Page - 904 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

904 The June Battle in Veneto took place in a railway carriage near St. Jean de Maurienne. Sonnino in particular was vehemently against a separate peace with Austria-Hungary. Ribot and Lloyd George in turn concealed the contents of the letter from Emperor Karl under the pretext of the oath of secrecy. On their return to Paris, Ribot and Sixtus had met again. Then, Sixtus came to Laxenburg, the second letter was written dated 9 May 1917 and handed to Ribot, who in turn informed Lloyd George. Since both were dissatisfied with the result of St. Jean de Maurienne, they wished to arrange a meeting between King George and President Poincaré and King Vittorio Emanuele. Although no word was said to the Italians that the talks were also to focus on Austria-Hungary, Sonnino immediately came with a pretext and saw no reason for such a meeting to take place with his King. Lloyd George threatened to lose patience. ‘Baron Sonnino should not be permitted to stand in the way of a possible separate peace with Austria’. If the Italian King was not available for a conference, then Sonnino would have to come. The intention of agreeing to the Austrian recommendations was finally formally debated in the British War Cab- inet, and the opinion was expressed that this opportunity must quite simply be grasped, since if this one peace were to be concluded, then the German Empire would no longer be able to withstand the pressure to sign a general peace. The idea of a meeting between the monarchs and the French President was sub- sequently dropped, and arrangements were made for discussions between the prime ministers. In Italy, however, it was clearly known what the subject was to be, and Baron Sonnino therefore immediately announced in advance that he would not agree to have the issue of a separate peace with Austria-Hungary brought to the table. After Italy demanded several delays, the conference finally took place in Paris on 25 and 26 July 1917. However, the Sixtus letters were not discussed here. There was an extensive debate on how Austria-Hungary could be made amenable to a peace, and there was talk of providing greater British-French support troops for Italy in order to conquer Trieste (Triest). This would have meant taking a city that Emperor Karl had refused to give up. The remaining Italian demands would anyway be fulfilled. However, then the French succeeded in putting forward their objectives of renewing the offensive in Flanders instead of attacking jointly on the Karst and in the direction of Trieste. Now, there was no longer any talk of the peace proposals contained in the Sixtus letters  – at least, until the affair surfaced and attempts were made on all sides to do the best they could with lies and at best half-truths. This applied not least to the French, since the ‘Clemenceau Affair’ could now be judged against the background of Wilson’s Fourteen Points. The American President had been deeply disappointed that Clemenceau and Lloyd George had pushed their objectives through at the Allied Supreme War Council, and had ef- fected the decision that despite Austria-Hungary’s clearly expressed wish for peace, no step had been taken towards ending the war.2166 Now, it threatened to become public