Seite - 708 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

708 The Consequences of the Russian February Revolution question of on which section of the front the war would resume. Here, the revolution already appeared to be over and the military day-to-day of war returned. Attempts to boycott the war and to end it by means of a type of fraternisation were over, and it could certainly be understood as a threat what Russian soldiers then wrote on a wooden tablet and placed in front of the Imperial and Royal troops : ‘Soldiers of the German and Austro-Hungarian Army ! If you would like to take up peace negotia- tions, address our government, which comprises our best men. Act with honesty. Every attempt on your part to reach agreements with us will become a hard lesson for you : we will shoot ! This is our last word !  – We are ready to conclude peace if you accomplish the same great deed that has been achieved here : topple your bloodstained Emperor, the author of all the bloodshed, and we are ready to conclude peace ! The Russian sol- diers.’1613 The willingness of the Provisional Government to continue the war could not mean anything more for Russia than the end of the first phase of the revolution, nor was the resumption of the war tantamount to the impact of the revolution on the Central Powers being over. A spell had been broken. The argumentation of the Entente and the USA that the war had now become a war of democracies against autocracies fell some- what short, but the argument could also not simply be swept aside ; instead, it gradually took effect. It could, above all, not be overlooked that the qualification that had applied since 1914 was no longer valid, namely that Russia was governed autocratically and re- stricted civil liberties to a far greater extent than, for example, Austria-Hungary. It was no longer Russia that appeared to be the stronghold of repression, but Austria. It was, therefore, imperative to react to the February Revolution with domestic policy meas- ures. The attempts to make peace also received a different accent. They became more independent, since ultimately the threat to the existence of the Habsburg Monarchy was also something that had no equivalent. This altered situation was expressed in a very informative report by the new Ger- man ambassador in Vienna, Count Botho von Wedel. On 15 April, he reported to the German Imperial Chancellor in Berlin : ‘Ich habe in Deutschland oft sagen ge- hört, Österreich sei von uns vollständig abhängig ; ob es wolle oder nicht, es habe uns zu folgen und zu gehorchen. Das war früher zutreffend. Doch wer glaubt, das wäre auch heute noch so, verkennt die Situation.’1614 In Austria, he continued, the ten- dency towards peace was increasing considerably, and indeed peace with or without the German Empire, linked with an almost ‘pathological’ fear of German domina- tion.1615 In Vienna  – as the outgoing American chargé d’affaires Joseph Clark Grew recounted  – a type of witticism was being circulated in March 1917 : it would take five years before the Germans would again be allowed to travel to France, ten years before they would again be allowed into England, and twenty years before they are again let into Austria.1616