Abstract

I. The Strangling of Austria

One who would fully understand what the Peace Conference, in the mingled fatuity and vindictiveness of its policy, has been capable of doing should go to Austria. Of all the pitiable and tragic spectacles which a once rich, proud, and prosperous state has ever presented, of none so pitiable and so tragic as that which this remnant of the former Hapsburg possessions now embodies. On the principle that ancient wrongs, of however long standing, must be forcibly righted, and that non-German peoples long under the control of the Dual Monarchy shall be given independence and the boon of self-determination, there has been left under the name of Austria a state comprising only about one-fourth of the territory and one-fourth of the population formerly included in Austria-Hungary.