The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 1918. AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN CRISIS.

Taihape Daily Times, 25 January 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 1918. AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN CRISIS.

(With which ia incorporated The Tm liHpo I'ost mid WairmniiM News).

Opinions as to the degree of .rottenness to which the crutches of Germany had become affected are as numerous as the sands, but all the -world agreed tliat Austria and Turkey were worn so badly that they had become a source of considerable concern to the Kaiser and his lords of cultur. They had been patched and mended and varnished, still they were unserviceable, and now both seem to have broken down to a condition quite beyond repair. The time has arrived when to make them of any use to anybody they will have to be cut up and rearranged removing every part that is honeycombed with the canker of Prussianism. Yesterday's cables created a desire for more, at the same time there was much in them that proved very satisfying. The situation in Austria underwent an illumination, obviously with the consent of Austrian official censors, such' as the outer-world has not been vouchsafed since war begun, and Turkey has allowed evidence to pass out that tends largely.to convince the world that Germany can no longer depend upon Turkish soldiers to oppose even moderate Allied forces. Of all the turmoil in Austria, and the desertion of one hundred and fifty thousand Turks from Falkenhayn's boasted army at Aleppo German newspapers maintain a complete and significant silence, all except the socialist "Vorwacrts," which regards the situation with extreme gravity, and says that Austria is showing disapproval of veiled annexations of German policy. German newspapers say nothing about the Austrian crisis because the military directors are so nonplussed that they cannot issue instructions, in fact they have none to issue that are not disastrous to Prussianism. There are not wanting evid-

cnces that a crisis is imminent in Germany, oven if the curtain lias not already risen to the first act. Revolutionary feeling- is active in Bavaria, they do not care a brass farthing about Alsace, they want a peace that will for ever free them from Prussian junkerism. They say. Prussia has been our curse since 1871. Rcventlow, the blood-lustful, is even commencing to cry peccavi; he says the Kaiser will consent to suspend the sinkers of hospital ships if America expresses willingness to negotiate with Germany with a view to peace. liohcnzollcrnism is in danger of being rendered extinct and its henchman is putting out feelers to discover some avenue of escape. The true position is, most probably, that Germany has exhausted her whole stock of fireworks. The flaro-up in Italy has failed. Falkenhayn's immense army for Mesopotamia has deserted; Russia is vanity and vexation of spirit; submarines have encountered a nmv peril and German sailors refuse to man them; the silly brag about invincibility on the West Front before America is ready is appraised by the Allies at its true value; Gorman officers no longer dare punish soldiers in the old way; for desertion, even, they are not shot but merely sent to detention in the rear. Muddy scarce-Crows from German trenches tell tales of discomfort in flooded dug-outs; the whole country is water-logged rendering it very difficult to get up supplies and the men are half-starved accordingly. Facing all this is the high-spirited, well-eared for, confident British. French and American armies. When Rcventlow commences to held out the

olive branch, ■'the Hohenzollerns' are indeed sick, and a crisis in Hunland is not far off. German promises to Austria and Turkey:,have again proved worthless, and the Austrian people will no longer consent to being sacrificed in hundreds of thousands on the altars of the Hohenzollerns. The strain has reached breaking point and Emperor Carl dare no longer oppose his outraged clamant people, who, throughout his dual empire, are demanding peace on President Wilson's and Lloyd George 7 s terms, and they are raising a mighty shout "Down with Prussianism." Dissembling advocates have tried to stem this mighty tide that is overwhelming the Kaiser, but the Austrian and Hungarian proletariat is firmness itself, and there is yet much more to learn. It is a grave impasse in which the Hun military caste finds itself and the possibilities for the Allies presented thereby may be of so great, and momentous a character as to bring the war to an end with little, if any further bloodshed. While it is almost too much to hope for, there are the germs of peace present that may result in the materialisation of the unexpected. The crisis in AustroHungary will rapidly spread to the war-weary, illuscd armies on the various front.-',, and the clamour for the downing of Prussianism, and for an immediate peace on the Wilson-Lloyd George basis, will be as lusty and determined as it is in the streets of Budapesth and Vienna. An understanding between Italy and Austria may rapidly be arrived at as to national frontiers, resulting in the withdrawal, of Austrian troops from Italy and the Balkans. The Allies can furnish food to the starving strikers and their families, and a of British, French and Italian troops from Italy, over the French frontier, to the Western front, may, possibly, soon be .begun. The Allies have now the opportunity to manipulate a war weary, starving belligerent, will they do bettor than Germany has done with Russia? That, the Austro-Hungarian uprising is .quite beyond Government control is evidenced by Emperor Carl and the Government readily conceding nil that the people are clamouring for. Resignations of Ministers are refused, and seldom, if ever, has any government collapsed so dramatically to popular demands. Austrians want "Peace, bread and freedom," and all they ask has been conceded unconditionally, by Emperor and Government. Even with a most conservative review of the situation it must be allowed that Conn any is gravely concerned, and that hopes for an early peace are well within the bounds of reason.