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‘Sacro egoismo’ 365
advance notice of eight days. They furthermore secured the maintenance of their respec-
tive interests and committed themselves expressly to keeping the treaty absolutely secret.
Romania had also received a generous offer from the Entente powers. In the event of
Romanian participation in the war on the side of the Entente powers, the latter promised
the Balkan state not only Transylvania and Bukovina but also the Hungarian territory
inhabited by Romanians between Transylvania and the Tisza River. This was very much
more than the cession of the territories of Rădăuţi and Suceava held out by Germany,
which in any case absolutely no-one – above all in Hungary – wanted to hear of.
After agreement had been reached with Romania, Italy resumed negotiations in
London. By this time, however, the season of year now also played a role in Italian
deliberations. Prime Minister Salandra did not conceal during a presentation to the
Italian king that the state of the Italian army did not yet allow for an immediate entry
into the war. It was especially unprepared for fighting in highlands in wintertime, for
which reason Italy would only be able to begin waging war – as long as there were no
unexpected events – in the spring.850
In the interim, however, Italy met with some reservation on the part of the Entente
powers. They had clearly recognised Italy’s tactical manoeuvring. The London press
expressed itself with unconcealed criticism to the effect that Italy could not enter the
war due to a formal error, just because Austria-Hungary had not kept it up to date
regarding the steps taken against Serbia. If the Italian stance is compared with that
of Great Britain, which entered the war only after the flagrant violation of Belgian
neutrality, then the two cases were very different. Just one English journalist con-
sistently supported Italy and steadfastly championed the Italian standpoint, namely
Henry Wickham-Steed, the man who had also appointed himself the advocate of the
Czechs.851 However, he combined this with the call for Italy to take the step that it had
evidently not yet thought of taking, namely to play the part of liberator of the Slavs in
the Balkans. The population of Trieste and the surrounding region was predominantly
Slav, according to Wickham-Steed, and Italy only had a chance of forcing through its
wishes regarding the cession of Trieste and the Croatian and Dalmatian coastline if it
presented itself as a pro-Slav power.
Progress was made in the talks being held at different locations at precisely the
moment Austro-Hungarian troops were advancing far into Serbia during their third
offensive in November 1914. Italy regarded this as the right moment to hold talks with
Austria-Hungary over compensation. Count Berchtold responded in his well-known
way and said that Austria-Hungary did not have any territorial demands against Ser-
bia ; furthermore, the ups and downs of war, which at times brought advances and at
other times retreats, could not be cited as a sufficient argument for applying Article
VII of the Triple Alliance treaty. This time, however, Italy played the German card
and attempted again to influence Vienna by means of the detour via Berlin in order
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