Seite - 68 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

68 Two Million Men for the War alliances, for whilst the framework had been defined, there remained so much distrust that no-one provided anyone else an even tolerably complete insight. This observation also applies to the Triple Entente of France, Great Britain and Russia, to the actual Entente, in other words just France and Great Britain, and in particular to the Triple Alliance and the Dual Alliance. The German Empire allowed Italy only vague insights into the German general staff planning for a war against France. Italy received from Austria-Hungary no in- sight into its operative conceptions and allowed in return no insight itself. The secrecy, however, went even further. The Chief of the General Staff of the Imperial and Royal Army, for example, never got to see the Triple Alliance treaty and learnt of many de- tails only from the aforementioned publication after the war.137 Even the (old) Dual Alliance was also for a long time characterised in the military realm by considerable reticence, which meant that the two partners were only vaguely informed of each other’s plans. Neither details of the deployment and war planning were announced nor agreements on operational plans reached. In particular, the Dual Alliance partners closed their eyes to reality, and this reality was no more and no less than the fact that from 1907/08 onwards strategic changes could no longer be countered with the mind- sets of 1879/82.138 The rapprochement between Russia and the British Empire of 1907, which occurred in the Afghanistan question and in the disputes surrounding the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, Persia and Tibet, removed the old antagonism between the two powers at least to the extent that it was possible to include Russia in the Entente. The Dual Alliance and the Triple Alliance could therefore reckon on Russian participation in the event of a conflict between Germany and France and with British participation should a dispute arise between the Dual Alliance and Russia. Among the new factors was the presence of the British fleet in the Mediterranean, which had consequences above all for Italy. In view of British maritime power, it could be assumed that Italy would do everything to avoid becoming the opponent of Great Britain. Although the British sent part of their Mediterranean Fleet to the North Sea in 1912, whilst in compensation the French Channel Fleet was sent to the Mediterranean, this in no way reduced Italian misgivings or curbed one ambition or the other. It had to be considered in all cases how the inclusion of larger colonial empires and the control over the international sea routes would impact on a large European war. One could not respond to these questions with traditional deployment plans.139 The consequence thus had to be a comprehen- sive strategic evaluation, which was admittedly repeatedly attempted, but particularly in Austria-Hungary was never even rudimentarily successful. Thus, Austria-Hungary remained stuck in the traditional continental mindset and was unable to do anything for the basis of its own military-strategic thinking other than in limited operational instances.140 The Germans would have to take care of everything else.