Treaty of peace with Austria. Letter of Allied and associated powers transmitting to the Austrian delegation the treaty of peace with Austria, together with the reply of the Allied and associated powers to the Austrian note of July 20, 1919, requesting certain modifications of the terms

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2 @ 1919 t«n«r

TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA.

Letter of Transmittal to the President of the Austrian Delegation of the Reply of the Allied and Associated Powers.

Peace Conference.

The President.

To His Excellency Mr. Renner,

President of the Austrian Delegation at Saint-Germain-eTb-Layer.

Paris, the 2nd September, 191*).

Mr. President:

1. The Allied and Associated Powers have given the greatest care to the examination of the observations formulated by the Austrian Delegation in regard to the draft of the Treaty of Peace. The objections presented to this draft in the reply of the Austrian Delegation are based on the fact that, by reason of the dissolution of the Austro- Hungarian Monarchy, Austria ought not to be treated in any respect as an enemy State and that one ought consequently not to make her bear in any special manner the burden of the reparations which would certainly have been imposed upon the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy if she had Dot ceased to exist.

The observations reveal a fundamentally erroneous conception of the responsibilities of the Austrian people. The Allied and Associated Powers shall therefore believe it necessary to indicate as briefly as possible the principles which they consider ought to be applied in the settlement, so far as Austria is concerned, of the war, which has just come to an end.

The Austrian people share in a large measure with their neighbor the Hungarian people's responsibility for the ills which Europe has suffered in the course of the last five years. The war was precipitated by the ultimatum which the government of Vienna sent to Serbia exacting acceptance within a delay of 48 hours of a list of exactions which amounted to suppression of the independence of a sovereign neighbor state. The royal government of Serbia accepted within the prescribed delay all these exactions, with the exception of those which implied virtually renunciation of its independence. Nevertheless, the Austro-Hungarian government rejected all offers of discussion and all proposals of conciliation on the basis of that reply, and opened at once hostilities against Serbia, entering thus deliberately upon the course which led straight to the world war.

It is now evident that this ultimatum was but a hypocritical pretext to begin a war which the old autocratic government of Vienna, in close accord with the Rulers of Germany, had prepared long ago, and for which it judged the moment had arrived. The presence of Austrian cannon at the sieges of Liege and Xamur is a proof more, if one were needed, of the close association of the government of Vienna with the government of Berlin in the complot against public law and the liberty of Europe.

The Austrian Delegation seems to judge that the responsibility for these acts is incumbent solely upon the Hapsburg dynasty and its satellites. To believe them, the Austrian people, by reason of the collapse of that monarchy under the blows of the victorious allies, might escape the responsibility for the acts committed by a Government which was its own and had its seat in its capital. If the Austrian people had during the years which preceded the war made efforts to repress the spirit of militarism and of domination which had animated the government of the monarchy, if it had raised an effective protest against the war, if they had refused to aid and support its rulers in the design to pursue it, one might accord some attention to this defense at the present day. But the war was acclaimed from the moment of its declaration at Vienna, the Austrian people have been from beginning to end its ardent partisan, it has done nothing to separate itself from the politics of its government and of its allies until their defeat on the field of battle, proof sufficient that conformably to the sacred rules of justice Austria should be held to assume its entire share of responsibility for the crime which has unchained upon the world such a calamity.

But there is more: the Allied and Associated Powers feel obliged to point out that the polity of the old Hapsburgs had become in its essence a polity destined to maintain the supremacy of the German and Magyar peoples over the majority of the inhabitants of the Austro-Himgarian Monarchy. This ancient and exhausted autocracy, with its militarist traditions, maintained itself, thanks to the vigorous support of the inhabitants of Austria and Hungary, to whom it assured political economic domination over their compatriots. It is this system of domination and oppression, setting the races against one another, and to which the Austrian people has given its constant support, that has been one of the most profound causes of the war. It has produced on the borders of Austria-Hungary those irredentist movements, which have fostered in Europe ferments of agitation; it has produced that state of progressive dependence on the part of Austria-Hungary on German}^, the consequence of which was the subordination of Austria-Hungarian politics to the pangermanist plans of domination ; it has culminated at last in a situation in which the chiefs of the monarchy could see no other means of preserving their own power than by attacking deliberately the liberty of a small independent state, which barred the road to Constantinople and the Orient, and which maintained spiritedly a vision of liberty amidst its oppressed brethren.

