Page - 673 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Steps towards Peace 673 Montenegro, Portugal, Romania, Russia and Serbia demanded punishment, repara- tions and pledges, the acknowledgement of the nationality principle and, specifically, ‘the liberation of Italians, of Slavs, of Romanians and of Tcheco-Slovaques’. One could stumble over the pleonasm ‘Slavs and Tcheco-Slovaques’, which originated from the fact that Edvard Beneš had called for the phrase ‘Tcheco-Slovaques’ to be added into the response when it had almost been completed.1533 However, it was clear anyway what was meant. The note not only destroyed hopes for negotiations. The intention and diction of the peace note issued by the Central Powers was also negated. The Entente and its allies also repudiated the idea of a defensive war that was formulated in the peace note. Germany and Austria-Hungary had wanted the war, and had elicited and declared it. Bulgaria and Turkey were not mentioned. The Allies stated ‘that peace is impossible so long as the restoration of the violated rights and liberties, the acknowl- edgement of the principle of nationalities, and the free existence of small states are not guaranteed ‘hat no peace is possible so long as the rights and freedoms that have been infringed are not reinstated, the nationalities principle is not recognised and the free existence of small states is not guaranteed, so long as no security is offered for regulation that is capable of finally removing the causes that have continuously threat- ened the peoples for such a long period of time, and which offers the only effective guarantees for security in the world ‘. Here, just as the Central Powers had done, they elected to use overblown note rhetoric. Over nine-tenths of the response related to the German Empire, and only brief passages dealt with Austria-Hungary. Nonetheless, the war aims of the Entente with regard to the Danube Monarchy had been specifically expressed for the first time. It was simultaneously the official notification that one of the Allies’ war aims was the annihilation of the Habsburg Monarchy. And this carried far more weight than anything else that was stated over several paragraphs in relation to Germany and Belgium, for example. The nationalities of the Habsburg Monarchy that were addressed by the Entente reacted in varying ways. The chairman of the Croat-Slovenian Club in the House of Representatives, Anton Korošec, presented the Foreign Minister with a declaration, the subject of which was the ‘duplicitous assurance by the Entente regarding the liber- ation of the Slavs in Austria’, and the fact that the ‘Croat-Slovenian people are now, as ever, firmly determined, in times of need and death, to remain devoted subjects of the House of Habsburg’. The Romanians declared that ‘the Austrian Romanians are not ruled by a foreign power […] and in traditional devotion remain loyal to the Dynasty and to their affiliation to the Imperial state.’ The representatives of the Italians made similar statements, offering assurance that throughout the centuries, their ‘legitimate representatives’ had never made ‘efforts towards separation’. The Czech Union found itself in the greatest difficulty, producing a series of draft texts that included a statement to the effect that the Emperor should honour the fact that the Czechs had pledged