Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/88

 “The Conference does not propose as a war aim the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary or its deprivation of economic access to the sea. On the other hand the Conference cannot admit that the claims to independence, made by the Czechs, Slovaks and the Jugoslavs, must be regarded merely as questions for internal decision. National independence ought to be accorded, according to rules laid down by the League of Nations, to such peoples as demand it, and these communities ought to have the opportunity of determining their own groupings and federations, according to their affinities and their interests.”

It is interesting to note what the Imperial-Royal Austrian Correspondence Bureau made of this paragraph in the version communicated by it to the newspapers of Austria. The text of the Austrian Bureau read: “As far as Austria-Hungary is concerned, it is declared that she is not to be dismembered or deprived of economic access to the sea. On the other hand, the conference recognizes that the aspirations of Czechoslovaks and Jugoslavs to independence should be satisfied, but that they must be treated as internal political matters.”

That, of course, is quite different from the London text. The Labor Conference, like President Wilson, does not say that Austria is not to be disrupted; it merely states that the dismemberment of Austria is not one of the war aims of the Allies. The Correspondence Bureau lies directly and intentionally, when it attempts to convince the subject-peoples of Austria-Hungary that the Allies have left their fate in the hands of the Hapsburgs. The same thing was done with Wilson’s speeches. Any expression favorable to the maintenance of the present Dual Empire was made good use of by the Vienna tricksters, while every attempt was made at the same time to convince the Slavs that the Allied statesmen took no interest in their struggles for liberation.

It would be for the benefit of America and her Allies, and it would be more in harmony with their democratic principles, if they gave up definitely all attempts to gain over the Austrian Emperor and the small coterie around him, and instead of that supported with all means in their power the revolutionary movement of the majority of the Hapsburg subjects.