Therefore, in the opinion of the Allied and Associated Powers, it is impossible to admit the defense of the Austrian Delegation, to-wit, that the Austrian people does not share the responsibilitj? of the government which provoked the war, and that it ought to escape the dut}^ of reparation, to the extreme limit of its faculties, to those to whom, with the government it supported, it has brought such grave injury. The principles upon which the draft of the Treaty has been based must therefore hold fast. The Austrian people is, and remains until the signing of the peace, an enemy people. Peace signed, Austria will become a state with whom the Allied and Associated Powers can entertain friendty relations.

2. The Austrian Delegation has also protested against the dispositions of the Treaty dealing with the relations of Austria with the new states constituted upon the territories of the former monarchy. The Allied and Associated Powers see themselves under the obligation to note that the weakness from which Austria is going to suffer will not be the consequence of the stipulations of the treaty; it will be in consequence rather of the polity of supremacy which its people has pursued in the past.

If the polity of Austria-Hungary had been a polity of generosity and justice towards all its subjects, the states of the upper Danube might have preserved economic and political unity and amicable relations. In fact the polity of supremacy has been the cause of one of the most cruel tragedies of the late war: one has seen millions of men belonging to the peoples subject to Austria-Hungary forced, under penalty of death, to fight against their will in the ranks of an army which served at the same time to perpetuate their own servitude, and to accomplish the destruction of the liberty of Europe. Among these populations many have protested against the war, and for having protested, they have suffered the confiscation of their goods, imprisonment, or death; many others, prisoners or fugitives, have joined the armies of the allies and have played their role in the war of liberation.

Now they are all, without exception, and justly, resolved to constitute themselves into independent states. They do not want to trust themselves to Vienna. The polity of supremacy has produced its inevitable result: dismemberment, and it is this dismemberment which is the origin of all the actual difficulties of Austria. Vienna had been made the economic and political centre of the empire; everything had been artificially concentrated there: the provinces were weakened, their railways were paralyzed in order that the capital might prosper. The dislocation of Austria, in its disintegration of this economic network, until now centralized, could not fail to deal serious blows to the Austrian state and its capital, but the very dissolution of the monarchy with its consequences is the direct result of that sinister polity of supremacy of which the Austrian people bear the principal responsibility.

3. The Allied and Associated Powers have, however, no desire to aggravate the unfortunate situation of Austria. Quite to the contrary, they have a lively desire to do eveiy thing which is in their power to aid its people to accommodate themselves to the new situation and to regain prosperity, on condition, to be sure, that it be at no time at the expense of the new states issued from the old empire.

The collapse of the monarchy has given birth to many difficult problems in the relations between the new states which by the Treaty are its heirs. It has always been considered reasonable that the relations between the citizens of the new states should be regulated in certain respects differently from the relations between the citizens of Austria and those of the Allied and Associated Powers. But by reason of the observations presented by the Austrian Delegation the Allied and Associated Powers, while adhering to the general lines of the Treaty, have introduced considerable modifications in its economic stipulations. Property located in the territories ceded to the Allied Powers belonging to Austrian nationals will be turned over to the owners; such property will be exempt from any measures of liquidation or transfer taken since the armistice, and they are guaranteed similar exemption from any measure of seizure or liquidation for the future. Contracts between removed Austrians and persons who have acquired allied nationality by the Treaty remain in force without faculty of resilement. Measures are taken to assure to Austria supplies of coal from Czecho-Slovakia and Poland, which she can not do without, in exchange fQr certain raw materials. Pending questions concerning removed Austrians, which remain to be resolved between Austria and neighbor states, her heirs, will be settled by separate conventions, elaborated in conference in which Austria will be admitted on an equal footing with the other interested parties. The details of these concessions, and others still, will be found in the subjoined reply.

