Neue Freie Presse
- Eminent Englishmen on World Peace.
- Possible Abolition of the Direct Czechoslovak Coal Tariff via Austria.
- Fur Fashion Revue
On Sunday, 24 October 1926, the Neue Freie Presse ran an essay by the Oxford classicist Gilbert Murray under a heading on eminent Englishmen and world peace. In its opening lines Murray says the world is passing through, or has perhaps just passed through, a great age of revolution: every defeated people has had a revolution since the war, some new states have revolutionary governments, and Spain, Italy and Greece have counter-revolutionary ones. A short rail report said a railway minister had explained the current shortage of coal wagons and then said the direct Czechoslovak coal tariff via Austria was unlikely to be extended. An advertisement invited readers that afternoon to a fur fashion revue with jazz, dancing and gifts for the ladies in the firm's tea salons, with advance tickets sold at Kärntnerstraße 15.
Translation
Eminent Englishmen on World Peace.
By Professor Gilbert Murray.
We are just now in the process of passing through a tremendous epoch of revolution, or, to put it more hopefully, we have just passed through it. Since the war, all the defeated peoples have gone through revolutions. Some of the new states have revolutionary governments; Spain, Italy and Greece have counter-revolutionary ones.
Possible Abolition of the Direct Czechoslovak Coal Tariff via Austria.
…at the Ministry of Railways, the minister gave explanations about the prevailing shortage of coal wagons. Following this, the Minister of Railways declared that the direct coal tariff via Austria was hardly likely to be extended.
Fur Fashion Revue
to open the great week, today, Sunday, at 4:30 in the afternoon, in the tea salons of our café-confectionery. Jazz · Gifts for the ladies · Dancing · Compère: Major Baron Grimm. Admission tickets at S 5.– each, valid at the same time as a voucher, on advance sale from 9 to 12 in the morning, Kärntnerstraße 15
Context
Gilbert Murray and the League of Nations Union
The paper put Murray among "eminent Englishmen". He was an Australian-born British classical scholar and had been Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford since 1908, a post he held until 1936. In 1926 he was more than an academic voice on peace. He had been vice-president of the League of Nations Society from 1916 and had chaired the League of Nations Union since 1923. The Union became the largest and most influential organisation in the British peace movement, and by the mid-1920s it had more than a quarter of a million registered subscribers. Murray's opening line, that the age of revolution might already be over, therefore came from the head of Britain's largest pro-League organisation, writing for a Viennese audience. The survey of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary governments is Murray's own view as printed by the paper. The sources used here do not test it.
Murray's League work and his link to Austria
Murray had a direct tie to Austria, which may help explain why a Vienna daily printed his views. Minor planet 941 Murray is named after him in recognition of his support for Austria after the First World War. He also worked inside the League's own institutions: he was an influential member of its International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation from 1922 to 1939. His internationalism was not pacifism, however. He never took a pacifist line himself and broke with Bertrand Russell early in the war. So when he wrote that "all the defeated peoples" had gone through revolutions, he was speaking as someone who had backed the war and later helped defeated Austria, and who saw the League as the way to a lasting settlement.
Why coal moving across the Czechoslovak border mattered to Austria
Coal and rolling stock had been a sore point between Czechoslovakia and Austria since the two states were born. On 21 November 1918 the Swiss minister in Washington passed on an urgent cable from the German-Austrian government. It reported that orders from the Czechoslovak National Council banned the transit of German coal from Upper Silesia and of brown coal from north-western Bohemia, and it warned that the available rolling stock was quite insufficient to meet the demand. The 1926 report touches both issues: a minister first explained the shortage of coal wagons and then said the direct coal tariff via Austria would hardly be extended. The excerpt does not say why the tariff was to end or what this would mean for Austrian transit revenue. It only reports the two statements one after the other.
The fur revue at Kärntnerstraße 15 and the Zwieback fashion house
The address in the advertisement points to Vienna's Modehaus Zwieback. The excerpt itself does not name the firm. Zwieback's luxury store moved to its permanent address on the corner of Kärntnerstrasse and Weihburggasse. After the First World War, the architect Friedrich Ohmann, a favourite of the family, was brought in to design a new tea room. In the early 1920s the Zwiebacks acquired premises on Weihburggasse behind the store and opened their own coffee house there. Today the Sluka café that occupies the restored rooms gives its address as Kärntner Straße 13-15. An invitation to the "tea salons of our café-confectionery" at Kärntnerstraße 15 therefore fits a fashion house that used its own café to stage a revue. Jazz, dancing, a compère and admission tickets that could be redeemed as vouchers were used to bring customers into a fur sale.
Original
Hervorragende Engländer über den Weltfrieden.
Wir sind eben im Begriffe eine gewaltige Revolutionsepoche zu durchschreiten, oder, um es hoffnungsvoller zu formulieren, wir haben sie soeben durchschritten. Seit dem Krieg machten alle besiegten Völker Revolutionen durch. Einige der neuen Staaten haben revolutionäre, Spanien, Italien und Griechenland gegenrevolutionäre Regierungen.
Mögliche Aufhebung des direkten czechoslowakischen Kohlentarifes über Oesterreich.
im Eisenbahnministerium gab der Minister Aufklärungen über den herrschenden Kohlenwaggonmangel. Anschließend hieran erklärte der Eisenbahnminister, daß der direkte Kohlentarif über Oesterreich kaum verlängert werden dürfte.
Pelz-Moden-Revue
zur Eröffnung der großen Woche heute Sonntag, 4 Uhr 30 nachmittags, in den Teesalons unserer Konditorei Jazz Damenspenden Tanz Conference: Major Baron Grimm Eintrittskarten à S 5 · -, gleichzeitig Gutschein, im Vorverkauf von 9-12 Uhr vormittags, Kärntnerstraße 15