THE NEW EUROPE
FRENCH OPINION AND THE AUSTRIAN QUESTION
French Opinion and the Austrian Question
During the last year French public opinion has undergone a great change. At the beginning of the present year the eyes of the French people were still fixed on Germany, in whom they saw their main enemy, and whose destruction was the first task to be accomplished. The events of the war have shown that even though, in a sense, this was true, nevertheless, it gave a wrong focus to the truth. It was demonstrated that Germany's attack was directed not so much against the West as against the East; that she crushed Serbia in order to reach Turkey, Mesopotamia, Arabia, and Egypt. Furthermore, it has been shown that, in order to carry out this plan, Germany had an absolute need of Austria-Hungary, whose political control she took great pains to acquire. Gradually the conviction began to gain ground that the purpose of this war could not be the destruction, but rather the weakening, of Germany by crushing her militarism, and that this would only be possible by depriving her of the support gained from her Allies, and especially from Austria-Hungary.
The first article containing ideas of this kind was published last February in the Matin, and from that time it has repeatedly been pointed out in great detail how Germany, step by step, has gained control of Austria-Hungary, and how Germanization and terrorism now reign supreme. When in June 1916 Russia began her new offensive, everybody saw clearly that the defeat of Germany would come from the East, and that the more completely Austria-Hungary was crushed, the greater would be her German taskmaster's defeat. This development of French thought reached its high-water mark quite recently, when the French press openly discussed the question of the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary, and displayed an
increasing interest in the complicated problems involved. This press campaign was caused mainly by the successes of General Brusilov and by the Austro-Hungarian defeat on the Isonzo front. Rumours as to the possibility of Roumania's intervention on the side of the Allies also compelled the French press to give serious thought to the fate of Austria-Hungary. This was only natural in view of the obvious facts that the Dual Monarchy is at war with four neighbours, each of whom desires to tear off a
73
