Page - 63 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Dual Alliance and Triple Alliance 63 In the beginning, the Dual Alliance was definitely not, or at least not only, popular in Austria-Hungary. Thus, in 1888 the former Imperial-Royal War Minister Baron Kuhn, a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, was dismissed as Commander of the III Corps and retired on the orders of the Emperor for his criticism of the Dual Alliance. On the occasion of his forced retirement, however, he was treated to ovations from a large number of people, including many officers. These were from the old ‘generation of 1866’. Later, Berlin’s attempts to interfere in the policies of the Danube Monarchy were criticised as inappropriate, for example when the German Empire attempted to thwart a stronger consideration of the interests of the Slavic nationalities within Austria-Hungary. It was precisely the Slavs of the Dual Monarchy on whom the significance of the Dual Alliance ultimately depended : if those Slavs living in the eastern part of the Dual Monarchy saw the purpose of the treaty in stopping the Russian urge for territorial ex- pansion, then it was they who would become pillars of the alliance. If, however, they saw no benefit in collaborating with the German Empire, then the treaty lost its meaning for them and served only to protect the non-Slavic population of the Dual Monarchy. Still, this was only one facet of the German-Austrian relationship, which became all the more multi-layered and accident-prone when the Alliance was extended to Italy on the initiative of the Apennine state and the Triple Alliance was brought into being on 20 May 1882. Italy had for several reasons an interest in receiving support, as it had slid into a conflict with France and feared that this conflict might become a military one.124 The German Empire and Italy would thus support each other in case of war with France, whilst Austria-Hungary received from Italy only a promise of neutrality in the event of a war with Russia. The Triple Alliance was nevertheless repeatedly changed. A second and a third treaty bound the German Empire and Italy yet closer together and gave them at the same time more room for manoeuvre, whilst Austria-Hungary wanted to content itself with receiving the necessary guarantees in the event of a threat to its interests, above all in the Balkans. In the supplement to the second Triple Alliance treaty from 1887, which was impor- tant for Austria-Hungary with regard to Italy, Article I states that both states commit- ted themselves to support the maintenance of the status quo in the ‘Orient’ and to in- form one another, if necessary, of their respective intentions. In the event that there was a territorial change in the Balkans to the benefit of one of the partners, the other one should receive appropriate compensation in accordance with Article VII. This passage had actually been added to the treaty by the then Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, Count Gustav Kálnoky, without any real necessity. Italy namely had initially only had the eastern coast of the Adriatic in mind, whereas Kálnoky had put up the entire Balkan Peninsula for negotiation.125 Now, it is again one of the strange twists of history that  – against expectations  – no complications emerged from the dangerous provisions of the German-Italian agree-