The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 1913. AUSTRIA’S DESIGNS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 81, 12 April 1913, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 1913. AUSTRIA’S DESIGNS.

A leading French journal claims to lie in possession of tlio key to Austria’s secret designs, the only outward sign of which is the mobilisation of the Austrian army. Speaking of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, this authority states that ho is preparing for a coup d’etat in Austria-Hungary. The reason given is that Vienna, has at this moment two policies and two chiefs; a policy of peace inspired by the aged Emperor and defended by diplomacy, and the policy of war pursued by the Crown Prince and backed by military circles. If the latter desires war, it is not for the pleasure of training his army and aggrandising his frontiers, or a lowering of Serb pride, or keeping beneath his menage the young people of the Balkans; his dream is loftier. Judging his country to have reached the decisive moment when it must live or die, be split u]) or awake to greater powers, this Prince, who numbers Charles V. among his ancestors, has conceived a mighty plan. He thinks of setting free all those people who, discontented and at variance, make up the monarchy; of restoring the ancient kingdom known to history, establishing new Principalities, and thus the great federation of States comprising the Kingdom of Hungary, the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Poland, with their personal chiefs and their autonomy, Senna with its frontiers expanded by victory and then increased by Slavonia, Montenegro increased by a portion of Dalmatia and Herzegovina. All these provinces erected into Duchies, Principalities, and Kingdoms, he would group free, vigorous and contented, in a vast Empire under the crown of the Hapshurgs. It would be the reconstruction, no longer of the Holy Roman Germanic Empire. but of the Slavonic Empire of the South, outside Berlin and St. Petersburg. Thus, then, we are told is the great underlying motive of Austria’s disquieting attitude in the Balkan settlement negotiations. The Vienna correspondent who tells this

story adds significantly that if Austria’s dream were realised, this new Slav Empire would make short work with the political forms oi Europe and the play of Alliances. Peace would be assured in the Near East; we would doubtless assist at the rupture of treaties and at the sensational snapping of friendships; but Berlin and St. Petersburg, already in

close diplomatic relations, would bo thrown into each other’s arms, and perhaps wo should witness that historic event which to-day seems a chimera—a Franco-Austrian Alliance, Austria being that new and fraternal country desired hv the Crown Prince.