Page - 899 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The ‘Parma Conspiracy’ 899 weeks previously, at the end of March 1917, that while Italy demanded the cession of Trentino, it was certainly prepared to lower its aspirations overall ? On 12 April, the of- fer was repeated and specified in Bern by an Italian colonel acting on Cadorna’s behalf : now, all that Italy wanted was Trentino and Aquilea.2149 Cadorna had apparently been acting on the orders of the Italian King. At any rate, no agreement was reached in St. Jean. Even so, Ribot requested that Prince Sixtus again contact Emperor Karl directly. This time, Italy was apparently also discussed. The visit took place in May. Once again, both brothers came to Vienna. Who then spoke to whom and on what subject, was depicted differently in retrospect, as was the case with the first meeting. Certainly, the Emperor met with his brothers-in-law, but Sixtus also talked to the Foreign Minister. The subject of the discussions was the pos- sibility for concrete peace negotiations. Czernin remained reserved, and finally issued only a typewritten note in which he rejected a unilateral relinquishment of territory by Austria-Hungary in the name of the Imperial and Royal government, and demanded guarantees for the integrity of the Danube Monarchy if a peace were to be concluded. However, the previous events were destined to repeat themselves. On the following day, the princes again met with the Austrian Emperor, and Karl again gave them a let- ter in which he ascertained that France and England clearly shared his views regarding the basis for a European peace. And when it came to Italy, the demands would have to be re-examined. The Parma princes travelled to France via Switzerland, and Sixtus again met Poin- caré and Ribot, but their willingness to continue the contact had stalled. They had clearly only been interested in finding out how far the Austrian Emperor was prepared to go. In London, where Sixtus also spoke to King George V, the desire to take the mat- ter forward was in general greater, but it was clearly felt that there was no opportunity to do so in light of the position disclosed by Sonnino and the hesitation of the French. The contact then petered out. This was perhaps not because Emperor Karl would not have been willing to continue pursuing it, but rather because the French and British were unable to persuade the Italians with their desire to enter concrete discussions and negotiations. However, only very few people were informed about the first and second letters issued by Emperor Karl, and they chose to remain silent. It was not until almost a year later, after Brest-Litovsk and the failure of all attempts at concluding a peace in the west, and against the background of a situation in which the Imperial and Royal Foreign Minister in particular found it necessary to express a particular degree of compliance towards the German Empire and an increase in loyalty to the alliance,2150 that this brief incident was turned into a scandal. Following the relocation of troops from the east to the western front, the German Empire appeared to want to force a decisive military victory there, too. On 21 March 1918, the battle began in France that was known as ‘Operation Michael’. In this re-