War aims in the First World War
The war aims in World War I arose from the hegemonic and imperialist aspirations of the great powers of the time and the often opposing wishes for the realization of the peoples' right to self-determination . They mainly consisted of specific territorial, political and economic claims. The war aims in the First World War gained particular importance in the discussion about the question of war guilt after 1918 up to the Fischer controversy . The German Chancellor's secret “ September program ”, which was only rediscovered at the end of the 1950s, is considered to be the decisive document in this dispute . Shortly after the start of the war, the Reich government had formulated its goals here for “how Europe should look after this war”.
Initial problem
The formulation of war aims was a delicate matter for most warring states. Many described it as dangerous and unnecessary, because the announcement of specific war goals could result in unpleasant obligations that one would rather avoid. Failure to achieve publicly announced war goals could have seemed a defeat. Therefore, in the first phase of the war, in many places people only spoke publicly in a very general way about the aims of the war and focused the public's thoughts on victory itself. Detailed war goals were secondary, because a “shopping list” about territories to be won or concessions would have disrupted the “heroic character” that the war had in the eyes of many contemporaries - especially at the beginning (→ August experience ). On the other hand, publicly announced expansion efforts could have had a negative impact on the neutral states' attitude, which might be decisive for the war. Later, however, the public formulation of the war goals was often necessary in order to draw up cost-benefit analyzes as to whether it was worth continuing to fight for this or that war goal.
Buffer zones and border improvements still played a major role in the considerations, although technical progress meant that distances were no longer as important as they were in the 19th century. According to Gerhard Ritter , "the fact that border shifts in the age of mass wars, modern means of transport and airplanes have only limited military significance " was "not even familiar to the military experts" - hence also unknown to politicians and publicists. The nationalism had made the political actors sensitive to loss of territory and border shifts, so that "such shifts by their political impact threaten a future permanent peace more than would protect militarily". In the age of nationalism and imperialism , almost no one recognized that annexations would not weaken the enemy and thus peace could not be secured, but on the contrary would be endangered again.
The Central Powers used as the Allied war aims as a means of war , to encourage its population, its allies or neutrals, or discouragement, as a threat as the decomposition of the opponent.
The war policy of both sides was also geared towards economic power , on the one hand through occupation or influence in sales areas for their own exports, on the other hand through the conquest of new sources of raw materials. Still, the war aims were necessarily hypothetical and ephemeral options; very few were unconditional.
Disambiguation
The term "war aims" was already used by war opponents during the war. The victory itself was not a war goal, but a prerequisite for the realization of the war goals. These war aims consisted in fact of the conditions - assignment of territory , compensation , disarmament - which were to be imposed on the defeated after a victory. The terms war goal , war cause and war cause were often not distinguished from one another. Although the published or kept secret war aims sometimes included extreme demands - for example for annexations - entry into the war cannot be explained solely with these aims. However, there were also cases in which the reason for the war and the aims of war coincided, as was the case with Italy , Romania and Bulgaria . In most other states, after the outbreak of war, the original war motive was overlaid by war claims that only arose in the course of the war and changed over the course of the war. "From annexionist war aims, the reproach can neither be derived for one nor the other side that, judging from its reasons, they started the war as a war of conquest", argued Ernst Rudolf Huber . In the course of and after the war, war guilt and war aims were often viewed as only two sides of the same coin, although the connection between the two is only apparently so close. War aims, strategy and peace negotiations were closely linked, the boundaries fluid.
War aims of the Central Powers
German Empire
War aims at the beginning of the war
At the outbreak of the World War, the prevailing opinion in the German Reich was that the war had a purely defensive character . Triggered by the army's rapid success on the Western Front , some fantastic annexation projects were soon formulated. Overall, the predominantly commercially dominated pre-war goal of German imperialism , namely the colonial expansion of the German Empire in Africa and the Near East , stepped back in favor of a general expansion of power in Europe, because the "central position" and "encirclement" in Europe made various factions feel like they were in the German Empire threatened. The aim was to secure the desired hegemonic position of the German Reich on the European mainland for all future through annexations in East and West, sometimes on an extreme scale . Only then do a fight for a “ place in the sun ” have a good chance of success.
On September 9, 1914, Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg laid down the war goals in his “ September Program”. Germany wanted to secure its position of power, which had grown considerably since the founding of the empire , and assert its claims to world politics .
“Securing the German Reich to the West and East for the time being. For this purpose France must be so weakened that it cannot rise again as a great power, Russia must be pushed as far as possible from the German border and its rule over the non-Russian vassal peoples broken.
The objectives of the war in detail:
- France : Transfer of the Briey ore basin […]. A trade agreement that makes France economically dependent on Germany […].
- Belgium : Affiliation of Liège and Verviers to Prussia, a border area of the province of Luxembourg ( Areler Land ) to Luxembourg. It remains doubtful whether Antwerp should also be annexed with a connection to Liège. No matter, in any case, the whole of Belgium, even if it remains externally as a state, must decline to a vassal state , [...] economically become a German province.
- Luxembourg becomes a German federal state and receives a strip from the now Belgian province of Luxembourg and possibly the corner of Longwy .
- The establishment of a Central European trade association is to be achieved through joint customs agreements, including France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark , Austria-Hungary , Poland and possibly. Italy , Sweden and Norway. This association, probably without a common constitutional head, with external equal rights for its members, but actually under German leadership, must stabilize Germany's economic dominance over Central Europe .
- The question of colonial acquisitions, among which the creation of a coherent Central African colonial empire is to be sought, as well as the goals to be achieved with regard to Russia will be examined later [...].
- Holland . It will have to be considered by which means and measures Holland can be brought into a closer relationship with the German Empire [...]. "
The September program corresponded to the ideas and wishes of the leading German circles in politics, business and the military. Industry in particular hoped for extensive competition privileges from peace treaty regulations by interfering with the autonomy of the states concerned. The program is the result of bringing together many programs and concepts about the Europe of the future. Bethmann Hollweg and his advisor Kurt Riezler, the actual author of the September program, were recipients of innumerable war target programs of many interest groups, which they formulated as politically achievable goals and brought into a practicable form.
The war target majority in the Reichstag extended from the conservative to liberal parties to the social democratic camp. From 1915 on, however, there were growing contradictions on this issue. After extensive - mostly unrealistic - war goals had been set up in the euphoria of the first weeks of the war, at the end of 1914 Bethmann Hollweg banned the public debate on war goals out of consideration for neutral foreign countries and the German workers. However, this restriction only had a very limited effect and was later lifted at the instigation of the Third Supreme Army Command (OHL), also because of the psychological mobilization of the war-weary population. The OHL saw the release of the discussion about the objectives of the war as a decisive means of totalizing the war and of ideological warfare.
The heart of Germany's war target policy in the West was Belgium throughout the war . Since the September program, none of the politically responsible has moved away from the demand for domination of Belgium as a vassal state, in addition to the largest possible direct annexations. Just a few days after the start of the war, Belgium had become the central war target of a large part of the German public, the demands ranged from indirect control of the country via the capture of individual areas to complete annexation, sometimes even with the simultaneous expulsion of the local population. The second central war goal was the more or less direct domination of Poland in addition to the annexation of a border strip of different widths, depending on the origin of the concept.
Territorial extensions in Courland and Lithuania ( Upper East ) were also requested in almost all cases by representatives of all ideological directions. On the one hand because they were directly adjacent to the Reich, on the other hand because they had a non-Russian population and, with the Baltic Germans, even a small German minority. Similar to the Polish border strip, the settlement of Russian Germans in Russian crown domains , church and large estates, in addition to the possessions of the German-Baltic aristocracy, was intended to displace the Latvians in their own country. As a motivation for the settlement action, the ethnic component of the German war target policy broke through with full severity .
The German war goal of " Central Africa " was pursued particularly persistently. A proposal from Wilhelm Heinrich Solf , the State Secretary of the Reich Colonial Office , who drafted a specific Central Africa project in August and September 1914, was the distribution of the African colonies of France, Belgium and Portugal , which Bethmann Hollweg finally included in its September program.
Despite the flood of annexionist agitation , which reached its peak in the summer of 1915, the desires for conquest subsided relatively quickly in large sections of the population under the effects of the war needs. The desires for conquest during the “war psychosis ” of winter 1914/15 were followed in spring 1915 by the disillusionment of a large part of the population. The annexionist propaganda did not, as in the Second World War, cover all sections of the population, but mainly industrial and intellectual classes. In the second half of the war the social democratic slogan of peace without annexations was very popular. The displeasure was directed, especially among the soldiers, against the Pan-German Association and its supporters as "war instigators" and "war prolongers".
War aims and peace efforts
In the unlikely event that the Entente would enter into negotiations as a result of the peace offer by the Central Powers , Bethmann Hollweg asked the General Staff, Admiral Staff and Colonial Office to draw up war target lists as a basis for negotiations, which was immediately done. The Chancellor then included the conditions of the military and the colonial office in the peace conditions, which he sent Woodrow Wilson to Woodrow Wilson on January 29, 1917 via Ambassador Bernstorff , in a veiled form, as "guarantees". In his vague formulations, the military could see their wishes taken into account, while diplomacy could see its moderating influence; - so it was a compromise formula. If the Entente had accepted the peace offer, the conditions would be:
“Restitution of the part of Upper Alsace occupied by France. Gaining a border that would secure Germany and Poland against Russia strategically and economically. Colonial restitution in the form of an understanding that ensures that Germany has colonial property in line with its population and the importance of its economic interests. Return of the French territories occupied by Germany, subject to strategic and economic border adjustment and financial compensation. Restoration of Belgium under certain guarantees for the security of Germany, which would have to be established through negotiations with the Belgian government. Economic and financial compensation based on the exchange of the areas conquered by both sides and to be restituted in the peace treaty. ... The peace conditions of our allies moved within equally moderate limits. "
According to Wolfgang Steglich , this program was the most moderate of all the war targetists set up in the context of the negotiations for the peace campaign . This was due to the nature of the program, which was a personal communication to Wilson. The individual demands for the war aims were formulated so vaguely that it was easy to tighten them. The German leadership agreed that Wilson's attempt at peace had to be stopped because it had thwarted the German attempts at separate peace, which alone could ensure the achievement of the war aims.
Kreuznach war target conference
The OHL repeatedly urged the reluctant Bethmann Hollweg to establish “minimum and initial requirements”. The war target conference at the headquarters of the OHL in Bad Kreuznach on April 23, 1917 was a "high water mark of official German annexationism".
The results of the conference were far-reaching demands, such as the annexation of Courland and Lithuania, a Polish border strip, the extent of which would depend on the future supremacy of Germany in Poland, which would also have to be expanded to the east. Russia should be left to East Galicia as compensation and also receive parts of Moldova . Austria-Hungary could receive compensation for this in Serbia, Montenegro and Albania, in the form of an annexed South Slavic state. The Moldau to Sereth and Western Wallachia to Craiova would also come to the allies. Romania should remain as large as possible and continue to exist under German control. In the west the claims remained the same: the vassal state of Belgium would have to cede Liege, the Flemish coast with Bruges and the area of Arlon , which, like Luxembourg and Longwy-Briey, would fall to Germany. Furthermore, France had to allow individual "border improvements" in Alsace-Lorraine, only "some border tips" were offered in favor of France as proof of goodwill towards the war-weary Austrians in order to "not let a peace with France fail".
The conference gave Admiral von Müller the impression of “complete excess in the East and West”. Bethmann Hollweg had nothing to oppose Hindenburg and Ludendorff in Kreuznach. The powerful OHL had wrested its maximum program from the weak chancellor. But Admiral Müller had the impression that Bethmann and Zimmermann did not take it tragically because they thought that in the end everything would turn out very differently. Bethmann Hollweg himself said that he had signed the minutes because his "departure from fantasies was ridiculous". Otherwise he is of course in no way bound by the protocol.
War aims towards the end of the war
In the context of Germany's “border state policy” - the “pushing back of Russia” by creating a zone of buffer states , from Finland to the Ukraine - the focus of German expansion efforts in the east was primarily in the Baltic States . A majority of the leading strata in Germany, from the far right to the anti-Tsarist left camp, adhered to the “separation concept”.
The preliminary peace of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918 with Soviet Russia provided that Poland, Estonia , Livonia and Courland would leave Russia and Ukraine and Finland became independent. Russia had to withdraw its troops from Finland and the areas of Ardahan , Kars and Batumi bordering the Ottoman Empire . As a result, Russia lost 26 percent of the territory it had previously dominated, 27 percent of the arable land, 26 percent of the railway network, 33 percent of the textile industry, 73 percent of the iron industry and 75 percent of the coal mines.
The year 1918, between the peace with Soviet Russia and the defeat of the Central Powers, marked a high point in the German war target plans, with extensive annexation areas and spheres of influence in the east and south-east. During the negotiations on the additions to the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty of the summer of 1918, Ludendorff tried in particular the areas of Estonia, Livonia, Courland, the Crimea , the area of the Kuban and Don Cossacks as a bridge to the Caucasus , the Caucasus area itself, the area of the Volga Tatars , the To secure the territory of the Astrakhan- Cossacks and furthermore Turkmenia and Turkestan as a German sphere of influence. This happened sometimes against the will and sometimes with the tolerance of the Reich leadership.
Kaiser Wilhelm II developed the plan to divide Russia after the cession of Poland, the Baltic States and the Caucasus into four independent tsarist states , the Ukraine , the Southeast League , as an anti-Bolshevik area between the Ukraine and the Caspian Sea, as well as in central Russia and Siberia . This form of domination would create a bridge to Central Asia to threaten the British position in India . The plan of a south-east alliance was in competition with Turkish intentions.
Ludendorff did not believe in the permanent state separation of Ukraine from Russia. Therefore he developed a concept of the German spheres of influence in Russia, as a counterweight to the Bolshevik core. On the one hand, the colonist state of Crimea-Tauria was intended as a settlement area for Russian Germans, on the other hand, the Don-Kuban area as a connection to the Caucasus. As a result, the Crimea was to become a permanently occupied colonial state with German colonization, important as a naval base for German influence in the Caucasus and the Middle East. Ludendorff also developed the idea of a German-specific Caucasus bloc with Georgia as its core. However, because of the great distance and the Turkish advance, this turned out to be completely utopian .
The additional treaties to the Brest-Litovsk peace of August 27, 1918 represented a new high point in the humiliation of Russia, but at the same time put a temporary end to these much more far-reaching annexation plans. The Russian border states from Finland via Ukraine to Georgia had not been annexed directly, but were in close economic and military dependence on the German Reich.
The increasing disintegration of the Russian power by the revolution and the disregard of the American entry into the war were all those reins shoot consisting of long pent-up fear of the Russian Eastern Power to ride into Ostland awaited. The more menacingly the opponents ran against the front in the west, the more tempted to reach for the open east .
The question discussed in the German leadership at the time was also whether a German-ruled Central Europe could be asserted in a future war against the two largest sea powers, Great Britain and the United States . After all, the two world powers had practically unlimited access to the global economic potential and its resources. In response to this, the German planners developed the idea of the greater German area from the Biscay to the Urals . The eastern greater area, economically closed and defensible, self-sufficient and resistant to blockades, as a counterweight to the sea powers, replaced Central Europe as the central German war goal. The weakness of the conception of Central Europe, with its dependence on other sovereign states and limited raw material reserves, did not apply to the Ostraum program.
Classification of war aims in research
In contrast to most of the other warring states, Germany had no natural war goal. As a result, goals of an artificial character were formulated that could not be rooted in the consciousness of the people. The lack of tangible national goals, after the road to the southeast was blocked by the alliance with Austria-Hungary, led to a concentration on pure power expansion. This expansion of power, moderate and critical or radical and dissolute, was the expression of the specific and political consciousness of the Wilhelmine era . She understood the accumulation of power as the core of state existence. Power conflicts appeared to her to be the innermost driving force of history.
Starting a war and taking territories from a foreign state had always been the undoubted right of the sovereign state. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, however, there was a change in politics and public opinion around the world. The right to strive for territorial gains as a primarily 'imperially' justifiable war goal was increasingly called into question. The politico-military decision-makers of the empire misunderstood the importance of this turnaround. Instead, after the beginning of the war, they formulated extensive territorial gains as a war goal as a matter of course and strived for these territorial gains militarily with all means at their disposal.
The German debate about war aims was not a struggle between the possibilities of expansion or peace, but a conflict between moderate and extreme versions of a “German peace”. Put simply, the annexationists tried to solve the great problems of the empire at the foreign policy level through expansion and the moderates through internal reforms (although they by no means ruled out expansion). In terms of numbers, the supporters of the moderate tendency were inferior to the annexationists, but they found more attention from the Reich leadership under Bethmann Hollweg. Unlike some opponents, however, they were not mass agitators. The moderates remained isolated from the workers and were just as helpless as Bethmann Hollweg in the face of the annexionist mass movement. So there was a mismatch between strong upward influence and a lack of broad downward influence . With the annexationists, at least until the installation of the third OHL, it was exactly the opposite. This made the moderates feel inferior, although the course of events confirmed them. This psychological mortgage was to continue to have an effect in the Weimar Republic .
The motives for the war target movement were diverse and intertwined. They ranged from existential fears to particular economic interests to undisguised dreams of omnipotence. The expectations of the German public, which were constantly heightened and exaggerated by the nationalist agitation, repeatedly restricted the ability of the still relatively sober Reich leadership under Bethmann Hollweg to act and widened the discrepancy between world political illusions and continental European realities. In foreign policy before and during the war, Germany's traditional geographic-political division was once again evident. The break with Great Britain was promoted and welcomed by the naval party, (heavy) industry, the anti-plutocratic wing of the Prussian middle class and the Junkers and was essentially a north German affair. The struggle with Russia, on the other hand, found more support in southern Germany, among the sympathizers of the Habsburgs and in the financial sector. On the side of the continental political wing was Bethmann Hollweg, on the other side Alfred von Tirpitz , his main adversary in the first years of the war.
According to Hans-Ulrich Wehler's theory of social imperialism, as early as the time of Otto von Bismarck , the empire developed the political strategy of diverting and, if possible, neutralizing internal social tensions by means of a foreign policy that increasingly focused on overseas imperialism. The war therefore offered the opportunity to flee forward . According to Wehler, the German war aims had a functional aspect for the power elites, as an integration bracket , as a means of establishing the political and social unity of the deeply divided Wilhelmine society.
According to the social-imperialism theory, the social elites tried to solve internal problems by expanding outwards and to prevent necessary reforms by legitimizing them in order to maintain their privileged social position internally. A mutual agreement seemed unthinkable to many politically powerful in Germany, because it meant almost as surely as a defeat brought about from outside a loss of legitimacy and power.
The desired "Imperium Germanicum" failed not only because of the German continuity of error ( Fritz Fischer ), but also because of the deficiencies in the internal structures of the empire, which was not capable of any self-restraint as the supremacy of a continental Europe. It also failed because of the demands of the time, with its peoples ' right to self-determination , which the Reich basically did not really accept.
Due to its military power, its economic potential and its territorial size, the German Reich was already the strongest major European power. Therefore, each created in his being imperialist expansion was bound with the balance of forces in Europe ( " Balance of Power ") collide. According to Ludwig Dehio , if Germany had stood up to the strongest possible coalition, it would automatically have assumed a hegemonic function in Europe and in the world. After all, Germany proved in the war that it was already a world power, otherwise it would not have been able to wage war against the three other world powers Russia, the British Empire and the United States for so long. Ever since Bismarck, the pursuit of German world power tended to be more in the direction of status symbols of a world power with as many colonies as possible. Because the German-dominated area of the earth's surface appeared to the German imperialists, in comparison to the other world powers, or even to the only great European power France, much too small and simply too narrow as a starting point for the future.
