Vossische Zeitung
- War Guilt, Thoiry, Dawes Plan
- Bethlen's Resignation
- Herriot or Caillaux?
The Vossische Zeitung's front page of 15 October 1926 led with foreign reports. From Brussels it announced a major foreign-policy speech by Belgian Foreign Minister Vandervelde to the foreign press association, headlined with war guilt, Thoiry and the Dawes Plan, though the legible text stops before his arguments. From Budapest it reported that Prime Minister Count Bethlen had handed the Regent the resignation of his whole cabinet, a formality meant to clear the way for a reshuffle due since the franc-forgery trial. From Paris, Leo Stahl previewed the Bordeaux congress of France's crisis-stricken Radical Party, whose decisions he thought could shape French domestic politics for years.
Translation
War Guilt, Thoiry, Dawes Plan
War guilt, Tho
Interesting Speech by Vandervelde
News service of the "Vossische Zeitung"
akl Brussels, October 14
Vandervelde, the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, today gave a major speech on foreign policy at a dinner of the Association of the Foreign Press in Brussels. According to the reports in the press — German press representatives were not [?] — [?]
Bethlen's Resignation
Reorganization of the Government
News service of the "Vossische Zeitung"
bh Budapest, October 14
Prime Minister Count Stephan Bethlen, as officially announced, today submitted the resignation of the entire government to the Regent. It is merely a formal resignation, intended to give Bethlen the opportunity for the long-prepared reshuffle of his cabinet, which has been due since the franc forgers' trial [?]
Herriot or Caillaux?
By Dr. Leo Stahl
Correspondent of the "Vossische Zeitung"
Paris, October 14
The grave crisis in which the Radical and Radical-Socialist Party, the strongest political party in France, finds itself lends special significance to the party congress that convenes today in Bordeaux, and the decisions the delegates are called upon to make carry implications reaching far beyond the party itself — implications that may, under certain circumstances, shape the whole course of France's domestic politics for years to come. Last year's party congress in Nice had the deep antago-
Context
Why Thoiry and Eupen-Malmédy mattered to a Belgian foreign minister
The Brussels dispatch puts Thoiry in its headline because the Franco-German talks there reached directly into Belgian interests. In September 1926, during the ceremonies for Germany's admission to the League of Nations, the foreign ministers Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann met in the French village of Thoiry. According to a chronology of the Weimar Republic, Stresemann pledged material support to stabilize the franc, while Briand agreed to return the Saar Basin to Germany early, to end the military control and occupation of the Rhineland ahead of time, and to accept a German-Belgian agreement on the return of Eupen-Malmedy, the border districts Belgium held and Germany wanted back. The same chronology notes that objections from the German and French governments soon cut back these resolutions. Eupen-Malmédy was already a sore point. The historian Robert Grathwol shows that Stresemann had counted on the Locarno accords of October 1925 to open the way to peaceful revision of Versailles, and that he spoke of a wake at which the hopes of Locarno were laid to rest when France appeared to veto the districts' return to Germany. When Vandervelde addressed the foreign press about four weeks after Thoiry, his country's own frontier was therefore on the diplomatic agenda, although the surviving fragment does not show what he said about it.
How the franc-forgery trial set up Bethlen's cabinet reshuffle
The Budapest report presents Bethlen's resignation as a formality clearing the way for a reshuffle due since the franc forgers' trial, and that trial explains the pressure. Count István Bethlen served as Hungary's prime minister from 1921 to 1931; the Regent to whom he submitted the resignation was Miklós Horthy, whom the national assembly had elected under pressure from the national army on 1 March 1920. The trial arose from a plot by Hungarian nationalists to forge French banknotes. By September 1925 the plotters had produced 25,000 to 35,000 forged 1,000-franc notes, and when they began passing them in the Netherlands in December 1925 they were caught almost immediately. The conspiracy reached into the state apparatus: Imre Nádosy, the chief captain of the national police, had joined it. Twenty-four conspirators were tried in Budapest in May 1926, and most received light sentences in what is believed to have been a deliberate cover-up by Bethlen. Bethlen's hold on power rested on an electoral system under which his Unity Party won every election, which helps explain why the paper could treat the resignation of the entire government as a formal step and not as a threat to his rule.
The crisis the Radicals brought to Bordeaux
Leo Stahl calls the Radical and Radical-Socialist Party France's strongest party and describes it as in grave crisis, and the background was the breakup of the left alliance it had led. The Cartel des Gauches majority was led by the Radical Édouard Herriot, but it broke up in 1926, with the socialist SFIO passing into opposition. Capital flight and the failure to collect reparations produced a monetary crisis that led to a new government under the centre-right Raymond Poincaré. That government combined the National Bloc parties with the Radical-Socialists, and in the account of its formation the monetary crisis ended once Poincaré took office. By the time of the Bordeaux congress the Radicals therefore sat in a cabinet with their former opponents while their old socialist partners stood outside it. Stahl's headline question, Herriot or Caillaux, frames the congress as a choice between leaders, and he argues that its decisions could determine France's domestic political course for years.
Original
Kriegsschuld, Thoiry, Dawesplan
Kriegsschuld, Tho Interessante Rede Vanderveldes Nachrichtendienst der " Vossischen Zeitung " akl Brüssel, 14. Oktober Vandervelde, der belgische Minister des Aeußeren, hielt heute bei einem Diner der Vereinigung der ausländischen Presse in Brüssel eine große Rede über die auswärtige Politik. Nach den Berichten in der Presse - deutsche Pressevertreter waren nicht ein [?] - [?]
Demission Bethlens
Umbildung der Regierung Nachrichtendienst der " Vossischen Zeitung " bh Budapest, 14. Oktober Ministerpräsident Graf Stephan Bethlen hat, wie amtlich mitgeteilt wird, dem Reichsverweser heute die Demission der Gesamtregierung unterbreitet. Es handelt sich nur um eine formale Demission, die Bethlen die Möglichkeit zu der lange vorbereiteten und seit dem Frankenfälscherprozeß fälligen Umbildung seines Kabinetts geben soll [?]
Herriot oder Caillaux?
Von Dr. Leo Stahl Berichterstatter der " Vossischen Zeitung " Paris, 14. Oktober Die schwere Krise, in der sich die Radikale und Radikalsoziale Partei, die stärkste politische Partei Frankreichs, befindet, gibt dem Parteitag, zu dem diese heute in Bordeaux zusammentritt, besondere Bedeutung, und die Entscheidungen, zu denen die Delegierten berufen sind, haben eine weit über die eigene Partei hinausgehende, die gesamte innerpolitische Entwicklung Frankreichs unter Umständen auf Jahre hinaus bestimmende Tragweite. Der vorjährige Parteitag in Nizza hatte die tiefen Gegen -