Neue Freie Presse
- Strike Threat by the Technical Union
- Republican Election Victory in Greece
- Fascist Demonstration against the Prince-Bishop of Trento
The Neue Freie Presse of 8 November 1926 opened with an editorial lamenting that Austria could not catch its breath: months of conflict with public employees had only just ended in an agreement that the civil-service organizations accepted, and now the Technical Union was threatening to strike. A correspondent's telegram from Athens reported that Greece's parliamentary election had passed off quietly and relayed Prime Minister Kondylis's statement that a republican majority was assured, with republicans expected to win about 180 of 280 seats. A report taken from the Tiroler Anzeiger described Fascists outside the palace of Prince-Bishop Endrici of Trento shouting "We want you!", and the bishop's reply that he would resign if the Vatican so instructed.
Translation
Strike Threat by the Technical Union
Austria still cannot catch its breath, still cannot find the time and the strength to devote itself with unbroken energy to the great productive tasks. The struggle of the public employees went on for months, and more than once the spectre of a strike appeared. But when an agreement could finally be reached towards the end of last week, the population believed that calm would now set in and that the uncertainty would end. The various organizations of the civil service declared themselves satisfied with the concessions obtained, and even if not every wish was fulfilled, a number of important concessions could nonetheless be recorded.
Republican Election Victory in Greece
Telegram from our correspondent.
According to the reports received up to the afternoon hours, the parliamentary elections passed off quietly both in Athens and in the provinces. According to the statements of Prime Minister Kondylis, the republican majority can be regarded as assured. It is reckoned that of the 280 seats to be allocated, 180 will fall to the republicans. In Athens, of the 13 seats, the united Liberals will probably receive seven or eight and the Republican Union one. In Salonica, Drama, Kavala, Serres and Patras, as well as in the remaining parts of Macedonia, and further in Thrace and on Crete, republican majorities are likewise assured.
Fascist Demonstration against the Prince-Bishop of Trento
The "Tiroler Anzeiger" reports from Trento: During the night from Friday to Saturday there were large demonstrations against Prince-Bishop Endrici. A strong band of Fascists appeared in front of the episcopal palace and, with threatening shouts, demanded that the Prince-Bishop be handed over. The prince of the Church went out to the demonstrators and asked what they demanded. The cry came back at him: "We want you!" The Prince-Bishop thereupon declared that he was ready to resign should the Vatican issue instructions to that effect.
Context
A civil-service dispute that had already cost Austria a chancellor
The editorial's complaint that Austria "still cannot catch its breath" refers to a dispute with real political weight. The Austrian National Library's retrospective on 1926 notes that Rudolf Ramek was federal chancellor while Ignaz Seipel chaired the Christian Social Party, and that Ramek resigned in mid-October 1926 because federal employees were threatening to strike; Seipel then returned to the chancellorship he had already held from 1922 to 1924. The agreement the paper says was reached "towards the end of last week" therefore came only weeks into Seipel's new government and was meant to settle the very conflict that had ended Ramek's. That timing explains the editorial's exasperation: under a headline announcing the Technical Union's strike threat, the paper stresses that the other civil-service organizations had just declared themselves satisfied, at a moment when a public-sector strike threat had already shown it could change the government.
Kondylis, the caretaker premier who ran the Greek vote
The Prime Minister quoted in the telegram, General Georgios Kondylis, was the head of a caretaker regime rather than an ordinary party leader seeking re-election. According to Stavros Stavridis's account in The National Herald, Theodoros Pangalos had been overthrown by Kondylis, who was then appointed provisional premier while also holding the war and navy portfolios, promised elections, and invited Admiral Koundouriotis to resume the presidency. The new electoral law introduced simple proportional representation for the first time. Kondylis also had a declared stake in the result: Stavridis writes that his manifesto aimed to ensure that monarchists did not attain a parliamentary majority. The confident forecast of an assured republican majority that the Neue Freie Presse relayed from election day was thus the statement of a caretaker leader who had openly sought exactly that outcome.
A forecast of 180 seats and a Liberal Union of 108
The count did not bear out so decisive a picture. The election of 7 November 1926 filled 286 seats rather than 280, and the largest faction, the Liberal Union, won 108 of them; the composition of the new chamber forced the parties and factions to work together to form a government. A U.S. legation report cited by Stavridis counted 151,002 votes for Ioannis Metaxas's party, which it classed as moderate royalist, against 62,503 for Alexandros Papanastasiou's Republican Union, a sign that royalist-leaning parties kept a substantial following. The outcome was a broad compromise rather than a republican sweep: on 4 December a government under Alexandros Zaimis, who was not a member of parliament, was sworn in, and its coalition joined the Liberal Union and the Democratic Union with the People's Party and the Freethinkers' Party. The paper's figure of 180 republican seats recorded an expectation reported on the afternoon of the vote, not the count.
