Page - 360 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

360 ‘The King of Italy has declared war on Me told to present Italy with the prospect of territorial compensation in the event of a lasting occupation of Serbian territory, though only if Italy were actually to fulfil its alliance obligations. Italy rejected this. However, it provided an image of complete disorientation, for almost at the same time King Vittorio Emanuele III agreed on 31 July to the plan submitted by his new Chief of the General Staff, Cadorna, to send Italian troops across the Alps to France, whereas the Italian government under Prime Minister Antonio Salandra resolved to declare Italy’s neutrality.836 The Prime Minister and the government thus cast their lot in with those who enjoyed a clear majority in the three-way division of opinion in Italy : a small share argued the case for an allegiance to the ally, a larger part advocated an entry into the war on the side of the Entente, and the neutralists received the most affirmation. Thus, Italy declared its neutrality. Late appeals by Emperor Franz Joseph and Kaiser Wilhelm II were to no avail. Again, a detour could be made to the counterfactual history : assuming that Italy had edited out the last chapter of the prehistory, resolved to join the war as part of the Triple Alliance, and strengthened the German western front with an army comprising three army corps and two cavalry divisions, would the allied armies of the Central Pow- ers really have been able to crush France in six to eight weeks ? Would the combined fleets of Italy and Austria-Hungary have been able to defeat the French and the British in the Mediterranean and establish naval supremacy there ? Was the war lost for the Central Powers at the end of July 1914 before it had really even begun ? The trains that the Imperial and Royal Ministry of Railways had kept available as a precaution in order to transport Italian troops via Austria to the German western front837 were at any rate no longer needed. The Central Powers and above all Aus- tria-Hungary were deeply disappointed, but had to make the best of a bad job. Cessions of territory continued to be ruled out. The words so vividly formulated by the Hun- garian Prime Minister Count Tisza applied here : ‘A state that hands over territories from its own body, in order to deter a neighbour that is inclined towards treachery from committing complete betrayal, degrades itself in the eyes of the whole world.’838 Tisza of course knew what he was talking about, since it was not only a question of taking the Italian problem into consideration, but also a matter that concerned Hungary directly, namely how to act in the case of Romania, which had declared its neutrality as expected. The Germans also began to apply pressure in this case and mentioned the possibility of cessions. Rădăuţi (Radautz) and Suceava (Suczawa) should be sacrificed, in order to induce Romania to enter the war. For Hungary, but above all for Emperor Franz Joseph, this was unthinkable.839 Yet there was a kind of relenting on principle, since Italy was granted compensations even without its participation in the war. It was believed that a way out had been found : what if Italy were to be offered territories elsewhere ? However, the proposal did not have the desired effect. On 3 August the Italian Foreign Minister Marchese Anton-