So Germany was strong enough to try to become a third world power alongside the Russian and Anglo-American, but not strong enough to be successful. It failed because of the exaggerated attempt to rule an empire from the Flemish coast to the Peipus Sea , from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea , from Heligoland to Baghdad , with colonies and overseas bases, with Central Africa as a supplement to an expanded Central Europe, were intended. However, such a concentration of power should have provoked European wars of liberation against a German hegemony , as became reality in World War II after Germany had conquered large parts of Europe.
Pre-war politics, war aims of 1914, war aims of 1918 form a unit, just as the war aims of the various groups, parties, classes and individuals form a unit. The war target policy of the German Reich was, due to the unrealistic overestimation of German power, a "shocking illusion". Characteristic of this policy was an intertwining of economic thinking and purely emotional elements, with a lack of sense for the real, overestimation of one's own and underestimation of the hostile forces.
Germany, with its alliance between manor and blast furnace , pursued a war target policy that can only be explained by the dilemma of the conservative system of an industrialized agricultural state in which the economic power of the conservatives was becoming increasingly weaker.
For a long time, the prevailing view in West Germany was that there was no connection whatsoever between the German war aims in the First and Second World Wars. In all warring states, however, it was only the German nationalists, above all the Pan-Germans, who made the decisive leap in quality, the relocation of hostile sections of the population. The change in the ethnic distribution to consolidate the power of the empire was planned, in the tradition of the Prussian east brand policy , through compulsory purchase, takeover of crown domains, church property and deportation of parts of the population. The völkisch resettlement and colonization plans for the eastern area had existed since the beginning of the war, but they did not dominate the entire leadership of the empire until 1918, after the brief triumph of the third OHL. This settlement of (for the time being) Russian Germans projected by the Supreme Army Command for the east, especially for the Polish border strip, already pointed in the direction of the National Socialists' plans for the east . National Socialism harshly and ruthlessly resumed the Eastern ideology and the German expansionist urge to expand to the East, but much more energetically and brutally than Imperial Germany. The advocates of the border strip project in the government and the military only thought of a systematic “buyout” as a continuation of the Prussian Eastern stamp policy, but not of a violent resettlement, contrary to international law, during the war, as carried out by the Third Reich.
Ludendorff's ethnic policy, especially in the East in 1918, anticipated large parts of Hitler's racial policy . The attempt in the summer of 1918 to realize the greater German area in the east was accompanied by ethnic resettlement and colonization plans, which in many ways pointed to Hitler's Ostpolitik. The ideas of treating millions of Slavs as helots or even murdering millions of Jews naturally did not exist in the First World War. The problem was the outdated thinking of most of the annexationists in terms of the agrarian epoch, which could only imagine the solution of the internal difficulties that arose from the rapid population growth in the course of the rapid industrialization of Germany in the traditional way of territorial expansion with rural settlement.
Hitler's long-term goal, already fixed in the 1920s, of building a German eastern empire on the ruins of the Soviet Union , was therefore not just a vision, but had a concrete point of contact, which was already realized for a short time in 1918. The telltale vocabulary of 1918 shows that important prerequisites for the program and practice of National Socialism arose or were created during this time. Hitler, who ties in with these continuities and yet breaks them ( Nipperdey ) and his program tied in with the most stretched war aims of the First World War, but were qualitatively different from them because of the amalgamation with racial dogma.
In addition to strikingly similar war goals, there were also similarities in appearance to the west and east. To the west both times still relatively civilized, to the east much more brutal, with increases under Hitler.
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary claimed to be fighting for its interests in the Balkans and for its very existence, which it saw threatened on the flanks, especially by Russia. As a result of the war, differences between the ethnic groups of the dual monarchy temporarily faded into the background. Austria-Hungary sought not only the integration of parts of Serbia , but also of Montenegro and Romania , Albania or Russian Poland . Contrary to the nationalistic tendencies of the time, Austria-Hungary stuck to the universal idea of empire and thus to the multi-ethnic state.
In the first weeks of the war, before the heavy defeats in Galicia and Serbia, the Austrian statesmen allowed themselves precise territorial goals in their ideas. A few weeks later, however, the motive for survival replaced planned acquisitions.
Joint Council of Ministers of 7 January 1916
With the conquest of Serbia at the end of 1915, the South Slav question and the problem of the relationship between subjugated Serbia and the monarchy became topical. The Joint Council of Ministers met on January 7, 1916, under the impression of the expected military decision. In an atmosphere of searching for final forms , efforts were made to define the war aims of Austria-Hungary.
The two prime ministers Karl Stürgkh (Austria) and István Tisza (Hungary), the joint ministers Ernest von Koerber ( finances ), Alexander von Krobatin ( war minister ) and were participants in this conference, which is probably the most important and most representative event for the monarchy's war policy Stephan Burián ( exterior ), who chaired, and the chief of staff, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf .
According to Burián, the purpose of the conference was to discuss the situation and the goals that the war was intended to achieve. First and foremost, these are the integrity and security of the monarchy, but one must also make full use of the fruits of the army's brilliant successes . For this purpose, a precise examination of the retroactive effect which any conquests may have on the future political life of the monarchy is necessary. In his opinion, Serbia should be downsized in favor of the monarchy in addition to the areas promised to Bulgaria by the return of the areas that formerly belonged to Albania and extensive border regulation with two bridgeheads. What remains is a small mountainous country with 1½ million inhabitants, the incorporation of which would cause difficulties of constitutional, national political and economic nature, but was quite possible given the great adaptability of the monarchy in the past.
Like Conrad, Burián wanted Serbia to be eliminated as a focal point for national agitation and a tool of the enemy. To deprive a reduced Serbia of any freedom of political action , to bring it into complete dependence, as Tisza demanded, demand the use of the most draconian means , for which one must accept the odium . Nevertheless, their effect is problematic; Serbia would still be able to find ways and means to harm the monarchy in union with other powers . Although he wanted to pretend to be steering a middle course on the issue, Burián wrote in his diary on the same day that he believed in the necessity of the complete annexation of Serbia.
However, according to Burián, complete affiliation would also be a burden that we could only take on if we recognized the indisputable necessity . Serbian agitation would also be a problem then. The crucial question is whether it would be easier
“To solve the Serbian question if only 66 percent of all Serbs belong to the monarchy and 34 percent live in an independent state, than if 100 percent Serbs are subject to us. [...] At the moment it is not yet time to make a decision about which of the two methods mentioned here should be followed. "
The question is also too closely linked to a possible peace agreement. Burián did not want to let a peace agreement fail, which on the Russian side had the restoration of Serbia as a condition.
He did not consider the continued existence of a reduced state of Montenegro to be as dangerous as in the case of Serbia. However, it must submit unconditionally and cede the Lovćen , its coast to Albania and its Albanian parts of the country. In the case of Albania, Burián pleaded for the preservation of independence, because if the territories that went to Serbia and Montenegro after the Balkan War were returned, it would be viable despite internal problems that were mainly caused by the unfortunate influences . The monarchy must take the lead in establishing an independent state through an effective protectorate over Albania. This conservative, purely defensive policy could help secure the monarchy's definitive supremacy in the Balkans.
Thanks to the profits in the north, certain cedings could be made to the Greeks in the south in order to maintain their neutrality. In the event of a partition of Albania, as Conrad demanded, the annexation of the northern part, which was not a profit, would be a heavy burden. The Foreign Minister also spoke out openly against an “admission of Bulgaria” on Albanian territory to the Adriatic, as Conrad had suggested. Bulgaria would have enough to do to assimilate its Serbian conquests; To offer him Albanian territories would mean for the monarchy the unnecessary abandonment of advantages which it expects from an independent Albania. For the time being, it is best to strive for Albanian autonomy under the Austro-Hungarian protectorate if the attempt to partition with Greece alone fails.
On the Polish question, Burián had to admit that the German Reich had deviated somewhat from the Austro-Polish solution . Burián did not want to reject a limine partition of Poland, as Conrad demanded, but everything should be done to avoid this solution. The internal political difficulties with an enlarged Galician crown land and the growing attractiveness of Pan-Slavism , if the Polish nation divided between Germany and Austria-Hungary strive for unity, if necessary also under Russian rule, spoke against a division . Therefore, as long as Germany does not force division, everything must be done to avoid such a division.
Tisza then emphasized that he had always given priority to the Austrian government on the Polish question and recognized its heavy burden in affiliation. But he must also claim the same understanding of the difficulties of the Hungarian state on the Serbian question.
Tisza was less optimistic than Burián about the development opportunities for Albania, but like Burián he wanted to repeat the attempt to establish an independent Albania and only consider partitioning with Greece after its failure. Unlike the Foreign Minister, he wanted to leave the unification of Montenegro with Serbia open as an opportunity to improve the possibilities for peace.
The most important point for the Hungarian Prime Minister, however, was the Serbian question. For him, the problem was reduced to the question of whether it would be advisable to incorporate the remaining 1½ million Serbs into the monarchy or to leave them independent . There was agreement on the goal, there were only divergences regarding the means. He referred to the need to keep the centripetal forces in the countries of the St. Stephen's Crown , i.e. the Hungarians and Croats , in the position that they should occupy in the interests of the whole . Their position would be made very difficult in the long term by the incorporation of all Serbs who would later assert political rights. The majority of the hostile Serbs could only temporarily be ruled absolutistically . Tisza also valued the attraction of a small Serbia outside the monarchy and its dangers less than it would if it accepted such a large closed crowd of Serbs. He does not believe that a downsized and very weakened, deprived of all hope for the future, Serbia, whose capital would be a small mountain town, would have any long-term influence on the Serbs within the monarchy .
If the Serbs were struck, Tisza did not trust the Croats to have enough resistance to South Slavic unification efforts. Even Hungarians would overload two million Serbs and worsen the dispute with Agram . Therefore the Hungarian government is decided against the annexation of larger Serbian areas. On the other hand, he called for the north-west corner of Serbia to be incorporated directly into Hungary, not to Croatia or Bosnia, and the rest of the population to be independent.
“In the parts annexed to Hungary, an intensive colonization of reliable Hungarian and German farmers should begin as soon as possible and a wedge should be built on the south-eastern border of the monarchy between the Serbs in the kingdom and those remaining in the monarchy. Belgrade would become a provincial city and would lose all importance as the center of Serbianism. The whole colonization campaign, from which he expects very good fruits, would only make sense if Serbia is not annexed. "
This Tiszas plan is reminiscent of the German colonization plans in the Polish border strip and in the Baltic States, but in contrast to these it is quite lonely within the overall policy of the monarchy. In the German Reich, colonization plans were pursued by almost all important forces throughout the war, in Austria-Hungary they were only sporadic ideas that seldom emerged and were never pursued. The reason for this was probably the ethnic component in German politics, which, due to its structure, played little or no role in the monarchy. According to Tisza, the small kingdom of Serbia would be politically and economically dependent on the monarchy and could easily be forced to behave correctly by controlling its exports . Otherwise the rest of Serbia should be accommodated in an economical way.
Burián's refusal not to allow the Bulgarians to advance further west at the moment, Tisza fully agreed, but for the future one should leave open the possibility of encouraging Bulgaria to occupy all of Serbia in the event of renewed difficulties with Serbia. So he wanted to leave the rest of Serbia to the potential competitor in the Balkans rather than annex it to the monarchy. Tisza assessed the importance of Serbia for Russia even greater than the foreign minister had previously; he considered an annexation with regard to the possibility of peace with Russia to be entirely out of the question. Finally, he even threatened consequences for himself in the latter case and insisted on the resolution of the Council of Ministers of July 19, 1914, which stipulated a renunciation of the annexation of Serbia.
"Count Tisza expresses the wish that this decision will be supplemented today in the sense that it should be stated that all areas that will be annexed in northern Serbia should be directly unified with Hungary [...]"
Tisza emphasized:
"In the most emphatic way his resolute position against extensive annexations of Serbian territory, which would make the situation in Croatia as well as in Bosnia untenable and would mean serious internal crises for the monarchy."
Prime Minister Stürgkh, like Burián, was ready to reduce the war objectives if this were necessary to restore peace. The abandonment of the Austro-Polish solution was the most decidedly opposed. He emphasized the great burden that Austria would take on by the annexation of Poland, but regarded it as a desirable goal in order not to lose Galicia and not to drive the Poles towards Russia. Partition would be the worst thing for the Poles, it would exacerbate the Galician problem, as well as the Ruthenian question. Only if the whole of Congress Poland were to be united with Western Galicia would the Poles, albeit reluctantly, come to terms with the separation of Eastern Galicia. The Austrian government had no intention of leaving eastern Galicia to the Ruthenians; on the contrary, the administration would have to be Germanised . The Ruthenians prefer that to Polish suzerainty. This German national idea by Stürgkh shows little sense of reality given the vanishingly small proportion of the German population in East Galicia. Stürgkh and the Viennese bureaucracy also wanted to strengthen the centralistic tendencies of the monarchy and the Ukrainian leaders even agreed for tactical reasons, as they initially hoped for a liberation from the political and cultural supremacy of the Poles.
The division of Galicia, long advocated by Stürgkh, with the formation of a Ukrainian crown land from eastern Galicia and Bukovina , only seemed realistic if the Austropolian solution was implemented . But it was precisely this plan that justified the reluctance of many Poles towards the Austro-Polish solution .
The chairman of the Poland Club Leon Biliński warned Burián in December 1915 that
"The establishment of a special German or Ruthenian-administered Austrian province formed from Eastern Galicia would sooner or later lead to another war with Russia."
It is therefore astonishing how much the Polish resistance to the partition of Galicia was underestimated in Vienna and Budapest.
Stürgkh viewed an independent Albanian state with even more skepticism than Tisza; against the danger of foreign tumults and intrigues , especially Italy, a protectorate as effective as possible would be the only means. It was too late to come to terms with Montenegro, a mountainous country cut into by the sea could remain, and he was very reluctant to see a union with Serbia. In the future, the Montenegrins would have to be held back in their mountains and their land treated like an American nature park. A saying hardly believable if it had not been recorded in the minutes of the joint Council of Ministers . Leaving the Serbs outside the monarchy was viewed by Stürgkh as the more dangerous option.
“A Serbia endowed with prerogatives of an independent state, a head of state and international representations will again and again become the focus of Greater Serbian agitation. [...] In addition to the great difficulties of the Polish problem, the admission of 1½ million more Serbs into the monarchy seems child's play. "
Stürgkh's assertion that the difficulties in incorporating Serbia are greater than those that can be expected from an independent Serbia appears somewhat paradoxical.
Finance Minister Koerber considered territorial affiliations difficult because of the national structure and the constitutional institutions of the monarchy.
"The war goal that we set ourselves at the beginning of the war was primarily to bring us to rest in the south of the monarchy and to secure our economic position there."
Now is the opportunity to end the untenable conditions that the Greater Serbian idea has caused. Therefore, the independent Serbia, as the nursery of the Greater Serbian movement, must disappear from the map . It doesn't matter for the peace negotiations, because the resistance of the Entente, especially Russia, to leaving a smaller, dependent Serbia would be the same.
The Sanjak-Novipazar was to be brought back into the power of the monarchy because of the dealings with Saloniki , Montenegro was too poor and uncultivated, its continued existence if the monarchy had a good strategic border and the coast was of little concern . Koerber doubted whether a protectorate would bring peace to Albania, and he considered a division to be more appropriate. A partition of Poland would drive Russia towards it, Koerber Burián agreed.
War Minister Krobatin had illusions about the possibility of England being overthrown by a German landing and German airships .
“If Serbia were not deleted from the map, the monarchy would be in a similar situation to 1914 in 10 to 20 years. Serbia cannot be compared with Belgium, it is a poor country, in his opinion the whole remaining part of Serbia should be included Hungary defeated and divided into 4 counties . The one and a half million Serbs involved could not possibly be dangerous to a vigorous state like Hungary. "
Krobatin considered the settlement question to be very important and saw in the settlement of state- loyal colonists a very suitable means of reducing the Serbian danger . For him, too, the danger of an independent Serbia was much greater. In his opinion, a smaller Montenegro cut off from the sea could not be dangerous. He viewed the annexation of Poland more as a weakening than a strengthening of the monarchy. Germany would not agree either, which is why one would have to come to terms with a division, because an independent Poland would be entirely under German influence.
Chief of Staff Conrad was not ready to let the Bulgarians into Albania, he
“But doubt the possibility of an independent Albania, and since in his opinion all of northern Albania as well as Montenegro and Serbia must be united with the monarchy, he would cede southern Albania to Greece and also a small strip to Bulgaria, if this achieves the active participation of Greece could be. "
He also preferred the division with Greece alone. He supported Koerber's Sanjak demand that if there was another solution, the Sanjak would still be affiliated to the monarchy , with a Muslim population as possible . A remaining Serbia with 1½ million inhabitants could allegedly still cause military inconvenience to the monarchy - a military "indictment of poverty" which Conrad da issued to the Austro-Hungarian army and himself.
The Colonel General saw the benefits of Poland primarily in military terms, in new excellent soldiers and the improvement of the intolerable strategic situation vis-à-vis Russia .
As a result of the joint meeting of the Council of Ministers, an agreement was finally reached on Tisza's amendment:
"The conference agreed on the principle that those areas which, according to the outcome of the war in the northern theater of war, could be annexed to the monarchy should be united with Austria, whereas all territorial acquisitions in Serbia should come to Hungary, [...]"
The official conclusion remained pretty bland , a strange compromise .
The actual topic, the central question of the conference, whether all Serbian areas should be annexed or the rest of Serbia should continue to exist as a formally independent state dependent on the monarchy, was not clarified. Although all participants on this point, including the allegedly Tisza-dependent Burián and Stürgkh, came out unanimously against Tisza, they could not prevail, so the question remained open. On the other hand, Stürgkh's claim to a declaration of the possibility of annexing Polish territories was met. Conrad's idea of annexation had finally prevailed with Burián, as far as Serbia was concerned, only the urgency to take definitive decisions as quickly as possible , as Conrad demanded, that is, he did not see the need for an official declaration of the annexation goals as given.
Conrad was extremely bitter by Tisza's resistance to the annexation of Serbia and Montenegro:
"I can't believe in the crime of being her. would bring the monarchy] again into this danger after the heavy and bloody sacrifices which the war demanded - I can hardly believe that the narrow, short-sighted and petty reasons which are asserted against the annexation should come to fruition . "
The Council of Ministers showed
"That the Austrian government representatives and military leaders advocated annexations more and more resolutely, on the other hand, that as a result they came more and more into conflict with the Hungarian leadership circles and only in view of the state of war did not an open crisis arise."
The contradiction in the war aims between Austria and Hungary reappeared later, but there was never again such a thorough open discussion.
Tisza did not make the slightest concession to the equalization structure of the monarchy, but held fast to it, even if it should break. Nevertheless, the meeting of the Council of Ministers showed that Burián and also Tisza could not escape the impression of the conquest of considerable territories that had now taken place or was still to be expected. Tisza finally wavered and did not want to miss the opportunity to outweigh a possible Austro-Polish solution by annexing South Slavic areas to Hungary . His claim to annex all areas in the southeast to Hungary speaks for the softening of his anti-annexation point of view.