Finally, the Reparations Commission will receive instructions to acquit itself of the functions with which it is entrusted in an eminently humanitarian spirit. It will take into account the vital interests of the collectivity, and will authorize every alleviation which it shall consider called for by the food situation of Austria.

4. As to the territorial frontiers fixed for the Republic of Austria, the Allied and Associated Powers can not admit any essential modification of the decisions which have been already communicated. These decisions have been made after months of profound studies; and it has not found a single argument in the remarks submitted by the Austrian Delegation that had not been examined by the Conference. The Allied and Associated Powers have taken note, however, of the Austrian protest concerning the city of Radkersburg.

In a general way, the Powers have endeavored to determine the boundaries of the states issuing from the old Austro-Hungarian monarchy with an equity bound to give central Europe a durable peace. Thus they have adopted for Czecho-Slovakia the historic frontiers of the crown of Bohemia; where these frontiers are in common with those of Austria, they have not deviated therefrom but in two casesof secondary importance where the economic interests of the new states appeared, and still appear, to prevail over the claims of the Austrian Republic. In the case of Jugo-Slavia the Allied and Associated Powers have followed so far as possible the recognized linguistic frontier.

So far as concerns Hungary the Allied and Associated Powers have incorporated with Austria certain German-speaking regions comprised heretofore within the Hungarian boundaries fixed as the}' now are, they will guarantee best the existence of all the peoples interested, the Austrians included, without exposing them to anarchy or murderous rivalries.

v As to the Tyrol, the Allied and Associated Powers have been struck by the fact that during long years the Italian people have been exposed to a menace, intentionally directed against its very life. This menace resulted from the possession by Austria-Hungary of advanced military positions commanding the Italian plains. Under these conditions the best solution, in the opinion of the Allied and Associated Powers, was to grant to Italy the natural boundary of the Alps so long claimed by her.

5. The Allied and Associated Powers desire also to remind the Austrian Delegation that the Treaty of peace contains dispositions having in view the protection of small collectivities specially such as the new Austria. It will henceforth no more be possible for powerful empires to threaten with impunity the political and economic life of their weaker neighbors. The clauses relating to ports waterways, and railways assure to Austria under international guarantees access to the sea by land and water.

The clauses having regard to labor legislation will contribute to safeguard the rights of the working population and to ameliorate its conditions of existence. The treaties concerning minorities will safe--< guard the religious, political, and linguistic rights of minorities passing under another sovereignty by virtue of the Treaty of peace. The League of Nations to which the Allied and Associated Powers hope the Republic of Austria may be admitted at an early date is not only the protectress of the rights and liberties of Austria; it will protect not merely the rights of all the signatories of the Treaty; it institutes at the same time the organism by grace of which all arrangements may be made to intervene, in calm and legality, which events or new circumstances may render necessary in course of the settlement of the peace. These characteristics of the proposed settlement should not be forgotten.

6. In short, the Allied and Associated Powers desire to make it clearly understood that the modifications which they have now made in the draft of the Treaty are definitive. They mean to declare, moreover, that if they have not replied specifically to all the points in the reply of the Austrian Delegation it is not because they have not carefully examined them; neither does the absence of a reply signify that the claims formulated were accepted or approved. No more should the present reply be considered an authorized interpretation of the Treaty. The text which we send to you to-day is a continuation of that of the 20 July last, which already bore considerable changes with reference to that of the original text of the 2 June, must be accepted or rejected as the case may be.

Consequently the Allied and Associated Powers expect of the Austrian Delegation within five days, counting from the date of the present communication, a declaration making known that it is ready to sign the Treaty as it stands.

As far as this declaration is received by the Allied and Associated Powers, arrangements will be made at once for the immediate signing of the Peace at Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

In default of such declaration within the time specified above, the armistice concluded November 3, 1918, shall be considered at an end and the Allied and Associated Powers shall take all measures judged necessary to impose their conditions.

