THE RETURN TO THE FOLD

It the authorities quoted in the current Literary Digest may be taken at all seriously, the citizens of the Austrian republic are looking to union with Germany as the ultimate solution for their problems. Thus another ancient anomaly, long an eyesore on the map of Europe, will be no more. Such a possibility need surprise no one. The wonder is only that the mutual interests of tiny Austria and still formidable Germany had not been evident enough to cause comment much sooner after the war.

There is no racial or geographical obstacle to this contemplated union. Austrians, as German as Bavarian or Samons, are even more so than the Prussians who have been Germany's standard bearers in recent history. Austria itself was originally and outpost of the German empire, planted athwart the Danube to keep the Huns and Slavs from raiding the fat lands of Bavaria and Swabia. Well into modern times, until the rise of the Hobenzollerns and the Roformation together alienated the smaller German states from the Bapsburgs, Austrin was acknowledged the chief of the German states.

The peculiar situation in which Austria finds itself makes some kind of action necessary. Pared down to a fraction of its former size, faced on three sides by recently subject and vajuely hostile peoples in Hungary, Jugo-Slavia, and Czech-Slovakia, the Austrians naturally look in the fourth direction for help and find the racial and historical affinities of the German republic offering them an obvious solution. It is impossible to prephesy what would be the result on the European political situation if Germany were to be reinforced by this considerable homogeneous addition. Yet the more one contemplates the situation, the more one is drawn to the conclusion that the Germanic peoples will shortly be united more firmly than they have been since the days of Otto the Great.