by Hew Strachan
Because one of the most important political changes to emerge from the First World War was the fragmentation of the Austro-Hungarian empire into a number of new nation states, it is tempting to conclude that the disintegration was well in train before the war broke out. It is true that major change, presumably on Franz Joseph’s death, was generally expected, and that the vulnerabilities of the Ausgleich and hence of Austria-Hungary as a whole were acknowledged. But most national groups derived benefits as well as disadvantages from membership of the empire, and therefore the majority before 1914 looked to federalism, not independence.
The cultural diversity of Vienna, home before 1914 to Freud and the philosopher Wittgenstein, the writers Rilke and Karl Kraus, the painter Gustav Klimt, and the composers Mahler, Richard Strauss, and Schoenberg, and the relative liberalism of the Habsburg empire compared with the autocracy of its Slav neighbour, Russia—all these were plus points for the inhabitants of Austria-Hungary. The strength and size of the bureaucracy, consciously expanded to embrace the nationalities of the empire, meant that effective administration continued regardless of parliamentary paralysis. Ministers were drawn from the civil service and were enabled to govern by virtue of paragraph 14 of the Austrian constitution, which conferred emergency powers when the Reichsrat was not in session.
What was, however, true was that if any state manifested a close connection between domestic policy and foreign policy, if in any country the former directed the latter, it was not so much Germany as Austria-Hungary. Generally speaking, and with notable exceptions, Austria-Hungary was neither a bellicose nor expansionist actor in international relations after 1866. The defence budget declined from the 1890s until 1912, and the war of 1866 ought to have been sufficient reminder that fighting did not necessarily resolve problems in a satisfactory manner. But in the debate on the Ausgleich and its future the funding and the recruitment of the army were pivotal; for some, its employment in war would be the best way to cut through the debate and the procrastination. Furthermore, the dual monarchy’s ethnic groups prevented the empire from lapsing into any form of isolation. With the exception of the Magyars, each of them could look to a national homeland that lay outside the frontiers of the empire—to Serbia, to Romania, to Italy, to Russia, and even to Germany. Domestic and foreign policy were therefore inextricably linked. In 1815 Metternich had used the Concert of Europe to give this racial pot-pourri external validation and support; by 1914 the relative decline of the Concert system could only enhance Austria-Hungary’s dependence on the Austro-German alliance as a substitute.
However unstable the dual monarchy might appear, however much it might seem a relic of the eighteenth century, its survival was much less remarkable than that of its immediate eastern neighbour, the Ottoman empire. The origins of the tensions in the Balkans which became the immediate cause of the First World War lie not so much in Austrian aggression (although in time this came to play its part) as in Ottoman senescence. In July 1908 the Young Turks, a group of Turkish patriots, backed by the III army corps at Salonika (the army being an agent of modernization), staged a revolution against the oriental despotism of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. Abdul Hamid granted the constitution which the Young Turks demanded, but then in April 1909 staged a counter-revolution. The Young Turks rallied, ousted Abdul Hamid, and installed his brother, Mohammed V, as the new Sultan.
The Young Turks’ revolution threatened to transform the situation in European Turkey. Over the last half of the nineteenth century the great powers of Europe had endeavoured to manage Turkey’s decline, and in particular its withdrawal from the Balkans, in as gradual a manner as possible. In 1878 they had stepped in after the Russian defeat of Turkey, and at the Congress of Berlin had acknowledged the independence of Serbia, Romania, Montenegro, and Bulgaria, the latter albeit under Ottoman suzerainty, and had entrusted to Austria-Hungary the administration of Bosnia-Herzogovina while leaving it technically in Turkish possession. Turkey’s lingering status as a European power was confirmed by its continued direct rule over Rumelia and Macedonia. Russia, although understandably peeved at not reaping any return from its success on the battlefield, had come to accept that it must collaborate with Austria-Hungary in the management of Ottoman decline. Neither power, least of all Russia after the Manchurian defeat and the subsequent revolution, could afford disturbance on its frontiers. By July 1908, however, both had acknowledged an interest in revising the Congress of Berlin—Russia, thwarted in its Far Eastern ambitions, had turned south-west and wanted the use of the Black Sea straits for its warships, and Austria-Hungary was anxious to regularize its position in Bosnia-Herzogovina.