Please accept, Mr. President, the assurance of my high consideration.

Postscript. — In execution of article 179 of the Conditions of Peace with Austria, the Reparations Commission may delegate such powers as it may judge opportune to the Section constituted to deal with special questions arising from the application of the Treaty.

Pursuant:

The Commission will receive instructions that this Special Section meet normally at Vienna, and that at the shortest delay after the putting in force of the Treaty.

This Section shall act as representative of the Reparations Commission in all matters which concern the resources and capacities of

Austria; it shall receive all informations of which it may be in need and which are provided for by article 182 of the Conditions of Peace.

It shall be charged " to hear all arguments and testimony presented by Austria on all questions touching its capacity of payment." (Annex II of Part VIII.)

To facilitate the production of these documents and testimonies, Austria shall be represented before the Section by a Commissioner, who shall be called to the sessions of the Section every time the latter may consider it necessary, but who shall not have the right to vote.

It sha^ll follow the financial arrangements entered upon between the governments concerned under the conditions fixed by article 211, and designate arbitrators upon demand of the governments concerned.

Reply of the Allied and Associated Powers to the Remarks of the Austrian Delegation upon the Peace Terms.

[Translated from the French.] Part II.— FRONTIERS OF AUSTRIA.

The Allied and Associated Powers, having been called upon to sanction the spontaneous disruption of the former Austro-Hungarian monarchy, have found that the breaking up of the secular bonds connecting the different parts of that State had not been brought about everywhere in the same way. They have deemed that they could not insm*e for their work of reconstruction a better guarantee of justice and permanency than in heeding the lesson of events and in adhering in each case to the principle which, violated by the Union, had rendered the separation necessary.

Such is the spirit in which they have, since the convening of the Conference, studied the future frontiers of the Republic of Austria, with due regard to the historical, geographical, ethnical, and political aspects of the question. The}' have examined most carefully the remarks which the Austrian Delegation has presented on the frontiers that were made known to it on June 2nd, and have given them consideration in the final peace terms presented on July 20th. They believe consequently that the counter proposals contained in the memorandum of August 6th have not brought any new argument to bear in the case, nor have they justified in any wise the Powers in changing, save on one point, the decisions which they had arrived at concerning the frontiers of the Republic of Austria as these were determined in the peace terms.

I. FRONTIER BETWEEN AUSTRIA AND THE CZECHO-SLOVAK STATE.

In the course of the last hundred years, the Czech nation had been gradually dispossessed of the rights that a long series of formal acts, imperial rescripts, and decisions of sovereign diets had granted them while its independence was restricted by a regime of subservience, its moral integrity had to resist the Germanizing process which had spread from the territories of the German race.

The Czech nation, wronged and threatened, has appealed to the Allied and Associated Powers to restore to that nation all its rights in full. They have therefore thought proper to preserve as far as practical their historic frontiers to the old Czech provinces of the crown of Bohemia. They have deemed that the German speaking people living on the horders of these provinces ought to remain connected with the Czech peoples in order to cooperate with them in the development of the national unity in which history has associated them. The Allied and Associated Powers have deemed that this national unity would be best insured through an economic unity which the imperial and royal administration had failed to realize. They have endeavored, therefore, to insure to the Czecho-Slovak State a complete system of ways of communication. In doing so, they had to overstep slightly the historic frontier in two points; namely, in the region of the Thaya, in order to include in the Czecho-slovak territory the line Ludenburg-Feldsberg-Znain, necessary for the west to east communications of southern Moravia, and in the region of Gmiind, in order to effect in Bohemia the junction of two trunk lines which run almost wholly through the said province, namely, the line of Prag through Tabor, and that of Pilsen through Budweiss.

II. FRONTIER BETWEEN AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY.

The Allied and Associated Powers have deemed it just to affect to Austria the districts of western Hungary inhabited by a German population and whose agricultural products form an important element of the food supply of Vienna and other centers. The line that they have established and communicated to the Austrian Delegation on the 20th of July, follows very nearly the ethnographic limits, notably in the region of the St. Gothard. However there remains outside of this (ethnographic) limit the neighborhood of Pressburg. In this case the Powers have been preoccupied with guaranteeing to the Czecho-Slovaks access to the sea. They have desired, consequently, that the great market of Moravia, Pressburg, should have its communication with the Adriatic assured through Hungarian as well as Austrian territory.

