Europe Since 1918

by Herbert Adams Gibbons

In the general sauve qui peut, the non-Austrians at Vienna and in the provinces suddenly discovered that a new citizenship would save them from the moral and material consequences of defeat and that attention could be diverted from their own war activities by capitalizing the world-wide distrust and hatred of the Germans to include the Austrians. The Treaty of St.-Germain punished a German-speaking people, but it was more cruel and disastrous to the Austrians than was the Treaty of Versailles to the Germans. The Treaty of St.-Germain closed the only door left open to the Austrians for rehabilitating themselves economically and for finding an opportunity of consoling themselves in their ostracism. They were condemned because they were Germans, but they were forbidden to unite with Germany.

Austria lost not only her non-German population and provinces but also one third of her German population. She was rendered militarily impotent, cut off from her access to the sea, deprived of the southern part of the Tyrol with a purely German population, made dependent upon her former provinces for food-stuffs and coal, and left without the means of manufacturing sufficient to pay for the food-stuffs and coal she would have to import. She was left saddled with the great city of Vienna, containing a population of more than 2,000,000, and every effort was made in the treaty to destroy Vienna’s one chance of making ends meet, i. e., by remaining a center of distribution on one of the world’s main trade-routes. The route of the Orient Express was changed to run by way of Venice and Triest; through express trains with Germany, the one friendly country, were forbidden; and a new regime for the Danube was created for the purpose of stifling Vienna’s Danube trade. The Austrian delegation at the Peace Conference, through its able spokesman, Dr. Renner, pointed out from indisputable statistics that the Treaty of St.-Germain condemned the Austrians to poverty and slow starvation, and pleaded either for permission to join Germany by the exercise of the right of self-determination (which was the justification of the treaty!) or for guarantees that the lost provinces should arrange to give Austria stipulated amounts of coal and food-stuffs to enable her to exist. The Peace Conference refused to admit the necessity of either alternative. On the other hand, heavy reparations in cash and in kind were inserted in the treaty.

The hopelessness of the situation in which the Peace Conference put the Austrians is demonstrated by the fact that the new Austria is a mountainous country, with less than 25 per cent of its area capable of producing food-stuffs. The hilly country is suitable for breeding cattle but is unable to provide the requirements of the people as regards meat and fat. Before the war only 14 per cent of the meat and fat consumed in Vienna came from the provinces left to Austria by the Treaty of St.-Germain. The new Austria’s forests contain soft woods. By the most optimistic calculations she can supply only one fifth of her fuel requirements. Thus manufactures are bound to languish and the people to be permanently undernourished unless Austria joins Germany or is admitted into a customs union with her former provinces. Nearly five years of despair and agony have sufficiently proved this statement. In Vienna the people feel that they are doomed.

The Entente Powers have realized that common humanity as well as policy demand that the Austrians be saved from the fate imposed upon them by the Treaty of St.-Germain. They have come to see that the geographical position of Austria makes it impossible for them to leave her to her fate, as they have done in the case of Armenia. The Succession States also are beginning to come to their senses. Statesmen are now in agreement with economists, and are willing to waive reparations payments and admit that the great highway of Europe by the Danube must continue to be traveled. When Chancellor Seipel made the rounds of the European capitals in the summer of 1922, begging for an international loan and for the indefinite postponement, if not the wiping out, of reparations claims, he was received favorably everywhere. The Entente Powers and the Succession States agreed that something must be done, and to the League of Nations was entrusted the task of helping Austria to her feet by means of an international loan. Credits recently granted Austria have enabled the Government to begin a policy of currency reform; and Viennese importers and exporters have been enabled to arrange for a sufficient exchange of Austrian products against coal and food-stuffs to prevent the country from going to pieces.

