Crescendo

Like the finale of a great symphony, the troubles of independent Austria swung higher & higher, louder & louder last week. Adolf Hitler's first anniversary in power, the day for which all Austria waited and worried, came and went with only the popping of a few harmless paper bombs in Vienna's Stephansplatz. In his anniversary speech before the Reichstag, Chancellor Hitler dismissed the Austrian crisis thus:

"To the German Government's great regret, its relations with the present Austrian Government are not satisfactory. The fault is not ours. The assertion that Germany plans to violate Austria is absurd and incapable of proof.

"But it is only natural that an IDEA which has deeply stirred and permeated the German nation would not halt at the frontier posts of a country which for centuries was an integral part of the German Empire." Two weeks late, Germany replied to Austria's plaintive note citing specific examples of German-inspired Nazi outrages in Austria. With a cavalier sweep wholly unsatisfactory to Vienna, Berlin abruptly denied all charges. Into steep-roofed Innsbruck the mobilized, armed Heimwehr marched, practically seizing control of the city. It was rumored that they had been ordered to do so to forestall a Nazi Putsch. If that was so it worked, for not a Nazi showed his head in Eastern Tyrol. But when a Heimwehr mass meeting finally was held, Heimwehr Commander Prince Ernst von Starhemberg was lamb-gentle with the Hitlerites, spent most of his time raking Chancellor Dollfuss for not living up to his September promise to end Parliamentary government in Austria.

Fortunately for Millimetternich Dollfuss, there is another Heimwehr commander who has never yet wavered in his loyalty, blue-eyed, square-jawed Major Emil Fey, Vice Chancellor. From the Dollfuss office went forth a new pronunciamento announcing that "Nazi terrorism has become so barbarous that the Government's patience is at an end." Thereupon Major Fey was given new powers to jail judges, police, city or federal authorities suspected of Nazi sympathies.

From the party that sent him first into politics, the stolid thick-necked peasants of the Lower Austrian Bauernbund, Chancellor Dollfuss got a popular demonstration to offset Nazi propaganda. By special trains 100,000 of them came up to Vienna, stomped under streaming banners eight abreast round the Ringstrasse. In the railway station the little Chancellor barked excitedly: "This shows how ridiculous is the allegation that the people are not behind the Government. . . . You are my plebiscite!"

The danger to the Dollfuss cause is not that the little Chancellor has lost popularity, but that the average Austrian fears that he may be caught on the wrong side if and when the Nazis do take over the country. Austria's future, as usual, rested abroad. A united challenge to Germany from Britain, Italy, France could save her. But Britain was too timorous, Italy dared not act alone, and France was far too deeply mired in her own political garbage to pay attention.

One other thing Engelbert Dollfuss could do and that he did last week. He announced that he would appeal to the League of Nations under Article XI* for aid and protection against Nazi Germany. The League was ready. French Secretary General Joseph Avenol assured Austria that the tables would be clear for an extraordinary League Council session on Feb. 12. That the League, having heard Austria's plaint, will be able to do any more than send a commission and publish a book, few in Europe dared to hope.

*Article XI: ". . . It is also declared to be the friendly right of each member of the League to bring to the attention of the Assembly or of the Council any circumstance whatever affecting international relations which threatens to disturb international peace. . . ."

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