AN HUNGARIAN DICTATOR

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1677, 20 February 1917, Page 1

AN HUNGARIAN DICTATOR

In a recent article from Milan a correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph describes the downfall of Herr Koerber, the Austrian Premier, as a triumph for Count Tisza, the Premier of Hungary. He says: — “Herr Koerber and Count Tisza came into open conflict on many minor points, and their antagonism rapidly developed into open hostility. Herr Koerber might have succeeded had the old Emperor lived, but with the ascension of the new Emperor, who is credited with stronger pro-German tendencies than he cares to admit, the main support for his policy vanished. Count Tisza enlisted the new Emperor’s sympathies on his side, and Herr Koerber found himself engaged in a hopeless task. He struggled hard to the last, and clung to his post and his ideas so long as to offend the Emperor, with the result that when he retired it was without a word of thanks from his Sovereign, whose favour he had lost, and who answered his first request by as cold and curt a dismissal as was ever written by a monarch to his Minister. So unexpected was this blow that there was a panic in Vienna, and a rumour that the object for the Reichstag convocation was not the famous message of peace but a declaration of Austro-German annexation. The conclusion, as far as the allies can be interested in these events, is that Austria proper is more than ever under the German clutch on the one hand, and un j der Magyar influence on the other, and that to-day Count Tisza is' the real dictator of Vienna’s policy as he was befoi’e. He even boasts that he conceived and was the first to suggest the proffered German olive branch, which turns out to be a hawthorn bough, as prickly as it is premature.”