Page - 675 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Unrestricted Submarine War 675 the men who had been lost, the principles of the Joint Supreme War Command were also applied when it came to providing people, and a new Landsturm (reserve forces) law was drafted by means of which 17-year-olds were also subject to enlistment for the Landsturm. Furthermore, compulsory service in the Landsturm was to expire not at the age of 50, but to still apply to 51 to 55-year-olds.1537 Now, the last reserves were gradually being put to use. The Unrestricted Submarine War The arrival of the response from the Entente powers and their allies had clearly marked the failure of the carefully constructed peace initiative by the Central Powers. None- theless, a further episode still followed. Since on 18 December 1916 the American President had pronounced his long-awaited message of peace in front of the Senate, and had invited the belligerents to make their aims known, the German Empire and Austria-Hungary were again presented with a challenge. What would they say to the Americans ? Simply re-delivering Burián’s list would probably not be an appropriate measure. For this reason, only a vague response was given to the American initiative. Since Zimmermann, the German Permanent Secretary of Foreign Affairs, who had succeeded von Jagow, no longer had faith in the success of an independent measure, however, what he wanted most was a rapid clarification and, in this connection, an equally rapid decision regarding the start of the unrestricted submarine war while ig- noring the rules of prize warfare. Finally, however, Berlin still conveyed to the Amer- icans a list with highly moderate aims, albeit ones that related only to the German Empire.1538 The Ballhausplatz (Austro-Hungarian Imperial Chancellery) was only in- formed of this when the German envoy in Washington was already holding the rele- vant instructions in his hands. The German Empire had quite cold-bloodedly left its allies high and dry. At the same time, the definitive decision had been taken regarding the unrestricted submarine war, which was due to begin on 1 February 1917. With the acceptance of American mediation in bringing about a peace and the dispatch of a moderate list of war aims, the Germans had made an attempt to avoid disrupting its relationship with the USA, despite the decision to initiate unrestricted submarine warfare. However, the USA did anything but acknowledge this trapeze act. On 3 February, the German envoy in Washington was presented with his passport. Diplomatic relations had been broken off. Two days later, on 5 February 1917, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, Count Czernin, arranged for a note to be handed to the American Secretary of State, Lan- sing, in which he expressly gave his support to the formula suggested by Wilson of a peace without victors or losers, and requested that the American President persuade