Page - 135 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The ‘Skirmish’ near Temes-Kubin 135 for their host countries, for example Sir Maurice, who expressed his hope that the ‘regrettable state of war between England and the Monarchy’ would not last long, as between the two countries ‘there was no antagonism that could in the least justify the conflict’.305 On 28 August, after lengthy hesitation and several plots to persuade Belgium that Austria-Hungary would remain neutral towards that country, the Austro-Hungarian envoy in Brussels, Count Clary, had to notify the Belgian government of the state of war between the two states. At this point in time, parts of Belgium had not only already been overrun by German armies but the mortars made available by the Impe- rial and Royal Army High Command along with their operating crews had also been transported to Liege. Shortly thereafter, these pieces of artillery destroyed the forts of Antwerp.306 The inclusion of the British Empire as well as the Western European states in the war had a further consequence, which initially affected Austria-Hungary only indi- rectly, namely the expansion of the war to extra-European territories. Japan came for- ward with its demands and requested from the German Empire the evacuation of the leased territory of Jiaozhou in China as well as the withdrawal of all German warships from Japanese and Chinese waters. The German Foreign Ministry informed the Japa- nese chargé d’affaires in Berlin that it did not have the intention of responding to the note. Diplomatic relations were broken off.307 The same applied to those between Aus- tria-Hungary and Japan. The Imperial and Royal War Ministry ordered the cruiser an- chored near Tsingtao, Kaiserin und Königin Elisabeth (Empress and Queen Elisabeth), and its convoying ships to prepare for naval hostilities. Thereafter, however, it remained unclear for months whether Austria-Hungary and Japan were actually at war with one another. According to a British report from 8 November 1914, which stated that Tsingtao had surrendered to the Japanese, the Foreign Ministry in Vienna trenchantly concluded : as a result of the involvement of His Majesty’s ship Kaiserin Elisabeth in the battle of Tsingtao, ‘during which the Japanese were at all events the aggressors, there is now a state of war between us and Japan. On which day this happened, is not exactly known ; By all accounts, it happened before 6 October.’308 The fact that the Kaiserin und Königin Elisabeth had been sunk in the meantime and the majority of its crew taken prisoner and transported to Japan only filtered through gradually. In the end, only mechanisms and interests had exerted their influence. Rationale seemed to be as good as extinguished ; and a humane approach all the more so. After the war had been precipitated over the course of a month, its unleashing took only three days. Austria wanted to remove the problem of Serbia once and for all. The war with Russia was accepted as the price that had to be paid. The German Empire hoped to become a dominant Continental European power. For France, it was a question of