A Reply to President Wilson and a Survey of Results of the Russian Peace
Treaties
_Count Czernin, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, delivered
an address April 2, 1918, to a deputation of the Vienna City
Council, in the nature of a reply to President Wilson's address
of Feb. 11 on "Peace Aims," the text of which appeared in the
March issue of Current History Magazine. Count Czernin spoke as
follows:_
GENTLEMEN: I am quite ready to reply to the questions put by the
Burgomaster and thereby to give both you and the wider public a full
view of political conditions as I see them at the moment. I had hoped to
speak before the competent forum, but the fact that one of our
commissions cannot meet at present makes this impossible, so I take this
opportunity of affording in brief a review of the international
situation.
With the signing of peace with Rumania the war in the east is ended.
Three treaties of peace have been signed--with Petrograd, Ukraine, and
Rumania. One principal section of the war is thus ended.
Before discussing the separate peaces which have been signed, and before
going into details, I wish to return to the statements of the President
of the United States wherein he replied to the speech I made before the
delegations on Jan. 24. In many parts of the world Mr. Wilson's speech
was regarded as an attempt to drive a wedge between Vienna and Berlin. I
do not believe that, because I have much too high an opinion of Mr.
Wilson's statesmanship to suspect him of such a train of thought.
According to my impressions, Mr. Wilson does not want to separate Vienna
from Berlin. He does not desire that, and knows that it is impossible.
He perhaps thinks, however, that Vienna presents more favorable soil for
sowing the seeds of a general peace. He has perhaps said to himself that
the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy has the good fortune to have a monarch who
genuinely and honorably desires a general peace, but that this monarch
will never be guilty of a breach of faith; that he will never make a
shameful peace, and that behind this monarch stand 55,000,000 souls.
I imagine that Mr. Wilson says to himself that this closely knit mass of
people represents a force which is not to be disregarded and that this
honorable and firm will to peace with which the monarch is imbued and
which binds him to the peoples of both States is capable of carrying a
great idea in the service of which Mr. Wilson has also placed himself.
Before I discuss Mr. Wilson's last utterances I would like to clear up
one misunderstanding. In my last speech which I delivered before the
Austrian delegations I replied to an inquiry in this connection that
probably Mr. Wilson was already in possession of my utterances. Later
Mr. Wilson corrected this, and pointed out that there must be some
mistake. I had prepared my speech beforehand, so as to avoid any
possibility of its being incorrectly or incompletely transmitted, and at
the moment I made my speech I supposed that it had already reached
Washington. Apparently, however, it only arrived there some days later.
This does not affect the matter itself. My object was to assure that the
President of the United States should get the exact text of my speech,
and this object was attained and the trifling delay of a few days was a
matter of indifference.
With regard to Mr. Wilson's reply, I can only say that I consider it
very important that the German Chancellor, in his admirable speech of
Feb. 25, took the answer out of my mouth and declared that the four
points developed by Mr. Wilson in his speech of Feb. 11 are the basis
upon which a general peace can be discussed. I entirely agree with him
in this.
President Wilson's four points are a suitable basis upon which to begin
negotiating about a general peace. The question is whether or not Mr.
Wilson will succeed in uniting his allies upon this basis.