The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1914-10-01
NIGHT END AUSTRIAN EMPIRE.
Dual Monarchy May Fail if Russian
Invasion Succeeds.


most under the walls of Paris, while
there is being decided the age long
rivalry between the Germans and the
French, it is beginning TO be appar-
ent that far of beyond the Carpath-
ians and the Vistula a conflict not
less tremendous is proceeding which
may have far more enduring conse-
quences in European States.
For ii Germany defeats France and
England there will still remain a
France and England, says the New
York Evening Sun. Napoleon could
not destroy Prussia. Austria never
succeeded in killing the national as
pirations of the Italians, but an Aus
trian defeat in Galicia may mean the
end of Austria, for Austria is not the
nation of one race or of several races
bound together by centuries of COM
mon hopes and fears, sufferings and
ideals; rather it is the combination
of peoples of many tongues ruled by
two races, in numbers the minority,
IN intelligence and power dominant.
The downfall of Austria-Hungary
has been foretold for a generation.
The death of Francis Joseph has
been fixed as the term of the Haps-
burg empire. The rise Of the Balkan
States, Of Servia, so small in area, so
large in the events of the world his
tory, has been accepted as final signs
of the coming dissolution.
If the battle now in progress, a
battle where hundreds of thousands
of men are units, shall turn against
the Austrian-and the fall of Lem
berg must be accepted as an indica-
tion of waning fortune-then as the
victorious Slav armies go forward
what of the Ruthenian and the Pole
of Galicia, the Czech of Bohemia and
Moravia, the Slovak beyond the Car
pathians? What, too, of the Serbs
and Croats along the Danube and the
Drave? Will they not welcome the
Russian as a fellow Slav, will not
Austria, inundated from the east by
victorious .Slav armies. be faced by
the uprising of 26,000,000 of Slavs
who have long and impatiently en-
dured the stupid tyranny of German
and Hungarian rulers? Such, at
least, is the question the world out
side must at present ask.
Russia's Purpose Plain.
The plain purpose of Russian mill
tary operations is now revealed. Pre-
cisely as Germany sent her whole
field army to France and kept only
screen to face Russia, the Car turn
ed only a relatively weak army
against Germany and sent his great
force over the boundaries into Aus
tria. To destroy Austrian armies, to
crush the forward thrust from Cali
cia of the whole field army of Aus
tria, precisely as the kaiser struck
at France, this was the Russian STRAIT
egy.
Successful, it is hardly possible to
eXaggerate the consequences of the
Russian strategy. The immediate ef-
feet must be to send the shattered
Austrian troops westward through
the Carpathians, out of the field of
future operations not impossibly ha-
rassed by the Galicians themselves,
Slav to a man. Meanwhile the great
bulk of Russians can flow west and
north toward Berlin. Such strength
as remains to Austria must be de-
voted to a grim defence eastward
along the Carpathians and south
ward on the Danube, where the
Serbs are coming up, anG to the re-
preston of Slav rebellion at home,
not impossibly.
But if Russia fails, if Austria at
the last wins, or even makes the bat
tie drawn, then the Russian advance
is checked from the Baltic to Buko-
vina, more millions of Russians will
have to be modified, the Austrian
and Prussian marches will have a
breathing spell. Russia will not go
to Berlin then, but must defend War
saw, strive to save Poland from the
invader.
Thus far to the west and to the
east exactly the same desperate game
is being played. Germany is stalking
everything upon success before Paris,
success which can only come with
the destruction of the enemy before
her, not from an empty siege-use-
less, even if successful, if French and
English armies remain standing.
Russia is putting the whole present
prospect of the war in jeopardy to
strike down the Austrian army,
which represents the full measure
30 CIV L.