Seite - 22 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

22 On the Eve Empire. Even so, the real power was held by the civic and military governor, who was a general. The evident risk of war into which the Foreign Minister had entered was subject to criticism. However, there were also those who expressed regret that the annexation had been achieved peacefully, and that no war with Serbia had resulted. One exponent of this group was General Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, the Chief of the General Staff of the entire armed force of Austria-Hungary. He made no secret of the fact that he would have liked to have used the annexation as a reason for waging a pre-emptive war against Serbia. Russia, he claimed, was not ready for war any more than Italy and France. England would not want a war, and Romania was an ally. This would therefore have been a perfect opportunity. However, Aehrenthal had emphatically stressed several times that there was no question of waging an offensive war and, on this matter, he was certain that the Emperor and the heir to the throne would agree. In fact, on 10 March 1909, Serbia formally declared that it had abandoned its objections to the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, would harbour no hostile feelings towards Austria-Hungary, and would make every effort to foster good neighbourly relations. In so doing, it denied Austria in a very public manner all reason to initiate a war. The relationship between Conrad and Aehrenthal worsened almost immediately. During the years that followed, Conrad simply refused to accept that those responsible for foreign policy were opposed to his urgent call for war. And in retrospect, notwith- standing the moral implications of this approach, he appeared to have been right : the defeat of Serbia would have changed everything. Aside from politicians, diplomats and several parties, there was one other group that was vehemently opposed to the annexation : the Austrian peace movement, which under the leadership of Bertha von Suttner had become a highly influential body. Member- ship of the movement swelled when entire organisations such as teachers’ associations and church societies joined en masse. However, in terms of their argumentation, they were performing a balancing act, since in the movement’s magazine, the Friedenswarte, differentiations began to be made between cultured nations and backward peoples. The peoples of the Balkans, and also Russia, were unambiguously classified in the second category.18 For the moment, however, von Suttner and her followers could applaud the fact that war had been avoided. However, although a dangerous escalation of the crisis had been prevented, across Europe, reactions to matters related to the Balkans had become sensitised. Since the question of whether there would be war or peace so evidently appeared to hang on de- velopments in the Balkans, any event or change in the status quo that occurred on the Balkan Peninsula was a trigger for alarm bells in the state chancelleries. However, the conflict between Conrad and Aehrenthal only reached its point of cul- mination during the years that followed, when Serbia and Bulgaria took the surprising