Page - 378 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

378 ‘The King of Italy has declared war on Me sorts of things, including demands for a pre-emptive war as well as a sloppy approach to their ally. Yet one thing is equally certain : since the beginning of the war, any means and any concession seemed justified to them, especially Conrad, in order to at least maintain Italian neutrality. On 3 May, Sonnino sent a note to the Italian ambassador in Vienna, the Duke of Avarna, which terminated the Triple Alliance. The note was given to Burián the fol- lowing day. An identical note was handed over in Berlin three days later. Now it was clear to everyone that the ‘War Scenario I’ would occur before long. Things became emotional. Thought was still given to whether to send the heir to the Austrian throne to Rome. Archduke Karl was called to the Emperor on a daily basis. And the Emperor, who had unleashed the war more or less free of emotion, said : ‘This is how we will now perish’. And he ‘wept’, as the Deputy Chief of the Military Chancellery noted.902 The German Empire was shocked and rebuked Austria-Hungary gravely for acting too late and making too few concessions. Conrad took the same line and even com- plained to the Chief of the Military Chancellery that Burián had overestimated the military means of the Dual Monarchy. The war would simply have to be avoided. At this moment, Conrad was once more abandoned by his sense of reality, and he only re- acted emotionally. Even if it was kept in mind that he was anxious that Romania would follow Italy in entering the war and the offensive near Tarnów, which had just begun so successfully, would perhaps have to be abandoned prematurely, it was too late for con- cessions and dramatic gestures of humility towards Italy. An interesting proposal was made by the former Austrian prime minister, Baron Max Wladimir Beck, who advised Burián to set up a German naval base in the Adriatic in order to discourage Italy at the last moment from waging war.903 Burián also called for immediate military agreements with the German Empire in the event of an Italian attack. In view of the news about Italy’s military preparations and the offers of the Entente, Vienna was now prepared for an imminent breach with Italy. Late in the day, a sense of reality made its presence felt. This was not the case in Berlin, however, since the Permanent Secretary in the German Foreign Ministry, von Jagow, demanded that negotiations with Italy be dragged out for at least another four weeks ; only then would German troops be available to fight against Italy.904 Conrad and Falkenhayn met each other at increasingly short intervals and, at the end, almost daily. It was a question of assessing the Italian danger and of calculating rel- ative strengths. Could, as Falkenhayn claimed, enough divisions be liberated from the Russian front in order for at least a defence to be possible in the south-west ? Should the Tyrolean front be placed under German command ?905 This would only be in order to remain on the defensive there, however. Instead, Falkenhayn wanted all disposable forces to be used against Serbia, in order to bring about Romanian and Bulgarian entry into the war on the side of the Central Powers and to establish a link to Turkey. Conrad