They have, therefore, left in Hungarian territory the Cserna- Szentjanos-Hegyeshalem railroads and judged it impossible to cut it in order to validate the Austrian claim to the District of Weiselburg. Within the frontier so fixed, the ethnic character and the national sentiment of the populations indicate too positively their attachment to Austria for the Allied and Associated Powers to believe it necessary to have recourse to a plebiscite, or, in any case, to participate in the organization and the surveillance of this consultation if Austria should proceed to one.

III. BOUNDARY BETWEEN AUSTRIA AND THE SERB-CROAT-SLOVENE

STATE.

The policy of assimilation pursued by the imperial and royal administration in regard to the Slavonic race, has been one of the causes which have prevented the formation of a moral unity at the heart of the old monarchy. But under the oppression of functionaries strangers to their race, deprived of schools teaching their language, overwhelmed by the immigration of state employees and laborers, the Slovenes have, however, kept intact their national aspirations. The Allied and Associated Powers have recognized the right of these Slav populations to partake the destinies of a Slav State. The application of this principle presents itself under different conditions in Stvria and in Carinthia.

The Associated and Allied Powers have considered that the Marburg basin, in its geographical, ethnographical, and economic unity, ought to be united to the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. They maintain that this natural region, indented to the west by the Balkan range, communicates as easily with the Slav countries of the South as with the Austrian countries and opens itself widely towards the East, by the valley of the Drave, which even to its confluence with the Danube never ceases to be within Scrb-Croat-Slovene territory.

They recognize that certain cities, notably Marburg, are German in character. But they maintain that the Slovene element distinctly dominates in the rural population, where the action of the authorities succeeds only with difficulty in creating factitious majorities they consider that despite the efforts of the former Austrian administration to deflect from Hungary the commercial current of these regions, the market of Marburg was formerly in close economic relations with Croatia. They consider that their relations will naturally become closer following a political reattachment to the Serb-Croat-Slovene State, while the relations with the North created by the attraction of the Austrian capital will be relaxed.

The Allied and Associated Powers have, however, taken account of the Austrain protest concerning the city of Radkersburg, that the ethnographic and economic conditions appear to orient toward Austria rather than toward the Serb-Croat-Slovene State.

They are convinced that their solution so amended responds at the same time to the sentiment and to the interest of the majority of the populations.

CARINTHIA.

The Allied and Associated Powers admit the geographical unity of the basin of Klagenfurt and recognize that this region closed at the South by the basin of the Karawanken has easy relations with the North. They distinguish on the other hand a very distant line of ethnic demarcation, constituted by the Gurk, the Glan, the Glanfurt, and the Worthersee, the Slovene element dominating at the East and at the South of this line, the German element to the West and to the North. In short, they decree that the ways of communication constructed in the interior of the basin by a centralized administration converge near the market of Klagenfurt and that so far the economic orientation of this region has been directed toward the North.

In these conditions they have decided to grant to the population all latitude for conforming and according their economic interests with their national aspirations and to decide if they will, or will not, maintain their regional unity, and in this case remain united to Austria, or join the Serb-Croat-Slovene State.

Such is the idea that has controlled the decision to organize the plebiscite. The Powers have sought, in placing the entire basin under the control of their representatives to surround this consultation with all necessary guarantees for a free expression of the peoples will.

They have, in view of the plebiscite, divided the basin, following the line of ethnic demarcation in two zones, each of these zones, which will be called to give a vote as a whole, comprises a nearly homogeneous population and will be able, if the separation becomes definitive to reconstitute its economic unity in close liaison with the State with which it decides to follow the destinies. The reasons which have led them to arrange for a delay between the two votes against which the Austrian Delegation protests, seem convincing. If the first zone declared for an attachment to Austria it would be useless to consult the second as geographic conditions would prohibit the choice of a different destiny. The Allied and Associated Powers recognize as well founded the observations of the Austrian delegation in regard to the water supply of Klagenfurt. They have inserted in the Treaty an article 310, guaranteeing to the city water necessary for drinking, and for the functioning of the factories by electricity.