The war goals set out in early 1916 showed that Austria-Hungary, like Germany, overestimated its own strengths and underestimated those of its opponents.
A few days after the Council of Ministers meeting, Burián reported to the German Ambassador Tschirschky and said that the general mood was to let Serbia disappear . That is certainly the best thing , only if a possible peace with Russia should fail, he would advocate the continued existence of a Serbian state - of course within very narrow limits .
Classification of war aims in research
As with no other great power, the monarchy also had "negative" war aims in the foreground: the assertion of the Trentino, the coastal area with Trieste and Fiume and the Albanian coast against Italy, the defense of the Romanian claims on Transylvania and Bukovina , the rejection of the Greater Serbian and South Slavic aspirations in Bosnia-Herzegovina , Dalmatia , Croatia and Slavonia , the defense against the Pan-Slavist plans of Russia in Galicia and Bohemia and, last but not least, the resistance against the German hegemonic efforts .
The ruling circles of the monarchy also wanted to conquer and did not have to be encouraged to conquer by external forces. But the main endeavors of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy were to maintain its existence, that is, its "integrity". Many memoranda show that maintaining this “integrity” also covered expansion efforts. Undeniably, under the influence of external influences and internal aspirations, the monarchy tended more and more towards this broad interpretation of integrity.
Overall, it can be said: Austria-Hungary's official war goal was to preserve the integrity of the monarchy. Unofficially, however, the monarchy tried to strengthen its position as a great power by exerting influence or annexing Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Romania, Poland and the Ukraine. Nevertheless, in practice, due to the precarious equilibrium of the Habsburg Empire, the acquisition of Slavic or Romanian territories was not possible, or only to a limited extent, without weakening the primacy of Austria and Hungary in the state union. At best an expansion at the expense of Russian Poland appeared uncritical, since the Poles, like the Habsburg dynasty, were Catholic and loyal to it. However, the alliance partner Germany laid claim to Poland, and Austria ultimately had to put its annexation plans back on its feet.
At the beginning of the war, attempts were made to eliminate all external threats to the monarchy through far-reaching war aims and to secure its great power status for all time. The complex internal structure of the monarchy made it difficult to bring all interests under one roof . As a result, the imperialist aspirations of the Habsburg monarchy were burdened with particular problems and therefore also had features that were typical of this conflict of interests. In Austria-Hungary, the discussion of the war aims and their territorial aspects, more than in any other state, also brought about the question of the internal, constitutional and nationality-law consequences that would necessarily result from them.
The Austrian statesmen were aware that the profits depended on dubious military successes, but this did not prevent them from building their wishful thinking into the plans when establishing the war goals. At the meetings of the joint Council of Ministers it was emphasized again and again that the war aims depended on the course of the military operations, but the participants were always tempted to anticipate the events.
Ottoman Empire
In fact, the Ottoman Empire had long since lost its position as a great power. By entering the war on the side of the Central Powers, the Ottomans hoped to regain supremacy in the Black Sea region to the detriment of Russia, with which the Ottoman Empire had been involved in conflicts for centuries.
The World War was initially an attempt for the Ottoman Empire to regain its independence and strength. In fact, despite its economic and military backwardness and its unfashionable, inefficient internal structures, the Ottoman Empire managed to gain independence during war, as it had not for decades ( Sick Man on the Bosporus ). The Turks made it clear that they were masters in their own house; in an alliance based on absolute equality, above all in internal matters, they achieved full independence - also vis-à-vis Germany.
At the beginning of the war, the Reich initially announced its neutrality in order to gain time to complete its armament preparations. The Allies tried to move the Ottoman Empire to neutrality. Enver Pascha demanded the lifting of international financial control and the return of the Aegean Islands and part of Bulgarian Thrace . The Russian Foreign Minister Sasonov recognized that the Ottoman Empire would not conclude an agreement with the Allies without territorial concessions, but was only able to return the Aegean island of Lemnos (possibly also the neighboring island of Samothraki, which Russia preferred in Turkish than after the Balkan Wars would have left in Greek hands) and propose a guarantee of territorial integrity of the empire. The British Foreign Minister Gray opposed this out of consideration for Greece . France and Great Britain offered a guarantee only for the period during the war and only vague negotiations on a possible lifting of financial control after the war.
The minimum strategic goals of the Ottoman Empire at the start of the war were the recovery of Egypt and Armenia and the conquest of Aden ( Yemen ). At the same time, however, the empire took the world war as an opportunity to use pan-Islamic and Pan- Turkish slogans to strengthen its position, expand its power, create zones of influence, recapture lost territories, and even acquire new territories. The territorial ambitions of the Ottoman revolutionary actions - from Tunis to Turkestan and north-west India - were hardly inferior to those of the German alliance partner.
The main target of the Ottoman hopes, wishes and dreams became the Muslim-Turkish East. A Muslim Triple Alliance Turkey- Persia - Afghanistan should be the link to India and to Russian Turkestan.
The political Turanism of the Young Turks was a dream because they overestimated the power of the Ottoman Empire and, above all, overlooked the fact that the various Turkic peoples lacked a uniform national consciousness.
For the Ottoman Empire, almost all wars of the past centuries had often ended with huge losses of territory. It was the only one of the four Central Powers to lose large areas during the World War. In order to maintain its position, especially in peace negotiations, it believed that it needed to acquire territory. The annexation of the areas of the Caucasus and Central Asia that were not or hardly defended by Russia seemed to be quicker and easier than the recapture of its Arab parts of the territory from the British. In addition, the incorporation of related peoples in the east appeared more worthwhile than the recapture of the rebellious Arab territories.
In the long run, the existence of the empire was doubtful even without war. The Ottoman Empire lacked most of the necessary prerequisites for its internal cohesion: a common nationality , religion , language , culture , geography and economy .
In Asia, like the German Empire, the Ottoman Empire pursued fantastic plans based on largely unreal assumptions. The Turkish advance into the Caucasus, in the name of "Pan-Turanism", appears today as the " rampage " of the collapsing Ottoman Empire.
Bulgaria
Since breaking away from the Ottoman Empire in 1878, Bulgaria sought to incorporate Eastern Rumelia and Macedonia, whose population was considered part of the Bulgarian nation (→ Bulgarian Empire ). The union with Eastern Rumelia took place in 1885, in September 1915 the Central Powers assured Bulgaria also the Serbian-ruled part of Macedonia . The Entente, on the other hand, could not even persuade Serbia, Greece and Romania to return the territories they had taken from Bulgaria in 1913 ( Peace of Bucharest ) and therefore only offer Bulgaria the Ottoman Adrianople .
Alliance treaty with the Central Powers
The chances of Bulgaria entering the war on the side of the Central Powers increased after Allied negotiations with Bulgaria failed due to Serbia's stubborn refusal to cede parts of Macedonian territory. The Allies had intended the rest of European Turkey and Eastern Thrace with Adrianople ( Enos - Midia line) as concessions . The decisive factor for the advantage of the Central Powers was the favorable status of the fighting for Germany and Austria-Hungary in Russia and for the Ottoman Empire on the Dardanelles , but above all the better offer that could be made to the Bulgarians by the enemies of Serbia. Was the national reunification of Bulgaria with the closely related modern Macedonians at least since 1878, when the founding of Greater Bulgaria failed after San Stefano , the national goal of the Balkan state. The strong organizations of the Bulgarian refugees from Macedonia, who overcrowded the country after the Balkan Wars, used their political influence to push through more radical decisions regarding Macedonia. Macedonian Bulgarians held numerous central positions in politics and the army and pushed for unification.
The Bulgarian side demanded a personal union with Albania, expanded to include Serbian territories, and, in the event of Romania's entry into the war, the entire Dobruja. Bulgaria also called for Drama , Serres and Kavala to be relinquished in the event of Greek mobilization. With these demands, the Bulgarian leadership sought to establish a state that went beyond the borders of San Stefano and was reminiscent of the medieval empire of Tsar Simeon . In large areas the Bulgarian population was negligibly small, if at all. This Greater Bulgaria would have been a multinational state association that would have challenged the irredentism of all neighboring states. The defeat in the Second Balkan War of 1913 had triggered an exaggeration of the national idea among many Bulgarians .
The German State Secretary for Foreign Affairs , Jagov, was embarrassed by the excessiveness of the Bulgarian demands . Apparently it wanted to expect everything from us , believed Jagow and urged a withdrawal of the demands with regard to Greece, Romania and Albania.
Shortly afterwards, on August 25, 1915, at the instigation of Tsar Ferdinand , there was a new Bulgarian draft that was limited to Macedonia and the Serbian area up to the Morava . In the end, although the Bulgarian demands on Greek and Romanian territory were not directly met, the outstanding importance of the war goal (Serbian) Macedonia, which the Entente could not fulfill, tipped the balance in favor of the Central Powers. Because Macedonia was the central question of their politics for almost all Bulgarian parties, the national question of life , as well as for the king, church and army. Prime Minister Wassil Radoslawow had to insist on the transfer of all of Vladar-Macedonia for domestic political reasons alone, while Belgrade only offered small parts of it only after the end of the war in return for compensation at the expense of Austria-Hungary.
As in the case of the allied treaties with Italy and Romania, Bulgaria's war goals can be precisely determined by knowing the secret convention in the alliance treaty of the German Reich with Bulgaria of September 6, 1915. The German Empire guaranteed Bulgaria the acquisition and annexation of "Serbian Macedonia " and old Serbia from the confluence with the Danube to the confluence of the " Serbian " and " Bulgarian Morava ", over the ridges of Crna Gora and Šar Planina to the Bulgarian border from San Stefano. In the event of Romanian or Greek entry into the war on the part of the Allies, the new ally was also offered parts of the Dobruja and Greek Macedonia (in both cases the area ceded in the Treaty of Bucharest (1913)) .
The treaty guaranteed the Bulgarians the fulfillment of those irredentist demands that were urgent for the Balkans and relatively unproblematic for the Central Powers. It represented a compromise that could only be reached because the two empires, out of concern for the Ottoman Empire, urgently needed the military cooperation of a south-east European country in order to finally defeat Serbia, and because Bulgaria believed the war would be decided by the defeats of Russia .
On October 14, 1915, Bulgaria entered the world war on the side of the Central Powers.
As a result, Bulgaria led conflicts with all of its neighbors, armed conflicts with Serbia, Greece and Romania, but also political ones over the war objectives with Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. So Sofia was left with the only possible policy to rely on Germany alone.
Dobruja question
At the instigation of Russia in 1878 Romania was awarded the North Dobruja. For ethnic and economic reasons, Romania was more interested in Bessarabia and not in Dobruja, which is inhabited by Bulgarians, Turks and Tatars. The striving of the southern neighbor for this area was not entirely out of thin air, although the ethnic composition had changed in the meantime. In the negotiations on the secret treaty, King Ferdinand and Prime Minister Radoslawow finally renounced North Dobruja because at that time they still saw dangers in a common border with Russia.
The demarcation in the secret convention, especially with regard to the Dobruja, nevertheless led to violent disputes between the contracting parties towards the end of the war, which were only decided four days before the Bulgarian surrender in favor of Bulgaria.
The Bulgarians had initially received no more than they had ceded to Romania in 1913; After the conquest, the northern part of the Dobruja initially formed a condominium for the Four Alliance , which was to secure Germany's military and economic dominance in this area. In December 1916, Radoslawow received an unexpected boost from Kaiser Wilhelm II. In a partly erroneous, partly generous blanket formulation (confusion between South Dobrudscha and Dobrudscha), the emperor declared: the Dobrudscha is contractually guaranteed. You have everything you want there . The German government referred the Bulgarian Dobruja demands, which referred to this promise of Kaiser Wilhelm II, to the agreement of 1915 and declared that it did not see any binding obligation in his statement.
Germany was interested in a zone of influence, Romania, which was as undiminished as possible. In the meantime, however, Tsar Ferdinand I, who no longer found a common border threatening due to the weakness of the Russian Empire, was in favor of the acquisition of North Dobruja.
Mariza question
The decisive factor for the Bulgarians entering the war in 1915 was not the vague promise of territories yet to be conquered. Only when, under German pressure (the Battle of Gallipoli made this necessary), the Ottoman Empire surrendered a small strip on the left bank of the Mariza (Evros) opposite Edirne (Adrianople ) to Bulgaria, did Bulgaria join the Central Powers. (The area mentioned covers about the northern half of what is now the Greek prefecture of Evros with the cities of Orestiada and Didymoticho .)
In February 1918 the Bulgarians encouraged the Turks in the Caucasus, but at most wanted to return the left bank of the Maritsa .
Kühlmann and Ottokar Czernin support the Turkish demands for the return of the Maritsa area ceded to Bulgaria in 1915. The Ottoman Empire justified its claim on grounds of equity, Bulgaria held against it with reference to the treaty law of 1915.
In March 1918 the Mariza question intensified; the Ottoman Empire threatened to leave the alliance. Thereupon Ludendorff urged: "In comparison to the other states, namely Turkey, Bulgaria receives such an extraordinarily large territorial gain that it has to give in because of the restitution of the entire Turkish territory that was preserved in 1915." Only on September 25, 1918 did Bulgaria receive, a few days before his departure from the war, also de facto awarded the (northern) Dobruja. The domestic political and military dissolution could not be stopped at the last moment even by this acquisition of the entire Dobruja.
As with most other belligerent states, Bulgaria saw war as a way of eliminating social and domestic tensions by fulfilling national ideals . It also seemed to the government as a solution to the worsening economic crisis in the country. Irredentism and the nationalist will to expand had triumphed.
War aims of the Entente and its most important allies
France
War aims at the beginning of the war
On the French side, when the First World War broke out, the repatriation of Alsace-Lorraine also included the Rhine border in the canon of war aims. France also wanted to eliminate the supremacy of the German Empire on the European mainland that the Franco-German War had initiated, which the French nation had held since the 17th century. Gerd Krumeich argues that after 1900 the idea of revenge , which was widespread after the war in 1870/71 , lost its importance and by 1914 had almost completely disappeared from public discourse.
The nation's most important, almost absolute war goal appeared in the first days of the war: the recovery of Alsace-Lorraine. From the beginning to the end of the war, across the political spectrum, this demand remained an immovable war goal. When, after the victory on the Marne , it was decided to continue the war until the end of the "hegemony of Prussian militarism", other goals soon appeared, from the Saar basin , across areas on the left bank of the Rhine, in some circles to the questioning of imperial unity or at least their weakening in the federal sense. The leading role in this question was the extreme national-royalist Action française , while the republican Ligue des Patriotes launched a campaign aimed at transforming the banks of the Rhine into a buffer state under French dominance or even open annexation.
In the autumn of 1915, the French war aims finally emerged which in the years to come would appear again and again, with varying degrees of official support, hardly changed. The return of Alsace-Lorraine within the borders of 1814 or even 1790, i.e. with the Saar area, the pushing back of Germany to the Rhine through annexation or neutralization of the Rhineland , whereby the government gave itself completely free hand, as well as an economic and military annexation of Belgium and Luxembourg to France.
Colonial war objectives
France's overseas war aims manifested itself in its concentration on the Western Front, mainly in the agreements with the Allies over the Near and Middle East and West Africa.
For the areas allocated to Russia in the “Agreement on Constantinople and the Straits” in March 1915 , Delcassé initially demanded Cilicia and Syria as zones of interest. But that was not enough for the Comité de l'Asie Française and it openly called for the annexation of Cilicia and Syria, including Palestine . The government complied with this request and was awarded Cilicia and Syria with Lebanon by Great Britain in October . Palestine should be internationalized. The colonial war aims were also less the efforts of the government than of the colonial party and its sympathizers in the foreign and colonial ministries. The government, fully absorbed by the Western Front, did not even discuss colonial issues, which is why the Colonial Minister dominated this issue until 1918.
A closed French West Africa, including the German and British enclaves, had priority for many colonialists. In the Orient, too, Great Britain was more of a competitor than its real opponent, the Ottoman Empire. To the chagrin of the colonialists, Georges Clemenceau listened little to the colonial party and its people in the Foreign Office on the Quai d'Orsay.In the Anglo-French declaration of November 7, 1918 , Lloyd George ceded his claims to Palestine and Mosul - possibly to British ones To receive support with the French ambitions on the left bank of the Rhine.
The other main reasons why the French colonial party could not fully implement its war aims were the mandate principle of the League of Nations in Africa, the fact that Great Britain held military power in the areas in question, and the moderation of the colonialists, especially in language through Wilson's right of peoples to self-determination . While colonial officials had long determined the colonial war goals, Clemenceau was ultimately able to assert himself.
War targets 1916
The favorable war situation in the summer of 1916, in particular Romania's entry into the war, which was seen as decisive, caused the Briand government to abandon its previous reluctance. Discussions and investigations into the terms of peace began and ultimately led to an extensive program of demands.
At the request of President Poincaré , Chief of Staff Joffre first drafted a plan of desirable peace conditions in August 1916 - with the annexation of the Saar coal basin and the formation of three or four states on the left bank of the Rhine with bridgeheads on the right bank of the Rhine near Strasbourg and Germersheim, as well as a downsizing of Prussia in favor of the other German states. This general staff plan was revised and tightened in October 1916, with a 30-year occupation of the Rhineland and a division of Germany into nine independent states. However, this extreme concept would only reappear after the end of the war.
The Briand government's war target program, drawn up in November 1916 by Paul Cambon , ambassador to London , and his brother, was much more moderate. After that, the German nation-state was to remain, France "at least" the border from 1790, ie Alsace-Lorraine with the Saarland, received. The establishment of two neutral, independent buffer states under French protection is preferred to the occupation of the Rhineland, which is associated with great difficulties. In contrast to the General Staff memorandum, Belgium, but not Luxembourg , is left independent.
War targets 1917
For some members of the government the Cambon Memorandum went too far, while others did not want to forego annexations in the Rhineland. Prime Minister Briand was behind the program, which is why in January 1917, in a revised form, it became the official government program. However, the revised form related primarily to the use of more subtle language. This was at least omitted in the claim to the 1790 limit or the designation buffer states replaced by neutrality and provisional occupation .
Everything else was to be left to inter-allied negotiations, which gave France a free hand. In any case, everyone was of the opinion that a system of buffer states would facilitate subsequent annexations. The document was intended as a basis for discussion with Great Britain, without a legislative sanction, and was therefore kept as non-binding as possible, vaguely especially with regard to the annexation of the Rhineland which Great Britain rejected.
For this reason the most spectacular chapter in the history of the French war aims was written without the knowledge of Great Britain - the mission of the Colonial Minister Doumergue in Petrograd on February 12, 1917. Doumergues' offer to Russia to freely define its western border was an attempt to reach a separate peace with the Prevent German Empire. On February 14, 1917, Russia, in turn, assured the French that they would support their demands. France was granted Alsace-Lorraine to the extent of the former Duchy of Lorraine with the Saar Basin, the areas on the left bank of the Rhine that were not annexed are to form an autonomous and neutral state under French protection, which will remain occupied until all peace conditions are met.
A few weeks later, however, the Russian February Revolution made the agreement null and void and the French war target policy, along with the entire policy, fell into a deep crisis due to the uncertain war situation caused by the possible departure of Russia. After all, Tsarist Russia was the only major power that had supported Briand's plans in Saarland and on the Rhine. With the collapse of the Tsarist Empire, it initially seemed that France's plans for the Rhine also collapsed.
