AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 



to unite all the Slavs under Serbian rule, as- 

 serted that it was backed by the Serbian gov- 

 ernment, and demanded that Serbia officially 

 condemn the Pan-Slav agitation, suppress anti- 

 Austrian books, newspapers and societies, and 

 permit Austria to handle the investigation of 

 the outrage and determine what Serbian offi- 

 cers and officials should be discharged. Serbia 

 i most of these conditions short of 

 actual Austrian interference in its affairs, but 

 Austria was not satisfied. Russia's determina- 

 tion to prevent the loss of Serbia's independ- 

 ence involved the rest of Europe, and Austria- 

 Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia 

 on July 28 was but the first of the long list 

 which made the War of the Nations. The 

 main course of events after this date will be 

 found in the article elsewhere on the war. 



The War. The first declaration of war was 

 succeeded by the following: 



1914 



Austria-Hungary on Russia, August 6 



it-negro on Austria-Hungary, August 7 



e on Austria-Hungary, August 10 



Great Britain on Austria-Hungary, August 12 



i. i -Hungary on Japan, August 27 



Austria-Hungary on Belgium, August 28 



1915 



Italy on Austria-Hungary, May 23 



1916 



Austria-Hungary on Portugal, March 15 



Rumania on Austria-Hungary, August 27 



1917 



United States on Austria-Hungary, December 7 



During the war all of Austria's old prob- 

 lems of its relations with Germany, of its 

 rivalry with Italy, of its control of its own 

 people were revived or intensified. To un- 

 derstand these questions the reader should 

 know the earlier history, told in the article 



The reopening of the German question came 

 through Prussian successes and Austro-Hun- 

 garian failures in the early part of the 

 Prussian-trained generals and officers were obvi- 



v superior, and were given commands in 

 the Austro-Hungarian army. Austria was tin- 

 weaker and soon became the subordi 

 member of the alliance. The struggle against 



Mirnmnding nations seemed to foster a 

 German determination to become r 



of the rest of the world, and one of the 

 schemes proposed for after the war was a 

 Customs Union which should include Austria- 

 il \ istrians opposed this because th- 



better organization of German industries would 



the latter an advantage; Hungarians op- 

 posed it for a similar reason and because, as 



509 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 



an agricultural people, they were already dis- 

 contented with the tariff union with Austria. 

 There was fear, too, that Germany hoped for 

 political domination in the new union. The 

 final result showed how useless was their schem- 

 ing. 



The Italian people had never been satisfied 

 with the territory acquired from Austria by 

 the Seven Weeks' War. They looked upon 

 the large numbers of Italian-speaking people 

 in the Tyrol, east of Venice and in Dalmatia 

 as their brothers, and they called these lands 

 Italia irredenta, unredeemed Italy. For stra- 

 tegic reasons, too, Italy wished the eastern 

 shore of the Adriatic. Nevertheless, at the 

 outbreak of the war Italy was Austria-Hun- 

 gary's ally. In 1879 Austria-Hungary and 

 Germany had formed a protective alliance 

 against Russia and France; Italy had joined 

 them in 1882, after the French occupation of 

 Tunis, thus forming the famous Triple Alli- 

 ance. One of the provisions of the treaty was 

 that if either Austria-Hungary or Italy should 

 occupy territory in the Balkans, the other 

 should be compensated. On the basis of this 

 Italy, while still neutral, demanded territory 

 in return for Austria-Hungary's occupation of 

 Serbia, and insisted that the territory ceded 

 should be a part of Italia irredenta, the Trent 

 and Trieste. Germany pressed Austria to con- 

 cede, but the Italian demand that the terri- 

 tory should be immediately delivered was 

 refused, and Italy declared war. 



Most of the subjects of Austria-Hungary 

 fought loyally in the war. From time to time 

 there were rumors of the shooting of Czech 

 and Slav soldiers for mutiny, and of riots 

 among the people when food became scarce 

 in the cities, but the country was so cut off 

 from the rest of the world that the truth 

 could not be known. Complaints were made 

 in the Hungarian Parliament, based on tin- 

 casualty lists, that the Hungarian soldiers v. 

 being sacrificed and the Austrian soldiers 



Dunnn the war differences arose between th<> 

 United States and Austria-Hungary rrpardmK 

 the former's shipment of munitions to other 

 powers and the latter's attacks on the Ancona 

 and tl..- / The United States also re- 



quested and secured the withdrawal of Am- 

 bassador Dumba for complicity in plots to in- 

 terfere with munition making. 



For later events, srr tin .-arly paragraphs in 

 this article, also story of the WAR or THE NA- 

 TIONS. 