Austrian urgency derived from its relationship with Serbia: the latter, rather than be content with its position as a client of the dual monarchy, was touting itself as the ‘Piedmont’ of the South Slavs—the nation that would lead the way to the formation of a large independent South Slav state. A greater Serbia would not only draw in Bosnia-Herzogovina but also the Serbs and possibly Croats resident within the empire proper: external problems would be projected back into the domestic arrangements of the dual monarchy. In 1907 Austria-Hungary had planned a railway line to link the Austrian and Turkish networks south of Serbia, so as to consolidate the empire’s stabilizing influence in the Balkans and at the same time outflank Serbia. Britain (which wrongly saw the proposal as an extension of German ambitions, and part of a Berlin-to-Baghdad railway) and Russia opposed, and by 1908 Austria-Hungary was confronted with a loss of prestige in the Balkans. Then in July the Young Turks’ revolution put all the assumptions underpinning Austrian and even Russian policy into reverse. The Young Turks might apply the principles of democracy and nationalism to the Balkans, in which case Austro-Russian abilities to manage the situation would be considerably dented. Similar effects would follow on any precipitate completion of Turkish withdrawal from Europe. Alternatively, a reinvigorated Ottoman empire might try to reassert its crumbling position in the Balkans. However, that was likely only to provoke the insurrectionary talents of Turkey’s Slav subjects.
On 16 and 17 September 1908 the foreign ministers of Austria-Hungary and Russia, Aehrenthal and Izvolsky, met at Buchlau to discuss the position.67 Both were acting independently of their alliance partners. Aehrenthal brought to the meeting a self-confidence unwarranted by the overall situation in the Balkans but no doubt buttressed by his awareness of Russia’s relative weakness. In this he was right: when confrontation loomed in March 1909 the Russian minister of war said that the Russian army was not fit even for defensive operations. But Aehrenthal’s aim was not aggression. Like Izvolsky, he intended to improve, not worsen, Austro-Russian relations, albeit at Serbia’s expense. More specifically, he wanted a clear demarcation between Austrian interests in the Balkans and Turkish. He therefore proposed the annexation of Bosnia-Herzogovina. What he had in mind was a foreign policy success sufficient to rally the Habsburg loyalties of the national groupings and especially of the Magyars. In this he picked up the schemes of Stephan Count Burian, who felt that the incorporation of Bosnia within the empire would divide South Slav nationalism between Zagreb and Belgrade, and so weaken its impact that the threat of trialism would be removed. Moreover, if Bosnia-Herzogovina were attached to Hungary rather than to Austria, the expansion of the former would enhance the Ausgleich by making it more truly a marriage of equals. For Aehrenthal, the domestic benefits of putting the dual monarchy’s Balkan policy back on track went further: by focusing the army’s attention elsewhere, it would still the efforts of the general staff to resolve the military budget by demands for preventive war against the empire’s ostensible ally, Italy.68
The lure for Izvolsky was the prospect of getting something for nothing. By his reckoning Austria-Hungary already exercised control over Bosnia-Herzogovina: formalizing the arrangement would leave Russia no worse off and would further Russia’s wider foreign policy objectives after the defeat by Japan. The Balkan settlement imposed by the powers in the Treaty of Berlin, which still rankled in
St Petersburg, would have been reopened, but through unilateral action by Austria, not Russia. Izvolsky would then be able to call for an international conference to review the treaty, and could appear as the protector of the Balkan Slavs. Most important, he could use the opportunity to ask that the straits be opened to Russian warships. Aehrenthal had indicated that he would support such a request, and Izvolsky reasoned that Russia’s newfound ally, Britain, might also be expected to back the proposal.
