The Times History of the War - Austria-Hungary: the last years

Austria-Hungary: the last years

This week's chapter explores the murder of Count Sturgkh, the death of Emperor Francis Joseph, Dr Von Koerber the Austrian Premier, the Ausgleich, the Emperor Charles, political changes, Count Czernin the minister of Foreign Affairs, effects of the Russian Revolution, peace currents, the Reichsrat summoned, the resignation of Count Tisza, letter of the Emperor to Prince Sixte of Bourbon, Austrian victories in Italy, the peace of Brest-Litovsk, Polish problems, Allied victories in France, effects in Austria-Hungary, Austro-Hungarian peace note

The Peace Note of September 14, 1918, may be treated as the conclusion of Austria-Hungary's existence as a European Power, its first step on the road to unconditional surrender, and the opening of the revolutionary period which destroyed both the Hapsburg dynasty and its realm

Austrian attack on Italian front JUNE 16, 1918

THE EMPEROR CHARLES AND 'THE GERMAN EMPEROR DISCUSS THE OPERATIONS ON THE PIAVE IN FEBRUARY, 1918

It will be interesting to see what effects the battle may have upon the acute internal problems which are pressing upon the framework of the Dual Monarchy

Read the full story The long-expected Austrian attack upon the Italian front began on Saturday, and is now raging along the whole line of over 70 miles, from the Asiago plateau, where our soldiers are stationed, to the sea. It was delivered in great strength and pressed with much determination. Last night’s Italian report indicates that our Allies are gallantly holding their own. The large force employed by the enemy may be inferred from the fact that no fewer than four Austrian divisions were used in an attempt to dislodge the British contingent. After a brief semblance of success, it completely failed.

Favoured by the heavy mist and the configuration of the ground, the enemy at first penetrated the left of our position on a front of somewhat under a mile and a half to a depth of about a thousand yards. He was beaten off, and by nightfall we had driven him back on the left and returned to our original line. The French to our right appear to have had a similar experience. The greater part of the attack naturally fell upon the long front held by our Italian Allies. The outcome is given in General Diaz’s communique. The struggle is continuing with unabated fury, but his troops are holding firmly on the Asiago plateau, and are closely pressing the enemy infantry which had crossed the Piave.

The plan of the enemy seems to have been to press down the Brenta valley and the Val di Stagna and so to break into the plain of Vicenza by way of Bassano, and at the same time to force his way across the Piave. His “initial rush,” as General Diaz calls it, enabled him to carry a few front line positions both on the mountain and on the river lines.

There is nothing novel about this scheme. What is new is the unprecedented scale. It will be interesting to see what effects the battle may have upon the acute internal problems which are pressing upon the framework of the Dual Monarchy. It is a desperate attempt to keep up the waning spirits of such elements of the population as still remain faithful to the established institutions of the State. While Austria-Hungary is torn by controversies which threaten widespread insurrections, the Italian people are meeting the ordeal to which they are exposed with a unity and a calm courage that make us prouder than ever of our Allies.

Another 'peace' Note September 16, 1918

THE EMPEROR CHARLES AT CZERNOWITZ IN 1917. Conversing with the Commander of the Landesgendarmerie of the Bukovina Neither Germany nor her "brilliant second" has the least expectation that the Allies will accept their offers. What they do hope for is that the rejection of their proposals may be represented to their disheartened peoples and Armies as a reason for continuing the contest

Read the full story The significance of the Austrian “peace” Note and of the subsidiary intrigues which are revealed today is perfectly clear. Germany is hard pressed, and she desires to gain time for the reorganization of the armies which Foch is driving back in France and for the construction of fresh lines of defence. She accordingly employs Austria-Hungary to renew sham proposals for peace negotiations, she offers a separate peace to Belgium, and she coolly proposes that we and our Allies should withdraw from Eastern Karelia and the Murman coast on condition that.she shall not attack in this region. Austria obediently prepares and issues the Note, and thinks that the assent of her allies is a warranted “assumption” - and this just after the visits of von Hintze and and Talaat and the other comings and goings in Vienna!

A special Note is addressed to the Pope, whom the Central Powers hope to involve in their intrigues, notwithstanding the negative issue of his former interposition. Neutrals in general are notified of the step, but probably without much hope, as it is known that for weeks past attempts have been made to induce them to further “conversations” with the Allies, and that it is the complete failure of these attempts which has forced the Central Powers to resort to the present manoeuvre. It is one of the oldest and stalest tricks of diplomacy. It is a double-barrelled weapon. Neither Germany nor her “brilliant second” has the least expectation that the Allies will accept their offers. What they do hope for is, first, that the rejection of their proposals may be represented to their disheartened peoples and Armies as a conclusive reason for continuing the contest; and, secondly, that, in Herr Dernburg’s phrase, they may “break the home front” of the Allies by the spread of that “atmosphere” which the Austrians claim to have “formed” by their earlier efforts in this kind.

The “dodge”, for that is the only word to describe it, was tried again and again by Napoleon for the same obvious purposes. It did not deceive statesmen or peoples with any political instinct, but from Germany he received many servile tributes to his humane love of peace, and the Estates of Berg, now absorbed by Prussia, actually assured him that whenever he drew the sword he “seemed in principle to declare war against war”. It will not deceive the Allied statesmen or the Allied democracies today, but it may still have some effect upon those classes of the Central Empires whom the ruling castes regard as “cannon-fodder”. That indeed is doubtful. These classes have learnt a good deal, and the German Kaiser’s recent speech betrays an uneasy consciousness of it.

