Page - 670 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

670 The Writing on the Wall sible considerations played a role. Should the initiative be close in time to the Polish Proclamation by the Central Powers, or made subsequently after a clear time lapse ? Should a sacrificial peace possibly be intimated ? Should the peace initiative go hand in hand with the clear statement that the Central Powers were certainly still in a position to intensify their efforts ? Indeed, Germany was on the threshold of taking a next step towards the totalisation of war within the framework of the ‘Hindenburg Programme’. Even before a peace note was issued, the Supreme Army Command intended to pass an Auxiliary Service Law, via which the Hindenburg Programme would also receive the necessary manpower  – an unequivocal step towards total war. Or as Hindenburg put it : ‘The entire population must proclaim its decision  – its wish to continue to arm and continue to fight  – in a ceremonial manner.’1524 The American component also played a significant role. The German Empire fal- tered between the desire to engage the Americans in the efforts for peace and the rejection of an intervention of this nature. For Austria-Hungary, the matter had been complicated by the fear that the American President might interfere with regard to the nationalities in the Monarchy. In a speech in front of the American League to Enforce Peace on 27 May 1916, President Wilson had proclaimed that ‘every people has the right to choose the sovereignty under which they shall live’ as one of the prin- ciples of peace, and this could  – as Americans and Austrians alike were all too well aware  – mean revolution and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary.1525 However, this was only a paraphrase of the statement made by Woodrow Wilson in the autumn of 1914, when he said that the Danube Monarchy should ‘zum Wohle Europas in ihre Teile zerfallen’.1526 While American politicians subsequently proved amenable to the argument that in the light of the strong mixture of nationalities in Austria-Hungary, the right to self-determination of the peoples could turn out to be a chimera,1527 this made no difference to the very different principles and traditions in which American politics were rooted. In the interim, Minister Burián had been forced to acknowledge the fact that the German Empire was by no means willing to go so far in specifying the war aims as he was himself. The German Empire wished to issue a note in which no specific proposals were made for initiating negotiations. By contrast, in Burián’s view, there should be at least an internal stipulation. It would make no sense to enter into negotiations before the Central Powers had agreed on their own line. Burián only wanted his proposals of 18 October 1916 to be understood to the extent that they offered a clear framework for the Central Powers’ own discussions. On this basis, the enemy powers would be given to understand that the Central Powers were entering the negotiations with clear-cut recommendations.1528 This reflected the concern that was also familiar to the Bulgar- ians and Turks that the German Empire might conclude its peace at the expense of the others. Interestingly, the speculation in Berlin ran along similar lines : since Aus-