Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 166, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 July 1915 — IS MADE THE GOAT [ARTICLE]

IS MADE THE GOAT

Auffenberg Put in Cell to Save Archduke. Austrian Commander Sent to Prison by Emperor to Prevent Expose of Disaster in Serbia —Blamed hrederick. .Venice, Italy.—The story of the fall of Gen. Baron Auffenberg from his position as commander of one of the most powerful of the Austro-Hun-garian armies to an incommunicado cell in an unnamed prison is one of the most closely .guarded secrets in Vienna. Austrian newspapers are not allowed even to mention his name and inquirers in the Hungarian house of deputies have been advised to let the matter drop. From information which has just reached Venice it appears that the general was summarily arrested as he was about to leave for Switzerland and has not been allowed to communicate even with his family or lawyers. His object in going to Switzerland was the publication of a volume of memoirs, in which he hoped to establish his innocence of mismanaging the Austrian campaign against Serbia by putting the blame upon the shoulders of the commander in chief, the Archduke Frederick.

The following explanation of General Auffenberg's rise and fall comes from personal friends of the general. It is in general agreement with such facts of the case as have been previously established: “General Auffenberg, as a former minister of war and one of the great soldiers of the empire, was placed in command of the armies which undertook the invasion of Serbia at the beginning of the war. This invasion ended disastrously. The Austrians were defeated with tremendous losses and retired across the frontier in disorder. There was a hasty investigation in Vienna and the investigators reported that General Auffenberg was mainly responsible, owing to his gross mistakes of strategy in planning and carrying out his offense. They recommended that he be suspended from his command. \

“But It seemed unwise to the military powers to draw public attention to the extent of the disaster in Serbia, so it was decided that Auffenberg’s retirement be attributed to ill health brought on by the strenuous exertions of the campaign, and that the title baron should be conferred on him io support the impression that after ail nothing really serious had happened to the Austrian forces in Serbia. Tie new' baron was ordered home »vjd placed on the retired list among ‘cfficers at the disposition of the emperor for future military service.’ “The general came home mystified and began a quiet investigation of the situation. As soon as he found out that he was blamed for the failure ofthe Serbian campaign he demanded that his side of the story should be heard. He received no encouragement in official circles, but it became generally known among military men that he planned to re-establish his own reputation by showing that the blame for the failure, must be attributed to the Archduke Frederick. “In one case, for example, the general declared to a group of military men: T will not be made the scapegoat for an archduke who ought never to have been intrusted with the supreme command of the imperial forces, but who ought rather to have been locked up in his palace in Vienna to prevent his meddling in the conduct of the war.’

“This remark, with others of similar nature, reached the ears of the archduke, whose influence was exercised to bring about the downfall of the general. The climax came when Anffenberg asserted that, having

failed to obtain a hearing in official circles, he would prove his own innocence and the archduke’s blameworthiness by writing a book on the war and having it published in Switzerland. ‘To prevent his flight into Switzerland and the publication of the threatened book Emperor Francis Joseph himself stepped in and ordered him arrested and placed in solitary confinement until the end of the war. He was committed to prison by imperial order, without the semblance of a trial or investigation, and was not allowed to communicate with the outside world. Questions addressed to the government in the Hungarian house of deputies were answered with the statement that the government could not at this time deal with a purely military matter in parliament.”