The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1918-02-01
CENTRAL POWERS
STATE WAR AIMS.
I WASHINGTON OFFICIALS SEE NO
ADVANCE TOWARD PEACE
IN SPEECHES.
GERMANY REMAINS DEFIANT
Vaguely at Peace Without Annex
elton, and Bids for Negotia-
lions With America.

washington, Jan. 2e.-No advance
toward peace is seen in official circles
here IN the speeches made in Berlin
and Vienna by the German chancellor
and Austrian foreign minister upon
the war aims of the central powers.
Formal. comment will be withheld
until the texts are put out by an au-
thorized German agency, but after
reading press accounts of the speeches
officials expressed the opinion that
they were framed largely for internal
consumption with the incidental pur-
pose to plant seeds of discord among
the allies by suggestions of separate
negotiations, and TO appeal to the sym
pathies of the radical socialist ele-
ments in the enemy countries.
Regarding the design to affect the
internal conditions of Germany and
Austria one official suggested that
the striking differences of tone in the
two notes, the German being almost
defiantly aggressive, and the Austrian
compromising and insinuating, were
calculated precisely to meet the vary
ing conditions in the two empires. In
Germany, strengthened by Russian
collapse resulting in the transfer of
vast forces from the eastern TO the
western front, the militaristic party
is in the ascendancy and the chan
cellor abandoning the conciliatory at
titude he occupied when he assumed |
office apparently voices the will of |
the military leaders.
In Austria the working people are |
reported in incipient rebellion and the
demands for peace at almost any
price are insistent and cIamorous.
This is the explanation found here
for the foreign minister's vague prom
ises of peace without annexations or
indemnities, and his special bid for
negotiations direct with America.
1t is noted, however, that the
speeches are inter-dependent; that
Austria will not negotiate without
Germanys consent and approval, and
that Germany gives her sanction to
what has been done in Austria Both
spokesman express confidence in the
success of the peace negotiations with
Russia in contrast to the bitter de-
nunciation of the conduct of the leu
tons by Leon Trotzky, the Bolsheviki
minister of foreign affairs.
This attitude, officials and diplo-
mates believe to be the result of appre-
tension that the confession at this
moment of the failure of the Brest
.itovsk negotiations would exasperate
he German and Austrian publics be-
ond the safety point.
In some quarters there was dis
osition to find a grain of hope in
he concession by both speakers that
lere were points in the utterances of
lloyd George and President Wilson
nat might be acceptable to the Ger
lanic powers and afford the basis of
1rther discussions. But other Off =
als insisted that this was only an .
Their demonstration of the truth of a
resident Wilson's statement in his Il
ddress to congress, that it was the =,
ractice of German diplomacy to mis- al
.ad by declaring adherence to large
rinciples and then neutralize them by &,
lsistence upon details of quite an =,
-her character. A.
The present belief of the officials al
that there is not the slightest prob
)ility of compliance by the United VI
tates and the allies with the final de- la
and of the German chancellor for az
e submission by them of new pro- a
,sals for peace. til