AUSTRIA: Border War

Astute little Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss sipped his cup of rich Viennese chocolate with special relish one morning last week. He had just played off against Germany three great powers, Britain, France and Italy.

Little Dollfuss’ main job today is to stop the dropping of Nazi leaflets from German airplanes upon Austria, to silence Hitlerite radio appeals to Austrians, and generally to prevent Chancellor Adolf Hitler &henchmen from fomenting a Nazi revolt in the Austrian Republic.

On a dash by air to the London Conference plausible Chancellor Dollfuss wangled in its lobbies a $43,000,000 League of Nations loan to Austria, largely underwritten by France and Britain in the belief that the Dollfuss Government is the sheet anchor of peace in Eastern Europe. Last week in Berlin peppery French Ambassador André Francois-Poncet left a stiff note at the Foreign Office and bland British Chargé d’ Affaires Basil Newton protested verbally that German Nazi efforts to overthrow the Dollfuss Government are contrary to Germany’s obligations under the Treaty of Versailles and more especially to the Four-Power Peace Pact recently signed in Rome by Britain, France, Italy and Germany (TIME, June 19). As one dictator to another Benito Mussolini sent no protest to Adolf Hitler last week but ordered the Italian Ambassador in Berlin to make “friendly remonstrance.”

Il Duce had guessed the right way to handle Chancellor Hitler. The French and British were haughtily told by Berlin’s Foreign Office that “this intervention in Austro-German difficulties is inadmissible,” but the Italian Government received a discreet, direct pledge that German propaganda to Nazify Austria will be toned down.

In Vienna the Dollfuss Government pressed their advantage by charging that on the very morning of the protests in Berlin “15 uniformed Germans from Bavarian territory ambushed and killed an Austrian sentry near Kufstein on the Bavarian frontier.” Two days later uniformed German Nazis crossed the Swiss frontier near Basle, searched the shed of a Swiss watchman whom they accused of smuggling Communist leaflets into the Reich. Promptly both Switzerland and France strengthened their guards along the German frontier and Chancellor Dollfuss saw another chance for a smart move. He protested to London, Paris and Rome that the Austrian army (limited by the Treaty of St. Germain to 30,000 soldiers who must enlist for twelve years) is far too small to guard Austria’s frontiers. In Paris shaggy Premier Edouard Daladier, outraged by Germany’s reaction to the French protest last week, gave correspondents to understand that France will back Austria to the limit, supporting if necessary a shorter enlistment period which would give the Austrian Army a more rapid turnover, provide more trained Austrians to repel Nazis.