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"The Czechs are getting alarmed by Italian influence in Austria. Jugoslavia is rattled. The prospect of an Austro-Hungarian monarchy is not fantastic. Prince von Starhemberg and his following are Monarchists and make no secret of it. What does Mussolini think about that? ... It is all very dangerous. No one in England yet realizes, 1 imagine, the strength of the forces gathering around this cockpit of the Powers." So from Vienna last week wrote Sir Philip Gibbs, a British journalist with such an imposing reputation that he does not hesitate to advise the British Government. In Prague three days later the Habsburg restoration talk was taken up by Czechoslovakia's eternal Foreign Minister, Eduard Benes. Said he: "The Habsburgs cannot be separated from their history, and although they may personally be agreeable, even their presence in Austria and Hungary as private residents would endanger the peace of Europe. Jugoslavia and Italy are particularly threatened by possible restoration, since the Habsburg crown would exert a great temptation on the Roman Catholic Croats in Jugoslavia and the Catholic Tyrolese in Italy to join the recreated Empire. ... If Archduke Otto returns. Czechoslovakia will sever diplomatic relations with Austria." Thus, possibly because Austria's other crises were for the moment quiescent, louder than at any time in the past two years rose that favorite rumor of European cafes—restoration of 21-year-old Archduke Otto von Habsburg to the throne of Austria, Hungary, or possibly both. The House of Habsburg traces its ancestry straight back to a Germanic chieftain known as Guntram the Rich who died around 950 A. D. and whose grandson built the castle of Habichtsburg or Habsburg ("Hawk's Castle") on the Aar near its junction with the Rhine. The House has never produced a great statesman or a great warrior. Two traits its sons have in- herited, a prognathous jaw and enormous physical fertility. They became successively Kings of the Germans, Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, Kings of Spain, and Emperors of Austria. The Habsburg talent for successful marriages made it possible for their greatest son; the Emperor Charles V (1500-58 j to rule what is nowr Hungary, Austria, most of Germany, most of France, most of Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Mexico and Florida. Even today; after 200 years of dissolution, dissipation and insanity, there are at least 35 Habsburg princelings living. The most stupidly reactionary family in Europe, they are for the most part either dissolute or fanatically Catholic, but to those who do not know them they represent the glories and the comforts of a vanished era. Sad old Franz Josef I died in 1916 without male issue after his only son Rudolf had been mysteriously killed at Meyerling in 1889. The throne would then have passed to the Emperor's nephew. Franz Ferdinand, had not that Archduke been assassinated with his morganatic wile at Sarajevo in 1914. Although Franz Ferdinand had three children, Sophie, Maximilian, and Ernst, the crown went to Franz Ferdinand's nephew, Karl, husband of sober Zita de Bourbon, who was one of the 18 children of Robert Duke of Parma. Curly-haired Otto, the acknowledged heir, was their eldest child. Maximilian, son of Franz Ferdinand, is very much alive, and carries on the family fertility by having produced four more Habsburg princelings since his marriage in