Page - 25 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

 The Powder Keg 25 The states that began the war against Turkey enjoyed a series of easy victories, with the Bulgarians making the greatest advances. However, Serbia pushed through to the Adriatic, nurturing the hope that it would be given assistance by Russia in its efforts to occupy Albanian territory. To the disappointment of Belgrade, Russia brushed such a possibility aside, however. Great Britain and France also declared that they were un- willing to begin a war simply because Serbia was advancing towards the sea and Aus- tria-Hungary wished to stop it from doing so. The Russian envoy in Belgrade, Nikolai Hartvig, who was regarded as the ‘mastermind’ of the Balkan coalition, went beyond the instructions given by St. Petersburg and suggested to Serbia that the Russians would also offer support in a war against the Danube Monarchy. The Serbs and Montenegrins therefore continued their forward march, while risking a war with Austria-Hungary. On 7 December 1912, Emperor Franz Joseph agreed to ready troops from the XVth and XVIth army corps in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Dalmatia for war. This did not yet amount to mobilisation, but as a result of the measure, the number of men in the units was increased to 100,000, compared to a peacetime level of 40,000.29 The following day, the famous ‘War Council’ took place in Berlin, which has been described in such detail by the German historian Fritz Fischer and others, and of which an American historian has commented that compared to the discussions taking place simultaneously in Vienna, it was ‘beinahe bedeutungsloses Geschwätz’.30 In the interim, the meeting convened by Kaiser Wilhelm II was almost entirely relativised.31 On 11 December, however, Con- rad von Hötzendorf was appointed Chief of the General Staff, although to Conrad’s disappointment, Emperor Franz Joseph refused to take further military steps. Here, the Emperor was strongly supported in his position by Berchtold. Several days later, on 24 December 1912, the Foreign Minister faced a new onslaught from the War Party when General of Artillery Oskar Potiorek, State Governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the highest-ranking military and civilian official of the two provinces, demanded the conscription of reservist troops for his two corps areas, as well as troops assigned to the Landwehr (Austrian standing army) and the Landsturm (reserve forces). Potiorek enjoyed wholesale support in this demand from the Imperial and Royal War Minister Baron Moritz Auffenberg, as well as the Chief of the General Staff.32 The Joint Finance Minister responsible for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Baronet Leon von Biliński, also expressed his support for military measures. The disappointment over Austrian reticence was vented in drastic terms. The Viennese constitutional law pro- fessor Josef Redlich claimed that : ‘The Monarchy has outplayed its role in Europe’, adding that ‘The Emperor does not even have the courage to have others lose their lives on his behalf.’33 Yet once again, Berchtold quashed the demands. In Berlin, the perma- nent secretary in the Foreign Office, Alfred Kiderlen-Wächter, expressed the view that Germany had brought Austria-Hungary to reason and saved the peace, and in a letter to his sister even embellished his opinion with the comment that : ‘we have secured the