1 As both the Austrian and Italian archival documents show, Mussolini also wanted to know if Schuschnigg was favorably disposed towards an Italo-Austrian-Hungarian-Yugoslavian “alignment” (Zusammengehen). Schuschnigg’s position accorded with the recent tenor of Austro-Yugoslav talks. Thus he held that the Italo-Yugoslav rapprochement was “vital for Austria” and that:
“the big concern for Austria up to now has been that of having to face not only an attack from Bavaria but also from Yugoslavia. If Italian troops would have had to come to the aid [soccorso] of Austria, they could have faced a Yugoslavian penetration in Carinthia. So the Italian-Yugoslav agreement avoids this.”
Nevertheless, the chancellor expressed trepidation that the Yugoslavian government was already too firmly linked to Germany and that Berlin’s anti-Austrian propaganda in Belgrade was severe. Here, the Duce disagreed, believing instead that the Yugoslav leadership saw the danger that Nazi propaganda posed to Yugoslavia. Indeed, on this issue both leaders were sensitive to Berlin’s subversive propaganda efforts in Italian South Tyrol and in Austria.
Talks centered on Nazi Germany. Mussolini estimated that the Third Reich would not be rearmed fully for another two to three years, and he wanted to know if the Austrian government would accept unilateral Italian military assistance in the case of an outright German assault on Austria. Schuschnigg was under no illusions, stating that the “biggest problem” for Austria was always the same: “the threat from Germany.” The Reich, he expounded, “will always have as a goal of its politics, explicitly or not, the absorption of Austria.” Military action by the Reich against Austria would likely take one of two forms. In the first instance the “Austrian Legion”— which Schuschnigg estimated at 29,000 “armed, motorized, and anxious men”— might attack. In this case Austrian armed forces alone had to and would defend the country.
Here we come to the crux of the matter of what Broucek leaves out of his account. Schuschnigg noted that if the German Wehrmacht attacked outright matters would be completely different:
“In this case there are only two choices: to submit or to rely on European aid. The first choice is out of the question, so in this scenario we are compelled to put forward a claim for help. Thus we are of the view that, with respect to the current foreign political situation, [Austria] cannot rely on unilateral Italian assistance. The other powers also [would] have to stand up for the territorial status quo in central Europe directly and immediately.” In order to avoid German aggression, it was crucial to conclude the CEP (which included Britain, France, and Italy) for its “preventative effect” (Präventivwirkung), and in order that “the Austrian question would be understood as a European question with all the consequences….” Alexander N. Lassner, “Peace at Hitler’s Price: Austria, Europe and the Anschluß,” (PhD. diss., Ohio State University, 2000), 116-19. See also the broad argument contained in Ibid., Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5.
2 http://www.koeblergerhard.de/ZRG129Internetrezensionen2012/EinoesterreichischerGeneralgegenHitler.htm, accessed 28 Feb. 2012
3 Perhaps the most regularly cited sources among historians are memoirs. They are compact, often available in translation, and easily obtainable at libraries or for purchase. Moreover, they purport to give the reader an inside look into the workings of the world with which the author was most intimately connected. It is all too common, however, for the authors of memoirs to obscure the very events that they profess to describe. The chief problem is the idea of a memoir itself: ex post facto writing is done with the knowledge of the results of the actions, policies, and/or decisions under discussion. The negative impact of such knowledge upon the accuracy of memoirs can hardly be overestimated. With reputations at stake, authors are prone towards self-aggrandizement, the concealing of guilt, and the shifting of blame. Tactics include distortions, outright lies, and the omission of unpleasant evidence. Baruch Fischoff, “Hindsight is not Equal to Foresight: The Effect of Outcome Knowledge on Judgement under Uncertainty,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 1, no. 2 (1975): 288-99; S. A. Hawkins and R. Hastie, “Hindsight: Biased Judgements of Past Events after the Outcomes are Known,” Psychological Bulletin 107, no. 3 (1990): 817-29; Philip E. Tetlock and Aaron Belkin, eds., “Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics: Logical, Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives,” in Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics: Logical, Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 1-38.