War aims towards the end of the war
The Prime Minister Ribot , who replaced the failed Briand , ushered in a new phase of French war policy. Since the end of the struggle itself was now called into question by the threatened departure of Russia, the question of the war aims naturally receded into the background - officially only Alsace-Lorraine was retained.
The Ribot government rejected the spirit of conquest and, in addition to Alsace-Lorraine, only demanded necessary security guarantees . When the successes of the German submarine war and the mutinies in the French army in the spring of 1917 worsened the war situation for the Allies, Ribot was pressured by the French socialists to lower the war aims even more. He relieved Russia of its promises regarding the new French eastern border, to which the new Russian government did not feel bound anyway, and asserted that the return of Alsace-Lorraine was by no means an annexation and that the necessary guarantees should not be seen in the spirit of conquest .
Ribot later said that the hour had not yet come to discuss all peace conditions and rejected any attempts at annexation. At the same time, however, he left open the possibility of independent Rhine states and continued to demand the overthrow of Prussian militarism . Ribot thus adhered to the Rhineland policy, as well as to the entirety of the French goals, the change only affected the external form of the war goals, but not their content.
It was not until January 1918 that France received final official support on the main war objective, Alsace-Lorraine; Lloyd George and President Wilson publicly called for the eradication of the injustice of 1871 . Until the end of the war, the Clemenceau government, in office since November 1917, concentrated on cementing France's right to the provinces without any coordination, while the other questions remained discreetly in the background, which in no way meant a departure from further goals.
So it came about that even after the end of the war the French war aims were still half-finished and unclear, although after the safe attainment of Alsace-Lorraine the Rhine border was clearly the main aim of Clemenceau and of all political leaders. The longest-lived and most important concept for weakening Germany was the attempt to detach the Rhineland from Germany through annexation or neutralization.
It is not right that France failed with its intentions at Versailles, because despite all the concessions it made to its allies, it was able to achieve a good part of its goals. Although the state had to forego open annexations in the Saar and Rhineland, the occupation of these areas gave it every opportunity to improve the treaty, as it did in 1923 with the occupation of the Ruhr . The fact that the occupation ultimately failed was not due to France's lack of assertiveness in Versailles.
However, it can be assumed that if Russia had not resigned, the "annexionist powers" France and Russia would have dictated their peace, that is to say largely enforced their war aims and restricted Germany to the area between the Rhine and the lower Vistula or Oder. The demands on the vanquished would have been different from the start, because the influence of the liberal-moderately-minded Anglo-Saxon powers would have been far less effective at the peace conference. France and its great continental ally would have largely agreed on the new map of Europe among themselves. But France, since it needed its western allies to hold Germany down permanently even after the war, had to be modest from the start in order not to have to bow to British and US objections that France's already "cosmetically treated" and reduced program criticized and sought to limit. One could say, very simply, that Germany owes the Rhineland to the Russian Revolution.
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire concentrated its international interests for the lost war in 1904-05 against Japan to the Balkans, as its natural protection Does it looked. This inevitably led to strong tensions with Austria-Hungary. The self-image of Russia as a legacy of the Byzantine - Orthodox culture and the traditional hostility against the Ottoman Empire came into the Russian war aims also expressed. After the Ottoman war, the Russian side hoped to win Constantinople and the straits between the Aegean and the Black Sea . The Russian war aims included, in addition to the old aim of the straits, Galicia and above all the (small) Russian (= Ukrainian) populated eastern part and, for strategic reasons, East Prussia, which protruded into Russian territory . In a broader sense, the idea of Pan-Slavism , a combination of all Slavs in one continental bloc , certainly played a role.
Sasonov's 13-point program
In the first confidence of victory, the Russian Foreign Minister Sasonow created a "13-point program" on September 14, 1914, which in some aspects can be seen as a counterpart to Bethmann Hollweg's September program. This is also known as the “12-point program” because point 13, about reparations, was eliminated from the first publications.
Sasonow primarily provided for territorial cessions of Germany, allegedly on the basis of the nationality principle. Russia would annex the lower reaches of the Nyemen ( Memelland ) and the eastern part of Galicia as well as annex the east of the province of Posen , (Upper) Silesia and western Galicia to the Kingdom of Poland . Further provisions were the often mentioned fixed points of Allied war target programs: Alsace-Lorraine, perhaps the Rhineland and Palatinate to France, an area increase for Belgium near Aachen , Schleswig-Holstein back to Denmark and the restoration of the Kingdom of Hanover .
Austria would form a "triple monarchy", consisting of the kingdoms of Bohemia (Bohemia and Moravia - Moravia was taken to be the territory of the Slovaks , which shows the ambiguity of Russian ideas of Central Europe), Hungary and Austria (Alpine countries), with Hungary as well Romania would have to agree on Transylvania. Serbia would get Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dalmatia and northern Albania , Greece would get southern Albania, Bulgaria part of Serbian Macedonia, Great Britain, France and Japan the German colonies. The straits, at least officially, were not mentioned before the Turkish entry into the war. Sazonov's program was the Russian government's first comprehensive declaration of war objectives, and Russia was the first Entente power to submit a list of war objectives to its allies.
War aim of dissolving Austria-Hungary
Although many opinions speak against it - Sasonov himself spoke of Austria-Hungary as a "complete anachronism" as early as October 1914 and emphatically demanded its dissolution at the end of 1914, the Russian military expected the collapse of the enemy by the rebellious Slav peoples when the war broke out - the Russian government appeared Overall, to neither demand nor pursue a dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, not least out of fear that if the Russian Empire confessed to the right of nationalities to self-determination, its own foreign peoples would also increase their centrifugal forces. In addition, from a Russian point of view, the Danube Monarchy was also a conservative bastion, while the small successor states would undoubtedly cause a multitude of political difficulties and disruptions for Russia.
Straits
With the entry of the Ottoman Empire into the war, the Russian public only received their true goal of participating in the war: Russian society turned its gaze to Constantinople as the highest victory prize . The conquest of the straits was the "old Slavophile dream" of the nationalist-minded circles of Russia. As a result, on March 4, 1915, Sazonov warned Great Britain and France, who fought in the Dardanelles without Russian participation , that any solution that would not bring Constantinople and the Bosporus into Russia would be unsatisfactory and unsafe. He specifically called for Constantinople, the European coast of the Black Sea to the Dardanelles, the Asian coast of the Bosporus, the islands of the Marmara Sea and the islands of Imbros and Tenedos . At the beginning of March 1915, the Western Allies, who feared a separate Russian peace, yielded to the Agreement on Constantinople and the Straits . Tsar Nicholas II reacted enthusiastically and generously: Take the right bank of the Rhine, take Mainz, take Koblenz, go further if it suits you . He also agreed to France's demands in Syria, Cilicia and Palestine, except in the holy places. The freedom to establish the western border was then officially granted to France in February 1917 (see above ).
Revolutionary Russia
One last flare-up of annexionist ideas came from Pavel Nikolayevich Miliukov , the leader of the Constitutional Democrats (“Cadets”), who was Foreign Minister of the Provisional Government from mid-March to mid-May 1917 . Previously, in the February Revolution of 1917, a “peace without annexations or contributions” had been proclaimed. But Milyukov once again represented the traditional goals of Russian imperialism with Constantinople, “smashing Austria-Hungary”, a South Slavic state that reached far beyond the Drava, a Poland within its ethnographic borders and a new Baltic Sea government on the soil of East Prussia. When his plans became known, there were violent riots, until a new coalition was formed to the exclusion of Milyukov.
The publication of the secret war target agreements of the Allies in November 1917 by the Bolsheviks exposed the allegedly "noble" intentions of the Entente in the eyes of the Central Powers. The enemy's war aims were perceived as obstacles to peace.
Classification of war aims in research
Russia has often been a prisoner of its own prestige and "historical mission", both in the Balkans and in the Straits. His vital interests were overshadowed by emotions from the past, national and religious feelings. In the competition with the major European powers for influence and prestige, Russia lacked powerful means such as capital, concessions or extensive trade.
Great Britain
War aims at the beginning of the war
The German invasion of Belgium was the official reason for Britain's entry into the war - the restoration of Belgium therefore remained the only declared important war goal in the first years of the war. In order to achieve the goal of liberating Belgium, however, the formula of smashing Prussian militarism in order to preserve the European equilibrium, which seemed threatened by the German occupation of Belgium and the Channel coast , was introduced early on . The exaggerated fear that Germany's ambitions in the World War would turn Great Britain into a German client state appeared to a large number of those responsible that the necessity of resistance was required.
Great Britain officially showed little interest in the democratization of Germany, as the US administration Wilson later propagated. However, the Kingdom of Hanover was supposed to be restored within the Empire . B. four Prussian seats in the Bundesrat (as many as the kingdoms of Saxony or Württemberg) to the restored Hanover would have only ended Prussia's veto power in this chamber (together with only one other state, however, Prussia would still have had this).
In any case, Great Britain never had any direct territorial goals on the European continent; according to Prime Minister Asquith , Great Britain already has as much land as we are able to hold . Nevertheless, any interests vis-à-vis France, Russia and the other allies had to be safeguarded, which in plain language meant acquisitions of German and Turkish possessions in Africa and the Near East.
Development in the course of the war
Territorial concerns were always officially viewed as secondary, probably to avoid embarrassing implications. After the retirement of the tsarist ally, the war could be waged in an excellent propagandistic way as a crusade of democracy against tyranny and despotism. But by the end of 1916, the British public finally wanted to know exactly what their soldiers were supposed to fight and die for, which made the formulation of the war aims urgent.
On March 20, 1917, Lloyd George described the elimination of reactionary military governments and the establishment of "popular" governments as the basis of international peace as true war goals. Towards the end of the year the cabinet agreed on the first provisional war goals. It supported French efforts on Alsace-Lorraine, Italian demands, contrary to the Treaty of London, only on the basis of the nationality principle, as well as the restoration of Belgium, Serbia and Romania. Later, in addition to the demand for independence for Poland and the peoples of the Danube Monarchy, there were also requests for expansion in the form of demands for self-determination for the German colonies, in order to deprive the Germans of the basis for their Central Africa and to rename the already occupied Arab parts of Turkey under “British rule ”to days.
Colonial war objectives
The Sykes-Picot Agreement of January 3, 1916 regulated the areas of interest of Great Britain and France in the Middle East . Great Britain received southern Mesopotamia while Palestine was to be internationalized. The German colonies in Africa and overseas should by no means be returned, which the Japanese and British Dominions who took part in the conquest would hardly have allowed. It turned out that the war aims of the British Empire were not based solely on the interests of Great Britain, as Australia , New Zealand and South Africa wanted to keep their conquests of German colonies.
A memorandum of the Foreign Office submitted in January 1917 regarded the German colonies as the most tangible results of the Kaiser’s “world politics” for the Germans. The main purpose of these colonies, from a British perspective, was to prepare for attacks on foreign colonies. The taking away of the German colonies is the precondition for the important British war goal: the end of German naval power and maritime policy. The primary war goal must be to prevent Germany from becoming a world power. It should limit its energies to the continent reached in 1870, while Britain should have maritime supremacy and an overseas empire, but no continental aspirations.
Secondary war targets of the British Dominions
In addition to the mother country, the Dominions of South Africa and Australia in particular pursued their own war goals that went beyond those of Great Britain and hindered its intended scope for negotiation for a post-war solution. Since Great Britain relied on the support of the colonies, it could do little to counter their secondary colonial claims.
The South African Union under Prime Minister Louis Botha and General Smuts, for example, had already called for the annexation of German South West Africa and Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) as a short-term goal in 1911 . However , the division of the Portuguese colonies, which had already been agreed in the Angola Treaty in 1898 and 1913/14 (South Mozambique would have belonged to the Empire or South Africa) was opposed by the fact that Portugal fought as an ally of Great Britain in the World War, which London had to take more into account than Pretoria .
1916 to 1919, Smuts represented a "Greater South Africa" as an immediate war target with an affiliation of German South West Africa, the British-administered protectorate Bechuanaland ( Botswana ) and southern Rhodesia , as well as Mozambique to the Zambezi .
Pretoria's long-term goal, however, was South African supremacy over all of Africa south of the equator from Cape Town to Kilimanjaro . In addition, South Africa wanted to take control of the British-administered protectorates of Northern Rhodesia ( Zambia ) and Nyassaland (Malawi) and to conquer German East Africa . Even the Belgian Katanga was part of the South African sphere of interest.
In fact, Great Britain was dependent on the military contribution of South Africa, South Africa led the main fighting against the German protection force in East Africa and on top of that sent units to the Flanders Front. But with this, South Africa also overwhelmed its forces and possibilities, and General Smuts' troops, weakened by heavy losses, were no longer capable of final victory in far East Africa.
Australia and the German Empire had already clashed over New Guinea in 1883 , so Australia's goal was to conquer the German colony in the northeast, in addition to the southeast part of the island, which was already occupied by the Germans. However, there were also contradictions with Japan, since both Australia and Japan were interested in annexing the German Pacific Islands. Unlike Australia and New Zealand, however, Great Britain and its ally Russia had no interest in breaking with Japan during the fight against Germany.
War aims and the balance of power
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In addition to the tendency to weaken Germany, there was also a counter-movement in British politics that had ancient roots. The balance of power , the "balance of power" of the post-war Europe requires a strong Germany as a counterweight to France and Russia. This component of British war target policy was to play an important role at the Versailles Peace Conference.
The old rivalries with France and Russia were masked by the conflict with Germany, but they were still latent. It was clear that these conflicts would break out again after the war, which is why every great power had to secure its new starting position early on. For Great Britain, which had no direct feasible acquisitions on the continent in prospect, maintaining a Germany militarily strong in the country was geopolitically vital.
The coalition that existed during World War II was not considered to be very durable by Great Britain, the British even considered Germany to be a possible ally of the future, which it should be considered strong and benevolent - a way of thinking that was alien to Russia or France not only during the war.
At the end of August 1918, Lloyd George's policy towards Germany became increasingly tough, Balfour wanted to split off the coalfields in the Ruhr and Silesia from the Reich, and even the long-forgotten cession of Schleswig-Holstein to Denmark reappeared. In November, when the main British war goal of breaking German supremacy on the continent had already been achieved, no second Alsace-Lorraine was sought for the reasons of balance already described .
The removal of Russia from the war coalition made the British concept of the balance of power simpler, but at the same time more difficult. The Russian pressure on the German East now fell away and a system of new states had to take over the binding of German forces in the East. Since these new states could never develop the power of the old Russian Empire, the previously considered annexation of Austria to Germany was rejected by the British as no longer appropriate. In the West the situation was different, since extensive annexation requests by France in the Rhineland threatened, albeit in a covert form, a hegemony of the French, which Great Britain sought to prevent by moderating the peace conditions for Germany.
Italy
Since national unification , which was concluded in 1870, Italy , too , pursued an expansionist policy which, in the form of irredentism , aimed, among other things, at the Italian-populated areas under Austro-Hungarian rule. Even the signing of the Triple Alliance Treaty with Austria-Hungary and the German Empire in 1882 could not eliminate the resulting tensions. In addition, there was a war with the Ottoman Empire in 1911/12 , which ended with the de facto annexation of Libya and the Dodecanese by Italy.
At first the Central Powers wanted to persuade Italy to remain neutral. Italy had at least demanded the cession of Trentino from Austria-Hungary. Germany and the Pope tried in vain to induce Austria-Hungary to give in. The attempt by German diplomacy to divert Italy's territorial claims to Tunisia , Corsica , Nice and Savoy instead was equally in vain . When Austria-Hungary finally signaled on March 8, 1915 that they were ready to give in, the Entente had promised Italy much more.
After Russia agreed to the Italian demand for Slavic populated areas on the Adriatic , the secret London Treaty was signed on April 26, 1915 . The Treaty of London reflected the war aims of Italy, which thanks to its favorable negotiating position was able to enforce practically all territorial claims against the Habsburg monarchy. Italy was awarded in the secret treaty: Trentino , South Tyrol up to the Brenner , the city of Trieste and its surroundings, the county of Gorizia and Gradisca , all of Istria , the Istrian and some smaller islands, but not Fiume . Furthermore, the province of Dalmatia should go from Lissarik and Trebinje in the north to Cape Planka in the south, i.e. from Zadar to Split , including the offshore islands, as well as Lissa and Lagosta, to Italy. Finally, Italy was still entitled to the strategically important Albanian port of Valona with an extensive hinterland. If Turkey were to be partitioned, Italy would have received a region on the south coast of Asia Minor to be determined. While the majority of Italian society rejected the war, Prime Minister Antonio Salandra and Foreign Minister Sidney Sonnino saw the opportunity to implement the nationalists' imperialist program. On May 4, 1915, Italy terminated the Triple Alliance and on May 23, 1915, declared war on Austria-Hungary. The attack followed on the Isonzo, among other places .
After the defeat of Caporetto at the end of 1917, those responsible in government and the military were forced to adapt the maximum demands of the treaty to their own possibilities. As a result, no further territorial acquisitions were made in Southeastern Europe. The fact that the agreement was not fully implemented in the Treaty of Versailles, particularly with regard to Dalmatia , was due to the resistance of the Serbs or South Slavs and the United States - which was not bound by the treaty.
Serbia
In Serbia , the basis of all war target programs was the idea of the unification of all southern Slavs. Most of the time the Serbian claims did not extend beyond a union with Croats and Slovenes , with independence from Bulgaria and Montenegro , or even only one Greater Serbia , with rounding off the Serbian territory and access to the Adriatic Sea.
But the Serbian war proclamation of August 4, 1914 already spoke of
This proclamation named the national liberation goal of the Serbs, the unification of all Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
On September 21, Prime Minister Nikola Pašić presented Russian Foreign Minister Sazonov with extensive war targets: Bosnia, Herzegovina, Dalmatia, Batschka, Banat, Gorizia and its surroundings and Istria. The latter he was prepared to share with Italy if it entered the war. A week later, when Pašić found out about the Italian demands, he wanted to forego all of Istria, but warned against leaving Italy to Dalmatia, because then the Serbo-Croatians of the monarchy would be on the side of Austria-Hungary.
A Russian-South Slav memorandum from December 1914, written by the exiled Croatian MP Frano Supilo , already expressed more detailed ideas about the coming South Slav state. This state would have covered 260,000 km², consisting of the southern parts of Carinthia and Styria , Carniola , the entire Kronland coastal region (with Trieste ), Dalmatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Slavonia with Fiume , southern Hungary (a little north of the Mur , south of Pécs and Szeged ), as well as Montenegro and what was then Serbia. Of the 14 million inhabitants, 12.7 million would be southern Slavs.
In the Declaration of Niš of December 7, 1914, Serbia openly presented its war aims: Yugoslavia within the borders, as presented by Frano Supilo, was intended as the maximum solution; there was also a minimal solution, which in the west would only include Bosnia, Herzegovina, Slavonia and Dalmatia, a Yugoslavia that "should include at least the majority of the Orthodox Yugoslavs".
In February 1915, British Foreign Minister Edward Gray promised Serbia Bosnia, Herzegovina and access to the Adriatic Sea, and in May a federation with Croatia was even considered. The British Foreign Office and Gray even personally promised Supilo that, with Serbian approval, Bosnia, Herzegovina, southern Dalmatia, Slavonia and Croatia would be allowed to determine their own fate (September 1, 1915). The influence of the South Slav politicians in exile within the population at home was, however, negligible until the last year of the war.
