Seipel, Starhemberg & Dynamite

Though he formally retired from politics last Spring, though he was ostentatiously in Oslo, Norway, when his henchmen upset the last Austrian Cabinet beak-nosed Monsignor Ignaz Seipel received the Ministers Plenipotentiary of the Great Powers again last week in the same place and manner as he used to do when Chancellor--namely: at the Ballhausplatz, famed Austrian Foreign Office.

"What do you mean, Monsignor, by this new Cabinet?" asked in effect the agitated Corps Diplomatique. They alluded neither to the fact that the new Chancellor is Seipel Disciple Karl Vaugoin, nor to the fact that the new Foreign Minister is Monsignor Seipel himself, but to the astounding fact that the new Minister of Interior is Prince Ernst Ruediger von Starhemberg.

This reckless, blustering young aristocrat is one of the closest friends of Aus-trian-born Adolf Hitler, Fascist bogyman of Germany. His castle, moldering and feudal Schloss Waxenberg perched on a crag above Linz, is well stocked with rifles, machine guns, ammunition.* Prince von Starhemberg in fine is the chieftain of Austria's irregular and reactionary Heimwehr, well drilled veterans of numerous bloody clashes with the equally irregular Socialist Schutzbund (TIME, Sept. 2, 1929 et seq.). That Monsignor Seipel and all he stands for should want Prince von Starhemberg to be Minister of Interior is a fact with the pregnancy of dynamite.

"Heimwehr, Attack!" In Austria, as in many European countries, the Ministry of Interior supervises the elections, and Austria will go to the polls on Nov. 9. Within two days after his appointment, Minister of Interior Prince von Starhemberg manifestoed as follows to his Heim wehr: "Today we stand in the Government, tomorrow we must conquer Parliament, not to rest at ease in an armchair but to build up a new State, a Heimwehr State, on the ruins of the old Parliament of parties. Comrades, close your ranks for the Heimwehr attack!"

If this seemed a little vague, however menacing, Prince von Starhemberg also said specifically that the Heimwehr had "laid its hand [himself] on the rudder" of government "to hold that rudder firmly for the Heimwehr itself with iron resolve not to release it even under a Socialist majority,"

Double Cross? What did this mean? The Corps Diplomatique hoped it did not mean that Monsignor Seipel was ready to plunge Austria into civil war. Out of such a conflict might come restoration of the Throne of Austria to famed "Little Otto," the Habsburg pretender styled "His Most Catholic Majesty the Emperor and King" -- but were not things becoming somewhat too premature and crude?

They were. But Monsignor Seipel met the situation. Prince von Starhemberg, whose words had only one meaning, was made to say that he had been "misunderstood." Seipel Disciple Vaugoin said:

"The imminence of the elections [Arch duke Otto will come of age eleven days after the Austrian elections] has created a nervous, excited atmosphere. . . . Prince von Starhemberg ran off the rails."

What Monsignor Seipel said at the Ball-hausplatz was summarized in a Foreign Office tip-off to the press. He first explained that "verbal derailments from one side or another must not be taken too seriously," assured the diplomats that "the elections will be carried out peacefully and subsequent developments will follow the strictest constitutional course."

Through the coffee houses of gossiping Vienna spread a rumor that handsome Prince von Starhemberg, fired by the triumphs of his friend, "Handsome Adolf" Hitler, in Germany, has a Heimwehr plot up his sleeve to doublecross the Seipel group which has given him the Ministry of Interior, hopes to manage the election of so many Heimwehr men that he himself will become No. 1 Austrian.

*When a small shipment (16,000 rounds) of Mauser cartridges consigned to him as "Glassware" was seized by the police of Linz last year, Prince von Starhemberg blustered: "I am only sorry that I did not personally fetch this shipment of ammunition as I am accustomed to do."

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