Recently, one historian has commented precisely upon such tendencies in connection with the memoirs of leading members of the Austro-Hungarian political and military leadership in World War One. Too often the memoir has become both apologia and propaganda for its author. Holger H. Herwig, “Of Men and Myths: The Use and Abuse of History and the Great War,” in The Great War and the Twentieth Century, ed. J. Winter, Geoffrey Parker, Mary Habeck, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 299-330.
4 A rough contemporary American Army equivalent of Jansa position and extent of responsibility would be the rank of Major/Lieutenant Colonel at the US Army Europe G3 and G5 level (operational tasking, planning and execution), although Jansa was only a Captain at the time, and the staff on which he worked was much smaller.
5 For example, Jansa’s view of Potiorek’s aloofness accords with the portrait we have from Rudolf Jeřábek, Potiorek: General im Schatten von Sarajevo (Vienna: Verlag Styria, 1991), 30.
6 A truly outstanding work of scholarship that illuminates the kinds of problems that arose in British and French commands during World War I is that by Elizabeth Greenhalgh. Elizabeth Greenhalgh, Victory through Coalition: Britain and France during the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
The 1991 Gulf War proves a comparative contemporary example of competition and friction in a coalition and between services in the same military. See: Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, The Generals’War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf (Toronto: Little Brown and Company, 1995); Rick Atkinson, Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War (Boston: Mariner Books, 1994). Especially instructive and illuminating as to the issues of dysfunctional command relationships between services — which is not dissimilar to that between national coalition partners — is the four hour documentary on the Gulf War by Frontline http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/, accessed 28 Feb. 2012.
7 The scholarship that focuses on the Austro-Hungarian - German alliance tends to focus on the prewar and early war period. Some of the better examples of studies that focus specifically on the Austro-Hungarian - German alliance relationships, especially those of planning and command relationships include, H. Otto, “Zum strategisch-operativen Zusammenwirken des deutschen und österreichisch-ungarischen Generalstabes bei der Vorbereitung des ersten Weltkrieges,” in Zeitschrift für Militärgeschichte II (Deutscher Militärverlag, 1963), 426; Gordon Craig, “The World War I Alliance of the Central Powers in Retrospect: The Military Cohesion of the Alliance,” Journal of Modern History 37 (summer, 1965): 341; Norman Stone, “The Austro-German Alliance, 1914-1918” in Coalition Warfare: An Uneasy Accord (Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier Universiy Press, 1983), 17. Less detailed, but still interesting, is Richard L. DiNardo and Daniel J. Hughes, “Germany and Coalition Warfare in the World Wars: A Comparative Study,” in War in History 8, no. 2 (2001): 166-90.
More generally, Holger Afflerbach has recently written a biography of Falkenhayn that includes many very interesting details as regards the dysfunctional alliance. Holger Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, Politisches Denken und Handeln im Kaiserreich (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1994). Manfried Rauchensteiner and Holger Herwig’s magisterial works provide much information on the problems affecting the Austro-Hungarian and German alliance. Manfried Rauchensteiner, Der Tod des Doppeladlers: Österreich-Ungarn und der Erste Weltkrieg (Graz: Verlag Styria, 1993); Holger Herwig, The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918 (London: Edward Arnold, 1997).
8 Jansa’s memoir, while of lesser interest, nonetheless fits well with the very few other such memoirs covering Austro-Hungarian and German command relationships and planning. See, for example, Josef Stürgkh, Im deutschen Hauptquartier (Leipzig: List, 1921) and August von Cramon, Unser österreich-ungarischer Bundesgenosse im Weltkrieg: Erinnerungen aus meiner vierjährigen Tätigkeit als bevollmächtigter deutscher General beim k. und k. Armeeobercommando (Berlin: Mittler, 1920).
9 Greenhalgh, Victory through Coalition, passim.
10 As Macgregor Knox and Williamson Murray persuasively argue, it is critical to distinguish between two types of revolutions: “military revolutions” which are driven by vast social, economic and political changes and “revolutions in military affairs (RMAs) which can be created and driven by military organizations themselves and which are not necessarily linked to evolving technology. MacGreggor Knox and Williamson Murray eds., The Dynamics of Military Revolution 1300-2050 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 1-14; 176-77.
