spirit. All privileges connected with large landed estates, entail, freehold, and ecclesiastical property were to be abolished; further, it was proposed to set up a National Land Bank which was to be entrusted with dividing up the landed estates into allotments, the subsequent sales to be carried out under close State supervision.
All munition factories would be handed over to State administration. Social policy was also discussed in detail, together with various questions affecting Allied property which had been confiscated by Austria-Hungary. For carrying out all these plans it would, of course, be necessary for us to secure the assistance of the Allies, both directly and indirectly, the essential point being that the Armistice conditions should be favourable to our plan. Our delegates were particularly concerned with the problem of a rapid military occupation of Austro-Hungarian territory if and when the final catastrophe ensued. One of the conditions which they were anxious to secure as being advantageous to a successful course of events was that Allied troops, and our own as well, should be promptly sent to the Czech territories; that a number of railway routes should be occupied; and that, in general, communications with the Allies should be secured in good time.
Much concern was caused to our delegates by the prison camps, especially those containing Russians and forming Bolshevik centres. They were also anxious to obtain Allied protection against a possible invasion by Mackensen’s German army on the Rumanian frontiers.
These questions were all connected with the important problem of the food supplies. The delegates urged the necessity for relieving our own population from the hardships they were suffering, and also for preventing the possibility of hunger riots, especially in Vienna where, in the opinion of them all, the danger was most acute. They impressed upon me the need for drawing the attention of the Allies to these matters and for taking them into account when an armistice was under consideration.
Finally, we discussed the economic and financial affairs of Austria-Hungary and their bearing upon the interests of our State. This had particular reference to the pre-war and war debts of the monarchy, and the possibility of our obtaining financial assistance in the form of a loan from the Allies or by means of economic co-operation with them.
