In the World War. Graf Ottokar Theobald Otto Maria Czernin von Chudenitz
from Berlin would have led to a state of complete disorganisation, even to anarchy. Humanly speaking, it was out of the question to look for a peaceful and bloodless unravelment at the front. I state this in order to explain my firm conviction that the idea that such a separating of the two armies could have been carried out in mutual agreement is based on utterly erroneous premises, and also to prove that we have here the first factor showing that we would not have ended the war by a separate peace, but would, on the contrary, have been entangled in a new one.
But what would have been enacted at the front would also, and in aggravated fashion, have been repeated throughout the entire country: a civil war would have been inevitable.
I must here explain a second misunderstanding, resulting also from my speech of December 11, which is due to my statement that "if we came out Germany could not carry on the war." I admit that this statement is not clearly expressed, and was interpreted as though I had intended to say that if we came out the immediate collapse of Germany was a foregone conclusion. I did not intend to say that, nor did I say or mean it. I meant to say that our secession from Germany would render impossible a victorious ending of the war, or even a lasting successful continuance of the war; that Germany through this would be faced by the alternative of either submitting to the dictates of the Entente or of bringing up her supremest fighting powers and suppressing the Monarchy, preparing for her the same fate as Roumania met with. I meant to say that Austria-Hungary, if she allowed the Entente troops to enter, would prove such a terrible danger to Germany that she would be compelled to use every means to forestall us and paralyse the move. Whoever imagines that the German military leaders would not have seized the latter eventuality knows them but badly, and has a poor opinion of their spirit. In order to be able to form an objective judgment of this train of thought one should be able to enter into the spirit of the situation. In April, 1916, when I sent in my resignation for other reasons, Germany's confidence in victory was stronger than ever. The Eastern front was free: Russia and Roumania were out of action. The troops were bound westward, and no one who knew the situation as it was then can repudiate my assertion that the German military leaders believed themselves then to be nearer than ever to a victory peace; that they were persuaded they would take both Paris and Calais and force the Entente to its knees. It is out of the question that at such a moment and under such conditions they could have replied to the falling away of Austria-Hungary otherwise than by violence.
All who will not admit the argument, I would refer to a fact which it would be difficult to evade. Six months afterwards, when there was already clear evidence of the German collapse, when Andrassy declared a separate peace, the Germans, as a matter of fact, threw troops into the Tyrol. If they, when utterly exhausted, defeated, and ruined, with revolution at their back, still held firmly to this decision and endeavoured to make a battlefield on Austrian territory, how much more would they have done that six months earlier, when they still stood full of proud defiance and their generals dreamed of victory and triumph? What I, secondly, also would maintain is that the immediate consequence of a separate peace would have been the conversion of Austria-Hungary into a theatre of war. The Tyrol, as well as Bohemia, would have become fields of battle.
If it be maintained now that the great exhaustion from the war that prevailed throughout the Monarchy before April, 1917, had caused the entire population of the former Monarchy to rally round the Minister who had concluded the separate peace, it is a conscious or unconscious untruth. Certainly the Czechs were decidedly against Germany, and it would not have been reasons of political alliance that would have prevented them from agreeing. But I would like to know what the Czech people would have said if Bohemia had been turned into a theatre of war and exposed to all the sufferings endured by this and all other peoples, and when to it had been added the devastation of the fatherland, for, let there be no doubt about it, the troops advancing with flying colours from Saxony would have made their way to Prague and penetrated even farther. We had no military forces in Bohemia; we should not have been able to check the advance, and quicker than either we or the Entente could have sent troops worth mentioning to Bohemia, the Germans, drawing troops from their wellnigh inexhaustible reserves, would have marched either against us or against the Entente on our territory. The German-Austrian public would not have been in agreement with such a Minister; the German Nationalists and the German bourgeoisie have no say in the matter.
On October 28 the German Nationalists published their own particular point of view in the following manner:
"The members of the German Nationalist parties were highly indignant at the way in which Count Andrassy answered Wilson's Note. Count Andrassy came from Hungary, and neither came to any agreement with the Imperial German Government nor with the representatives of the Executive Committee before drawing up the Note. Although the peace negotiations were most warmly welcomed and considered most necessary, still the one-sided action of Count Andrassy in dispatching the Note to Wilson without previous arrangement with the German Empire has roused the greatest indignation in the German parties. A few days ago a delegation from the German Executive Committee was in Berlin and was favourably received by the German Imperial Government in the matter of providing for German-Austria. Although German soldiers fought by the side of ours in the Alps and the Carpathians, the alliance has now been violated by this effort to approach Wilson without the consent of the German Empire, as is expressly stated in the Note. Besides which, no previous agreement with the representatives of the German Executive Committee was sought for. They were ignored and the answer was sent to Wilson. The German Nationalist parties strongly protest against such an unqualifiable act and will insist in the German Executive Committee that German-Austria's right of self-determination be unconditionally upheld and peace be secured in concert with the German Empire."
Neither would the German-Austrian Social Democrats have been a party to such a movement.
A conscious and intended misrepresentation of fact lies before us if it be maintained to-day that either the National Assembly or the Austrian Social Democrats would have approved of and supported such policy. I again have in mind the Andrassy days.
On October 30 the National Assembly took up its position for action. Dr. Sylvester drew up the report and pointed out the following:
"It was, however, neither necessary nor desirable to make the attempt in such a way as to create an incurable rupture between German-Austria and the German Empire that would endanger the future of our people. The German-Austrian National Assembly asserts that the Note of October 27 from the Royal and Imperial Minister for Foreign Affairs was drawn up and dispatched to President Wilson without in any way coming to an agreement with the representatives of the German-Austrian people. The National Assembly protests all the more insistently against this proceeding as the nation to which the present Minister for Foreign Affairs belongs has expressly refused any joint dealings. The National Assembly states that it and its organs alone have the right to represent the German-Austrian people in all matters relating to foreign affairs and particularly in all peace negotiations."
The protest met with no opposition in the National Assembly.
Afterwards the chairman, Dr. Ellenbogen, the Social Democrat, spoke as follows:
"Instead of now telling the German Emperor that his remaining in office is the greatest obstacle to peace" (loud applause from the Social Democrats), "and if there ever were an object in Curtius's famous leap, it would be comprehensible now were the German Emperor to copy it to save his people, this coalition now seizes the present moment to break away from Germany and in doing so attacks German democracy in the rear. Those gentlemen arrived too late to gain any profit from the peace. What now remains is the bare and shameful breach of faith, the thanks of the House of Austria, so styled by a celebrated German poet." (Applause from the Social Democrats and the German Radicals.)
It was the attack on the separate peace that furnished the exceptional opportunity for Social Democrats and German Radicals to unite in common applause, probably the first instance of such a thing in all these years of war.
If that could happen at a moment when it already was obvious that there was no longer a possibility of making a peace of understanding together with Germany—what would have happened, I ask, at a time when this was by no means so clear to the great majority of the population; at a time when it was