Paris Peace Conf. 184.01102/325
Professor A. C. Coolidge to the Commission to Negotiate Peace
[Received April 10.]
Sirs: I have the honor to report that my impressions since my return to Vienna of the situation here are depressing. It is not so much that anything has got seriously worse but there are almost no signs of improvement anywhere, and several of increasing disintegration.
To begin with, there is a shortage of almost everything. The recent arrivals of food trains have not been sufficient to make conditions in the city appreciably better—people are on their fourth meatless week—but merely to prevent them from becoming more critical.
The same is true of coal, so urgently needed for the revival of industry.
Prices are soaring ever higher.
The number of unemployed is great, and those that are employed are constantly demanding an increase of wages, which the employers find it increasingly difficult to pay.
The economic and financial situation is disastrous, and the prospect of immediate improvement is slight. The dissolution of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire into a number of separate territories has naturally dealt a particularly heavy blow to the capital, which was the center of finance and control for the whole. This blow is rendered far worse by the almost complete closing of so many frontiers, which makes normal relations impossible. The last stroke has been the Hungarian revolution which, among other things, threatens the great Austrian interests in Hungary.
The condition of the currency looks desperate. The Krone has been going steadily down and one sees no end to the process. The restamping of money in Czecho-Slovakia could not but harm the Austrian currency, and now the Hungarian revolution, which is likely to mean an unlimited issue of fresh notes similar to the old ones, threatens further disaster to finances here. Under these circumstances, the rate of exchange makes the importation of anything except the most immediate necessaries impossible, and the lifting of the blockade is regarded as a platonic measure.
[Page 288]The political situation is no more cheerful than the economic. The government, though honestly struggling with the difficulties that beset it, is weak and not too well united. It has to lead or follow its supporters but cannot control them. It is helpless against the excesses of its own unreliable military force, the Volkswehr, for it has nothing else to fall back on in case of disorder. One cannot well see what could prevent it from falling tomorrow if the Volkswehr, supported by a section of the laboring class, should order it out. Already the illegal and arbitary measures of the Volkswehr are beginning to terrorize the property-holding classes, who are also looking forward to a process of taxation and socialization which may amount to wholesale confiscation in the end.
A further sign of the weakness of the government and of the general disintegration, is the increasing independence of the provinces, which show a disposition to pay little attention to orders from Vienna. At the present moment not only are the peasants keeping their food supplies in a great measure for themselves, but there is a movement on foot to shut out all strangers this summer; that is to say, that people in this city are to be left to their plight here and not allowed to go into the country where conditions are better. The government has declared such resolutions on the part of the provinces to be illegal, but whether it will be strong enough to prevail in the end is uncertain. Its own small authority may soon have a rival in the system of Councils of Workmen who are to be called into existence by election next week.
Finally, there is an undoubted growth of Bolshevism. Its progress has been slow indeed—rather surprisingly so—and I do not believe it is yet either very deeprooted or widespread. But for months conditions have been such as to promote its increase, and now the example of Hungary has undoubtedly given a stimulus to those who favor a similar movement here. Relations between Austria and Hungary are still close, and what happens in Budapest inevitably affects Vienna, and vice versa. Some 800 or 900 of the Volkswehr have joined the Hungarians and this will react here; and from Hungary several prominent agitators are said already to have come to Vienna to begin work. If Bavaria goes Bolshevist, the situation will be blacker still.
When we add to all the above causes the strain of 4½ years of war, the depression of defeat, the long lack of sufficient food, the uncertainty as to the political future of many German-speaking regions, and finally the strain produced by months of waiting for the final conclusion of peace, we can see why pessimism here is so widespread.
On the other side of the ledger we can find little to note except the extraordinarily quiet, docile, and orderly, not to say apathetic, character [Page 289] of the population. Their patience and resignation have been admirable, and one can only hope that it will continue to be so. Then, too, the approach of summer not only makes the suffering from lack of light and fuel less severe, but may open a way to the revival of industry in one form or another, although here as elsewhere it is hard to get the city laborer to work in the country, however much his presence may be needed. It may be hoped also, that peace when it does come will have a tranquilizing and encouraging, and perhaps stimulating, effect upon people here; for there is still to be found plenty of intelligence and good will, though perhaps not much enterprise.
I have [etc.]