Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-07-27

Continued from Page One
the paCifist agents from Berlin, In
spite of their thiCk-skinned persever-
anCe, met only with humiliating re.
DuffS.
Then the Berlin Government ur>i,r,i
another and better plan. 1t knew,
of course, that Austria was desperate
for peace, and that her young EN-
peror longed to deliver his people from
the horrors of war; it well knew, also,
that many Austrians, and more Hun
garians. hated Germany and secretly
preferred the Entente. and that Aus
tro-Hungarians generally were conse-
quently not so violently disliked and
diStrusted as Germans in the Allied
camps. Therefore, the German auto
Gratis said: Let us make the best use
we can of these disaffected elements
in Austro- Hungary, and advise the
Vienna Government to send them
forth to preach peace and reConcilia-
tlon: they will be all the more con-
vincing because they are sincere, and
they need not even know that it is
Germany for whom they are working.'
And Herewith set in the great inva-
sion of Switzerland by Hungarian
and Austrian fashionable
young Countesses brought up in
Partisan converts, and princely young
sportsmen educated at oxford or Cam.
bridge-holding out false hopes of dis.
affection and revolution in the realm
of the Hapsburgs, and thereby, very
often unwittingly. serving the inter
ests of Germany by weakening the
Hghtlng spirit of the Allies.
Such was Count Revertera. the
charming young Austrian diplomat
whose "a ions in tho littla
Swiss town of Fribourg led to the
disclosure of Emperor Charles's letter
to President PoinCare, admitting the
Just claims Of France to AlSaCe- or
ralne. Nay, the young Austrian En-
peror himself is being used. as this
episode clearly reveals, as a German
pacifist agent by the subtle Kaiser.
For the youthful monarch. though it
is more than likely he was quite sin
cere, at no time had the power to full
NIL the promises contained in his let.
ter, and therefore, the Entente Gov
ernments were fully justified and eX-
tremely well advised in refusing to
consider them seriously. They would
have fallen into a German peace-trap
II they had done so, for Emperor
Charles is but a puppet in the hands
of the Berlin statesmen, although in
this particular instance he certainly
exceeded his instructions, and brought
the halsers anger upon his head.
Austria's Impotence Shown
This episode of the young Emperor's
correspondence with his cousin, Prince
SiXtus of Bourbon, has definitely dis.
closed Austria's absolute impotence to
throw off the iron Prussian yoke.
But, for all that, Austro. .Hungary's
role as Germany's most seductive
pacifist agent is by no means over.
When Ludendorff finds that he cannot
destroy the French, British and
American armies, ana the German
people, exhausted and infuriated by
their losses and shattered hopes, de-
inand instant peace, Austria will again
be pushed forward by Germany to
lure the Allies into deceptive nego-
tlations. OF this l have had convinc-
ing proof during a recent trip through
switzerland, undertaken to gain fresh
impressions of the international stu.
alton for the EVENING PUBLIC LEDGER,
and which took me to the principal
Swiss centers of political intrigue, and
as far south as Lugano, on the Italian
border.
In the musty, old-fashioned library
OF secluded brick cottage on the out.