Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-04-28


siav Nation.) The paper adds that
Slav Indignation is the greatest be-
cause such incidents are always hap
pening, the Germans of Austria being
even more antf-Slav than the Germans
OF the German empire.
Threat to Kill Them Off.
In the city of Graz. with a mixed
population Of slavs and Germans. the
municipal council has declared war
against the Slav element and publish ed
manifesto wherein it swears to kill
an autonomous state. which the En-
peror Karl seems inclined to form.
Such a state will cut off the Adriatic
from the Germans of Austria and ruin
the cities of the Austrian Tyrol." is the
reason given.
The influence of bolsheyikism ap-
pears to give as much uneasiness to the
German element in Austria as the Slav
aspirations for independence. The fact
| is. as several Slav prisoners lately ar
rived in Rome state. this influence is
spreading slowly but surely through
out Hungary. and may reach Austria
proper. Country districts in Hungary
are how prey to disorderly bands,
formerly prisoners of war, now bandits.
At Kiskunhalss large squads of de-
serters rob and murder. breaking into
country houses and farms, destroying
prototypes in Russia and the Ukraine.
The police ask for reinforcements. At
Szabadka two deserters murdered two
women and two children and carried
serters dress as officers and get an easy
living by fraud and rapine.
Wives Found Alien Husbands.
The arrival of ex-prisoEers of war
from Russia has not been an unmixed
joy. To begin with. the returned wan
derers have found that their wives took
other husbands. with the consent Of the
government. This system IL followed by
the Austrian government to replenish the
deserted forms with man laborers A
certain Count p, all exchanged prisoner
said that Italian and Russian soldiers.
war prisoners, were scattered up and
down Austria and Hungary and put onto
farms and allowed by the government to
was done. Of course. to make the prison,
ers forget their homes and settle on Aus
trian soil after the war was over.
1t Is an open secret that the agricul-
tural classes in Austria have suffered
most from the war, and the govern
ment has been Using prisoners to take
the places OF its own men killed in
battle.
Too Docile to Mutiny.
III itddJ, dS SouHI +. IdHueu pro-
pr!etor as well as cavalry officer-told
the correspondent, the very rumor that
such a thing was being done would be
enough to cause mutiny in the
trenches and the desertion Of thous-
ands of sturdy peasants to put their
homes in order and clear out the in
truders. But the Austrian peasant is
made of different stuff. Long centuries
Of oppression have made him docile.
Nevertheless, the return OF many from
Russia, who find that their death was
taken as matter Of course and their
wives remarked, has caused very many
down the country.
Gen. Shurway. Hungarian minister for
national defense, told representative
Of the newspaper AZ Est that he feared
the return of those men. who have al
ready done much mischief: SO he has
now started a system of moral and
political quarantine" for prisoners re-
turned from Russia, which lasts four
teen weeks. During this time the re-
turned wanderers are henceforth to
wait In concentration camps. Mean
that they are assisted to forget Rus
sian politics and their homes cleared
Of Russians and Italians who settled
there under governmental care to re-
place them on the land.
An Interpolation in the Vienna par
lament by deputies shows that these
returned wanderers are getting but a
cool welcome, and Minister CZapp, for
the national defense. justified strin-
gent measures by citing cases where
these men have been caught distribut-
and neighbors.