Page - 490 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

490 War Aims and Central Europe Albanian mountains. Serbs, Montenegrins and the remainder of the prisoners of the war nonetheless reached the coast via detours. What happened then, in order to prevent the embarkation of the Serbs and also the Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war, certainly does not allow for the description ‘hell-bent’ or even ‘bold’. The Imperial and Royal Navy contented itself to just watch. On their way to the coast, the remains of the Serbian Army had been repeatedly attacked by Albanians, who were interested not in fighting but instead looting. They were generally successful and the Serbs relinquished their last possessions to them.1171 Whilst the Serbs rushed on, the Allies were completely at odds as to what should be done with their defeated alliance partner.1172 The Italians stubbornly insisted on their standpoint of not allowing the Serbs into the south of Albania. They should disappear into the region of Tirana/Durrës, argued the Italians. The objection that this territory was far too small in order to accommodate the Serbs in addition to the Albanians, did not interest Rome. Paris advocated transportation to the Tunisian city of Bizerte. This proposal was not made out of conviction but merely for the sake of at least pro- posing something. Then the possibility of bringing the Serbs to Corfu was examined. But Corfu was Greek and the British hesitated to once again confront the Greeks, on whom they had already forced the questionable benefit of landing troops in the Salonika region, with a fait accompli. Perhaps the matter could be sorted with money. Necessity demanded haste, and the arguments and counterarguments were plenti- ful. In London, for example, the information that the presence of Serbian troops on Corfu would prevent the Germans from using the island for their submarines, did not have the desired effect. This could be achieved, argued the Foreign Office, with fewer people than the approximately 100,000 Serbian soldiers. Ultimately, however, Corfu offered the only real chance to evacuate the bulk of the Serbian Army  – and to keep them alive. Montenegro had not yet abandoned its resistance, but the signs of its complete defeat were multiplying. King Nikola I of Montenegro left his capital city, but as a pre- caution hung a portrait of Emperor Franz Joseph in his study, in order to make obvious his alleged veneration of the Austrian Monarch, which had not diminished as a result of the war. But it was to no avail : Montenegro was also to be completely defeated and occupied. In the meantime, it had become clear that the Serbian and Montenegrin troops would be evacuated in their entirety by the Allies. On 16 December 1915, the first contingents were embarked in Vlorë. Two further ports were at the disposal of the allies, Shëngjin and Durrës. On 9 January 1916, it was clear that the Entente troops would take possession of the Greek island of Corfu and evacuate the remaining Serbi- ans and Montenegrins. The information, which was also on hand in Vienna, originated from one of the countless dispatches of the Italian Foreign Minister Baron Sonnino that were intercepted and deciphered by Austrian cryptographers.1173