THE REAL AUSTRIA.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 249, 9 February 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE REAL AUSTRIA.

SOME COMMON MISTAKES. A REFUGEE'S REVELATION. People in this country (says Professor T. G. Mastryk in the Weekly Despatch) are apt to de. ceive themselves about Austria. They read of Austria's numerous defeats and of the great haul of Austrian prisoners, and they are easily led into the belief that the staetments which speak of the Austrian Empire as being on the point of collapse are well founded. Austria is by no means on ,the point of collapse. It is quite credible that her casualties, may amount to tho enormous total of 4J millions, but that still leaves her with three million men, not, perhaps, as good fighting material as the men employed in the first-year of the war, but certainly not. so poor as you in England think. Also it is not to be that. Austria has called up her youngest and her oldest classes, the. latter men of 50 and perhaps older; but the bays are being used in. non-combatant duties, and the elderly men are in third line or in charge of duties which can be as well done by them as by younger men. riIHE mistake that is mad© about Austna is not realising that, little by little, Germany has passed the control of the Austrian Empire's 51 millions of population into her hands, and today ; s in absolute charge of the Austrian Army. Alone Austria might soon succumb, but her army in the grip of Germany, led by able German commanders and stiffened by German troops, becomes a strong military machine again, as we see by the stubborn defence of Halic-z,. the recovery of Transylvania, and the onslaught against the Rumanian passes.

The tragedy of the Austrian Empire is not that it is on the point of collapse, but that it is simply and solely an annexe of the Geraan Empire to-day. However humiliating.the admission may be to the leaders of the Dual Monarchy, they are content to have the position so, perceiivng that unless Germany held the reins the Empire would go to pieces. Germany might have wished to see a stronger and more self-reliant Austria or military reasons, but for political reasons she does not find it at all disagreeable Io have reduced her neighbour to a degree of submission which, to all intents and purposes, amounts to abdication. The military plans of Austria ,iro not fashioned in Vienna, but in Berlin; the role of the Austrian capital is mereiy that of an echoing board for the Prussian capital. MAGYAR ELEMENT. The .Magyars, who arc the only virile military element left in the Austrian bmpire, prefer the direction of affairs to come from Berlin rather than from Vienna, for they have a sublime, faith in the prowess of German arms and the efficiency of German organisation. The political leader of the Empire is not tho Austrian Premier the assassinated Count Eturgkh was merely a figure-head Count Tisza, the Hungarian Premier, who bases his action ou what Berlin tells lum.

The military history of Austria in the war has been so pitiable that even if sho wanted she could not reasonably complain of German domination. She utterly failed at tlx* onset of the war to achieve expectations, and instead was soundly beaten. It was Germany's help and Germany's brains that cleared Galicia of the Russian invading troops and dealt Russia in the Spring and Summer of 1915 such a heavy bio#. Alone Austria not only failed to deieat little Serbia, btu was actually ignominious! y defeated; it was Germany's help and Germany's brains again that icd to the over-running of Serbia. Left alone once more, Austria crumpled up miserably before Brus.-iloff's hammerblow, and Germany's help and Germany's brains were needed to galvanise tho demoralised Austrian masses into effective resistance.

Once more, when Rumania joined the Allies and invaded Transylvania, Austria wji ■ found to be weak and unprepared, and once more deliverance came fioni Germany. So long as Germany is not defeated, so long will the supposedly crumbling Austrian Empire, witu its ten divergent and unnssiniilalile nationalities hold together, and the sooner the Allies understand the fact the less likely they are to fall into error about the situation in the. East.

Tho German*, with their idea of suzerainty over an Empire stretching as lar as Bagdad, encouraged Austria, in these ambitions, knowing that it served their aims. The Austrian Kaiser

-.l'.oui.'d liis hand quite plainly when lio seized IJoniu and Herzegovina, and (icniiany, »eeing that she was brought ss, step marcr to her dream of the con-rn.-l oi' nrddlo Kurope and Asiatic Turkey, naturally supported him. The Austrian Court consists of a nurn her of arehdocal hangers-on, some poor, some rich, hut all actuated hy one motive: how much they can make out ot t.!ir different appointments to which 11:»-v ai'e called, There are no jVwe: than -10 archdukes and their families ratt-.nmg on an Austrian Civil liist. While nili-ious of his subjects may ln> verv poor. ami even the Magyar lull• !- lords with tho threat, ucaltit derive;! I'rom their ferttfe urnm-growing on the ulains of ffun/zniy are heavily lirr'.'pni'd with debt, the Austrian Fmpernr en 11 to-day consider himself one of the ri' he-t men in Furope, with hand-rovonuc-vieldng investments ,r > t ; . .v of ri'il'.vav an.'l mining bonds.