Montenegro, which was already endeavoring to establish close military, diplomatic and economic cooperation with the Serbian brother state before 1914, was to be united with Serbia at the latest when King Nikola I offered the Central Powers a separate peace.
Nevertheless, the early war aims of the Serbian leaders were motivated by the Greater Serbia rather than the South Slav. These Greater Serbian ambitions were surrounded by a Yugoslav cloak among the Western allies, since many of the targeted areas were only owned by a Serb minority. Only after the military victory over Serbia at the end of 1915 did the idea of South Slav unity become more attractive.
In order to give in to pressure from Italy in the Treaty of London, Russian support for Serbian wishes in Istria, Trieste and Dalmatia was temporarily abandoned. Section 5 in the Treaty of London only approved Serbia: Bosnia, Dalmatia south of Cape Planka to Neretva in Herzegovina (with Trogir and Split ), Srem, Batschka and Banat, whereby Serbia should come to an understanding with Romania at Banat. At the same time, Montenegro was to get southern Dalmatia with Dubrovnik and eastern Herzegovina. In the event of an occupation of Albania by Italy, northern Albania should also be divided between Serbia and Montenegro.
It is not surprising that the Serbs opposed this agreement from the beginning and that they were successful in the most important part, near Dalmatia. However, among the Serbs who propagated the world war as a struggle at the moment it began, towards a struggle for the liberation and unification of all our unfree brothers, the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes , there were also openly Greater Serbian tendencies. Especially after their big brother, Tsarist Russia, left the struggle and the neglect of the small Serbian ally and the rather marginal Salonika front by the Western Allies, many were satisfied with Montenegro, Vojvodina, Bosnia-Herzegovina and southern Dalmatia as parts of a Greater Serbia. At the same time, the Provisional Government of Russia made it clear that it would not support a Greater Serbia, but only a Yugoslav solution under a democratic banner.
The Serbian Prime Minister Pašić had to adapt to the development and so, with the Declaration of Corfu , on July 20, 1917, the realization of the South Slav state through a compromise, which provided for the right of self-determination of the individual peoples, was initiated. On December 1, 1918, the “ unified state of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes ” was finally formed from the areas of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Serbia and Montenegro.
Romania
Romania's war goals included the annexation of Transylvania , Bukovina and the Banat , which were predominantly Romanian-populated areas under Austro-Hungarian rule. In the alliance treaty with the Entente of August 17, 1916 , Romania secured these areas and declared war on Austria-Hungary on August 27, 1916.
Even before the world war it was clear that Romania would wait and see in a conflict between Austria-Hungary and Russia, and then take the side of the victor and thereby get either Bessarabia from Russia or Transylvania from Hungary. In the last pre-war years, traditional Russophobia in Romania had been overtaken by the aversion to Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary due to the Balkan Wars and the oppression of the Romanian population of Hungary. The Central Powers tried in vain (with the promise of Romania to leave Bessarabia) to win the country on their side. The Romanian Prime Minister Brătianu only wanted to consider annexing Bessarabia if Russia was completely defeated. Since Russia would not come to terms with the loss, one would have to rely on Germany's protection in the future. Naturally, Russia also refused an assignment as a “purchase price” for Romania's neutrality. With the death of the Romanian Hohenzollern King Carol in October 1914, who had been prevented from entering the war on the part of the Central Powers due to internal political resistance, the situation tended in favor of the Entente.
Negotiations between Romania and the Danube Monarchy for the cession of Transylvania failed because of the strict rejection of Hungary, which was primarily due to the Hungarian Szekler minority , who settled in this area alongside the Transylvanian Saxons . The offer of cession of the Bukovina by Cisleithanien was not enough for the Romanians. For the time being, Russia opposed the Romanian demands for Bukovina up to the Prut and the Banat. After the heavy defeat at Gorlice , Sasonov gave up his resistance to the Romanian demands in July 1915, but Brătianu wanted to wait again after the conquest of Poland by the Central Powers.
After the first major successes of the Russian Brusilov offensive (June 4 to September 20, 1916), which mainly affected Romania's potential main opponent, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Romania signed an alliance treaty with the Entente on August 17, 1916. In it, Romania was guaranteed almost all of Bukovina (south of the Prut), Transylvania and the Temesvár Banat, which would have meant a doubling of its area and population.
Romania pursued a policy of constant waiting for the moment until the collapse of Austria-Hungary became apparent, in which it could fulfill its power-political and national aspirations with little effort and little risk. Not concessions, but the fear of the Central Powers, the high risk of attack, ensured Romania's neutrality. After the heavy defeat of the Habsburg monarchy in the Brusilov offensive, this fear no longer existed. The Romanian declaration of war was made less because the success of the Brusilov offensive had been overestimated, but because it was believed that this was the last chance to achieve all war aims. Bucharest was afraid that the weakened monarchy would seek peace. Concessions would only have expired for warring states, but Romania would have come away empty-handed. For Bratianu and his government, entering the war was also an emphasis on territorial demands. He even emphasized that, similar to Italy, even without a resounding military success, the country's national goals would be promoted through intervention alone.
After the defeat by the Central Powers , the new Prime Minister Alexandru Marghiloman had to accept the cession of North Dobruja to the Central Powers and border shifts in favor of Austria-Hungary in the Peace of Bucharest .
The fact that, apart from Serbia, ultimately none of its direct neighbors were among the final victors, ultimately ensured the Balkan state expansion in all directions. Not only the promised areas in Hungary, but also the whole of Bukovina with its northern, Ukrainian-populated part, as well as the whole of Bessarabia and the recovered Dobruja, transformed the nation-state of Romania into a nation-state . The Treaty of Trianon doubled the territory of Romania in 1920 and increased its population from 7.2 to 18 million, the proportion of minorities from 8 to 30 percent.
Czechoslovakia
War aim of dissolving Austria-Hungary
Despite all the losses on land that their neighbors intended to inflict on the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, the remaining peoples, Germans, Hungarians, Czechs and Slovaks could have formed a viable state with defensible borders and an economic balance of Hungarian agriculture and Bohemian industry . A stable Danube state, without the countries of what would later become Czechoslovakia , was economically and strategically inconceivable. The continued existence of the state was therefore essentially dependent on the attitude of the Czech people and their politicians.
The war goal of the Czechoslovak politicians in exile around Beneš and Masaryk was from the beginning the creation of an independent Czechoslovak state and the associated destruction of Austria-Hungary, with the overthrow of the Habsburg dynasty. The Czechs were isolated for a long time with this war goal, as the western allies had only very late found themselves ready to agree to the dismantling of the monarchy, based on facts which Austria itself had accomplished. The influence of the Czech politicians in exile was negligible at home until 1918.
War targets and Russia
The relationship between Russia and the Czechs and their idea of national liberation was difficult and ambivalent. Even before the war, Sasonov expressed his interest in the Czech cause, but warned its representatives against counting on Russian support. Sasonov was the only important politician in Tsarist Russia who seriously supported the independence of the Czechs.
Even during the war, the Russian officials avoided making binding promises, for fear of annexation intentions on their part, because of the disturbed European equilibrium, the Western powers would call into action. According to Masaryk, another reason for the reluctance of the large Slavic fraternal people on this issue was the Russian fear of Czech liberalism and Catholicism, that Russian officials would prefer to concentrate their (pan) Slavic solidarity on Orthodox Slavs.
In one of the phases when the view of the dissolution of the Danube monarchy regained the upper hand in Russian politics, the plan was finally made not to annex the Czechs and Slovaks, but to put a king from the Romanovs' house at their head , with an uncertain degree of dependence on the Russian Empire. The later establishment of Czechoslovakia ultimately had nothing to do with the war policy of pre-revolutionary Russia.
War aims and the western powers
The Czechoslovak question was only marginal in the context of the Entente's war aims until 1918. The successful establishment of an armed arm of the Czech-Slovak exile policy in the form of the Czechoslovak legions did little to change this. For a possible separate peace with Austria-Hungary, the Western allies immediately dropped their support for an independent Bohemia and Moravia . A fundamental change compared to the efforts of the Czechoslovak National Council in Paris did not occur until April 1918, when negotiations with the dual monarchy failed and, due to the critical situation on the western front, there was only the possibility of controlling the Habsburg monarchy from within, by supporting separatist movements , next to the remaining front in Italy .
Neither France nor Great Britain advocated a policy of dissolving the monarchy, considering that another great power in the tense relationship between Russia and Germany was necessary. Masaryk countered this by stating that Austria-Hungary was no longer able to fulfill the role of a buffer state and that this function could therefore be better taken over by the successor states. When the development was so far that the continued existence of the monarchy could hardly be thought of, the Western powers took advantage of the agreements that had already been made with Czech emigrants.
Between June and September 1918 France, Great Britain, the USA and Italy successively recognized the right of the Czech and Slovak nations to independence and the status of Czechoslovakia, with its three armies in France, Italy and revolutionary Russia, as a warring nation.
The Czech nation received more support from the Entente than any other peoples of the Habsburg Monarchy, thanks to Masaryk, Beneš ', Štefánik and the Slavophile Britons Steed , Seton-Watson and Namier . The effects of this successful exile policy were better starting conditions for Czechoslovakia, the successful separation of Slovakia from Hungary and the good position of the ČSR in Versailles as a victorious power, which ultimately secured advantageous borders for it.
Determination of the new frontiers
When the Czechoslovak state was proclaimed in Prague on October 28, 1918 , its borders were still uncertain, but the French had promised to promote the “restoration” of the independent Czechoslovak state within the borders of its former historical countries. However, from this demand for Bohemia , Moravia , Austrian Silesia and the Danube as the southern border of Slovakia , there were blatant violations of the propagated nationality principle. Greater necessities, such as strategic and economic aspects, i.e. the demand of politicians for borders that can be easily defended and a grown, uniform economic area, would just take precedence over the nationality principle.
In the so-called Beneš memoranda , the Czechs tried to dispel the fear of the western powers of a coming irredenta of the Germans and Hungarians within the new state, which would destabilize it, with a variety of arguments: On the one hand, based on manipulated censuses, the number of people Sudeten Germans overestimated by at least one million, on the other hand, for geographical reasons, a coherent German-speaking province without unification with Germany and Austria is not possible. The Czechs denied any significant and uniform tendencies among the German-speaking residents of the Sudetenland towards Greater Germany and guaranteed a degree of equality and tolerance for the minorities as in Switzerland. A separation of these areas would deliver the Czechs to economic and military supremacy, as well as to the aggression of Germany and Austria, defenseless, because this would mean the removal of the mountain borders of Bohemia and the most important industrial areas. In addition, the Sudeten Germans are only colonists who have penetrated from outside anyway.
Clemenceau and his Foreign Minister Pichon , who did not want Germany to be strengthened by the Sudeten Germans, pleaded for the simplest solution , the old border, to which David Lloyd George and the US envoy Edward Mandell House agreed. So it happened that the new borders created a multi-ethnic state of only 46 percent Czechs, compared to Germans, Slovaks, Hungarians, Ukrainians and Jews, enemies with its neighbors, with a burden that should make further peaceful development very difficult for him.
United States of America
War objectives when entering war
The American war policy has its origins in the period of neutrality, after the entry of the United States into the war , President Woodrow Wilson continued his policy without break. He did not have precise ideas about a just peace in the first period of the war; in any case, for him a peace was only possible if Belgium was made good and France was evacuated. Otherwise, Wilson, more than any other politician, shied away from making decisions on territorial issues. Propagating vague principles was preferred by all politicians of the time to the controversial issue of drawing future borders. Except for the House-Gray Memorandum of February 22, 1916, American foreign policy endeavored to be remarkably neutral, although sympathies were undoubtedly with Great Britain and not with the invaders of Belgium. In the "House-Gray Memorandum", the United States promised to intervene, probably on the Allied side, with Great Britain if Germany rejects a peace conference, the evacuation of the occupied territories and the exchange of Alsace-Lorraine for colonial compensations.
As an "associated" rather than an "allied" power, the US was not obliged to join previous war target agreements. Since they were not directly touched, they had a different approach to the war objectives. War aims were "out of fashion" in America, so the demand from Alsace-Lorraine did not arouse any enthusiasm.
The main goal of Wilson after entering the war was the elimination of German militarism and the democratization of the country. The US would not fight for the "selfish" war aims of the Allies. They would reject secret treaties such as the Sykes-Picot Treaty. Only in Alsace-Lorraine did Wilson seem to deviate from his policy.
Wilson's overall strategy was initially similar to British policy at the start of the war. He wanted to give the allies just as much support as needed. At the end of the war, he wanted to push through his own peace plan across the then politically and economically bankrupt Entente countries.
Wilson's 14 points
The climax and focus of American war policy was undoubtedly Wilson's “ 14 Points ”. The president had propagated it on January 8, 1918 in response to the Bolshevik challenge after the Allies' refusal to draft a joint, moderate war target program.
Points I to IV and XIV deal with general questions which, as the core of the war target program, should have a propagandistic effect, especially among liberal and peace-ready forces of the Central Powers. Points V to XIII deal with territorial goals that had naturally grown since the period of neutrality. In point VII, the complete restoration of Belgian independence is required by the preceding "must" ("should" is used for all other points). The following points deal with the return of Alsace-Lorraine, the establishment of Italian borders along the clearly identifiable nationality borders and the retention of Austria-Hungary, whose nations should have free development.
The attitude of the United States towards the Danube Monarchy was fickle. War was only declared nine months later as Germany (December 7, 1917). Foreign Minister Lansing, on the other hand, did not believe that this attempt to preserve Austria-Hungary was feasible and predicted that this idea would be abandoned. But even Wilson assured the peoples of Austria-Hungary on the occasion of the declaration of war before the US Congress that they would be freed from “Prussian militarism”.
Point XI. called for the evacuation of the Balkans and Serbia's free access to the sea. In point XII, Turkey is granted independence, but without foreign nationalities. The straits should be kept open by international guarantees. The penultimate point concerned the establishment of an independent Polish state, which would undeniably include Polish-populated territories with free access to the sea.
Most of these territorial ideas, such as clearly recognizable nationality boundaries, testify to the ignorance of American politics of the complex conditions and problems, especially in Eastern Europe. The principle of the nation's right to self-determination and strategic-economic demands, such as access to the sea, simply have to contradict one another. The 14 points and their later additions were directed not only against the Central Powers, but also against Allied imperialism.
Supplement to the 14 points
In the course of the last year of the war, Wilson's attitude towards the Central Powers became tougher and more bellicose, above all as a result of the “dictation peace” of Brest-Litovsk. In October 1918, the United States added and expanded Wilson's 14 points. Belgium and Alsace-Lorraine were confirmed, but France's demand for the borders of 1814 (Saar coal mines) was rejected. Italy is granted South Tyrol for strategic reasons , but its cultural life is to remain autonomous, as is the protectorate over Albania . On the other hand, Trieste and Fiume should be converted into free ports for the prosperity of the Czech Republic , German Austria and Hungary .
The provisions in point IX on Austria-Hungary could no longer be upheld. The government therefore declares that it wants to stand up for the liberation of all Slavic peoples under German and Austro-Hungarian rule. On October 18, Wilson informed the Habsburg state that the nationalities would have to determine their own future. East Galicia , being Ukrainian, does not belong to Poland like West Galicia, German Austria should be legally allowed to join Germany .
Point XI is also overtaken by the events: Serbia will appear as Yugoslavia with access to the Adriatic. Romania acquires Dobruja , Bessarabia and probably Transylvania , Bulgaria should rightly have its border in South Dobruja, as it did before the Second Balkan War . It should also have Thrace as far as the line between Midia on the Black Sea and Enos on the Aegean coast, and perhaps even as far as the Midia- Rodosto line . Macedonia should be divided.
The new Polish state, whose access to the sea, west of the Vistula, has not yet been determined, should not get any areas in the east that are inhabited by Lithuanians and Ukrainians. The German residents of Poznan and Upper Silesia should be granted protection. According to this plan, Armenia is to be assigned a port on the Mediterranean Sea and should come under British protection. Finally, the division of the Middle East between Great Britain and France is recognized.
Compared to Great Britain, the United States made the French at the peace conference far fewer difficulties in realizing their war goals than expected.
Japan
The most important war goal of the Japanese Empire , while the major European powers were bound in Europe, was to gain economic and political dominance over post-revolutionary China or to extend its already existing area of influence in northern China to the Yangtze . The conquest of Tsingtau was a first step and also the most important military enterprise of Japan in the world war. The Twenty-one Demands Japan in January 1915 China included alongside economic privileges control the province of Shandong , the Manchuria , the Inner Mongolia , China's south coast and the Yangtze estuary. The acceptance of these demands by Chinese President Yuan Shikai under massive threats from Japan led to violent protests among the Chinese people. The acceptance of the demand for Japanese advisors to be accepted, which would have made China practically a protectorate, was ultimately prevented by British pressure.
During negotiations on peace explorations in Stockholm in May 1916 , which the industrialist Hugo Stinnes operated through connection to Japanese society, an attempt was made, following an idea by Alfred von Tirpitz , to create an anti-Anglo-Saxon alliance with Japan and Russia.
On May 17, 1916, in the course of the German-Japanese peace negotiations , Gottlieb von Jagow drafted a list of peace conditions in the event of a separate peace with Russia and Japan. Germany would cede to Japan the already conquered areas in the South Seas, the Carolines , Mariana Islands and Marshall Islands as well as its rights in Kiautschou and recognize the Russian and Japanese spheres of interest in China.
Jagow later suspected that Japan had only used the talks with Germany to put Russia under pressure in the negotiations on China. On July 3, 1916, Japan and Russia concluded a secret treaty aimed at suppressing Anglo-Saxon influence in East Asia and coordinating their aspirations in China.
At the Paris Peace Conference, Japan was able to enforce the incorporation of the German South Sea islands north of the equator as a mandate area against the resistance of Australia and the USA . In addition to taking over the German position in China and the Pacific, the general influence on China was expanded by the end of the war and Russia was eliminated as a power factor in the Pacific. The war was also a great success for Japan economically: through extensive deliveries to the allies, a positive trade balance and a strong increase in the importance of industry on the international market could be achieved for the first time.
China
Since the fall of the Empire and the proclamation of the republic, China has been politically unstable, and during the First World War it has been trapped in civil war-like conflicts between the Kuomintang and military rulers Yuan Shikai and rival military factions. President Yuan initially kept China neutral at the beginning of the war and instead tried to consolidate his internal power through his self-coronation as emperor and the restoration of the empire . He attempted to secure foreign policy by accepting Japan's twenty-one demands . However, both fueled resistance to his regime, which led to the overthrow of his monarchy. Germany also got involved in the succession struggles of its quarreling military, by supporting another (unsuccessful) attempt at restoration in Beijing in July 1917. In Canton, Sun Yat-sen formed an initially pro-Japanese counter-government. On August 14, 1917, as a reaction to the German involvement in the restoration attempt on the side of the Entente, Beijing entered the war against Germany (in September 1917 also Canton) and occupied the German and the Austro-Hungarian concession area in Tientsin .
