M. Clemenceau has made good his assertion that Count Czernin
lied in saying that the French Premier had recently asked whether, and on what terms, Austria would negotiate. The truth is that an Austrian official had conversed in Switzerland with a French officer to whom he was distantly related, and that M. Clemenceau, on learning of the matter, had permitted the conversations to continue, on the understanding that the Frenchman was to be merely a listener. The Austrian agent incautiously put in writing the object of his mission, which was to obtain peace proposals from France. M. Clemenceau, referring scornfully to Count Czernin's suggestion that the French demand for Alsace caused the failure of the negotia- tions, has declared that the Emperor Charles with his own hand in March, 1917, recognized the " just French claims regarding Alsace- Lorraine," and in a second letter said that his Government agreed with him. This unexpected revelation will not increase Count Czernin's popularity either in Vienna or in Berlin.
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