Paris 1919 - Margaret Macmillan [162]
Austria’s delegation was led by its prime minister, Karl Renner, a cheerful, portly man, fond of good food and drink, card games and dancing. Renner was a moderate and a realist. When he left for Paris, crowds at the railway station shouted, “Bring us a good peace.” Renner replied, “Count on me to obtain all that is humanly possible for the good of our dear people. But we mustn’t forget that our unhappy country did not win the victory, and we beg you not to nourish mad hopes.” Along with his experts, he took with him a distinguished pacifist; a journalist who had friends in Paris from before the war, including Clemenceau; and Rudolf Slatin, a genuine British hero, who had been with General Gordon in the disastrous expedition in the Sudan (he was held prisoner by the Mahdi for years and then freed by Kitchener and given a knighthood). Slatin Pasha, as the British remembered him, wrote to his old friend Balfour, asking for Austria’s delegates to be allowed to negotiate face-to-face with the peacemakers. Balfour regretted that it could not be done, but used Slatin as an unofficial means of communication.14
When his train arrived in Paris, Renner apologized, in French, for not speaking the language. He said how pleased he was to be visiting Paris for the first time. He smiled obligingly for the press. Another of his party managed a quiet dig when he was asked about the train journey through the battlefields: “Someone had the forethought to slow the passage of our train so that we could the better see France looking so lovely in this jolly month of May.” The Austrians behaved impeccably, even when they were obliged to wait patiently for their terms because the Council of Four, which had summoned them in a burst of enthusiasm, as promptly forgot them. They played cards, read and went for long walks. “We got good French food and wines,” recalled one, “which most of us enjoyed after the long hungry years.” When it could be arranged, their Allied guards took them out for little expeditions. Renner asked especially to see a French agricultural college. The Austrians made a good impression—quite unlike, everyone said, the Germans, who had by then also arrived in Paris. In St. Germain the locals were particularly fond of a delegate from the Tyrol, in his chestnut hunting jacket and little green hat with its large black feather. They did not realize that he was dressed in mourning because the largely German-speaking southern part of the Tyrol had already been awarded to Italy. 15
Enough was leaking out about the peace terms, mainly from the Italians, to make the Austrians uneasy and depressed. Austria’s borders had been largely left to the specialist committees, who had heard from countries such as Czechoslovakia or Italy about what they wanted, but not of course from Austria itself. Galicia went to Poland, Bohemia to Czechoslovakia. Some three million German-speaking Austrians went with them. Otto Bauer, Austria’s cleverest socialist and its foreign minister, made an impassioned speech back in Vienna. “No less than two-fifths of our people are to be subjected to foreign domination, without any plebiscite and against their indisputable will, being thus deprived of their right of self-determination.” He had a point, but few in Paris were prepared to listen.16
The Allies had also decided that Austria would not be allowed to join up with Germany. This was not something they had anticipated having to do. They had not after all expected that there would be an Austria at all. Nor had the German-speaking Austrians, apart