VAE VICTIS

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 81, 30 December 1920, Page 8

VAE VICTIS

Down and Out. N

9 TYKOL LOSES HEART

THE TRANSFER TO ITALY

The Alpino wind is sweeping, sharp andhealthy, through the streets of limsbmcfc tu-day (wrote the correspondent of a London'paper 011 October 9). At every corner you got a fresh glimpse of the mountains, from which it blows—now craggy Scrlos, tearing at tho sky with Its pinnaclns, now tho abrupt cliffs of tho Martinswand, now perhaps the snow-capped peaks and sleeping glaciers at the head of the Stubai-Thal, pure white against the blue. The sun, pouring down through the limpid air, is still warm. But maple and lime and plane are turning yellow. Under the beeches brown leaves aro gathering. Already autumn is descending on the noble city, hill-begirdlod, forest-garlanded, that stands guard over the mouth of the Brennor. •

To the sadness of the dying year in added the sadness of a people in 01 tremis. . There is, in spile of the clean wind and brilliant sunshine, an atmosphere of gloom—of something deeper, of despair—about the place, which is one of tho most singularly embarrassing things it has ever been my lot to experience. People speak to you in subdued tones, with averted eyes, as if in a deathchamber. They brought it nil on themselves, of courso. It is no fault of ours. Not tho Peace of St. Germain, but its own inner necessity, has laid Austria where it lies gasping. Still, thero scans a' oertaln want of proportion between the punishment of this poor remnant of the Austrian Umpire and its crime. Others, equally guilty, have got off so much more easily. But they do not really speak much' about tho matter. "Poor Austria," thoy nay with a sigh, and turn the conversation. Austria is indeed poor. An Englishman feels nßtiarued when for his wretched pound 'ho gets 980 crowns. I tendered two of them to-<loy as payment for a newspaper, and received back in obango a whole bundle of bank-notes— 10 hellers, 20 hellers, local issues of Innsbruck, Salzburg, Carinthia. each worth eomo incalculable fraction of a farthing. The Blow Falls. I)ut Innsbruck, on this October Saturday, has a special reason for depression. The long-tihreatened blow has at last fallen—to-morrow, formally and officially, Italy takes over South Tyrol. And so to-day was a day of public mourning in Innsbruck.- The city was draped in black. Crepe covered flags hung from all the masts. A species of funeral service was held in tho parish church. Black-clothed citizens walked in procession through the streets, and massed choire sang a solemn music. The lyrolese have hitherto hoped against, hope that tho decision of the Powers was not final; nothing now.remained but to ncecpt the inevitable, and to perform this last act of protest and farewell. In losing the district that stretches southward from tho Brenner watershed, Tyrol loses tho most valuable part of her territory. It lias the fattest soil and tho sunniest clime —tho vino ceases liltle to tho north of Bozen-and it is that part which Is chiefly frequented and enriched by tho foreign tourist 1 ; not a few English people have at 0110 time or another visited Meran, 80/ en, Brixcn. But it' i«\»lso, or most of it, a purely German district. This' is admitted on both sidos. Coming over tho Brenner the other day I asked somo Italinn fellow-travellers how far up the valley Italian vm spoken. They shrugged their shoulders, and willi lialf-smils admitted that Tronto marked tlie limit'. The Tyrolese themselves do not claim so much. The ethnographical line, they wiy, 15 clearly defined: there is not here, ns in- most other frontior districts, a mixed region. Down to Salurn, but no further, the population is German. In tlie region of Salurn, therefore, they dosired that the frontier should bo drawn. But! the place is necessary to Italy on strategic grounds.' Tho Brenner salient is a permanent menace to Italy, a dag2<\r not merely pointed at but deeply embedded in hor northern front. Tho •lunger of it to Italy,, and i'he Importance of it to ft northern invader, were realised by all the world in tho autumn of 1918, ivlien the Germans, in a vain effort to retrieve the situation afler . their allies had fallen away, flung troops into Tyrol —it was Italy's most vulnerablo point.

I strolled into the I'ranziskaiier Church and paused for a moment beside the eloquent bones of Andreas Hoter. Ihero is going to be none of Hint sort of thing. Men are 110 longer cast 111 that mould, it any rate, while in Germany 110 doubt multitudes are busy dreaming of a new Uel'roiungs-Kricg, Tyrol, like the rest oi Austria, is—down and out. People have Unit heart. Their griet for their "lost brothers" has 110 rago mingled in it, nourishes 110 wild scieincs. 1 have talked with all sorts o£ people,- from Landexhauptmaiin to the waiter fho .served me at table, and have no doubt about that. 'I'liey have signed the Treaty—with reluctance, it is true—but they mean to abide by it. Only, they tell yon, this annexation cannot in the nature of things Ixs permanent. Italy will find it an. ungrateful task to govern tha population ngainst its will, nnd sooner or later will giyo up the district of her own accord.'Chat is the last hopo left to theih.

]. lind forgotten, there 13 ono other— Micro is this eternal question of union with Germany, Here, in Tyrol, it has a local aspect. For Tyrol is quiio prepared V> cut herself adrift from the rest of Austria and join up with Germany on lior own. The province is in a difficult position. Shu is, In a way, lis little selfsupporting as Vionna herself. True, sho has her cattle, hut man docs not live on meat alone, Formerly slio used to exchange tliom for wheat nnd the other necessaries which she cannot grow herself; but now, with Customs barriers and •jomnierco restrictions all round her, this basis of her oconomic life is demolished. She is living from hand to mouth, not knowing often where to turn for hor next bite of breiul. Vienna, unable to help herself, is in no position to htlp Tyrol. And thero is, on other gounds, no love lost between Vienna nnd Innsbruck. So long as tho Monarchy subsisted tho Tyloleso woro its staunchest ami most loyal supporters; now that it is gono they feol tlmt, while nothing binds theui to Austria, there is much to alienate them from it. Tho Tyrolean peasant, like all peasants, is a strong Conservative, and has a holy horror of tho Socialist tendencies of his present Government. Munich, ho argues, is much nearer, and would probably bo much lander than Vienna. "Poor Austria"—there is 110 end to her difficulties.