Izvolsky’s strategy began to unravel almost immediately. In Sofia Bulgaria declared its independence from Turkey without waiting for Russia’s support. In Vienna, on 6 October, Aehrenthal announced the Austrian annexation of Bosnia-Herzogovina earlier than anticipated, and presented Russian acceptance of it as unconditional. And in St Petersburg Stolypin was outraged to discover that the foreign minister had been developing a policy which had not been concerted in the Council of Ministers and was more ambitious than Russia’s weakened state would allow. Technically, Stolypin had no cause for complaint: neither the Council of Minsters nor the Duma had responsibility for foreign affairs, which remained a fiefdom of the Tsar, and in this case the Tsar was both informed about and supportive of his foreign minister’s policy.69 But Stolypin and, ironically, Izvolsky himself had promoted the idea that Russia’s domestic strength and international status were linked, and that foreign affairs should be subject to wider accountability. This line had been easier to advance after the Tsar’s humiliation in the Far East and the rejection of the Björkö agreement. The publication of the details of the Buchlau agreement produced widespread outrage in Russia. Izvolsky received no credit for ingenuity in relation to the straits or the Treaty of Berlin, and earned equal opprobrium for having handled the interests of the Balkan Slavs with so much cynicism. His only hope of salvaging either his domestic position or Russia’s external authority resided in his plan that the whole question should go to a European congress.
In this too he was disappointed. Germany had no intention of promoting another conference, with its attendant danger of diplomatic defeat. This is not to say it was particularly pleased by Austria-Hungary’s independent line, since it endangered Germany’s wooing of Turkey, but by December it had come round to the idea of backing its ally. Bülow recognized that, if Austria-Hungary was to be an effective support in the event of a war in Europe, it must relieve Germany of some of the burden on its eastern front. At the time Austria-Hungary seemed more likely—if it were to make war at all—to do so on Italy rather than Russia, and antagonism towards Italy weakened the Triple Alliance. On 14 December Bülow gave Austria-Hungary Germany’s support.70 In January 1909 Conrad von Hötzendorff, the Austrian chief of the general staff, made contact with Helmuth von Moltke the younger, his German counterpart and Schlieffen’s successor, in an effort to establish German operational plans in the event of war with Russia. Moltke warned that Germany’s initial concentration would be against France, but assured Conrad of German support against Russia if Russia acted with Serbia. Neither Bülow nor Moltke expected the Bosnian crisis to result in war, but their attitudes were decisive in stiffening Austrian resolve. They had simultaneously strengthened the Triple Alliance, relieved Germany’s own sense of encirclement, and exposed the weaknesses of the Triple Entente.
Russia, by contrast, was not able to elicit similar backing from its allies. France made it clear that no support against Austria-Hungary would be forthcoming. Britain reverted to a more traditional policy than the 1907 Anglo-Russian Entente had suggested likely. Long-established concerns about Russian naval penetration into the Mediterranean, and the defence of the route to India, manifested themselves in a reluctance to underwrite Russia’s claim to use of the Black Sea straits. What 1908 offered Britain was a renewed opportunity for a role in Turkey: anxiety not to affront the Young Turks overrode any obligations to Izvolsky.
Thus, the most important consequence of the Bosnian crisis was Russian humiliation. The withdrawal of Turkey from Europe removed any buffer between the Habsburg and Romanov empires. The Russians could only interpret the annexation of Bosnia-Herzogovina as evidence of Austrian expansionism in the Balkans, an expansionism which might eventually take the dual monarchy to the gates of Constantinople and to a landward domination of the straits. Arguably Russo-Austrian collaboration in the Balkans could not have been long sustained independently of the Bosnian crisis. But now latent hostility was unavoidable if Russia was not to forfeit its great power status in the west as well as in the east. The Duma happily approved arms appropriations. Henceforth Russia’s policy was to revolve around the creation of an anti-Austrian bloc in south-east Europe.