The RMAs of the Central Powers in World War I were primarily doctrinal, while those of the Allies were more a mix of doctrinal and technological. See especially, Bruce I. Gudmundsson, Stormtrooper Tactics: Innovation in the German Army 1914-1918 (Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 1982); Timothy T. Lupfer, The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine During the First World War, Leavenworth Papers No. 4 (Fort Leavenworth Kansas: US Army Command and General Staff College, 1981); Shelford Bidwell and Dominick Graham, Fire-Power: The British Army Weapons and Theories of War 1904-1945 (London: Unwin Hyman, 1985); Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray eds., Military Effectiveness: The First World War, vol. I (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989).
11 Ibid.
12 Almost no Austrian documents regarding Jansa’s period as military attaché in Berlin survived German archival purges in 1938 and after, as well as the destructiveness of the war.
13 The U. S. National Archives and the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) published documents contain the most important documentary evidence for American ambassador George Messersmith’s views on the Nazis, views that he shared and discussed regularly with high ranking Austrians, to include Jansa.
On 25 October 1934 Messersmith wrote Washington: “terroristic policy… is one of the principles of National Socialism…. [and] such men that did prosecute [Nazis] would be dealt with [,] with the barbarity and intolerance with which National Socialism has treated its opponents in Germany.” Lassner, “Peace at Hitler’s Price,” 55-56.
14 In the late summer and fall of 1936, Hungarian leaders — enthused by the conclusion of the July 1936 Austro-German Abkommen, and privately hoping that Austria would ultimately accede to their plans for future war against Czechoslovakia — requested that Schuschnigg join them in Berchtesgaden to meet with Hitler, in order to help advance Hungarian revisionism, and acquiesce to the expansion of the Roman Protocols by concluding an Austro-Italian-Hungarian military agreement. Vienna rejected these proposals, aware that they were but precursors to Budapest’s ardently desired bloc of Germany-Italy-Austria-Hungary. By November 1937 the Hungarians were explicitly and repeatedly pressuring the Austrians to join in the destruction of Czechoslovakia. The very same Hungarian statesmen claimed to have the permission and backing of Germany in putting forth this request to Austria. Lassner, “Peace at Hitler’s Price,” 296-316.
15 For the full story to these and other issues that Jansa brings up with respect to Italy see Ibid., chapter 10, chapter 11.
16 See, Gabriele Volsansky’s Pakt auf Zeit: Das Deutsch-Österreichische Juli-Abkommen 1936, (Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2001), 32-35, 46-47, 71-72, 185-99, 223-24; Lassner, “Peace at Hitler‘ s Price,” chapter 6, chapter 7.
The key to understanding the contradiction and ambiguity purposefully built into the Abkommen lies in the Schuschnigg government’s understanding the international strategic situation. The senior members of that regime understood early on that Nazi Germany would eventually use force to seize and digest portions of central Europe in particular as a preliminary to a major war, and Schuschnigg and his closest collaborators understood that Austria was first on the German menu after the remilitarization of the Rhineland.
What Volsansky fails to discuss satisfactorily (and here she is the victim of her limited sources and, more significantly, the limited scope of her work) is why the Abkommen ended up taking the contradictory and ambiguous form that it did. The majority of the participants in drafting the Abkommen were diplomats and lawyers, so there was hardly a lack of understanding on the drafters’ part about the meaning of the words that they chose to use, or which phrases were unclear and which phrases were exact. Indeed, the endless bickering and wordsmithing that went into the actual creation of the agreement — which Volsansky herself portrays — shows that these men were quite aware of each distinction and/or ambiguity that they included. Moreover, Schuschnigg understood what liars he was dealing with in the likes of Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, Papen and others, and he hardly became their dupe by permitting them to include wording that he, Schuschnigg, did not recognize as being subject to wide interpretation. Ibid., chapter 6, chapter 7.