Seite - 17 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
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The Ballhausplatz and
the Deficit
of War 17
out in particular. Since the Habsburg Monarchy lay on the periphery of a collapsing
large empire, its foreign policy was oriented towards specific regions. However, it was
clear that the spoils to be won also brought with them all the problems that had be-
leaguered the Turks. The collapse or merely the threat of dissolution of a large empire
always brings substantial fallout in its wake, since those who have a stabilising effect
and who wish to retain an empire are by nature in conflict with those who wish to
profit from its disintegration.11 This was the case with the Ottoman Empire, as it would
be later with Austria-Hungary, the collapsing major power in the Danube region. The
Habsburg Monarchy made strenuous efforts to counteract its fall, but perhaps it was
precisely this almost compulsive attempt to break out of the disastrous circle that gave a
hectic and sometimes unpredictable quality to Austro-Hungarian policy.12 The foreign
policy of the Monarchy reached the limits of its effectiveness whenever a conflict of
interests occurred with those countries that portrayed themselves as dynamic, impe-
rialist major powers, in other words, particularly when Great Britain, France and the
German Empire came into play. The same was also true when a rival for the Turkish
legacy, namely Tsarist Russia, made its intentions clear, and when medium-sized and
small states began to seek expansion and make efforts to push through their demands.
This applied above all to Italy and also to Serbia. That their interaction and rivalry is
one of the causes of the outbreak of war is undisputed. How else can the reactions to
certain events, the alliance politics and ultimately the goals that lay behind the war be
explained ?
The foundations for war were laid primarily in the Balkans. While on several occa-
sions, there were fears that war would break out against Russia, or that the Habsburg
Monarchy would be drawn into a war between Germany and France, the tensions be-
tween Austria-Hungary and Germany on the one hand and Russia on the other, as
well as the strained relations between Germany and France, lacked the spontaneous
aggressiveness and irrational behaviour that was manifest in the Balkans. There, the
situation overall was volatile and unstable. When in 1908 the Austro-Hungarian For-
eign Minister Baron Aloys Lexa von Aehrenthal bound the Monarchy to a more ac-
tive foreign policy, thus revising the policy of his predecessor, the Polish count Agenor
Gołuchowski, the level of disorder in the structural fabric of the Balkans increased
dramatically. As presidential head at the Foreign Ministry, then as ambassador first
to Bucharest and finally from 1899 to 1906 to St. Petersburg, Aehrenthal had been in
a position to gather a wealth of experience and insight, and the policy that he began
appeared at first sight to be neither particularly illogical nor exciting. At best, it was
received with surprise.13 In 1878, the Congress of Berlin had given Austria-Hungary
a mandate to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina. Austria also obtained the right to oc-
cupy an area known as the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, which lay between Serbia and the
principality of Montenegro in the west of the Balkan Peninsula. Austria-Hungary was
THE FIRST WORLD WAR
and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
- Titel
- THE FIRST WORLD WAR
- Untertitel
- and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
- Autor
- Manfried Rauchensteiner
- Verlag
- Böhlau Verlag
- Ort
- Wien
- Datum
- 2014
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-205-79588-9
- Abmessungen
- 17.0 x 24.0 cm
- Seiten
- 1192
- Kategorien
- Geschichte Vor 1918
Inhaltsverzeichnis
- 1 On the Eve 11
- 2 Two Million Men for the War 49
- 3 Bloody Sundays 81
- 4 Unleashing the War 117
- 5 ‘Thank God, this is the Great War!’ 157
- 6 Adjusting to a Longer War 197
- 7 The End of the Euphoria 239
- 8 The First Winter of the War 283
- 9 Under Surveillance 317
- 10 ‘The King of Italy has declared war on Me’ 355
- 11 The Third Front 383
- 12 Factory War and Domestic Front, 1915 413
- 13 Summer Battle and ‘Autumn Swine’ 441
- 14 War Aims and Central Europe 469
- 15 South Tyrol : The End of an Illusion (I) 497
- 16 Lutsk :The End of an Illusion (II) 521
- 17 How is a War Financed ? 555
- 18 The Nameless 583
- 19 The Death of the Old Emperor 607
- 20 Emperor Karl 641
- 21 The Writing on the Wall 657
- 22 The Consequences of the Russian February Revolution 691
- 23 Summer 1917 713
- 24 Kerensky Offensive and Peace Efforts 743
- 25 The Pyrrhic Victory : The Breakthrough Battle of Flitsch-Tolmein 769
- 26 Camps 803
- 27 Peace Feelers in the Shadow of Brest-Litovsk 845
- 28 The Inner Front 869
- 29 The June Battle in Veneto 895
- 30 An Empire Resigns 927
- 31 The Twilight Empire 955
- 32 The War becomes History 983
- Epilogue 1011
- Afterword 1013
- Acknowledgements and Dedication 1019
- Notes 1023
- Selected Printed Sources and Literature 1115
- Index of People and Places 1155