With their participation in the war, the constantly changing and weak central governments endeavored above all to achieve emancipation from the great powers and a revision of the "unequal treaties" concluded with them . For this purpose, China offered the Entente to send Chinese troops to the European front lines, but the Allies refused so as not to upgrade China to an equal ally. The official war goal of China was the return of the German leased area Kiautschou ; this had been occupied by Japan at the beginning of the war in 1914. The northern military leaders took advantage of the weakness of Russia, which was sinking in civil war, and in October 1919 occupied Outer Mongolia, which had previously belonged to the Russian sphere of influence, and the Russian protectorate of Tuva . Chinese troops even took part in the Allied intervention in Siberia under Japanese command . China insisted on participating in peace negotiations after defeating Germany. Since the Treaty of Versailles did not take into account the return of Kiautschou and the concession rights, China refused to sign it and concluded a separate peace treaty in 1921. After mediation by the USA, China actually got Kiautschou back from Japan in 1922, but China was initially unable to cancel the other foreign leases, concession areas and special rights.
Polish war targets
The war aims of the Poles at the beginning and during the war were initially shaped by the different plans of the warring powers with Poland, as well as by different war aims of the rival Polish actors themselves.
Russian-Polish solution
At the end of 1914, a manifesto by Tsar Nicholas II , which had announced the creation of a unified Poland from all Polish countries , offered a vague prospect of autonomy and promised an expansion of Russian Poland to include German and Austrian Polish- speaking territories. This reorganization of Poland as the “anti-German spearhead” of Russia was supported by Duma deputy Roman Dmowski . However, nothing happened in the direction of autonomy. When the Russian armies were driven out of already "liberated" Polish areas and Russia strictly forbade any interference in its internal Polish affairs, the Central Powers' Poland proclamation of November 5, 1916 developed an attraction for the Poles of Russia. The rulers in Petrograd, however, had concerns that the Poles would only be encouraged to give in to ever greater demands, up to and including independence. After the Central Powers proclaimed Poland, the British and French governments publicly pushed for a generous amount of Polish autonomy, which, of course, was no longer sufficient for the Poles, as they demanded state independence. Therefore from the end of 1916 there was no longer any support among the Poles for a Russian solution to the Polish question.
Austro-Polish solution
On the Austro-Polish side, many influential Galician politicians pushed for the “Austro-Polish solution”. Former Foreign Minister Gołuchowski had Bethmann Hollweg confirm that Russian Poland would be left to the dual monarchy, preferring the trialist solution. Gołuchowski, who opposed the subdualistic plans of Foreign Minister Burián and a partition of Galicia, tried in Warsaw in September 1915 to win the Poles for a federation under German-Hungarian-Polish rule. In early 1916 he even planned to overthrow the Hungarian Prime Minister Tisza and replace him with Andrássy , a proponent of trialism, in order to establish trialism.
Finance Minister Leon Biliński was also a passionate advocate of the “Austro-Polish solution”. At the beginning of August 1914 he wanted to publish a rally approved by Emperor Franz Joseph and Foreign Minister Leopold Berchtold in the Austro-Polish sense, which provided for a Habsburg Kingdom of Poland consisting of Galicia and Russian Poland, with its own government and parliament. However, this had to remain unpublished because of Tisza's veto against trialism. In addition to Tisza's rejection, the resistance of the German ally in particular prevented the publication of the proclamation. Due to Tisza's protest at the joint Council of Ministers on August 22, 1914, Biliński's trialism project fell through and was subsequently no longer up for debate. Although the trialist conception was no longer the subject of political disputes in the Council of Ministers, it was talked about until the last weeks of the war.
For the Poles in the dual monarchy, the development was disappointing, as was shown in a speech by Biliński at the beginning of October 1915: The heavy accusations it contained against the Austro-Hungarian government, the censure of its indecisive approach to the Polish question and its indulgence towards Germany are despite the The moderate manner in which they were put forward, symptomatic of the mood that prevailed among even the most conservative Galician politicians .
The activist left in Poland under Józef Piłsudski did not want to know anything about the merger with the “corpse” of the Habsburg Monarchy as early as early 1917. Some Pilsudski's legionnaires, such as Józef Haller , changed sides after the unsatisfactory Bread Peace of Brest-Litowsk in 1918 (in which the area of Chełm was awarded to Ukraine) and went over to the Entente or Dmowski.
Germano-Polish solution
On the Prussian-Polish side, Bogdan von Hutten-Czapski vigorously advocated the planned re-establishment of the Kingdom of Poland under the German protectorate with Hans von Beseler , the governor-general in Warsaw . He represented a Wielkopolska program of the historical unity of Poland, regardless of ethnographic circumstances and, with consideration for the Central Powers, initially only demanded Russian areas: Lithuania, Belarus and significant parts of Ukraine. In a conversation with Bethmann Hollweg in June 1916, he spoke out against the "Austropolitan solution".
However, even after the Central Powers moved away from the Austro-Polish solution due to the weakness of the Habsburg Monarchy and a German-dominated Polish buffer state emerged, the Germano-Polish solution had comparatively few supporters among the Poles. In order to warm up Poland and Vienna for this project, the imperial leadership and the emperor proposed the polonophile archdukes Karl Stephan of Austria or his son Karl Albrecht von Habsburg-Altenburg as Polish king. According to Matthias Erzberger , the majority of the political leaders of Poland were still in favor of Karl Stephan as the ruler of this "Lesser Poland satellite state", which was dependent on Germany.
Independence and borders of 1772
When the German collapse began to emerge in the West, all Polish camps quickly agreed to achieve independence as soon as possible with the support of President Wilson. The National Democrats under Pilsudski's opponent Dmowski, who invoked the “ Piasts ”, had sought (initially under Russian aegis) above all to acquire territories in the West at Germany's expense. Piłsudski and his “ Jagiellonians ”, however, mainly in the east against Russia essentially demanded the borders of 1772, before the Polish partitions . In addition, Lithuanians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Latvians and Estonians should belong to a federation with Poles, but, unlike Dmowski's program, should not be assimilated. This federation in the sense of the Polish-Lithuanian Union of 1569 was supposed to push the influence of Poland far to the east and form a "protective wall" between Germany and Russia.
In a large number of armed conflicts, the one in Poznan , against Ukraine , Lithuania and, above all, Soviet Russia , Poland was ultimately only able to achieve part of the war goals that emerged during the World War.
Web links
- The September program in full (introductory words shortened)
- The Treaty of London (German translation)
- President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points (Address to the US Congress)
- Georges-Henri Soutou: War Aims and War Aims Discussions (Version 1.1), in: 1914-1918-online . International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. By Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2017. doi : 10.15463 / ie1418.10240 / 1.1 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ War aims . In: Helmut M. Müller: Schlaglichter der German history . 3rd edition, Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 1996, ISBN 3-89331-264-1 , p. 214f.
- ^ Keith Robbins: The First World War . Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 1984, ISBN 0-19-289149-9 , pp. 103f.
- ^ Gerhard Ritter: Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk. The problem of "militarism" in Germany. Volume 3: The tragedy of statecraft. Bethmann Hollweg as war chancellor (1914–1917) . Munich 1964, ISBN 3-486-47041-8 , p. 35; and Karl-Heinz Janßen: Gerhard Ritter: A Patriotic Historian's Justification . In: Hannsjoachim W. Koch (Ed.): The Origins of the First World War. Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims . London 1985, pp. 292-318, here pp. 302f.
- ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789 . Volume 5: World War, Revolution and Reich renewal 1914–1919 . Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-17-001055-7 , p. 218. The war objectives in World War I were even referred to as “weapons of war”; see. Erwin Hölzle: Europe's disempowerment. The experiment of peace before and during the First World War . Göttingen / Frankfurt am Main / Zurich 1975, ISBN 3-7881-1681-1 , p. 484.
- ↑ a b David Stevenson: 1914-1918. The First World War. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2006, ISBN 3-538-07214-0 , p. 187.
- ↑ David Stevenson: 1914-1918. The First World War. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2006, ISBN 3-538-07214-0 , p. 161.
- ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789 . Volume 5: World War, Revolution and Reich renewal 1914–1919 . Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-17-001055-7 , p. 218.
- ^ Gifford D. Malone: War Aims toward Germany . In: Alexander Dallin u. a .: Russian Diplomacy and Eastern Europe 1914–1917 . New York 1963, pp. 124-161, here p. 124.
- ↑ a b David Stevenson: 1914-1918. The First World War. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2006, ISBN 3-538-07214-0 , p. 162.
- ↑ See Salomon Grumbach : Das annexionistische Deutschland: A collection of documents 1914-1918. (= History & Peace series, ed. Helmut Donat ), Donat Verlag, Bremen 2017, ISBN 9783943425345 or Peter Graf Kielmansegg : Germany and the First World War . Frankfurt am Main 1968, p. 213.
- ^ Fritz Fischer : German war aims. Revolutionization and separate peace in the East 1914-18 . In: Fritz Fischer: The First World War and the German view of history. Contributions to overcoming a historical taboo . Düsseldorf 1977, ISBN 3-7700-0478-7 , pp. 151-206, here p. 153 (first published in: Historische Zeitschrift 188, 1959. pp. 473-518); and Wolfgang J. Mommsen : The Age of Imperialism . Frankfurt am Main 1969 (= Fischer Weltgeschichte Volume 28), p. 302f.
- ^ Railway lines Antwerp-Brussels and Brussels-Liège
- ↑ Ulrich Cartarius (Ed.): Germany in the First World War. Texts and documents 1914–1918 . Munich 1982, ISBN 3-423-02931-5 , pp. 181f. (Doc. No. 126); and Gunther Mai: The End of the Empire. Politics and warfare in the First World War . Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-04510-8 , pp. 199-203.
- ↑ John A. Moses: The Politics of Illusion. The Fischer Controversy in German historiography. London 1975, ISBN 0-904000-07-9 , pp. 97ff; and Peter Graf Kielmansegg : Germany and the First World War . Frankfurt am Main 1968, p. 224.
- ^ Peter Graf Kielmansegg: Germany and the First World War . Frankfurt am Main 1968, p. 224.
- ^ Fritz Fischer: Reach for world power. The war policy of imperial Germany 1914/18. Droste, Düsseldorf 1964, p. 112.
- ^ Fritz Fischer: Reach for world power. The war policy of imperial Germany 1914/18 . Düsseldorf 1964, p. 125ff .; and Hans Wilhelm Gatzke: Germany's Drive to the West (Drang nach Westen). A study of Germany's western war aims during the first world war . Baltimore 1950, p. 11ff.
- ^ Sebastian Bischoff: War target Belgium. Debates on annexation and national enemy images in the German public, 1914–1918. Münster / New York 2018 (= Historical Research on Belgium , Volume 4), ISBN 9783830937050 , pp. 90–261.
- ^ Imanuel Geiss : The Polish border strip 1914-1918. A contribution to German war policy in the First World War . Moll-Winter, Hamburg / Lübeck 1960 (also dissertation, Hamburg 1959).
- ↑ Ottokar Czernin : In the world wars . Berlin / Vienna 1919, p. 96; and Werner Conze : Polish Nation and German Politics in the First World War . Graz / Cologne 1958, p. 319.
- ^ Fritz Fischer : Reach for world power. The war policy of imperial Germany 1914/18. Düsseldorf 1964, pp. 351-356.
- ↑ Wolfdieter Bihl (Hrsg.): German sources for the history of the First World War. Darmstadt 1991, ISBN 3-534-08570-1 , pp. 58f. (Doc. No. 16).
- ↑ Erich Otto Volkmann : The questions of annexation of the world war. The work of the investigative committee of the German National Assembly and the German Reichstag 1919–1928. Fourth row. The causes of the German collapse in 1918. Second section. The inner breakdown. Volume 12, 1st half-volume Expert opinion by Volkmann . Berlin 1929, pp. 35 and 166.
- ^ Karlheinz Schädlich : The "Independent Committee for a German Peace" as a center of the annexation propaganda of German imperialism in the First World War . In: Politics in the war 1914–1918. Studies on the politics of the German ruling classes in the First World War . Berlin / GDR 1964, pp. 50–65, here: p. 61.
- ^ Klaus Epstein: The Development of German-Austrian War Aims in the Spring of 1917 . In: Journal of Central European Affairs 17 (1957), pp. 24–47, here: p. 27.
- ^ Klaus Epstein: The Development of German-Austrian War Aims in the Spring of 1917 . In: Journal of Central European Affairs 17 (1957), pp. 24–47, here: p. 28.
- ^ André Scherer, Jacques Grunewald: L'Allemagne et les problemèmes de la paix pendant la première guerre mondiale. Documents extraits des archives de l'Office allemand des Affaires étrangères. 4 volumes (German original documents), Paris 1962/1978, ISBN 2-85944-010-0 , Volume 1, pp. 685ff. (No. 476)
- ↑ Wolfgang Steglich: Alliance securing or peace of understanding. Investigations into the peace offer of the Central Powers of December 12, 1916 . Musterschmidt publishing house, Göttingen / Berlin / Frankfurt am Main 1958, p. 175f.
- ↑ Zbynek AB Zeman: A Diplomatic History of the First World War . London 1971. p. 119.
- ↑ Wolfgang Steglich: The Peace Policy of the Central Powers 1917/18. Volume 1, Wiesbaden 1964, p. 67f.
- ^ Konrad H. Jarausch: The Enigmatic Chancellor. Bethmann Hollweg and the Hubris of Imperial Germany. New Haven / London 1973, pp. 223f.
- ↑ Erich Volkmann: The questions of annexation of the world war. The work of the investigative committee of the German National Assembly and the German Reichstag 1919–1928. Fourth row. The causes of the German collapse in 1918. Second section. The inner breakdown. Volume 12, 1st half volume, expert opinion by Volkmann. Berlin 1929, Volume 1, pp. 388ff (No. 204) (wording). Klaus Epstein: The Development of German-Austrian War Aims in the Spring of 1917. In: Journal of Central European Affairs 17 (1957), pp. 24–47, here: p. 31.
- ↑ Hans Herzfeld: On German politics in the first world wars. Continuity or permanent crisis? In: Historische Zeitschrift 191 (1960), pp. 67–82, here: pp. 80f.
- ^ Klaus Epstein: The Development of German-Austrian War Aims in the Spring of 1917. In: Journal of Central European Affairs 17 (1957), pp. 24–47, here: p. 31.
- ^ Konrad H. Jarausch: The Enigmatic Chancellor. Bethmann Hollweg and the Hubris of Imperial Germany. New Haven / London 1973, p. 223.
- ↑ Wolfgang J. Mommsen: The Urkatastrophe Germany. The First World War 1914–1918. (= Handbook of German History. Volume 17) 10th edition, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-608-60017-5 , p. 76.
- ^ Karl-Heinz Janßen: The Chancellor and the General. The leadership crisis surrounding Bethmann Hollweg and Falkenhayn (1914-1916) . Göttingen 1967, pp. 207 and 290; and Werner Conze: Polish Nation and German Politics in the First World War . Graz / Cologne 1958, p. 319.
- ^ Wolfdieter Bihl: Austria-Hungary and the peace treaties of Brest-Litovsk. Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1970, ISBN 3-205-08577-9 , p. 118.
- ^ Fritz Fischer: German war aims. Revolutionization and separate peace in the East 1914-18 . In: Fritz Fischer: The First World War and the German view of history. Contributions to overcoming a historical taboo . Düsseldorf 1977, ISBN 3-7700-0478-7 , pp. 151-206, here p. 202.
- ^ Fritz Fischer: Reach for world power. The war policy of imperial Germany 1914/18. Düsseldorf 1964, p. 674; Gerhard Ritter: statecraft and war craft. The problem of "militarism" in Germany. Volume 4: The rule of German militarism and the catastrophe of 1918. Munich 1968, ISBN 3-486-47041-8 , p. 359.
- ↑ Winfried Baumgart: Deutsche Ostpolitik 1918. From Brest-Litowsk to the end of the First World War . Vienna / Munich 1966, p. 153; Peter Graf Kielmansegg: Germany and the First World War . Frankfurt am Main 1968, p. 621.
- ↑ Wolfgang J. Mommsen: The Age of Imperialism . Frankfurt am Main 1969 (= Fischer Weltgeschichte Volume 28), p. 302f.
- ↑ Erwin Hölzle: The self-disempowerment of Europe. The experiment of peace before and during the First World War. Book 2: Fragment - From Continental War to World War. The year 1917 . Göttingen / Frankfurt am Main / Zurich 1975/78, Volume 2, p. 44.
- ^ Marshall M. Lee, Wolfgang Michalka: German Foreign Policy 1917-1933. Continuity or Break? Leamington Spa / Hamburg / New York 1987, ISBN 0-907582-52-4 , p. 12; Andreas Hillgruber: Germany's role in the prehistory of the two world wars . Göttingen 1979, ISBN 3-525-33440-0 , p. 62ff.
- ↑ Erich Volkmann : The questions of annexation of the world war. The work of the committee of inquiry of the German constitutional assembly and the German Reichstag 1919-1928. Fourth row. The causes of the German collapse in 1918. Second section. The inner breakdown . 12th vol., 1st half vol. Expert opinion by Volkmann . Berlin 1929, pp. 16 and 20.
- ^ Peter Graf Kielmansegg: Germany and the First World War . Frankfurt am Main 1968, p. 212.
- ^ Wilhelm Graf zu Lynar (ed.): German war aims 1914-1918. A discussion . Frankfurt am Main / Berlin 1964, p. 13.
- ↑ Klaus Schwabe : Science and Morale of War. The German university professors and the political foundations of the First World War . Göttingen / Zurich / Frankfurt am Main 1969, p. 178ff.
- ^ Andreas Hillgruber: Great power politics and Germany's striving for world power . In: Andreas Hillgruber, Jost Dülffer (Hrsg.): Ploetz: History of the world wars. Powers, events, developments 1900–1945 . Freiburg / Würzburg 1981, ISBN 3-87640-070-8 , pp. 153–162, here p. 155.
- ^ George WF Hallgarten : The fate of imperialism in the 20th century. Three essays on causes of war, past and present. Frankfurt am Main 1969, p. 57ff.
-
↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: The German Empire 1871-1918. Göttingen 1977 (= Joachim Leuschner (Hrsg.): Deutsche Geschichte Volume 9.), p. 207.
Marshall M. Lee, Wolfgang Michalka: German Foreign Policy 1917–1933. Continuity or Break? Leamington Spa / Hamburg / New York 1987, ISBN 0-907582-52-4 , p. 15. -
↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: Social imperialism. In: Hans-Ulrich Wehler: Imperialism. 3rd edition, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1976, ISBN 3-462-01-146-4 , pp. 86, 89 f.
Gregor Schöllgen, Friedrich Kießling: The age of imperialism. 5th edition, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-58868-2 , p. 161. - ^ George WF Hallgarten: The fate of imperialism in the 20th century. Three essays on causes of war, past and present. Frankfurt am Main 1969, p. 57ff.
- ^ Gregor Schöllgen: "Fischer Controversy" and the problem of continuity. German war targets in the age of the world wars. In: Andreas Hillgruber, Jost Dülffer (Hrsg.): Ploetz: History of the world wars. Powers, events, developments 1900–1945. Freiburg / Würzburg 1981, ISBN 3-87640-070-8 , pp. 163–177, here pp. 174f.
- ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: Bismarck and Imperialism. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-518-57689-5 , p. 484.
- ↑ LL Farrar: Divide and conquer. German efforts to conclude a separate peace, 1914–1918. New York 1978, p. 125.
- ↑ Imanuel Geiss: Kurt Riezler and the First World War. In: Imanuel Geiss, Bernd Jürgen Wendt: Germany in the world politics of the 19th and 20th centuries. Düsseldorf 1973, ISBN 3-571-09199-X , pp. 398-418, here: p. 414.