Nor was Austria-Hungary’s own position much improved, despite the apparent gains. Russian involvement in the Balkans, particularly in Bulgaria and Serbia, was not consonant with Austrian objectives in the region. Aehrenthal had hoped to compensate Serbia for Austria’s annexation of Bosnia by economic concessions sufficient to draw Serbia back into Austria-Hungary’s orbit. Serbia rejected Austria-Hungary’s proposals. Aehrenthal’s response was to invoke the threat of military action. On 29 March 1909 the mobilization of the Austro-Hungarian army was approved. Two days later Serbia climbed down, promising to be a good neighbour. Aehrenthal had not entered the crisis with any intention of applying coercion, and not until December had he been willing to countenance the Conrad-Moltke exchange of views. But now he was convinced of the value of military pressure in Balkan diplomacy. At one level this change of heart reflected the views of Conrad, who had transferred his advocacy of preventive war from Italy to Serbia, arguing that Russia’s weakness gave the dual monarchy a unique opportunity to settle with Serbia. But Conrad wanted war, not the threat of war. He was furious that the opportunity for the former had been forfeited in favour of the latter. Next time, he warned, Russia would not be so compliant.71
Nor did long-term relations with Serbia look much more auspicious. Serb sentiment, both in the population as a whole and in the army specifically, was not in sympathy with its government’s actions. When Narodna Odbrana (National Defence), a Serb society committed to revolutionary activity in Bosnia, was forced by the government in the light of its undertaking to Austria to modify its position and concentrate on cultural activities, its place was promptly taken by a secret organization, Ujedinjenje ili Smrt (’Unification or Death’ but known to its enemies as ‘Black Hand’), committed to Serbia’s fulfilment of its self-appointed role as the Piedmont of the South Slavs, and to fighting beyond Serbia’s frontiers for the achievement of that goal.72
Therefore Austria’s relations with Serbia showed little hope of improvement. Furthermore, at home the acquisition of Bosnia-Herzogovina failed to resolve the conflicts generated by the Ausgleich. The new province was not incorporated into either Austria or Hungary, but administered jointly. The difficulties of concerting a wider Balkan policy were compounded: the case for a South Slav component within the empire, for trialism, was strengthened by the annexation, and thus Hungary’s fears that it would lose its control over Croatia heightened. And finally, the crisis which Austria-Hungary had initiated independently of Germany had had the effect of confirming Austrian subordination to its northern partner. Although Austria-Hungary would try to pursue an independent policy on other occasions before 1914, in the eyes of the Triple Entente—and especially of Britain—Austria was now no more than Germany’s stalking-horse in south-eastern Europe.
This analysis was right in so far as the Bosnian crisis did mark the beginnings of a reorientation in German foreign policy. By 1909 the domestic repercussions of Weltpolitik—the budgetary consequences of Tirpitz’s fleet and the associated problems of managing the Reichstag—had begun to make that particular form of imperialism unsustainable, at least at such a high tempo. The process of disillusionment was completed with what was perceived as humiliation over Morocco in 1911: not only were ships expensive but they did not even guarantee diplomatic success. In place of Weltpolitik, the idea of Germany as the dominant continental power gained st
rength. Blocked by Britain at its western maritime exits, Germany should instead turn east, to central Europe and even, via Austria-Hungary, to south-east Europe and to Turkey. In 1912 Walther Rathenau of the Allgemeine Elektrizitatsgesellschaft sketched out to the Kaiser and Bethmann Hollweg a plan for a central European customs union. Germany’s volume of trade was the highest in the world, but it was unbalanced: between 1887 and 1912 imports rose 243.8 per cent but exports increased by only 185.4 per cent. Each of its major economic rivals, the United States and Britain, had carved out an area of effective domination, in the Americas and in the British empire respectively; Russia had the potential to do the same in Asia. Germany, not least in order to balance its trade, should become the pivot of a European economic bloc, an enclosed free-trade area, a Mitteleuropa.73
It is too simplistic to see a direct switch from Weltpolitik to Mitteleuropa occurring between 1909 and 1912. The German fleet and the now-flourishing expectation of ‘a place in the sun’ could not simply be put to one side. Weltpolitik would continue as a theme of German policy. Nor had Mitteleuropa arisen de novo. German economic penetration into south-east Europe was, as we have seen, already generating friction with Austria-Hungary. Rathenau’s idea was to reinvigorate and give direction to an existing element in Germany’s activities. Furthermore, Weltpolitik and Mitteleuropa were not mutually exclusive. ‘Germany’, Bethmann Hollweg told the Reichstag in 1911, ‘can conduct a strong policy in the sense of Weltpolitik only if she maintains her power on the Continent.’74 Part of Mitteleuropa’s attraction was that it provided a land route into Turkey and Asia: it showed once again how European and colonial concerns could no longer be neatly compartmentalized. The nature of Germany’s imperialism had received a new emphasis, economic and diplomatic rather than naval and maritime, but in the long run and in its furthest reach it was just as likely to upset the interests of the existing imperial powers, particularly Britain and France, but also Russia.