political terms were reserved; and in this incomplete form the draft was handed (on June 2) to Dr. Renner, the principal Austrian delegate. On the same day the Serb-Croat-Slovene state (Yugoslavia) was formally recognized by France and Great Britain, who thus at length followed the example set by Mr. Wilson nearly four months before (Feb. 5). Even in its in- complete state the draft showed the great concessions which had been made, at Austria's expense, to Italy and to Czecho- slovakia. By May 29 Mr. Wilson had withdrawn his opposition to the Italian claim (under the secret Treaty of London) for a frontier which touched the crest of the Brenner Pass and gave Italy 200,000 German subjects. The draft showed this frontier. It also showed that the 3,000,000 Germans living within the historic boundaries of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia were to be included in the Czechoslovak state. Against these arrange- ments the Austrian delegates protested in vain. They were more successful when they claimed the German districts of western Hungary as being not only German in sentiment but also economically indispensable to Austria (" the kitchen gar- den of Vienna ") and her natural bulwark against unprovoked attacks from the side of Hungary. This claim was granted on July 20, perhaps the more readily because of the defiant attitude of Bela Kun, the leader of the Hungarian Bolsheviks, who was still in possession of Budapest. The Austrian delegates asked the permission of the Conference for a plebiscite in western Hungary, but were told that this formality was needless, the sympathies of the population being unmistakable. Nevertheless western Hungary was still in the hands of the Hungarian Govern- ment till the autumn of 1921. A smaller, but still valuable concession, was that which restored to Austria the important railway junction of Radkersburg, originally assigned to Yugo- slavia. The draft ordered a plebiscite to be taken in the Klagen- furt basin, which was claimed on ethnological grounds by the Yugoslavs and had been forcibly occupied by Yugoslav troops. Though the administration of the basin was provisionally assigned to Austria, the Austrians appear to have assumed that the plebiscite would be so managed as to ensure the victory of their rivals at the polls; and they lodged some protests on this assumption, which in fact was falsified. When at last the plebiscite was held (Oct. 10 1920), it was found that the whole of the disputed area preferred to remain under Austrian rule.
In the course of the negotiations with the Austrian delegates it became clear that the principal Powers as a whole were far more leniently disposed to Austria than the form of the Austrian draft treaty appeared to suggest. The draft had been con- structed on the same lines as the German treaty, and the effect of the Austrian reparation clauses was to convey an impression of greater severity than was in fact intended. As in the German treaty, so in the Austrian, the total sum to be demanded was left uncertain. Austria was required to pay, by May i 1921, " a reasonable sum " which would be assessed by the Reparations Commission (Art. 181); and her remaining liability was to be defined by that body after that of Germany had been fixed (Art. 179). But, out of the " reasonable sum " to be paid in the first instance, the commission were to pay for any supplies of food and raw material which it deemed essential to Austria; and the Conference soon discovered that Austria was quite incapable of paying, either in gold or in kind, for the relief that she required and received. Austria was obliged to resign all claims to the merchant shipping owned by her nationals. She was required to find a quantity of live stock for the devastated areas of Italy, Yugoslavia and Rumania. But, in 1921, the Allies decided to waive all their outstanding claims against her on account of reparation. This act of grace makes it unnecessary to dwell upon the insistence with which the Supreme Council in 1919 emphasized their right to treat the new Austria a ' state of 7,000,000 souls as the legal heir to the liabilities of the Austrian Monarchy. The chief advantage which the principal Powers derived from this attitude was that of a legal title to dispose of the severed lands of the Austrian Monarchy. These lands the new Austria renounces (under Arts. 36, 47, 53, 59, 89 of the treaty) in favour of the beneficiaries appointed by the
Conference. Similarly she renounces the interests of the old Austria outside Europe (Arts. 95-117).
Several concessions, other than those enumerated above, were notified to the Austrian delegates between June 2 and the date of signature, (i) The Supreme Council promised to support Austria's claim to membership of the League of Nations as soon as she possessed a responsible Government which had both the will and the' power to fulfil its international obligations. This promise was fulfilled, and Austria was admitted to the League late in 1920 at a session held in Geneva. (2) The Council also conceded that the property of Austrian nationals in the former territories of the Dual Monarchy should not be liable to detention or confiscation by the Governments of those territories (Art. 267). (3) They sanctioned a temporary system (to last for five years) of preferential customs duties between Austria on the one side and Hungary and Czechoslovakia on the other (Art. 222). (4) They reduced from five to three years the period during which the new states could claim " most favoured nation" treatment in Austria without reciprocity (Art. 232).
The second draft of the treaty was handed to the Austrian delegates on July 20 and was practically complete. The Austrians presented their final observations on Aug. 6; the Supreme Council gave its final reply on Sept. 2. On Sept. 8 the Austrian National Assembly, while protesting against the terms, authorized its delegates to sign; and this ceremony took place at St. Germain- en-Laye on Sept. 10. But Rumania and Yugoslavia refused to sign because by doing so they would have pledged themselves to accept Minorities Treaties, similar in character and intention to that which Poland had signed at Versailles on June 28, under the terms of the German treaty. The argument which the principal Powers stated in defence of the Minorities Treaties was forcibly put by Mr. Wilson at the eighth plenary session (May 31). These Powers could not be expected to guarantee the independence and integrity of the new states, unless the latter would on their side guarantee equality of rights to the minorities, racial or religious, which, under the terms of the peace settlement, were being transferred from the allegiance of ex-enemy Governments. But this argument did not fit the case of Rumania or of Yugoslavia so completely as that of Poland or of Czechoslovakia. Rumania and Yugoslavia were old states, and (though greatly enlarged by the peace settle- ment) denied the right of the Conference to limit their sov- ereignty by special stipulations. They might have accepted minority treaties applying exclusively to new territories ac- quired under the peace settlement; but the Minorities Treaties presented for their signature applied indifferently to old and new territories alike. Eventually they were obliged to give way; but they did not sign the Austrian treaty and the Minorities Treaties until Dec. 10 1919, after receiving an ultimatum from the Conference. The final ratification of the Austrian treaty took place on July 16 1920.
Summary of Austrian Treaty. The new Austria includes the provinces of N. Tirol and Vorarlberg, Salzburg, Carinthia, Styria (N. of the Drave), a strip of western Hungary and Upper and Lower Austria. The treaty reserves for future deter- mination considerable sectors of the frontier on the E. and S.E., but the Klagenfurt plebiscite has settled the most important of the doubtful points in Austria's favour. Unlike Germany, Austria has been obliged to give explicit guarantees of the rights of her minorities; these guarantees may, however, be modified with the assent of a majority of the Council of the League of Nations (Arts. 62-9). Under the military clauses the Austrian army may not exceed a total of 30,000 officers and men, and is to be constituted and recruited by voluntary enlistment (Arts. 119, 120). Stocks of guns, munitions and equipment are re- stricted as in the German treaty, and surplus stocks are to be surrendered, and no air forces may be maintained. A special section of the Reparations Commission is constituted to assess and to collect the payments due from Austria (Art. 179); it is to include representatives of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Greece, Poland, Rumania, Yugoslavia and Czecho- slovakia; but the four first named Powers have two votes apiece,
