It is safe to say that at no time during the war did the British people ever entertain any feelings of animosity towards those of Austria-Hungary. They were sincerely sorry that the long-standing friendship between the two countries was broken by a quarrel for which neither was to blame; their respective armies never faced each other until comparatively late in the war: and the desire of the people of Great Britain to help in the rehabilitation of their old friends was proved by the fact that they recently took up by far the greatest part of the Austrian reconstruction loan, double that, if we remember rightly, even of wealthy America. These feelings of friendship were amply reciprocated in the domains of the late Emperor Francis Joseph, as Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett tells us in his most readable and interesting book. But there was a period after the war when their readiness to duke friends again was changed into very bitter feelings. Both Austrians and Hungarians, he tells us, believed that it would be fully understood that they had been dragged into the war in spite of themselves; they never believed that they would be held responsible for it and have it so cruelly visited upon them. They suffered abominably on the field of battle and even worse after the armistice. The picture painted by (Mh. Ashmead-Bartlett in his opening pages, of the general starvation that he found in Vienna when he visited it in 1919, is heartrending. And as if this were not enough, the "Big Four" in Paris proceeded to dismember-and split up and rearrange in pursuit of that will-o'-the-wisp of self-determination, disregard for all economic facts that brought Central Europe to appalling political chaos and the verge of a financial disaster from which it is but just beginning to escape. Since those early days a better appreciation -of Austria's state has come to Western Europe; she has made the most gallant efforts to recover herself and with help from outside one hopes that old friendships may be restored. But it is not easy to read this record of things as they were in' 1919 without blushing.
Mr, Ashmead-Bartlett's story of the reign of Bela Kuhn, Moscow's envoy, and his fellow-Bolshevilks in. Hungary is intensely interesting. He was "right on the inside" as the saying is, knew all the members of the Soviet gony personally and played no small part in their final overthrow. The story of how he assisted in capturing, for the counter-revolt tionists, the 135 million crowns, which were part of the Bolshevist war chest, is one of the most amusing In the book. Of Bela Kuhn and his colleagues it may be said quite dispassionately that, judging. by their portraits, every one of them deserved to be shot at sight. And yet they had their human side. (Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett gives a most entertaining account of a dinner party to which they invited him when they talked of the wild things they meant to do, very much like a lot of children planning a holiday. Unlike children, however, they all got very drunk, the author only saving himself from a like fate by pouring the wine away when no one was looking. The one Bolshevist for whaur Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett can find nothing good to say was Szamuelly, who was a merely a destroyer, the enemy of all constituted authority. He longs for bloodshed and plunder. One is happy to add that he was ultimately shot. The "Big Four'? made a very nearly fatal mistake in sending General Smuts examine the situation. The Polshevist were overjoyed at what they regarded and advertised as a mark of recognition. However, Smuts was wise enough to accept no hospitality of any kind in Budapest and the counter-revolutionists ultimately settled the Bolshevik question independently of the Big Four. The latter, however, never ought to have permitted the subsequent invasion of Hungary by the Rumanians who ravaged and plundered with incredible ruthlessness.
The concluding sections of the hook give a poignant account of the unhappy Emperor Karl's attempts to regain the throne of Hungary, which were mainly defeated by the disloyalty of the leading Hungarians, whom he had every reason to believe pledged to himself, and by the veto of the Big Fow'. Why they refused to permit Karl to remain King of Hungary is one of "those things no feller can understand," for neither he nor his court could ever have been a danger from the standpoint of possible war, the people longed for him and a country less adapted for democratic institutions than Hungary. it would be difficult to imagine. Here again one cannot read without indignation. Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett has given us a most interesting book, which should be a useful contribution to history: But more and more one wonders what guided the counsels of the Allies "n Paris, in' 1919.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.