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Hokitika Guardian, 6 April 1921, Page 2

A lamentable figure is cut by the oxKinperor of Austria in his attempted coup at Budapest. His appearance at the palace gates with a message for Admiral Horthy that the King wished to see the Governor makes a scene says the “Dominion” that is tragical or farcical according to the point of view. The ex-Emperor disappeared from his throne becau.su nobody wanted him. Thero was no violent hostility, no defeat of a monarchist faction by a Republican, no hurried flight of the ruler to the frontier. The Emperor by degrees became a cypher, and government in his distracted dominions gradually felt into the hands of those who carried on irrespective of his desires. Months before tile armistice it was apparent that 'ho was no more than a puppet under surveillance. Even bis letters were censored, and the Empress Zita was reported to have got the Papal Nuncio into trouble for smug gling (Jut her appeals for aid for “pour Karl.” The status of the ex-Emperor for a long time was a matter of uncertainty. He had not abdicated, he had not been deposed, but he had ceased to rule, and it seemed almost a mattcar of inconsequence whether lie was to remain in his late dominions as a private citizen or to retire abroad as a Kin-' in exile. Eventually he went to Switzerland in 1919. His erstwhile dominions are anybody’s child, um\ an tec and unwelcome, and the. tragical history of the House, of Hapsburg promises to end in farce.