New-York tribune., 1918-10-20
Interpreted

)
teen conditions OF peace" hes now been
Interpreted at the source. perfectly to our
satisfaction, and perhaps in the same
ratio to the dismay Of the enemy, who
should remember that much has happened
since the conditions were laid down and
that they must be interpreted in the light
Of the present.
The official Qualification is furnished
IN Secretary Lansing's note rejecting
Austrla-Hungary appeal for peace
negotiated on the basis Of the Fourteen
Articles. One of these Articles. as
Vienna hopefully observed. seemed to
guarantee the continued existence and
solidarity Of the Dual Monarchy. 1t
read:
(A) The peoples OF Austria Hungary,
whose place among the nations we wish
to see safeguarded and assured. should
be accorded the freest opportunity of
autonomous development
That represented the Presidents views
on January 8 last. But many things
have happened since January. One was
the romantic exploit of the Czecho-Slo-
yak ex-prisoners of war, who, in the
very dark hours following the Treaty of
Brest-Litovsk, turned back the tide of
Teuton conquest in Siberia and Russia.
The Czecho-Slovaks, springing from no.
where, unarmed. unequipped, fighting.
under no recognized flag, suddenly
seized the Transsiberian railroad sys-
tenn, defied the authority of the German
owned Bolshevist government, freed
Siberia and carried the war against
Teuton domination beyond the Urals
The Allied world had begun to despair
OF Russia. 1t looked on astounded at
the growing miracle of the Czecho-
Slovak Intervention. What the Allied
stats had dismissed as a military impos-
sibility these volunteers in the cause Of
freedom accomplished within few
months. They were fighting for the
common cause, but also for their own
cause. They represented an inchoate
state, without visible boundaries, but
racially and historically definable within
the boundaries of the Hapsburg empire.
lhelr great service demanded an adc-
quate recompense, and the moral sense
OF the Allied peoples responded at once
to the Czecho- -Slovak claim of indepen-
dence and nationality.
President Wilson's Tenth Article be-
came obsolete months ago. when Allied
sentiment rallied behind the creation Of
a new European state-Slovakia The
TACT of its obsolescence was admitted
last summer, when our government rec
ognlzed the Czecho-Slovak National
Council as de facto cobelligerent gov
crnment, invested with power to direct
the activities of the Czecho-Slovak
army. Latterly, too, we have given in
formal encouragement to the aspirations
OF the new Jugo-Slav state, which some
OF our European Allies have recognized.
We have thus already dismembered
the Hapsburg empire. We do not wish
to sec Its place among the nations
safeguarded." We cannot treat with
Vienna on the basis of the Fourteen
Articles. That decision was reached
long ago. Secretary Lansing is only re.
peatlng history when he tells the Aus
tro-Hungarian government that mere
autonomy for the subject peoples Of
the Dual Monarchy is no longer one
OF our peace aims. We have committed
ourselves to dissolution Of the mon-
archy-to the separation from it not
only of the Czecho- -Slovaks but of the
Jugo-Slavs, the Poles, the Rumanians
and the Italians whom it has held In
subjection
Vienna knows our purpose and that
OF our allies. Budapest knows it, too.
The Hapsburg inheritance has already
been divided. Prague is flying its own