The scheme of the League of Nations for the financial reconstruction of Austria was embodied in the Geneva protocols, signed on October 4, 1922, and provides for a rigorous control of Austrian finances up to the end of 1924, when it is hoped that the budget will be balanced. The Austrian Government was required to secure from Parliament full authority for two years to go ahead without parliamentary control and to carry out financial rehabilitation—with the reforms necessary to assure it—under the supervision of a Commissioner-General appointed by the League. Dr. Zimmermann, burgomaster of Rotterdam, accepted the task and took up his work in Vienna on December 16. Not the League but Great Britain, France, Italy, and Czechoslovakia guaranteed 84 per cent of a total loan of 650,000,000 gold crowns, with Spain taking 4 per cent, Switzerland 3 per cent, Belgium 2 per cent, and Holland 1 per cent. The first four powers, however, agreed to guarantee all the first short-term loan. It was agreed that Austria should dismiss 100,000 officials before July 1, 1924, 25,000 each half-year. This drastic measure was necessary, but it will only add to the unemployment and suffering. Between the time of the signature of the Geneva protocols and the end of the year, the number of unemployed in Vienna rose from 57,000 to 120,000, and by April 1923, had reached 170,000.

The measures imposed and the aid given by the League of Nations are only palliatives. They have not solved the problem; they have only postponed for a brief time the solution. “Austria,” I was told by Dr. Grünberger, minister of foreign affairs, “is like a man whose arms and legs have been cut off, but who is all the same expected to walk and work. We are being given alms, but are told that this is just to tide us over. Tide us over to what?” Dr. Grünberger was food administrator during the trying period immediately after the war, and later minister of commerce. He has taken an active part in Austrian affairs since the first days of the republic. President Hainisch and other leaders of political and financial life express the same opinion as Dr. Grünberger, that under the conditions of the Treaty of St.-Germain Austria cannot work out any scheme of independent existence. Nor have the alms-givers presented to the Austrian Government a way of salvation. It stands to reason, therefore, that there must be either a liberal economic arrangement for interchange of raw materials, manufactured articles, coal, wood, and food-stuffs among the Succession States or union with Germany.

A conference of the Succession States, in which British and French representatives participated, was held at Porta Rosa in November, 1921, for the laudable purpose of finding a way to settle some of the practical difficulties arising from the dissolution of the Hapsburg Empire. Postal and telegraph relations and a modus vivendi for transport were arranged, but it was impossible to come to an agreement about the question vital to Austria, that of tariffs. The Succession States, including Italy, needed to arrange with Austria about communications. They did not need to trade with her so much as she needed to trade with them.

Two years have passed since Porta Rosa. Little progress has been made in the establishment of normal and reasonable economic relations among the Succession States. This is only partly due to the intractability of the emancipated Hapsburg peoples. For while there are dangers in any such arrangements where it is Hungary who would benefit, the neighbors of Austria do not have to fear from Vienna what there is reasonable ground of fearing from Budapest. Sinister outside influences are at work to prevent the consummation of the movement begun at Porta Rosa. Austria is suffering from the conflicting policies of France and Italy. France has no objection to the regrouping of the Danubian states into an economic federation, if this be necessary for the salvation of Austria. Italy, on the other hand, is determined to prevent the adoption of any plan that might lead to a Danubian federation, in which the Slavs would predominate. Rather than see this accomplished, she would prefer the union of Austria with Germany. To France and Czechoslovakia the incorporation of Austria into Germany is a contingency the possibility of which both countries refuse to admit.

But if an independent Austria is impossible, and Italy, herself the most powerful of the Succession States, blocks the way to the economic agreements Austria must have to exist apart from Germany, what alternative is there to the Anschluss (union)?

Many Austrians are opposed to the Anschluss and point out to you that there is no more reason for them to favor joining the German Empire than for Americans to favor joining the British Empire. These irreconcilables, however, admit that the Anschluss is inevitable, on the ground that Austria cannot live alone, and must be either a member of a Danubian federation or a province of Germany. They think that the latter solution is not for the best interests of their country; the prospect wounds their pride; and, from an international point of view, they see only trouble ahead for Europe in the union of their country with Germany.