The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1918. THE DOOMED MONARCHY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 12, 9 October 1918, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1918. THE DOOMED MONARCHY

From the standpoint of sincerity, the Austrian Peaoe Note' is on a par with the Kaiser's offer of '"liberal terms," and in itself it falls as definitely short of establishing the conditions that would make peace possible. The Allies are bound to reply to Austria as to Germany that they refuse to debate conditions of peace, and are determined to dictate them. As a sign of the times, however, the Austrian overture has some claims to attention. The German peace proposal has been lightly described as a sign of distress, but the same thing is to be said with still greater point of the Austrian Note. Although it opens no immediate door on peace the Note derives practical importance from the fact that Austria-Hungary is in even more desperate straits than her principal ally and taskmaster. Looking only at the military situation, she is evidently ncaring > an end of her tether. At a time when Bulgaria was bearing the main burden of the Balkan campaign and the Dual Monarchy was free to concentrate almost the whole.of its resources against Italy its. armies suffered overwhelming defeat in the Italian front. Since then Austrian divisions—five, according to a recent' report—have been transferred to France. Weakened by the Piave defeat and by the transfer of force to the Western front, Austria is now imminently threatened with a formidable invasion by way of the Danube. This means obviously that she is headed for complete and irretrievable military disaster. Any hope she might otherwise have of making head against her gathering enemies is destroyed by the fact that she is a house fatally divided against itself. The present Government .of the Dual Monarchy;has no deadlier enemies than the Slavs and other racial groups within its boundaries who have long been the victims of Hapsburg tyranny. The more active and enterprising of these groups have contributed fighting forces to the. Entente ranks. All of them are looking confidently to a day of liberation near at hand. Taking account at once of the internal weakness and military prospects of the Dual Monarchy it is reasonable to believe that it is doomed in the near future either to collapse or to. incur hopeless defeat. The fate of her war-partner is vital to Germany, but.it is exceedingly unlikely that Germany is in a position to render such help as would enable Austria to withstand invasion and continue tKe war. On all grounds it is likely that the desire for peace is even keener in the Ha-psburg Empire than it is in Germany, and that this applies to the Government as well asto the mass of the population. It is only natural that the men who still oontrol Austro-Hungarian policy should prefer to exhaust all possibilities in the way of obtaining peace rather than drift .without an effort towards the catastrophe which is otherwise inevitable. It has been stated recently that there is a clear break_ between German and Austrian views on the subject of the peace campaign, and that in its bid for peace the Austrian Government is acting to an extent independently. If this is so the outlook is so much the more promising, and there_ are all the better prospects of subjugating Austria, and by the same act fatally undermining Germany. It is as well to recognise, however, that the possibility of achieving theee results is measured by the weakness of the Dual Monarchy, the growing revolt of its subject nationalities, and its hopeless military outlook, and not by anything that may be expected of its present rulers save under the pressure of irresistible compulsion. If the terrific strain of war to which they are now subjected has had the effect of alienating Germany and Austria from one another a great deal has been gained. But even if the Austro-Hungarian rulers were ready to repudiate any .further part in Germany's schemes it would not follow that they were ready.to concede such terms as theEntente is determined to exact._ The Dual Monarchy is in no condition to cope with such attacks as it must expect in the near future, and it is highly probable that the Note to President Wilson is only the first move in a- peaee campaign inspired by sheer desperation. Nevertheless this Note is marked by the same unblushing hypocrisy as are the proposals of the German Chancellor. Prince Maximilian, as one of to-day's messages points out, now champions the Reichstag peace resolution of July, 1917, and other items in a policy inclining to pacifism which not long ago He explicitly and scornfully repudiated. The Austrian Government goes even further in shameless mendacity. It assorts that Austria-Hungary "has never waged anything but a defensive war." The authors of this assertion knew, of course, that it would excite the derision of all who have an elementary knowledge of the circumstances in which 'the war arose. Austria-Hungary entered the war clinging to the spoils of cen-tury-old crimes, and the policy of her rulers was to safeguard the fruits of ancient crimes by co-oper-ating in Germany's up-to-date i schemes of conquest and spoliation.

Sα far as actual events are concerned, the European war arose because the Dual Monarchy, having already enslaved a considerable part of the Serbian race, set out to enslave the remainder.

This brief retrospect alone is quite sufficient to bring out the real character of the Austrian Note. Obviously it is simply an appeal to the peace-at-any-price sentiment which both Austria and Germany hoped would by this time have become dominant in Allied countries. It is now possible to say with all confidence that the hope was baseless, and that for Austria as for Germany the only conditions of peace are restitution, reparation, and guarantees for the future. In the case of the Dual Monarchy this implies the restoration not only of recently acquired spoils, -but of spoils that have been held for centuries.. It implies the liberation of Poles, Czechp-Slovaks, Southern Slavs, Rumanians, and Italians—in the aggregate threefifths of the population of the Monarchy. This means nothing less than the dismemberment of the Hapsburg Empire as_ it is at present constituted, and it may be that the men who now rule its destinies —the men who.have the cold-blooded effrontery to declare that AustriaHungary has never waged anything but a defensive war—will never consent to peace on such terms. But these men do not represent the population of Austria-Hungary. They represent only the minority which rules and has ruled by fraud and terrorism over a majority of its population. The determination of the Allies to free the oppressed races of the Dual Monarchy excludes the possibility of peace negotiation with its 'present Government, but makes them in the .fullest sense of the words champions and defenders of three-fifths of its population. Adhering steadfastly to that determination, they will rather hasten than postpone the day of Austro-Hungar-ian collapse or defeat.