Seite - 373 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Treaty of London 373 Now, it was of course a matter of determining Italy’s willingness to negotiate on the basis of the new proposals from Vienna. Shortly before the session of the Joint Council of Ministers, however, a telegram for Emperor Franz Joseph had arrived in Vienna from Kaiser Wilhelm, which contained the so-called ‘Silesian offer’, namely the re- turn of some of the Silesian territories conquered by King Friedrich II of Prussia to Austria, if Austria-Hungary gave in to Italy. The German Kaiser had assured Franz Joseph in this telegram, which had been revised by Bethmann-Hollweg and von Ja- gow, that he had a mind to share good and bad with the Austrian Monarch. Another enticement was attached to the ‘Silesian offer’, namely Germany’s agreement to lend gold to Austria-Hungary. This was so important because the loans taken so far from Germany now no longer even sufficed for the interest due and the repayment rates. Vi- enna believed furthermore that it had the right to demand generosity from the German Empire in the financial area, since it had held out the prospect of a loan running into the billions in the event that Italy maintained its neutrality.881 Thus, Conrad’s remarks against Italy remained irrelevant, and Tisza and Burián even believed that with the cession of Triente it would be possible to bind Italy once more to the Triple Alliance.882 Austria-Hungary was only unprepared to negotiate over cessions in the Isonzo region, since the word of the Emperor held sway here. The turnaround in opinion was so com- plete that any speculation over a subsequent revision of the process was strictly rejected. The Dual Monarchy, it was said, would certainly not wage a subsequent war of revenge against Italy. Burián immediately had the change of attitude on the part of the Vienna cabinet announced in Rome via Berlin, though he demanded that in the cession of Trentino the linguistic frontier would have to be taken as the outer limit of Italian demands. On 10 March, Italy declared itself ready to negotiate on the basis of the proposals from Vienna. Absolute secrecy was also demanded for this, but also the immediate coming into force of a treaty of cession, whilst Burián and the Austrian government had only planned on a cession after the conclusion of a peace treaty. This demand thus had a snag, since it was not only a question of making clear to the population of a region that had belonged to Austria for hundreds of years that it would have to immediately change its nationality. Now the maps would have to be studied. Burián had one prepared, on which the lin- guistic frontier was marked, and the Foreign Minister wanted to conduct negotiations according to that. The minister and the envoy responsible for Italy, Pogatscher, hoped to eliminate existing differences with Italy once and for all after the cession of the eth- nically Italian territory. Thus, an offer should be made that was as generous as possible. The Chief of the Imperial Military Chancellery, General Bolfras, had drawn up another map, which did not go quite as far as that of the Foreign Minister. On all maps, how- ever, only new Tyrolean borders had been marked. The handling of the Friuli region