Evening star., 1934-02-13
Civil War in Austria.

That Seething Central European
caldron known as Austria has at
last boiled over. The remnant of
what was once the proud Hapsburg
empire is plunged in civil war, the
result of bitter three-cornered politi-
cal strife between the rival forces of
Socialism, FaSciSm and Nazi-ism
Vienna, Linz, Graz and other cities
yesterday and last night were turned
into shambles, with troops and police
in sanguinary combat against armed
mobs bent upon pulling down the
government and destroying all vestige
Of national authority. The casualty
list is heavy. Pitched battles be-
tween Socialists and FaScists ac-
counted for hundreds killed and hun
dreds more wounded. Government
artillery is in action Gas attacks
have spread a reign of terror. Fight
ing continues over a wide area, with
the final outcome yet in doubt, de-
spite reports that the government
has the situation in hand.
If Chancellor DollfuSS and his iSo-
lated Christian Socialist" regime
survive this supreme challenge, he will
be entitled to be looked upon as a
miracle man. His principal trouble,
apart from Nazi hostility, has sprung
from his attempts to wipe out the
Socialist party. Last March the
diminutive chancellor set up a rule by
decree and dissolved Parliament. in
which the Socialists held more seats
than any other party. At the end
of yesterdays critical events in
Vienna the Dollfuss cabinet formally
decreed the long awaited abolition Of
the Socialist party, an act which is
sure to inflame Marxist passions. Re
Gently the Vienna authorities claim
to have discovered a Socialist Bolshe-
visit plot to overthrow the government
Until now Dollfuss Christian So
cialist coalition with the Fascist
Heimwehr has welded a precarious
balance of power. But factions of the
Heimwehr, headed by young Prince
Starhemberg, recently set up inde-
pendent Fascist governments in some
of the provinces in an anti-Dollfuss
protest, plainly indicating that the
chancellor can no longer depend
upon thorough support in that quar-
ter. Prince Starhemberg was once an
adherent of Adolf Hitler in Munich
'putsch" days, and the Heimwehr is
notoriously saturated with Nazi senti-
ment. The Austrian Fascists, like
their Italian and German political
brethren, preach war on the demo-
cratic system as archaic and impo-
tent. For democracy they would sub
stitute the Fascist front"
German Nazis are confident that
all this turbulence in Austria is work
ing irresistibly toward Nad-ism and
union with the Reich as the only
salvation left to the strife-torn little
state. Hitlerites contend that they
would poll Sixty-flve per cent OF the
vote in a general election. Even con-
servative observers concede that the
Nazi cause would on a crucial test
command close to majority.
Only one thing is indubitably clear
amid the desperate chaos in Aus
tria. That is that crisis has devel-
oped which calls for and inevitably
will precipitate decisive results. II
these take the form Of a Nazified
state, either loosely or closely iden-
tined with the Hitler government, the
Austrian question will automatically
become European problem, with d.
mensions and consequences utterly be-
yond the range of the predictable at
this moment.
-S-9&bS