Our entire military and political situation has reached a climax. The next few months will bring a big decision. I am firmly convinced the decision on the battlefield will be in favor of Austria and her allies. Our economic, especially our food, conditions are very serious, but they are not at all desperate. To hold on now to a final happy decision is the vital question for the State. It therefore is necessary that, unhampered by Parliamentary confusion, the Government be left in a position to devote all its strength to these tasks.
FOOD SHORTAGE
The Austro-Hungarian Empire was at that time facing a dozen different crises, all aggravated by the problem of food. Even the racial animosities, always threatening to overturn the unstable rule of the German and Magyar minority over the Slavic majority, was inflamed into bitterness by sectional jealousies over food distribution. These crises reached a culmination in the decision of the Government to prorogue Parliament.
What straits the empire had reached were partially revealed by the Premier's speech to the party leaders, and also by the German official statement that all food supplies from the Ukraine during the month of May would be given to Austria-Hungary, on account of its greater need. Still more significant was Dr. von Seidler's admission, made public on May 4, that Austria was unable to feed the populations of North Tyrol and Northern Bohemia, and that he had, therefore, consented that the former be attached for provisioning purposes to Bavaria, and the latter to Saxony. This concession, the dispatch added, had been wrung from him by leaders of the German parties after a conference lasting six hours. It meant that for food supply purposes these portions of Austria were being annexed to Germany. The Austrian Government yielded with the greatest reluctance, realizing that the political consequences might be far-reaching. It was pointed out that this would accentuate the feud between the German and non-German races in Austria-Hungary, since the provinces affected are German-speaking, and would strengthen the agitation for the incorporation of Austria into a German federation.
The meeting of the German and Austrian Emperors at the German Great Headquarters on May 12 did not tend to allay fears of this nature. Though the results of the meeting remained secret, the belief was expressed in many quarters that it had constituted a formal acknowledgment of the subservient relations of Austria-Hungary toward the German Empire.
MARTIAL LAW IN PRAGUE
Shortly after the beginning of the war the Hungarian authorities suppressed the Slovak press almost in its entirety. Thus the Slovaks came to depend upon the Czech newspapers of Bohemia for their political and other information. On May 5 the Hungarian Government issued an order forbidding Czech newspapers from Bohemia and Moravia to circulate in Slovakia.
The whole Czech and Slovak population, indeed, was seething with hostility to the Imperial Government and its war policies. Prague, the capital of Bohemia, had become a centre for leaders of the Czecho-Slovaks, Jugoslavs, and Poles in their agitation for independence. Demonstrations of an anti-German character became frequent, and Czechs and Jugoslavs paraded the streets shouting "Long live Wilson, Clemenceau, and Lloyd George!" The manifestations against the Austrian State began afresh on the evening of May 17, when the police made arrests, and culminated on May 20, when the Government declared Prague under martial law. All political meetings were prohibited, and the police issued a proclamation announcing that any further disorders would be met with violent measures.
One of the events that had aroused popular hostility was the suppression of the Czech newspaper Narodni Listi. The last copy of this paper contained the text of the oath taken at Prague by the Czecho-Slovak, Jugoslav, and Polish journalists, as follows:
Gathered at Prague while the world war has made necessary a new reorganization of the world on the basis of a higher authority given to the people, we proclaim that we shall remain in the front line of battle for the freedom of peoples, that we shall fight together in favor of each other's interests, that we shall repulse together any despotic measure, and that we shall denounce together the oppression of the Austrian State.
We want to promote together the confidence of our people in the achievement of their aspirations, to encourage them to express their will more positively.
We raise our right hand and solemnly swear that we shall give all that we own, all our strength, all our possessions, for the liberation of our people and for the achievement of the political unity of the Czecho-Slovak people, the political unity of the Jugoslavs, and the political unity of the Polish people.