Page - 287 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

On the War’s Objectives 287 Slavs in its own empire. The fact that Serbian territory was later to be annexed or Serbia made dependent on Austria-Hungary no longer seemed to be of any importance, at least following the first defeats and entirely so after the failure in the Balkans. The formulation of war objectives against Russia was also to be similarly cautious : it should stop supporting the Pan-Slavists and massively influencing the Ruthenians, among others. Territorial desires were not expressed. But everything was still very vague and, above all, not in the least foreseeable. What Austria-Hungary speculated about and the war objectives it formulated should be contrasted with what the other parties were thinking in regard to the Habsburg Monarchy. And they by no means limited themselves to mentally trimming a piece off here or there and shifting borders in accordance with military considerations. This discussion was instead linked to longer-term objectives that aimed at the dissolution of the Monarchy. This viewpoint was further fuelled by the fact that people suddenly spoke up, some of whom had appeared to be loyal subjects of the Habsburg Monarchy until summer 1914 and now made people sit up and take notice with their radical words. Most of them had fled Austria in summer and autumn 1914 and sought ref- uge with the powers that were now Austria-Hungary’s enemies or with neutral states, where their ideas were suddenly regarded as significant. A handful of Czech emigrants submitted on 4 August 1914 to the Russian Foreign Minister Sazonov the proposal that Tsar Nicholas II be offered the Crown of Saint Wenceslas. In his first talks with the Entente powers on war objectives, Sazonov then weaved in not only the possibility of acquiring the whole of Poland but also pondered on what he called the ‘liberation’ of Bohemia.688 Asked directly by the ambassadors of France and Great Britain, the Russian Foreign Minister responded on 14 September that it was a Russian war objective to see Austria recast as a tripartite monarchy, con- sisting of the Kingdom of Austria, though comprising only the hereditary lands, the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Kingdom of Hungary. Galicia, Silesia and Posen should be united with Russian Poland. Serbia should receive Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dalmatia and northern Albania. And Hungary would have to reach an agreement with Roma- nia regarding Transylvania. In November 1914, the Tsar stated the Russian position more precisely by  – whilst not mentioning it directly  – taking the forced dissolution of Austria-Hungary for granted, since the centrifugal forces would rule out its continued existence.689 No further action would be necessary. Thus, for the Russians it was furthermore the case that they emphasised in their propaganda the liberation of the Slavs from foreign rule. But did they even want to be ‘liberated’ ? Only a few Czechs and even fewer Croats aspired to national inde- pendence beyond the Habsburg Monarchy. Nevertheless, from 1914 the question of the complete dissolution of Austria-Hungary no longer disappeared from the delib- erations of the Entente. The Russian ambassador in Paris and former foreign min-