New-York tribune., 1919-09-03
Allies Reject
Austl'ia's $ Plea
For Clenency
Continued from page 1

be the principles which they consider
must be applied to tho settlement of
the late war SO far as Austria is con-
cerned. The people of Austria, to-
gether with their ncighbors, the people
of Hungary, bear in a peculiar degree
have befallen Europe during the last
five years.
Responsibility Pointed OUT
"rhe war was precpitated by an ul-
timatum presented to Serbia by the
government at Vienna and requiring
acceptance within forty eight hours Of
series of demands, which amounted
to the destruction of the independence
of 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 independence
Yet the then Austrian government,
refusing all offers Of conference of
onciliation on the basis of that reply,
Immediately opened hostilities against
Serbia, thereby deliberately setting
light to a train which led directly to a
universal war.
ut is now evident that this ultima
tnm was no more than an lnsincere
excuse for beginning a war for which
the late autocratic government at
Vienna, in close association with the
rulers of Germany, had long prepared
and for which it considered the time
had arrived. The presence of Austrian
guns at the siege of Liege and Namur
is further proof, if proof we're required,
of the intimate association of the gov,
ernment of Vienna with the govern
ment of Berlin in its plot against pub
lie law and the liberties of Europe.
The Austrian delegates appear to
think that responsibility for these acts
rested solely on the Hapsburg dynasty
and its satellites, and that by reason
of the dissolution of that monarchy
through the victory of the Allies, the
people of Austria can escape response
bllity for the deeds of the government,
which was their own government and
which had its home in their capital.
Plea Not Borne Out
"Had the people of Austria in the
years preceding endeavored to curb
the militarist and domineering spirit
by which the government Of the Haps-
burg monarchy was animated, had they
made any effective protest against the
war, or refused to assist or support
their rulers in prosecuting it, some at
tentlon might now be paid to this
plea. But the fact that the war was
acclaimed on it's outbreak in Vienna,
that the people of Austria were its
ardent supporters from start to finish
and that they did nothing to dssociate
themselves from the policy of their
government and its allies until they
had been defeated in the field, make 8
1t clear that, according to any canon
OF justice, they must be held to bear
their full measure of responsibility
for crime which has brought such
misery on the world
There is, however, further fact to
which the Allied and associated powers
feel bound to point The Hapsburg
system became in its essence a system
maintaining the ascendancy Of the Ger
man and Magyar peoples over major
lty of the inhabitants Of the Austro-
e1fete autocracy, with it's miltarist
traditions, was maintained in existence
through the vigorous support of the
inhabitants OF Austria and Hungary
because it gave to them position of
political and economic domination over
their fellow subjects.
Supported Prussian Domination
at was policy of racial ascendancy
and oppre to which the people of
Austria gave their steady support, which
was one of the deeper causes of the
war. 1t led to those irridentist move
ments along the frontiers of Austria
and Hungary, which kept Europe in a
ferment Of unrest. 1t led to the grow
ing dependence Of Austria Hungary on
! Germany, and consequently to the sub
ordination Of the Austro- -Hunga rian
policy to the German plans of domina-
tion, and, in the end, it led to a situa-
tion in which the rulers of the Austro-
Hungarian monarchy could see no other