4 OCTOBER 1930, Page 44

More Books of the Week

(Continued from page 467) If there are still any people who think that the Allies '` Balkanized" Eastern Europe, they will be undeceived by Colonel von Glaise-Horsteriau's very able book on The Collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Dent, 25s.). For the author, who is Director of the War Archives at Vienna, makes it plain that the racial and political animosities, which the old Emperor Francis Joseph alone kept in check, were intensified to such a degree after his death in November, 1916, as to shatter the Empire in fragments. The Allies were slow to encourage the anti-Habsburg propaganda of the Czechs and Yugoslays ; not till the summer of 1918 were they pre- pared to recognize these peoples as entitled to independence. The separatist movements were so popular and so well organized that after the Italian victory of October, 1918, the Habsburg dominion crumbled away, almost without resistance. The young Emperor could not find a single loyal regiment to guard him. Colonel von Glaise-Horstenau's narrative of the three years is by far the best and fullest yet produced in English, and is as interesting as it is important.

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