- ↑ Golo Mann: The Reach for World Power . In: Wilhelm Graf Lynar (ed.): German war targets 1914–1918. A discussion . Frankfurt am Main / Berlin 1964, pp. 83–193 (first published in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, April 28, 1962), here: p. 185.
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↑ Hans Herzfeld: On German politics in the first world wars. Continuity or permanent crisis? In: Historische Zeitschrift 191 (1960), pp. 67–82, here: p. 82.
Rudolf Neck: War target policy in the First World War . In: Mitteilungen des Österreichisches Staatsarchivs 15 (1962), pp. 565–576, here p. 567. - ^ Helmut Böhme: The German war target policy in Finland in 1918 . In: Imanuel Geiss, Bernd Jürgen Wendt: Germany in the world politics of the 19th and 20th centuries . Düsseldorf 1973, ISBN 3-571-09199-X , pp. 377-396, here: p. 390.
- ↑ Andreas Hillgruber: Germany's role in the prehistory of the two world wars . Göttingen 1979, ISBN 3-525-33440-0 , pp. 58 and 65.
- ^ Imanuel Geiss: The Polish border strip 1914-1918. A contribution to German war policy in the First World War . Lübeck / Hamburg 1960, p. 149.
- ^ Marshall M. Lee, Wolfgang Michalka: German Foreign Policy 1917–1933. Continuity or Break? Leamington Spa / Hamburg / New York 1987, ISBN 0-907582-52-4 , p. 14.
- ^ Andreas Hillgruber: German great power and world politics in the 19th and 20th centuries. Droste, Düsseldorf 1977, ISBN 3-7700-0469-8 , p. 87.
- ↑ Fritz Fischer: A comparison of the German war aims in the two world wars. In: Fritz Fischer: The First World War and the German view of history. Contributions to overcoming a historical taboo. Droste, Düsseldorf 1977, ISBN 3-7700-0478-7 , pp. 364-368, here: p. 365.
- ^ Imanuel Geiss: The Polish border strip 1914-1918. A contribution to German war policy in the First World War . Moll-Winter, Hamburg / Lübeck 1960, p. 150.
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^ Thomas Nipperdey: 1933 and the continuity of German history. In: Historische Zeitschrift 227 (1978), pp. 86–111, here p. 99.
Andreas Hillgruber: Great power politics and world power striving in Germany. In: Andreas Hillgruber, Jost Dülffer (Hrsg.): Ploetz: History of the world wars. Powers, events, developments 1900–1945 . Freiburg / Würzburg 1981, ISBN 3-87640-070-8 , pp. 153–162, here p. 159. - ↑ Imanuel Geiss: The Fischer controversy. A critical contribution to the relationship between historiography and politics in the Federal Republic . In: Imanuel Geiss: Studies on history and historical science . Frankfurt am Main 1972, pp. 108–198, here: p. 196.
- ^ Samuel R. Williamson, Jr: Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War. Macmillan, Basingstoke 1991, ISBN 0-333-42081-0 , p. 211.
- ↑ This chapter, unless otherwise stated, from: Miklós Komjáthy (Ed.): Protocols of the Joint Council of Ministers of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (1914–1918). Budapest 1966, p. 352ff. (Text).
- ↑ József Galántai: Hungary in the First World War. Budapest 1989, ISBN 963-05-4878-X , p. 155.
- ^ A b Heinz Lemke: Alliance and rivalry. The Central Powers and Poland in the First World War . Verlag Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1977, ISBN 3-205-00527-9 , p. 274.
- ↑ Heinz Lemke: The Stürgkh government and the plans to divide Galicia . In: Austria-Hungary in world politics 1900 to 1918 . Berlin / GDR 1965, pp. 267–283, here: 273f .; and Heinz Lemke: The Policy of the Central Powers in Poland from the November 1916 proclamation to the meeting of the Provisional State Council . In: Yearbook for the History of the USSR and the People's Democratic Countries of Europe 6 (1962), pp. 69–138, here p. 74.
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↑ Alexander Fussek: Austria-Hungary and the Polish question at the beginning of the First World War . In: Austria in history and literature 11 (1967), pp. 5–9, here: p. 7.
Heinz Lemke: The Stürgkh government and the plans for the division of Galicia . In: Austria-Hungary in world politics 1900 to 1918 . Berlin / GDR 1965, pp. 267–283, here: 280f. - ↑ a b Imre Gonda: Decline of the empires in Central Europe. The dual alliance in the last years of the war (1916–1918) . Budapest 1977, ISBN 963-05-1084-7 , p. 314.
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^ Gerhard Ritter: Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk. The problem of "militarism" in Germany. Volume 3: The tragedy of statecraft. Bethmann Hollweg as war chancellor (1914–1917) . Munich 1964, ISBN 3-486-47041-8 , p. 110.
Imre Gonda: Decline of the empires in Central Europe. The dual alliance in the last years of the war (1916–1918) . Budapest 1977, ISBN 963-05-1084-7 , p. 313. - ↑ Helmut Rumpler: The war aims of Austria-Hungary in the Balkans 1915/16 . In: Austria and Europe. Ceremony for Hugo Hantsch . Böhlau, Vienna / Graz / Cologne 1965, pp. 465–482, here: p. 470.
- ↑ Manfried Rauchsteiner: The death of the double-headed eagle. Austria-Hungary and the First World War . Böhlau, Vienna / Graz / Cologne 1993, ISBN 3-222-12454-X , p. 318.
- ↑ Imre Gonda: Decline of the empires in Central Europe. The dual alliance in the last years of the war (1916–1918) . Budapest 1977, ISBN 963-05-1084-7 , pp. 315 and 410.
- ↑ Rudolf Jerábek: Military and Politics in the first half of 1916. With an appendix on the tradition in the form Gabelsberger shorthand. Rough Hausarb, Vienna 1983, p. 27f.
- ^ Francis Roy Bridge: The Habsburg Monarchy among the Great Powers 1815-1918 . Verlag Berg, New York / Oxford / Munich 1990, ISBN 0-85496-307-3 , p. 335.
- ^ André Scherer, Jacques Grunewald: L'Allemagne et les problemèmes de la paix pendant la première guerre mondiale. Documents extraits des archives de l'Office allemand des Affaires étrangères. 4 volumes (German original documents), Paris 1962/1978, ISBN 2-85944-010-0 , Volume 1, pp. 256f. (No. 188).
- ↑ Imre Gonda: Decline of the empires in Central Europe. The dual alliance in the last years of the war (1916–1918) . Budapest 1977, ISBN 963-05-1084-7 , p. 344.
- ↑ Wolfdieter Bihl: The Austro-Hungarian War Targets 1918 . In: Richard Georg Plaschka, Karlheinz Mack: The dissolution of the Habsburg Empire. Collapse and reorientation in the Danube region . Vienna 1970, pp. 119–123, here: p. 119.
- ↑ Gary W. Shanafelt: The Secret Enemy: Austria-Hungary and the German Alliance 1914-1918 . Columbia Univ. Press, New York 1985, ISBN 0-88033-080-5 , p. 38.
- ↑ Rudolf Jerábek: Military and Politics in the first half of 1916. With an appendix on the tradition in the form Gabelsberger shorthand . Rough House work Vienna 1983, p. 11.
- ↑ Imre Gonda: Decline of the empires in Central Europe. The dual alliance in the last years of the war (1916–1918) . Budapest 1977, ISBN 963-05-1084-7 , pp. 314 and 337.
- ↑ Ulrich Trumpener: Germany and the Ottoman Empire 1914-1918 . Princeton 1968, p. 370.
- ↑ Vladimir Petrovich Potjomkin : History of Diplomacy . Volume 2: The Diplomacy of Modern Times (1872-1919). SWA-Verlag, Berlin 1948, pp. 275 and 322.
- ↑ Wolfdieter Bihl: The Caucasus Policy of the Central Powers. Part 1: Your basis in Orient politics and your actions 1914–1917. Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1975, Böhlau, p. 230.
- ↑ Wolfdieter Bihl: The Caucasus Policy of the Central Powers. Part 1: Your basis in the politics of the Orient and your actions 1914-1917 . Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1975, p. 232.
- ↑ Gotthard Jäschke : The Turanism of the Young Turks. On Ottoman foreign policy in the world war . In: Die Welt des Islam 23 (1941), pp. 1–54, here: p. 51.
- ^ Carl Mühlmann: The German-Turkish arms alliance in the world wars. Leipzig 1940, pp. 272 and 275.
- ^ Feroz Ahmad: The Late Ottoman Empire . In: Marian Kent (Ed.): The Great Powers and the End of the Ottoman Empire. London 1984, ISBN 0-04-956013-1 , pp. 5–30, here: p. 22.
- ↑ Ulrich Trumpener: Germany and the Ottoman Empire 1914-1918. Princeton 1968, ISBN 0-88206-067-8 , p. 369.
- ^ RJ Crampton: A Concise History of Bulgaria. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2005, ISBN 978-0-521-61637-9 , p. 141.
- ↑ Björn Sacrifice: In the Shadow of War. Crew or connection. Liberation or Oppression? A comparative study of the Bulgarian rule in Vardar Macedonia 1915–1918 and 1941–1944. Lit, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-7997-6 , p. 46.
- ↑ a b Wolfgang-Uwe Friedrich : Bulgaria and the Powers 1913-1915. A contribution to the history of world war and imperialism. Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-515-04050-1 , p. 242ff.
- ^ André Scherer, Jacques Grunewald: L'Allemagne et les problemèmes de la paix pendant la première guerre mondiale. Documents extraits des archives de l'Office allemand des Affaires étrangères. Volume 1: Des origines a la déclaration de la guerre sous-marine a outrance (août 1914 - 31 janvier 1917). 4 volumes (German original documents), Paris 1962/1978, ISBN 2-85944-010-0 , p. 508f. (Doc. No. 342).
- ↑ Wolfgang-Uwe Friedrich : Bulgaria and the Powers 1913-1915. A contribution to the history of world war and imperialism . Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-515-04050-1 , pp. 245f., 288 and 323.
- ↑ Björn Sacrifice: In the Shadow of War. Crew or connection. Liberation or Oppression? A comparative study of the Bulgarian rule in Vardar Macedonia 1915–1918 and 1941–1944. Lit, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-7997-6 , p. 53.
-
^ Secret agreement between Bulgaria and Germany September 6, 1915.
Wolfdieter Bihl (Ed.): German sources for the history of the First World War. Darmstadt 1991, ISBN 3-534-08570-1 , pp. 145f. (Doc. No. 68) (wording). - ↑ Wolfgang-Uwe Friedrich: Bulgaria and the Powers 1913-1915. A contribution to the history of world war and imperialism. Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-515-04050-1 , p. 255.
- ^ Andrej Mitrovic: The war aims of the Central Powers and the Yugoslavia question 1914-1918 . In: Adam Wandruszka, Richard G. Plaschka, Anna M. Drabek (eds.): The Danube Monarchy and the South Slavic Question from 1848 to 1918. Texts from the first Austrian-Yugoslav historians' meeting in Gösing 1976. Vienna 1978, pp. 137–172, here : P. 165.
- ^ Elke Bornemann: The Peace of Bucharest 1918. Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-261-01921-2 , p. 88f.
- ↑ Wolfdieter Bihl : The Caucasus Policy of the Central Powers. Part 2: The period of attempted Caucasian statehood (1917-1918). Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 1992, ISBN 3-205-05517-9 , p. 273.
-
↑ Elke Bornemann: The Peace of Bucharest 1918 . Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-261-01921-2 , p. 89.
Richard von Kühlmann : Memories. Heidelberg 1948, p. 552. - ^ Brigitte Stiefler: The political relations between Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria from 1915-1918. Rough Dissertation, Vienna 1970. p. 122.
- ^ Elke Bornemann: The Peace of Bucharest 1918. Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-261-01921-2 , pp. 90 and 131.
- ↑ Wolfdieter Bihl: The Caucasus Policy of the Central Powers. Part 2: The time of the attempted Caucasian statehood (1917–1918). Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 1992, ISBN 3-205-05517-9 , p. 267.
- ^ Gustav Gratz , Richard Schüller : The external economic policy of Austria-Hungary. Central European plans. Vienna / New Haven 1925, p. 205.
- ^ Elke Bornemann: The Peace of Bucharest 1918. Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-261-01921-2 , p. 105.
- ↑ Wolfgang-Uwe Friedrich: Bulgaria and the Powers 1913-1915. A contribution to the history of world war and imperialism. Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-515-04050-1 , p. 289.
- ↑ Dirk Suckow: The Rhine as a political myth in Germany and France. In: Karl Schlögel, Beata Halicka (Ed.): Oder-Odra. Views of a European river. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-631-56149-2 , pp. 47–60 (excerpts in: History in the river. Rivers as European places of remembrance. Federal Agency for Political Education 2012).
- ↑ Gerd Krumeich : The 101 most important questions. The First World War. Beck, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-65941-6 , question 5 .
- ^ David Stevenson: French war aims against Germany 1914-1919 . Oxford Univ. Press, New York 1982, ISBN 0-19-822574-1 , p. 12.
- ^ Georges-Henri Soutou: Exuberance on all sides. The war aims of France in the First World War . In: Documents. Journal for the German-French dialogue . Vol. 43, No. 4 (1987), pp. 285-290, here: p. 286.
- ^ Pierre Renouvin: The war aims of the French government 1914-1918. In: History in Science and Education. Vol. 17, Heft 3 (1966), pp. 129–158, here: p. 130.
- ^ Georges-Henri Soutou: Exuberance on all sides. The war aims of France in the First World War. In: Documents. Journal for the German-French dialogue. Vol. 43, No. 4 (1987), pp. 285-290, here: pp. 286f.
- ^ CM Andrew, AS Kanya-Forstner: The French Colonial Party and French Colonial War Aims, 1914-1918. In: The Historical Journal. 17 (1974), pp. 79-106, here: pp. 79ff.
- ↑ a b C.M. Andrew, AS Kanya-Forstner: The French Colonial Party and French Colonial War Aims, 1914-1918. In: The Historical Journal. 17 (1974), pp. 79-106, here: pp. 104ff.
- ^ Pierre Renouvin: The war aims of the French government 1914-1918. In: History in Science and Education. Vol. 17, Heft 3 (1966), pp. 129–158, here: p. 135.
- ^ A b David Stevenson: French war aims against Germany 1914-1919 . Oxford Univ. Press, New York 1982, ISBN 0-19-822574-1 , pp. 42ff.
- ^ David Stevenson: French war aims against Germany 1914-1919. Oxford Univ. Press, New York 1982, ISBN 0-19-822574-1 , pp. 45 ff.
- ^ David Stevenson: French war aims against Germany 1914-1919. Oxford Univ. Press, New York 1982, ISBN 0-19-822574-1 , pp. 48f.
-
^ Pierre Renouvin: The war aims of the French government 1914-1918 . In: History in Science and Education . Vol. 17, No. 3 (1966), pp. 129–158, here: p. 135.
Friedrich Stieve (Ed.): Iswolski im Weltkriege. Isvolski's diplomatic correspondence from 1914–1917. New documents from the secret files of the Russian state archives. On behalf of the German Foreign Office. Berlin 1925, p. 213 (wording). - ^ David Stevenson: French war aims against Germany 1914-1919. Oxford Univ. Press, New York 1982, ISBN 0-19-822574-1 , p. 72.
- ^ Pierre Renouvin: The war aims of the French government 1914-1918 . In: History in Science and Education . Vol. 17, issue 3 (1966). Pp. 129–158, here: pp. 145ff.
-
^ Pierre Renouvin: The war aims of the French government 1914-1918 . In: History in Science and Education . Vol. 17, Heft 3 (1966), pp. 129–158, here pp. 145ff.
Georges-Henri Soutou: Exuberance on all sides. The war aims of France in the First World War. In: Documents. Journal for the German-French dialogue. 43 (1987), pp. 285-290, here pp. 288f. - ^ Georges-Henri Soutou: Exuberance on all sides. The war aims of France in the First World War. In: Documents. Journal for the German-French dialogue. 43 (1987), pp. 285-290, here: p. 288.
- ^ Pierre Renouvin: The war aims of the French government 1914-1918. In: History in Science and Education. Vol. 17, Heft 3 (1966), pp. 129–158, here: p. 155.
- ^ David Stevenson: French war aims against Germany 1914-1919. Oxford Univ. Press, New York 1982, ISBN 0-19-822574-1 , p. 118.
- ^ Georges-Henri Soutou: Exuberance on all sides. The war aims of France in the First World War. In: Documents. Journal for the German-French dialogue. Vol. 43, No. 4 (1987), pp. 285-290, here: pp. 289f.
-
↑ Horst-Günther Linke: Tsarist Russia and the First World War. Diplomacy and war aims 1914–1917 . Munich 1982, ISBN 978-3-7705-2051-0 , p. 38f.
Merritt Abrash: War Aims toward Austria-Hungary. The Czechoslovak Pivot. In: Merritt Abrash, Alexander Dallin: Russian Diplomacy and Eastern Europe 1914-1917. New York 1963, pp. 78-123; here: p. 80ff. -
↑ Horst-Günther Linke: Tsarist Russia and the First World War. Diplomacy and war aims 1914–1917. Munich 1982, ISBN 978-3-7705-2051-0 , pp. 40f.
Henryk Batowski: Plans for the division of the Habsburg Monarchy in the First World War. In: Österreichische Osthefte. Vol. 10, Heft 3 (1968), pp. 129-140, here: p. 130. - ^ Gifford D. Malone: War Aims toward Germany. In: Merritt Abrash, Alexander Dallin: Russian Diplomacy and Eastern Europe 1914–1917. New York 1963, pp. 124-161, here: pp. 127 and 129.
- ^ Friedrich Stieve : Iswolski and the world war. Due to the new document publication by the German Foreign Office . Berlin 1924, p. 268.
- ^ Gifford D. Malone: War Aims toward Germany. In: Merritt Abrash, Alexander Dallin: Russian Diplomacy and Eastern Europe 1914–1917. New York 1963, pp. 124-161, here: p. 143.
-
↑ Horst-Günther Linke: Tsarist Russia and the First World War. Diplomacy and War Aims 1914-1917 . Munich 1982, ISBN 978-3-7705-2051-0 , p. 42f.
Merritt Abrash: War Aims toward Austria-Hungary. The Czechoslovak Pivot. In: Merritt Abrash, Alexander Dallin: Russian Diplomacy and Eastern Europe 1914–1917. New York 1963, pp. 78-123; here: pp. 82f, 90ff, 99 and 122f. - ↑ Merritt Abrash: War Aims toward Austria-Hungary. The Czechoslovak Pivot. In: Merritt Abrash, Alexander Dallin: Russian Diplomacy and Eastern Europe 1914–1917. New York 1963, pp. 78–123, here: p. 122.
- ^ E. Adamov: The European Powers and Turkey during the World War. Volume 1/2: Constantinople and the Straits. According to secret documents of the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dresden 1930/32, volume 1, p. 118.
- ↑ Carsten Goerke, Manfred Hellmann, Richard Lorenz, Peter Scheibert: Russia. (= Fischer Weltgeschichte Volume 31) Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1972, p. 265.
-
↑ Horst-Günther Linke: Tsarist Russia and the First World War. Diplomacy and war aims 1914–1917. Munich 1982, ISBN 978-3-7705-2051-0 , p. 239.
AJP Taylor: The war aims of the Allies in the First World War. In: Richard Pares (Ed.): Essays presented to Sir Lewis Namier. Macmillan, London 1956, pp. 475-505, here: p. 482. - ^ Aaron S. Kliemann: Britain's War Aims in the Middle East in 1915. In: The Journal of Contemporary History 3, No 3 (1968), pp. 237-251, here: p. 240.
