Page - 486 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

486 War Aims and Central Europe Russophiles. ‘This would not even constitute an economic loss’, he claimed.1158 The ulterior motive was most likely that Hungary could only increase in importance in relation to a downscaled Austria. For the time being, however, it was a question of renewing the compensation treaty between Austria and Hungary. Tisza called for the settlement of 1867 to be first of all renewed and then for negotiations on all details to be completed before an agreement with Germany could be addressed. As a result, in February 1916, compensation negotiations began in Budapest that would last for more than a year and thus effectively prevented action being taken quickly for the realisation of plans for a union with Germany. Had the realists got in the way of the idealists ? Had something got caught between the administrative millstones or was there more to it ? Whilst Austria entered into negotiations with very minor requests for changes, Hungary demanded a marking up of the customs duties and a new quota system that would bring about a reduction in the Hungarian compensation quota. Finally, as com- pensation for Austria potentially receiving Polish territory, the incorporation of Bosnia and Herzegovina into the Hungarian half of the Empire was addressed. This was not to affect the Hungarian quota, however, which was to be reduced, but the gains of the Austrian half of the Empire were to be counted and result once more in an alteration of the quota in favour of Hungary. Only one conclusion could be drawn from this : Hungary had no interest in being part of the plans on Central Europe, and immediately set the bar so high that it could be cleared only with great difficulty. Stürgkh was correspondingly disappointed. He be- gan the compensation conference by giving free rein to his disappointment on 8 Febru- ary 1916 : he had to say that the Hungarian demands had the tendency ‘to increase and flesh out the division, whilst we take as our starting point the highest political interests of both state territories of our Monarchy. […] Instead, the attempt to bring about a further division in the economic sector runs like a red thread through the proposals of the Hungarian government.’ The Hungarian government perhaps thought, Stürgkh continued, that it, as a parliamentary government, was facing an Austrian government of civil servants that was currently governing without a parliament. But no government of civil servants existed that could expect the Austrian people to accept such a settle- ment.1159 Tisza countered and noted in a letter to the Emperor that it was entirely down to Austria to bring about a swift settlement. There had been plenty of time already to take stock of the objectives of the compensation negotiations, to make suggestions and to carry out an evaluation. If the Austrian government were keen to conclude an agree- ment with Germany as soon as possible, then the prerequisite would be that the validity period of the settlement would be doubled and trebled. Hungary could only agree if it also pushed through its own demands. Finally, Tisza posed the cabinet question : if the Emperor and King were to support the standpoint of the Austrian government, Tisza