It would be waste of time to discuss the Note in detail. Its “basic idea”, to use its own jargon, stands in direct contradiction with the German Emperor’s clear and unqualified recognition that this world-war is a war to the death between irreconcilable “world-ideas”. That is the truth. The suggestion of the Note that the “conceptions” of the two sides have drawn nearer since the last “peace” Note is false, so far as the Allied Governments and peoples are concerned. Their “conceptions” are today what they were when Germany ravished Belgium and Serbia was crushed. There has not been any “partial turning” from their concrete war aims. On the contrary, the progress of the war has caused them to develop the application of their principles. President Wilson’s specific demand for the righting of the wrong done France by the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine and the recent recognition of the Czecho-Slovak claims are instances of this inevitable process.

The Note professes to discern in certain speeches by British statesmen, which it does not quote, modifications of our earlier demands. There have been no such modifications.The Note has the hardihood to refer to Mr Wilson’s speech of February 12 as proof of this “rapprochement of conceptions”. It is the speech in which he flatly repudiated the statements of Count Hertling and pointed out that his equivocal acceptance of general principles did not lead to practical conclusions. Germany had then concluded the original Treaties of Brest-Litovsk. Mr Wilson could not reconcile them with the principles to which the Count paid lip-service. The £300,000,000 just extorted under the Supplementary Treaties aggravates the task. The President objected on that occasion, as he had already objected in his address to Congress in January, to “secret diplomacy”, and he severely censured Count Hertling because he would not discuss the fate of the Baltic provinces with anybody but Russia, or that of the evacuation of French territory with anybody but France. His method, Mr Wilson said, was “individual barter and concession”, “the method of the Congress of Vienna”, and he declared that the Count must be living “in a world that is dead and gone”. He is still living in it. The “method of the Congress of Vienna” is the very method proposed by the Note. Mr Wilson has maintained that the processes of peace “shall be absolutely open”, and that the terms must be openly reached. The Note insists, on the contrary, that it was publicity which made the previous peace efforts barren, and that everything must be conducted “between the representatives of the Governments and only between them”. The discussion is to be “confidential and non-binding”, and meanwhile there is to be no interruption of the war.

Even the Brest-Litovsk Treaties and their supplements or the startling disclosures as to Germany’s dealings with Lenin and Trotsky which are made in our Washington message, do not afford better proof of the German Emperor’s confession about the real nature of the war than the proposals to Belgium. She is to receive again her political and economic independence “after” the war. But there are conditions. She must try to persuade her Allies to restore the German colonies to the gentle and civilizing sway which we described the other day, and which she has herself experienced in a modified form. Although she is not to recover her freedom till after the war, she is to “resume” her neutrality at once - and thereby, now that Germany has utilized her territory to the full - to prevent the Allies from conducting military operations from it. The more permanent provisions are, that Germany is to enjoy for an undefined period the commercial advantages which she possessed before the war, and that the “Flemish question” is to be settled - doubtless in such a way as will best secure her a right of interference in Belgian internal affairs and a clientele of Belgian spies and informers.

These are the terms which Germany is ready to concede to the people she has slaughtered, plundered, and oppressed during four years of a despotism unapproached for wickedness in modern times. There is no word in her “peace” offer of restoration or of reparation. The Allies are pledged to procure Belgium both, and to obtain for her in addition guarantees that never again shall she lie at the feet of Prussian “militarism”. That is what their principles dictate to them. Do the Austrians see any approximation between these and the “world-view” of Germany?

Allies and the Note September 17, 1918

A GREAT DEMONSTRATION IN BUDAPEST IN FAVOUR OF A REPUBLIC. The crowd was dispersed by the military. The Note is regarded as not being intrinsically worth a moment's consideration. Interest in the motives which, prompted it is, however, keen

Read the full story The text of the Austro-Hungarian “peace” Note is understood to have been conveyed to the Foreign Office yesterday afternoon through the Swedish Legation. Though it has not yet been discussed by the Cabinet, Mr Balfour’s speech to the Imperial Press delegates clearly foreshadows the view which will be taken by the Foreign Office and, undoubtedly, by the Government as a whole. In Allied diplomatic quarters opinion is unanimous.

The Note is regarded as not being intrinsically worth a moment’s consideration. Interest in the motives which, prompted it is, however, keen. It is thought to be rather in the nature of a war move than of a peace move - that is to say, the Central Empires, and also Bulgaria and Turkey, have begun to realize the inferiority ol their military and economic positions and to be anxious to create a diversion that will flurry and embarrass the Allied peoples and Governments. The enemy is not yet reconciled to the idea of defeat, but apprehends defeat unless the Allies can be persuaded to stay their hands.

The spirit of the German Army is known to have suffered severely from the recent reverses and from a dawning consciousness of the military importance of the American war effort. The plight of Austria-Hungary is becoming daily more distracted. Bulgaria is restless and filled with misgiving, while the rulers of Turkey would gladly make some peace that would enable them to enjoy the large fortunes they have accumulated during the war. It is, therefore, thought probable that the rejection of the present overtures will not by any means mark the end of the enemy peace offensive.

Other overtures, carefully modulated to suit the mood of “moderate” elements in Allied countries, are likely to be progressively made. To this end every expression of opinion among the Allies will be carefully scanned. No official indication of the views of Allied Governments upon the Austro-Hungarian Note has yet been received. It is assumed, however, by Allied diplomatists that all the Allies and the United States will treat the Austro-German overture as a device intended to serve the military and political ends of the enemy.