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^ E. Adamov: The European Powers and Turkey during the World War. Volume 3/4: The Division of Asiatic Turkey. According to secret documents of the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dresden 1930/32, Volume 6, pp. 65f and 135f.
AJP Taylor: The war aims of the Allies in the First World War. In: Essays presented to Sir Lewis Namier. London 1956, pp. 475-505, here: p. 482. -
^ AJP Taylor: The war aims of the Allies in the First World War. In: Richard Pares (Ed.): Essays presented to Sir Lewis Namier. Macmillan, London 1956, pp. 475-505, here: p. 483.
David Stevenson: French war aims against Germany 1914-1919. Oxford University Press, New York 1982, ISBN 0-19-822574-1 , p. 27. - ↑ Carsten Goerke, Manfred Hellmann, Richard Lorenz, Peter Scheibert: Russia. (= Fischer Weltgeschichte Volume 31) Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1972, pp. 256, 268f and 270.
- ^ Steffen Bruendel: Volksgemeinschaft or Volksstaat. The "Ideas of 1914" and the reorganization of Germany in the First World War. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-05-003745-8 , p. 159.
- ^ Alan Bodger: Russia and the End of the Ottoman Empire. In: Marian Kent (Ed.): The Great Powers and the End of the Ottoman Empire. Allen & Unwin, London 1984, ISBN 0-04-956013-1 , pp. 76–110, here: p. 101.
- ^ Victor H. Rothwell: British War Aims and Peace Diplomacy 1914-1918 . Oxford 1971, p. 18.
- ↑ David French: British strategy and war aims 1914-16 . London 1986, ISBN 0-04-942197-2 , p. 22.
- ^ Victor H. Rothwell: British War Aims and Peace Diplomacy 1914-1918 . Oxford 1971, p. 283.
- ^ David French: British strategy and war aims 1914-16 . London 1986, ISBN 0-04-942197-2 , p. 83.
- ^ Harry Hanak: Great Britain and Austria-Hungary during the First World War. A Study in the Formation of Public Opinion. London / New York / Toronto 1962, p. 205.
- ^ VH Rothwell: British War Aims and Peace Diplomacy 1914-1918. Oxford 1971, pp. 71 and 145f.
- ^ WB Fest: British War Aims and German Peace Feelers During the First World War (December 1916 – November 1918). In: The Historical Journal. 15 (1972), pp. 285-308, here: p. 293.
- ^ Keith Robbins: The First World War. Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 1984, ISBN 0-19-289149-9 , p. 112.
- ↑ Erwin Hölzle: The self-disempowerment of Europe. The experiment of peace before and during the First World War. Göttingen / Frankfurt am Main / Zurich 1975, ISBN 3-7881-1681-1 , pp. 584f.
- ↑ Ronald Hyam, Peter Henshaw: The lion and the springbok. Britain and South Africa since the Boer War. Cambridge University Press 2003, ISBN 978-0-521-04138-6 , p. 104. Full text in Google Book Search
- ↑ Wolfgang Petter: The struggle for the German colonies. In: Wolfgang Michalka (Ed.): The First World War. Effect, perception, analysis. Seehamer Verlag, Weyarn 1997, ISBN 3-932131-37-1 , pp. 402-406.
- ↑ Wolfgang Petter: The struggle for the German colonies. In: Wolfgang Michalka (Ed.): The First World War. Effect, perception, analysis. Seehamer Verlag, Weyarn 1997, ISBN 3-932131-37-1 , p. 401.
- ^ David French: British strategy and war aims 1914-16. London 1986, ISBN 0-04-942197-2 , pp. 82f. and 211.
- ^ David French: British strategy and war aims 1914-16. London 1986, ISBN 0-04-942197-2 , pp. 215f.
- ↑ Harry Hanak: The attitude of Great Britain and the United States to Austria (-Hungary). In: Adam Wandruszka, Walter Urbanitsch (ed.): The Habsburg Monarchy 1848–1918. Volume 6: The Habsburg Monarchy in the System of International Relations. 2nd volume, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-7001-2084-2 , pp. 539-585, here: pp. 567f.
- ^ Alberto Monticone: Germany and the neutrality of Italy 1914–1915. Steiner, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-515-03603-2 , pp. 23 and 88.
-
↑ Friedrich Stieve (ed.): Iswolski in the world wars. Isvolski's diplomatic correspondence from 1914–1917. New documents from the secret files of the Russian state archives. On behalf of the German Foreign Office. Berlin 1925, pp. 191ff. The Treaty of London (online)
Rodney P. Carlisle, Joe H. Kirchberger: World War I. Infobase Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4381-0889-6 , p. 331.
- ^ Hans Woller : History of Italy in the 20th century. Beck, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-60158-3 , pp. 65-67.
- ↑ Jörn Leonhard : Pandora's box. The history of the First World War. Beck, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-406-66191-4 , pp. 630f.
- ↑ Branislav Vranesevic: The foreign policy relations between Serbia and the Habsburg Monarchy. In: Adam Wandruszka, Walter Urbanitsch (ed.): The Habsburg Monarchy 1848–1918 . Volume 6: The Habsburg Monarchy in the System of International Relations . 2nd volume, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-7001-2084-2 , pp. 319-375, here: p. 373.
- ^ Leo Valiani: The End of Austria-Hungary . Secker & Warburg, London 1973, ISBN 0-436-55230-2 , p. 84.
- ↑ Friedrich Stieve (ed.): Iswolski in the world wars. Isvolski's diplomatic correspondence from 1914–1917. New documents from the secret files of the Russian state archives. On behalf of the German Foreign Office. Berlin 1925, p. 136f.
- ^ Hajo Holborn : The Final Disintegration of the Habsburg Monarchy. In: Austrian History Yearbook. 3, Part 3 (1967), pp. 189-205, here: p. 204.
- ^ Harry Hanak: Great Britain and Austria-Hungary during the First World War. A Study in the Formation of Public Opinion. London / New York / Toronto 1962, p. 63.
- ↑ Philip Adler: The struggle of the South Slavs against the Treaty of London from its signing to the end of the First World War. Rough Diss. Vienna 1961, p. 178.
- ↑ Hermann Wendel, The Struggle of the South Slavs for Freedom and Unity . Frankfurt am Main 1925. pp. 721-722.
- ^ Leo Valiani: The End of Austria-Hungary. Secker & Warburg, London 1973, ISBN 0-436-55230-2 , p. 195.
- ↑ Hermann Wendel: The struggle of the southern Slavs for freedom and unity. Frankfurt am Main 1925, pp. 730 and 748.
- ↑ Gary W. Shanafelt: Activism and Inertia. Ottokar Czernin's Mission to Romania, 1913-1916. In: Austrian History Yearbook 19/20, Part 1 (1983/1984), pp. 189–214, here: p. 195.
- ^ Glenn E. Torrey: Rumania and the Belligerents 1914-1916 . In: The Journal of Contemporary History . 1, No 3 (1966), pp. 171-191, p. 171.
- ↑ Vladimir Petrovich Potjomkin : History of Diplomacy. Volume 2: The Diplomacy of Modern Times (1872-1919). SWA-Verlag, Berlin 1948, p. 339.
- ^ Rudolf Kiszling: Romania's and Bulgarian politics at the outbreak of the First World War. In: Austria in History and Literature 11 (1967), pp. 13 and 16.
- ^ Glenn E. Torrey: Rumania and the Belligerents 1914-1916 . In: The Journal of Contemporary History . 1, No 3 (1966), pp. 171-191, here: p. 183.
- ↑ Friedrich Stieve (ed.): Iswolski in the world wars. Isvolski's diplomatic correspondence from 1914–1917. New documents from the secret files of the Russian state archives. On behalf of the German Foreign Office. Berlin 1925, p. 206f (wording).
- ↑ Ulrike Schmidt: The relations between Austria-Hungary and Romania from August 1st, 1914 until Romania entered the war. Unprinted dissertation, Vienna 1961, p. 34.
- ^ Francis Roy Bridge: The Habsburg Monarchy among the Great Powers 1815-1918 . Verlag Berg, New York / Oxford / Munich 1990, ISBN 0-85496-307-3 , p. 357.
- ^ A b Glenn E. Torrey: Rumania and the Belligerents 1914–1916. In: The Journal of Contemporary History. 1, No 3 (1966), pp. 171-191, here: pp. 189 ff.
- ↑ Elke Bornemann: The Peace of Bucharest 1918. Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-261-01921-2 , p. 80ff.
- ^ Elke Bornemann: The Peace of Bucharest 1918. Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-261-01921-2 , p. 109.
- ↑ Merritt Abrash: War Aims toward Austria-Hungary: The Czechoslovak Pivot . In: Merritt Abrash, Alexander Dallin: Russian Diplomacy and Eastern Europe 1914–1917 . New York 1963, pp. 78–123, here: p. 78.
- ↑ Koloman Gajan: The role of the western powers in the emergence of CSR . In: Richard Georg Plaschka, Karlheinz Mack (Hrsg.): The dissolution of the Habsburg Empire. Collapse and reorientation in the Danube region. Vienna 1970, pp. 425–431, here: p. 425.
-
↑ John Bradley: The Czechoslovak Legion and the Allied Attitude to the Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy . In: Richard Georg Plaschka, Karlheinz Mack (Hrsg.): The dissolution of the Habsburg Empire. Collapse and reorientation in the Danube region. Vienna 1970, pp. 203-208, here: p. 207.
Hajo Holborn: The Final Disintegration of the Habsburg Monarchy. In: Austrian History Yearbook. 3, Part 3 (1967), pp. 189-205, here: p. 204. -
↑ Merritt Abrash: War Aims toward Austria-Hungary: The Czechoslovak Pivot . In: Merritt Abrash, Alexander Dallin: Russian Diplomacy and Eastern Europe 1914–1917 . New York 1963, pp. 78–123, here: p. 85.
Leo Valiani: The End of Austria-Hungary. Secker & Warburg, London 1973, ISBN 0-436-55230-2 , pp. 82f. - ↑ Merritt Abrash: War Aims toward Austria-Hungary: The Czechoslovak Pivot. In: Merritt Abrash, Alexander Dallin: Russian Diplomacy and Eastern Europe 1914–1917. New York 1963, pp. 78-123, here: pp. 93 and 106f.
- ↑ Merritt Abrash: War Aims toward Austria-Hungary. The Czechoslovak Pivot. In: Merritt Abrash, Alexander Dallin: Russian Diplomacy and Eastern Europe 1914–1917. New York 1963, pp. 78–123, here: pp. 113 and 123.
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↑ Koloman Gajan: The role of the western powers in the emergence of CSR. In: Richard Georg Plaschka, Karlheinz Mack (Hrsg.): The dissolution of the Habsburg Empire. Collapse and reorientation in the Danube region. Vienna 1970, p. 425–431, here: p. 427.
Jaroslav Krízek: The role of the Czechoslovak political emigration and their diplomatic activity in 1918. In: Richard Georg Plaschka, Karlheinz Mack (ed.): The dissolution of the Habsburg Empire. Collapse and reorientation in the Danube region. Vienna 1970, pp. 163–169, here: p. 168. -
↑ Koloman Gajan: The role of the western powers in the emergence of CSR. In: Richard Georg Plaschka, Karlheinz Mack (Hrsg.): The dissolution of the Habsburg Empire. Collapse and reorientation in the Danube region. Vienna 1970, p. 425–431, here: p. 426.
John Bradley: The Czechoslovak Legion and the Allied Attitude to the Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy. In: Richard Georg Plaschka, Karlheinz Mack (Hrsg.): The dissolution of the Habsburg Empire. Collapse and reorientation in the Danube region. Vienna 1970, pp. 203-208, here: p. 207. -
^ WR Callcott: The Last War Aim: British Opinion and the Decision for Czechoslovak Independence, 1914-1919. In: The Historical Journal. 27 (1984), pp. 979-989, here: p. 981.
Harry Hanak: Great Britain and Austria-Hungary during the First World War. A Study in the Formation of Public Opinion. London / New York / Toronto 1962, p. 249. - ↑ Koloman Gajan: The role of the western powers in the emergence of CSR. In: Richard Georg Plaschka, Karlheinz Mack (Hrsg.): The dissolution of the Habsburg Empire. Collapse and reorientation in the Danube region. Vienna 1970, pp. 425-431, here: pp. 430f.
- ↑ a b Harold I. Nelson: Land and Power. British and Allied Policy on Germany's Frontiers 1916-1919. London 1963, pp. 283ff and 302.
- ^ WR Callcott: The Last War Aim: British Opinion and the Decision for Czechoslovak Independence, 1914-1919. In: The Historical Journal. 27 (1984), pp. 979-989, here: pp. 988f.
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↑ Jürgen Möckelmann: The image of Germany in the USA 1914–1918 and Wilson's war target policy . Hamburg 1964, p. 147ff.
Thomas H. Buckley, Edwin B. Strong: American Foreign and National Security Policies, 1914-1945. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville 1987, ISBN 0-87049-539-9 , p. 38. - ^ Charles Seymour (ed.): The Confidential Documents of the Supreme House. Stuttgart 1932, p. 229.
- ^ David French: Allies, Rivals and Enemies: British Strategy and War Aims during the First World War. In: John Turner (Ed.): Britain and the First World War. London 1988, ISBN 0-04-445108-3 , pp. 22-35, here: p. 32.
- ↑ Jürgen Möckelmann: The image of Germany in the USA 1914–1918 and Wilson's war target policy. Hamburg 1964, p. 157ff.
- ↑ Harry Hanak: The attitude of Great Britain and the United States to Austria (-Hungary). In: Adam Wandruszka, Walter Urbanitsch (ed.): The Habsburg Monarchy 1848–1918. Volume 6: The Habsburg Monarchy in the System of International Relations. 2nd volume, Vienna 1993, pp. 539-585, here: pp. 578f.
- ^ David French: Allies, Rivals and Enemies: British Strategy and War Aims during the First World War. In: John Turner (Ed.): Britain and the First World War. London 1988, ISBN 0-04-445108-3 , pp. 22-35, here: p. 33.
- ^ Charles Seymour (ed.): The Confidential Documents of the Supreme House. Stuttgart 1932, p. 227f.
- ^ Charles Seymour (ed.): The Confidential Documents of the Supreme House. Stuttgart 1932, p. 333f.
- ↑ Horst Hammitzsch (Ed.): Japan Handbuch. Country and people, cultural and intellectual life. Steiner, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-515-05753-6 , Sp. 339.
- ↑ a b Hermann Kinder, Werner Hilgemann : dtv Atlas zur Weltgeschichte , Volume 2, p. 401 and p. 451.
- ↑ Horst Hammitzsch (Ed.): Japan Handbuch. Country and people, cultural and intellectual life . Verlag Steiner, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-515-05753-6 , Sp. 339.
-
^ Peter Koerner: The First World War 1914-1918. Munich 1968, Volume 2: P. 75.
Akira Hayashima: The illusion of the separate peace. German understanding policy with Japan in the First World War. Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-486-50941-1 , p. 41f. and 86ff. -
^ André Scherer, Jacques Grunewald: L'Allemagne et les problemèmes de la paix pendant la première guerre mondiale. Documents extraits des archives de l'Office allemand des Affaires étrangères. 4 volumes (German original documents), Paris 1962/1978, ISBN 2-85944-010-0 , Volume 1, pp. 337ff. (No. 252).
Wolfdieter Bihl (Hrsg.): German sources on the history of the First World War. Darmstadt 1991, ISBN 3-534-08570-1 , pp. 189ff. (Doc. No. 95). - ^ Gerhard Ritter: Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk. The problem of "militarism" in Germany. Volume 3: The tragedy of statecraft. Bethmann Hollweg as war chancellor (1914–1917). Munich 1964, ISBN 3-486-47041-8 , p. 602.
- ↑ Kurt Peball: Friedensbemühungen 1917/1918. In: Truppendienst 7 (1968), pp. 342-345; here: p. 343.
- ↑ Horst Hammitzsch (Ed.): Japan Handbuch. Country and people, cultural and intellectual life. Steiner, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-515-05753-6 , Sp. 338ff.
- ↑ Unlike China, Siam (Thailand) achieved emancipation as an equal ally with its participation in the war against Germany (from July 22, 1917). Over 1200 elite troops of the modernized Siamese army fought in France and were even allowed to take part in the victory parade in Paris in 1919. In the course of the negotiations on the Versailles Treaty, Siam finally succeeded in repealing the “Unequal Treaties” with Great Britain, France and the USA.
- ↑ Horst-Günther Linke: Tsarist Russia and the First World War. Diplomacy and war aims 1914–1917 . Munich 1982, ISBN 978-3-7705-2051-0 , pp. 40 and 56.
- ↑ Horst-Günther Linke: Tsarist Russia and the First World War. Diplomacy and War Aims 1914-1917 . Munich 1982, ISBN 978-3-7705-2051-0 , p. 240.
- ↑ Horst-Günther Linke: Tsarist Russia and the First World War. Diplomacy and war aims 1914–1917 . Munich 1982, ISBN 978-3-7705-2051-0 , p. 241.
- ^ Heinz Lemke: Alliance and rivalry. The Central Powers and Poland in the First World War. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1977, ISBN 3-205-00527-9 , p. 232f. and 239.
- ↑ Ottokar Czernin: In the world wars. Berlin / Vienna 1919, pp. 37 and 185.
-
^ Heinz Lemke: Alliance and rivalry. The Central Powers and Poland in the First World War. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1977, ISBN 3-205-00527-9 , p. 34f.
Henryk Batowski: Trialism, Subdualism or Personal Union. On the problem of the Austro-Polish solution (1914–1918). In: Studia Austro-Polnica. Warsaw / Krakau 1978, pp. 7–19, here: p. 9. -
↑ Ottokar Czernin: In the world wars. Berlin / Vienna 1919. S. 37 and 185.
Heinz Lemke: Alliance and rivalry. The Central Powers and Poland in the First World War. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1977, ISBN 3-205-00527-9 , p. 40. - ^ Heinz Lemke: Alliance and rivalry. The Central Powers and Poland in the First World War. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1977, ISBN 3-205-00527-9 , p. 423.
- ↑ Hans Beyer: The Central Powers and the Ukraine 1918. Munich 1956 (= Yearbooks for the History of Eastern Europe NF supplement 2), p. 12ff.
-
^ André Scherer, Jacques Grunewald: L'Allemagne et les problemèmes de la paix pendant la première guerre mondiale. Documents extraits des archives de l'Office allemand des Affaires étrangères. 4 volumes (German original documents), Paris 1962/1978, ISBN 2-85944-010-0 , Volume 1, pp. 361f and 374f (No. 268 and 273).
Karl Dietrich Erdmann (Ed.): Kurt Riezler: Diaries, Articles, Documents. Göttingen 1972, p. 367. - ^ Matthias Erzberger: Experiences in the World War. Stuttgart / Berlin 1920, p. 181f.
- ^ Peter Broucek : Karl I. (IV.). The political path of the last ruler of the Danube monarchy. Böhlau, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-205-98737-3 , p. 180f.
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^ Włodzimierz Borodziej (ed.): Option Europe. German, Polish and Hungarian European plans of the 19th and 20th centuries. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-525-36287-0 , Volume 1: pp. 89f.
Norman Davies: In the heart of Europe. History of Poland. Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-46709-1 , p. 134.