NOTES
aim save to attain a peace acceptable to Austria, and that he is just the man for our time, the man upon whom you can all rely. He will not on any account allow the peace negotiations to break down, unless quite impossible demands are made of him. . .”
On 25 January, in the Austrian Delegation, Count Czernin himself made the following witty comment:—” Dr. Stransky, in his speech, expressed regret and sympathy for me at the comparison between me and Trotski. Now, I am convinced that Mr. Trotski, when he reads Mr. Stransky’s speech, will be very disagreeably impressed, and I do not complain of this at all, because I am not so conceited as to think that any one must needs be pleased at being compared to me. I confess, however, that it is also not my ambition to resemble Mr. Trotski, and in one point there is certainly a difference between him and me. We both of us—and that is a remarkable coincidence—went back to our representative homes in order to obtain a vote of confidence from our respective constitutional bodies. Mr. Trotski failed to obtain this, and as a necessary result he collected machine guns and broke up the Constituent Assembly. If you do the same to me I shall not fetch any sailors, I shall resign. I leave it to you to decide which course is more consistent with freedom and democracy.”
No one with any democratic feeling will deny that Mr. Trotski richly merited this rebuke: but we cannot leave the subject without reminding our readers that Count Czernin knows better than most men how effectually the sham constitutional arrangements of Hungary, and to a lesser degree of Austria, prevent all possibility of self-determination on the part of the non-German and non-Magyar races.
We note that the Nation (9 February) quotes the former extract without the latter.
The Smuts Mission
On 7 February Justice published a note, entitled “Secret Diplomacy and Secret Betrayal,” in which the writer revealed the fact of General Smuts’ recent mission to Switzerland in the following sentence: “We have known for the past two weeks and more that General Smuts was engaged, as a member of our War Cabinet, in negotiations for peace with Austria, who was represented by Count Mensdorff.” The result of these conversations must have been disconcerting to the Government. And we hope that Downing Street has now learned, what is evident to all well-informed people, that a separate peace with Austria is not only undesirable, but unobtainable except on impossible terms. Rumour has it that General Smuts offered inducements to Count Mensdorff which were a flagrant violation of German rights: and we are not surprised that, in consequence, Counts Hertling and Czernin addressed their subsequent speeches over the head of the British Government to President Wilson. The only result of the Smuts’ mission has been to suggest to Germany that Great Britain is more ready to give up the struggle than she thought. Count Hertling’s arrogant tone is the measure of the ineptitude of this latest adventure in secret diplomacy.
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