Neue Freie Presse
- Stresemann and Briand before the League — The beginning of the “European conversation”
- State of siege in Trieste — Fighting between police and Fascists
- Sir Ernest Harvey, deceased
Goldmann’s leading essay sees complementary rhetorical roles for Stresemann and Briand at Geneva. Beside it, reports of violence and a seized hall in Trieste show the limits of information under censorship. Harvey’s obituary connects the personal work of financial advisers to the wider postwar reconstruction of Austria.
Selected opening passages of the signed Geneva essay, the Trieste dispatch and the financial-work portion of Harvey’s obituary. Ellipses mark omissions; the feuilleton and remaining essay are outside the reading.
Translation
Stresemann and Briand before the League — The beginning of the “European conversation”
In a toast at the luncheon of the Association of League of Nations Journalists following Friday morning’s League session, Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Beneš aptly characterized the speeches Stresemann and Briand had delivered at that historic meeting. Stresemann, Beneš said, had appealed to reason; Briand to feeling.
[…]
When Stresemann spoke immediately after Beneš at this luncheon, he showed that emotional tones were by no means foreign to him, and the warmth and sweep of his banquet speech carried his audience away. His first speech from the League’s rostrum, however, had been an appeal to reason in its tone, and that was precisely why it made such an excellent impression.
State of siege in Trieste — Fighting between police and Fascists
According to reports reaching here late in the evening, serious clashes have occurred in Trieste between police and Fascists, with firearms used on both sides. As far as is known here so far, one Fascist was killed and a second seriously wounded. There are also said to be numerous wounded among the police.
Travellers arriving from Italy report that a state of siege was imposed on Trieste in the evening. It has so far been impossible to obtain further details because the strictest telegraph and telephone censorship is being enforced on the Italian side.
As to the cause of the clash, it is reported that the police tried to prevent Fascists from entering the hall of the liberal Philharmonic Society. The Fascists have, moreover, occupied the society’s premises today and taken them over as their office.
Sir Ernest Harvey has died
The well-known Austrian honorary consul-general and banker Sir Ernest Harvey has died as a result of an operation.
[…]
Towards the end of the war and afterwards, the British government called on him as an expert in continental financial affairs. He served as the Treasury’s representative in Archangel and as financial adviser to the British representative on the Rhineland Commission—a position for which his student years in Germany particularly qualified him. In 1920, he came to Vienna as financial adviser to the Austrian section of the Reparations Commission. He threw himself with great energy into the study of Austrian conditions and made a series of proposals that may be regarded as preparatory work for Austria’s subsequent financial rehabilitation by the League of Nations.
Context
Why diplomatic speeches needed both reason and feeling
Germany’s arrival in the League required its representatives to address former adversaries in a common institution. A formal speech could establish a reasoned basis for cooperation, while a luncheon offered room to create personal warmth. The passage values both effects and gives Stresemann credit for adapting to the audience. The “European conversation” begins here as a change in how statesmen speak to one another as well as in the institution where they meet.
Why taking a society’s hall was a political act
The reported clash centres on premises belonging to a liberal cultural association. Converting its hall into a Fascist office would replace an independent civic meeting place with a base for the movement. In the wider consolidation of dictatorship, control of such places mattered because political and cultural organizations needed rooms in which to assemble. The account therefore concerns power over local associational life, alongside the immediate confrontation with police.
What financial expertise contributed to Austria’s stabilization
Postwar Austria’s financial crisis led to the Geneva Protocol of 1922 and the establishment of the Austrian National Bank in 1923; the schilling followed in 1925. This institutional reconstruction required study of budgets, currency and relations with creditors. Harvey’s obituary places his earlier Vienna work in that preparatory setting. It illustrates how international commissions gathered specialists whose proposals could become part of a later stabilization programme.
Original
Stresemann und Briand vor dem Völkerbunde. Der Beginn des „europäischen Gesprächs“.
Der tschechoslowakische Außenminister Beneš hat in einem Toast beim Frühstück der Assoziation der Völkerbundjournalisten, das sich an die Freitagvormittagssitzung des Völkerbundes anschloß, die Reden, die Stresemann und Briand in dieser historischen Sitzung gehalten haben, treffend charakterisiert. Stresemann, sagte Beneš, hat sich an den Verstand gewandt, Briand an das Gefühl.
[...]
Stresemann hat zwar, als er bei diesem Frühstück gleich nach Beneš das Wort ergriff, gezeigt, daß auch ihm die Gefühlstöne nicht fremd sind und hat durch die Wärme, durch den Schwung seiner Bankettrede das Auditorium begeistert. Die erste Rede aber auf der Tribüne des Völkerbundes war im Ton eine Verstandesrede, und gerade darum hat sie einen so ausgezeichneten Eindruck gemacht.
Belagerungszustand in Triest. Kampf zwischen Polizei und Fascisten.
Nach hier spät abends eingelangten Nachrichten ist es in Triest zu schweren Zusammenstößen zwischen der Polizei und Fascisten gekommen, in deren Verlauf auf beiden Seiten von der Schußwaffe Gebrauch gemacht wurde. Soweit hier bisher bekannt, wurde bei den Zusammenstößen ein Fascist getötet, ein zweiter schwer verwundet. Auch auf seiten der Polizei soll es zahlreiche Verwundete geben.
Nach Mitteilungen von aus Italien eingetroffenen Reisenden ist abends über Triest der Belagerungszustand verhängt worden. Nähere Einzelheiten in Erfahrung zu bringen, war bis zur Stunde unmöglich, da auf italienischer Seite die strengste Telegraphen- und Telephonzensur geübt wird.
Ueber die Ursachen des Zusammenstoßes verlautet, daß die Polizei das Eindringen der Fascisten in den Saal des liberalen Philharmonischen Vereines verhindern wollte. Die Fascisten haben übrigens heute das Vereinslokal besetzt und als ihr Bureau in Beschlag genommen.
Sir Ernest Harvey †.
Der bekannte österreichische Honorargeneralkonsul und Bankier Sir Ernest Harvey ist an den Folgen einer Operation gestorben.
[...]
In der letzten Zeit des Krieges und nachher wurde er von der englischen Regierung als Sachverständiger in kontinentalen Finanzfragen hinzugezogen. So war er Vertreter des Schatzamtes in Archangelsk, Finanzberater des britischen Vertreters in der Rheinlandkommission (zu welcher Stellung ihn seine in Deutschland verbrachten Studienjahre besonders befähigten) und kam 1920 als finanzieller Berater der österreichischen Sektion der Reparationskommission nach Wien. Er warf sich mit großem Eifer auf das Studium der österreichischen Verhältnisse und machte eine Reihe von Vorschlägen, die als Vorarbeiten für die spätere Sanierung Oesterreichs durch den Völkerbund zu betrachten sind.