Norwich bulletin., 1919-09-03
ALLIED REPLY TO THE.
 AUSTRIAN DELEGATION


 ! as president of the council, follows: | Draft of the Covering Letter; CD | the allied and associated powers have l given most careful consideration to i the observations of the Austrian del- 1 cgation the draft treaty of peace. | The reply of the Austrian delegation | objects to the draft treaty on the 1 grounds that in view of the dlsSolu- | tion of the Austro- Hungarian monar- | chy, Austria ought not to be treated as an enemy state at all and that, in consequence, she ought not to be made in any special way inheritor of re- responsibilities in regard to reparatlon, to which the AustrO- Hungarian mon | archy would be liable. did it still ex- ist.
 AS these observations point to fundamental misconception of the re- responsibilities of the people of Aus tria, the allied and associated powers feel it necessary to state as briefly as may be the principles which they consider must be applied to the set clement of the late war so far as Aus
 tria is concerned. The people of
 Austria, together with their neigh
 bors the people of Hungaria, bear in
 peculiar degree responsibility for
 the calamities which have befallen Europe during the last five years.
 Austria Precipitated War.
 The war was precipitated by an ultimatum presented to Serbia by the government at Vienna and requiring
  of demands which amounted to the destruction of the independence of a neighboring sovereign state The royal government of Serbia accepted within the prescribed time all the de- mands except those which involved the virtual surrender of it's independ- ence.
 yet the then Austro- Hungarian government, refusing all offers of a conference of conciliation on the bas- is of that reply. immediately opened hostilities against Serbia, thereby de- liberately setting light to d train, which led directly to a universal war.
 Tt is no tevident that this ulti- matum was no more than an insincere excuse for beginning a war for which the late autocratic government at Vienna, in close association with the rulers of Germany, had long pre- pared and for which it it eonsidered the Austrian guns at the siege of Liege were required, of the intimate as sociation of the government of Vien- na with the government of Berlin in i it's plea .tplot?) against public law and l the liberties of Europe.
 People of Austria Responsible.
 '.The Austrian delegation appear to think that responsibility for these acts | rested solely on the Hapsburg dynas- ! ty and it's satellites, and that by req 1 son of the dissolution of that monar- | s the people of Austria can escape re- 1 sponsibilty for the deeds of the gov l ernment. which was their own gov ; ernment and which had it's home in i their capital
 Had the people of Austria in the l years preceding endeavored to curb | the miiitarist and domineerinS spir- | it by which the government of the they made any effective protest against the war, refused to assist 1 or support their rulers in prosecuting it. some attention might now be paid to this plea. But the fact that the war was acclaimed on its outbreak in Cienna. that the people of Austria were it's ardent supporters from start to finish and that they did nothing to dissociated themselves from the policy of their government and it's al- lies until they had been defeated in the field, makes it clear that. ac- cording to any canon of justice, they ure of responsibility for crime which has brought such misery on the world.
 People Suppored Autocraey.
 "There is, however, a further fact to which ahe allied and associated powers feel bound to point. The Hapsburg system became in it's es- sence asystem maintaining the as- cendancy of the German and Magyar peoples over a majority of tn einhab- irantS Of the rO-1unSarldn mon l archy. This ancient and effete au- tocracy with it's militarist traditions, was maintained in existence through the vigorous support of the inhabit- ants of Austria and Hungary because it gave to them a position of political and economic domination over their fellow subjects.
 Tt was a policy of radical ascend ancy and oppression 10 which the peo- pie of Austria gave their steady sup port which was one of the deeper causes of the war. It led to those ir- ridentist movements along the iron tiers of Austria and Hungaria, which kept Europe in a ferment of unrest; it led to the growing dependence of Austria Hungary on Germany, and to the subordination of the Austro- Hungarian policy to the German plans of domination, and, in the end, it led to a situation in which the rulers of Austro- Hungarian mon archy could see no other way Of pre- serving their own power than to set to work deliberately to destroy the liberty of small and dependent na- tions. which kept avile the vision of liberty among their oppressed breth- ren and which blocked the way to Consta ntinople and the east.
 Draft of Treaty Must Stand.
 'In the opinion, therefore, of the al jed and associated powers. it is i'm possible to admit the plea of the Aus -rian delegation that the people of AuStrla OO not SndTe IHe TeSpOnSlDlllly l 1f the of the government which pro- : voked the war. or that they are to es- cape the duty of making repara ton to the utmost of their ca apacity to l hose whom they and the government they have sustained, SO grievously The principles upon which ( he draft treaty is based must there lore stand. ii
 Until the signing of the peace, the ( people of Austria are, and will remain, , m enemy people; upon it's sigma ture ( hey will become a state with whom whom the allied and associated powers $ lOpe and expect to maintain friendly , citations.
 "(2) The Austrian delegation havel , urther protested against the arrange nents under the treaty governing heir relations with the new states