Trento after the 31 October attempt on Mussolini
The demonstration at the episcopal palace was one episode in a series of Fascist attacks on Trentino's Catholic organizations. As the Trento daily l'Adige recounts, the political climate grew harsher after Benito Mussolini escaped an assassination attempt in Bologna on 31 October 1926. In Trento, the editorial offices and print shop of the newspaper Nuovo Trentino were wrecked on the night of 1 to 2 November 1926, and in the same hours groups of blackshirts occupied and defaced the premises of the SAIT, the Peasants' League and Trentino's Catholic organizations. Endrici himself wrote that a "cyclone" had struck all the institutions belonging to Catholic Action, that he had witnessed scenes never before seen in the region, and that bands of demonstrators were permitted everything under the eyes of the police. The report the Neue Freie Presse took from the Tiroler Anzeiger describes a later night, from Friday to Saturday, when the crowd turned from the bishop's institutions to the bishop in person.
Endrici, bishop of Trento from 1904 to 1940
The man the crowd demanded was a bishop whose career had already been shaped by the region's changing political masters. Celestino Endrici led the see of Trento from 1904 to 1940. The outbreak of the First World War put him in a delicate position over the question of nationality; according to his biographical entry he retired on 1 March 1916 and was transferred to Vienna, returning to Trento on 13 November 1918, after the war. Among his collaborators was Alcide De Gasperi, and in 1928 Endrici helped De Gasperi, by then persecuted by Fascism, to be hired at the Vatican Apostolic Library. The resignation Endrici offered in the report, conditional on instructions from the Vatican, did not follow: he remained in Trento, became archbishop when the diocese was raised to an archbishopric in June 1929, and held the see until 1940.
Original
Streikdrohung der Technischen Union.
. Oesterreich kann noch immer nicht zu Atem kommen, nicht die Zeit und die Kraft finden, um sich den großen produktiven Aufgaben mit ungebrochener Energie zu widmen. Monatelang hat der Kampf der öffentlichen Angestellten gedauert, und mehr als einmal ist das Gespenst eines Streiks aufgetaucht. Als aber gegen Ende der vorigen Woche endlich ein Einvernehmen erzielt werden konnte, da glaubte die Bevölkerung, daß nun Ruhe eintreten, daß die Ungewißheit aufhören würde. Die verschiedenen Organisationen der Beamtenschaft erklärten sich mit den erreichten Zugeständnissen zufrieden, und wenn auch nicht alle Wünsche in Erfüllung gingen, so hatte man doch mancherlei wichtige Konzessionen zu verzeichnen.
Republikanischer Wahlsieg in Griechenland.
Die Parlamentswahlen sind nach den bis in die Nachmittagsstunden eingegangenen Nachrichten sowohl in Athen als auch in der Provinz ruhig verlaufen. Nach den Erklärungen des Ministerpräsidenten Kondylis kann die republikanische Mehrheit als gesichert betrachtet werden. Man rechnet, daß von den 280 zu vergebenden Mandaten 180 den Republikanern zufallen werden. In Athen werden von den 13 Mandaten voraussichtlich sieben oder acht die vereinigten Liberalen und eines die republikanische Union erhalten. Auch in Saloniki, Drama, Kavalla, Seres und Patras sowie in den übrigen Teilen Mazedoniens, dann in Thrazien und auf Kreta sind republikanische Mehrheiten gesichert.
Fascistendemonstration gegen den Fürstbischof von Trient.
Der " Tiroler Anzeiger " meldet aus Trient: In der Nacht vom Freitag auf Samstag kam es zu großen Demonstrationen gegen den Fürstbischof Endrici. Eine starke Fascistenschar erschien vor dem bischöflichen Palais und verlangte mit drohenden Rufen die Auslieferung des Fürstbischofs. Der Kirchenfürst begab sich zu den Demonstranten und fragte, was sie fordern. Da tönte ihm der Ruf entgegen: " Dich wollen wir! " Der Fürstbischof erklärte hierauf, er sei bereit, zurückzutreten, falls der Vatikan die entsprechenden Weisungen erteilen würde.