Riots

Blazing summer came early to Austria this year, and has continued with such fierce intensity that last week many Austrians were in the irritable state of people who have said too often: "I can't stand it! It's just too hot!"

Suddenly the newspapers told of the acquittal of three young men, reactionary Nationalists, who had been on trial since February for killing a man and a child, during a brawl between Nationalists and Social Democrats in the Province of Bergenland. The guilt of the three young Nationalists had seemed a moral certainty; but Bergenland is so strongly Nationalist that many feared their conviction might cause riots there. When it was announced last week that the youths had been acquitted, Bergenland was quiet, smug; but Vienna, where Communists and Social Democrats vastly outnumber Nationalists, burst into demonstrations of irritation which verged upon civil war.

"Justice!" When Communist newspapers shrieking Miscarriage of Justice! were snapped up by workmen hurrying to their factories, an opinion rapidly sprang up that it would be better to spend the day demonstrating in the broad, tree-shaded streets of Vienna, rather than to ignore the cause of JUSTICE by laboring as usual in some humid factory.

Ominous crowds began slowly to converge upon Vienna from the industrial suburbs. By the time they reached the great "Ring" boulevards,* their shouting was a roar: "Down with class justice! . . . Down with Mussolini !/- On to the Justiz-Palast! . . . Burn the Judge-Rats in their hole! . . . Justice!

Bonfire. Soon a mob trampled through shrubbery and flowers in the Schmerling-Platz, then rushed the vast, imposing Justiz-Palast. Neat clerks and bearded officials were seized by burly rioters and thoroughly tousled. Mobmen ransacked the Palace for papers of every sort, dumping them without discrimination on a large, roaring bonfire. From this the woodwork of the great building ignited, spurting tall flames. Throughout the crowd men still mouthed and gibbered, "JUSTICE. . . . Justice. . . ."

Meanwhile the police continued so outnumbered that those who sought to charge or quell the crowds, were mostly seized, pummeled, stripped of their uniforms and turned loose in the indignity of underwear. The garrison at Vienna refused to fire upon "our brothers." When fire engines clanged forth to the Justiz-Palast irate workers stormed and smashed the apparatus. Meanwhile labor organizations had declared a general strike, thus paralyzing communication. Telegraphs and telephones were silent. Trains, Danube steamers and even the German-owned air service were stopped. For 48 hours news from Vienna came only in the form of smuggled rumors. At London it was announced that a "Red Dictatorship" had been set up in Austria.

Seipel & Seitz. Monsignor Ignaz Seipel, Chancellor (Prime Minister) of Austria, and Burgomaster Karl Seitz of Vienna were the two Strong Men who finally restored order last week.

Chancellor Seipel, barricaded with his Cabinet in the Parliament building, could at first do no more than secretly despatch couriers to loyal outlying garrisons where troops might be found to take the place of the obstinately passive garrison at Vienna.

Meanwhile Burgomaster Seitz, seeing the police helpless, was able to marshal 2,000 reservist soldiers of the so-called Republican Guard. Resolute, these impromptu troops gradually forced back the mobs from public buildings, not without much brutality.

Soon loyal troops began to trickle in-slowly, for the railways were stopped-and shortly Monsignor Seipel and his Cabinet were rescued and able to direct the campaign of street warfare by which the mobs were gradually dispersed.

General Strike. Although order was now being rapidly restored, the general strike continued. Those responsible, a compact group of strike leaders and radical politicians, then sought to bargain with Chancellor Seipel, asking his resignation as the price of calling off the general strike. Impurturbable, Monsignor Seipel replied: "Some reorganization of my Cabinet may prove advisable, but that can only be accomplished after serene and unprejudiced consideration. . . ." With this guarded statement the strike leaders contented themselves--amid general relief, and some surprise.

Estimates placed the dead at between 80 and 150, with injured persons not less than 600. Although the tourist season was at its height in Austria last week, no foreigner was reported killed or injured. A "Red Revolution" had been staved off; but a political crisis loomed.

*The oldtime Schottenring, Franzensring, Burgring, Opernring, Kartnerring, Kolow-ratring, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Ring and Stubenring are links in a huge crescent-shaped boulevard inclosing the inner city on three sides. The Danube Canal flows past the tips of the crescent, thus completing the "ring."

/-"This cry, frequently heard, was to be understood in the sense of "Down with Mussolinism, the creed and symbol of reactionary nationalism" but the words come easily to Austrian lips in another sense: "Down with the militaristic Duce, whose speeches barely veil a desire to encroach upon Austrian territory!" (TIME. Feb. 15, 1926).