IV. BOUNDARY BETWEEN AUSTRIA AND ITALY.

The Allied and Associated Powers consider that no modification should be made in the boundary line between Italy and Austria which has been presented to the Austrian Delegation in condition of the Peace terms. Also that it is shown by the very positive declarations made by the President of the Council of Ministers of Italy, to the Parliament of Rome, the Italian Government proposes to adopt a generous and liberal policy toward its new subjects of the German race, as concerns their language, their culture, and their economic interests.

Section I. Italy

In the -'redaction'' which follows the observation presented by the Austrian Delegation, modifications are proposed to article 4Cf (46) and 44 (50) without any argument being presented to their support. It is out of the question to touch article 40 (46) . One could not impose upon the Italian government the obligation of paying for a palace that it has claimed b} r perfect right as property of the old republic of Venice. The transfer of this palace should have taken place when Venice was incorporated in the Kingdom of Italy. Particular circumstances of an exclusively political character alone have prevented until now the carrying out of this claim. As to article 44 (50), the disposition of the last paragraph relative to Lake Raibl, has no other end than of guaranteeing to Italy the full enjojanent of the use of the waters of this lake to the exclusion of every contrary protection, either of Austria or of its nationals.

In these conditions, the proposition of the Austrian Delegation, which is otherwise not justified, appears unfounded.

SECTION V (i). PROTECTION OF THE MINORITIES.

The Allied and Associated Powers have received the observations of Austria concerning Section 5 of Part III of the Peace terms containing articles for the protection of minorities. They' remark that the Austrian Delegation appears to be in accord with the Allied and Associated Powers in deeming that the stipulation of these guarantees in favor of race minorities, of language and of religion, will very much aid in establishing relations between the peoples of Europe. The Austrian commentary evidences a desire to cooperate in the solution of one of the most difficult and most complex problems of Europe. The amendments suggested by the Austrian Delegation concerning these clauses have been carefully examined by the Allied and Associated Powers. The observations bear especially upon the two clauses which have relation to the enforcement by the League of nations of the guarantees given to the minorities. The Austrian Delegation recognizes that this right for the League of nations constitutes a question of international interest and it is in accord with the Allied and Associated Powers in recognizing the necessity of conferring upon the League of nations the necessary power to safeguard the stipulated guarantees. The Austrian Delegation has criticized the wording of article 62 (79) and 60 (87) relating to the League of nations and has directed attention to some doubts which might arise in the application of these articles. The desires of the Austrian Delegation will be in a large measure satisfied if these clauses are conformed to the analogous clauses already introduced in the Treaty between the Principal Allies and Associates and Poland. It seems that this Delegation may also desire the duties imposed upon the Austrian State, in so far as possible, identical with those undertaken by the other states composing the old Austro-Hungarian empire.

The Allied and Associated Powers have, therefore, modified these articles to make them agree with the clauses inserted in the Treaty with Poland. As revised, these clauses define more precisely the jurisdiction of the League of nations and the procedure in its exercise. The old wording has been criticized because it allowed the League of nations to intervene in a difference between the Austrian state and a particular [one of its members]. From the present Treaty, it will now clearly appear that the Council of the League of nations will only act upon the request of a state which is a member of the Council. The conferring of jurisdiction upon the Permanent Court of international justice established under the League of nations underlies the juridical character of the differences which can be raised and fully responds to the desire of Austria of restraining the possibilities of political intervention in this case. Thus disappear apppearances of contradiction between the old article 87 which limited the protection of the League of nations "to the clauses which have to do with racial, religious, and linguistic 'minorities' and the old article 79 which conferred jurisdiction upon all the obligations contained in the present Section.' 1