective groups: and, secondly, because tho whole peojilo if) cowed by the prospect of ih'o punishment that, might be inflictcd on thcni by tho Germans if tho much-vaunted victory of Ludcndorff in the West really. comes off.

"Iho Ukraine peace scattered the revolutionary plans to tho winds for the time being, but the Ukraino peace did not, as was hoped, fill Austrian stomachs, most of tho .Ukrainian supplies being lilchcd for Germany. The people of Austria jiro still starving." "What do you mean by starving?" I asked. "Surely not absolute starvation?'' 110 replied: "Tha people are, on thciii bread cards, entitled to so many grammes per day, but often in reality' they get bread only once a fortnight, and composite maizo bread at that." "But they live." I said. "\e.s, tliey manage to keep body and soul together on potatoes, mangel wmrnels, and odds and ends. Now and again, too, in tho villages, a fowl or a pig is sacrificed and divided as among men on a- rait. But there is bad feeding, underfeeding, and consequent illness everywhere in Austria. Vienna itself is on the brink.of starvation, and. although food speculators are believed to have not inconsiderable hoards, the town lives from hand to mouth." A railway strike of two or three days would suffice to leavo it, foodless. 'l'hero is no catastrophe that'the Government fears more than a railway strike. To counteract a strike, propaganda agents lmvo been bribed to spread reports among workmen that ma-chine-guns have been posted on housetops along tho principal streets for use in case of a rising. "The Germans are introducing other Berlin methods of persuasion to docility. Three months r-go, for instance, tliey Ixiught. over tho directors of the Socialist "Arbeiter Zeitung" and got that paper discreetly to discouiuge the Activist Socialist group. "The Czechs, too, the most resolute and best organised anti-German group in Austria, were dismayed qilito recently to find Gonuau-bribed traitors in, their midst. As for the Southern Slavs, tho new policy of tho United States, Italy, and iho Entente, nlthough perilously long postponed, ie bearing fruit. News that the Entente' recognises a separate Southern Slav nation has in whispers already thrihed tho Southern Slav soldiers on the' Austrian front. "All these people, so long browbeaten into obedience, are nevertheless, like tho Austrian workmen in the towns, looking with frightened and haggard eyes to tho great battlo in the west. Unlcss.the Germans win a,decision there, and win it quickly, strange things are going to hap- * pen in Austria. Another Verdun, whatever it means for Germany, means in Austria despair and a revolution of despair, and men mad with hunger. Tho Austrian ice-floo is cracking and may break up at any moment."

FOR UNION WITH SERBIA

SLAV PLEBISCITES IN PROGRESS,

On the authority of a quarter in London which, speaks with complete knowledge, it may bo stated-that throughout tho Slav areas' t)f' Austria'plebiscites aro being taken under-the-provisions of , tho Pact of Corfu-.(signed in July, 1917, iin which Austrian slave demand unity witli Serbia). The result of these in Slovenia and Croatia is an almost unanimous expression of tho people's desire to join Serbia under King Peter's dynasty. Womeu and girls' as well as men and boys are participating in this demonstration.

Tho leader of tho Liberation movement is tho venerublo Prince-Archbisiiop of Jjaibacli, Monseigneur Anton- lionaventura Yeglitch, who was arrested a few days ago on a .chargo of high (reason. Eor moro than a quarter of a century this distinguished prelate has been one of the pillars of the Austrian monarchy, the founder of and a power in the Clerical Party in tho Austrian Parliament, and a member of the Austrian House of Peers and of tho Emperor's Privy Council.

The situation in Austria to-day is summarised as follows by a leading Slay personage in London: "Internal conditions, politically and economically, are extremely bad And growing worse hourly. Popular unrest is permitted to find expression on a scale which in ordinary times would provikc sanguinary conflicts. "In Prague, the capital of Bohemia, on April 13, a meeting attended by more than 10,000 Czech patriots declared its solidarity with the Southern Slav movement and took an oath to fight until the independence of tlio Czecho-Slovak and Southern Slav.Stntos is attained.

"lii the towns and cities the food fihortagc is becoming calamitous. In Vienna and Budapest the Governments arc distracted. I believe Austria-Hun-gary was never so incapable of resisting n vital blow as at this moment. Her fidelity to the German allinlice was never '.o .lacking in sincerity as to-day, though stio is not yet able io extricate herself from the Teutonic grip."