1917: War, Peace, and Revolution by David Stevenson

Author:David Stevenson [Stevenson, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780191006777
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2017-10-05T19:00:00+00:00

During the first phase the strategic conjuncture still favoured the Allies. Austria-Hungary had suffered enormous losses in the 1916 Brusilov offensive, and faced new Russian and Italian assaults. The French anticipated a decisive role in the spring campaigning, and took the lead in rejecting the Central Powers’ and Woodrow Wilson’s peace notes as well as in agreeing with Russia on far-reaching war aims. Sixte’s project began with an ostensibly simple invitation from Zita’s mother for a family reunion at Neuchβtel in Switzerland. Sixte’s and Xavier’s visit there required consent from King Albert of the Belgians (whose queen, Elizabeth, was the princes’ cousin), as well as the French government.5 Only two days after Franz Joseph died, Sixte met the Quai d’Orsay secretary-general, Jules Cambon, who warned that Italy, Serbia, and Russia must obtain their promised gains at Austria-Hungary’s expense, although Austria-Hungary could compensate by taking Silesia from Germany.6 At the family gathering on 29 January Sixte received a letter from Zita imploring him to mediate. He had ready a four-point plan: France to regain Alsace-Lorraine with the frontier not of 1870 but of 1814 (so including much of the Saar coalfield), the complete restoration of Belgium and of Serbia (the latter with sea access), and Russia to gain Constantinople. This list became the basis of discussion, and characteristically was drafted by neither principal but by the intermediary. Despite omitting Italy, it favoured the Allies.7

For two months the mission centred on this agenda, while Sixte shuttled via Switzerland and made each side seem closer to the other than it was. This was not quite falsification, but he was not particularly scrupulous. On returning from Neuchβtel he told William Martin that Karl was offering a separate peace, though this was actually Sixte’s own aspiration and is unsupported by the Austrian evidence. Complicating the situation was Karl’s delicate relationship with his foreign minister, Ottokar Count Czernin, who agreed the Dual Monarchy must end the war quickly and would do well to avoid losing territory (although both men also favoured Balkan expansion if the opportunity presented). Thus at a 12 January meeting of the Common Ministerial Council, which represented the governments of the Monarchy’s Austrian and Hungarian halves and which Karl chaired, the emperor sought to define maximum and minimum aims. It was agreed that the main objective should be simply to preserve the Monarchy’s integrity, and ministers were surprisingly willing for concessions to Serbia, though unwilling (in this following Karl’s lead) for any to Italy.8 This outcome was in keeping with the empire’s strategy: Austria-Hungary, uniquely, undertaking no 1917 offensive until Caporetto. It is true that at the start of the year Conrad von Hötzendorff had planned to attack Italy, but Karl replaced Conrad with Arz von Straussenberg. Czernin seems not to have known about the Sixte contact, however, until mid February, and meanwhile explored separate indications that French representatives sought a meeting. And although a dinner remark in January suggests that Czernin would have considered the possibility of a separate peace,9 once he

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