Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 34. (1981)
BRIDGE, Francis Roy: Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire in the Twentieth Century
260 Francis Roy Bridge pire in the last years of peace. Germany’s aims were straightforward135): to preserve the empire long enough for Germany to establish firm footholds in Asia Minor against the day of partition; with the corollary that Turkey should avoid European entanglements that might draw her into a war and precipitate her collapse before Germany was ready to secure her share — hence Germany’s efforts to smooth over Greco-Turkish differences; hence Germany’s lack of interest in Austrian proposals for granting loans to Bulgaria, or for promoting an alignment of Turkey, Bulgaria, and Roumania to hold the Serbs in check. In Asia Minor, at least, Austrian aims were broadly similar. The Austrians certainly had no interest in an early partition: they had as yet no footholds at all there, and could only put their faith in the fact that so long as Ottoman rule continued the area would remain ‘ein ungeheures Feld der Tätigkeit und eine Quelle des Reichtums’ for all the powers136). But the Austrians saw the future of Turkey as only one, relatively minor, element in a complex and wider picture. There was in any case, according to Pallavicini, no imminent danger of partition: France and Russia were so alarmed by what they imagined to be German and Greek designs that they had become defenders of the status quo — which might offer the chance of improving Austro-Russian relations too137). France, especially, seemed to the Austrians, chronically short of capital, a power to be cultivated. Finally, in contrast to the Germans, the Austrians cared less about the fragility of Ottoman rule in Asia Minor than about Turkey’s potential usefulness in helping to deal with the irredentist threat on the very frontiers of the Monarchy - hence their stubborn efforts to draw Turkey into concluding a military convention with Bulgaria, directed in effect against Serbia and Greece. Greece, Pallavicini warned the Turks, was their worst enemy138). But it was the Bulgarians, fearing involvement in a war over the Aegean Islands, who drew back in the end. All this diplomacy went on behind the backs of the German allies and ultimately proved futile; but it was eloquent of the fact that Vienna and Berlin were quite unable to agree on a common and effective policy in the Ottoman empire. For example, the Germans were infuriated when the Austrians, angling for a loan in Paris, planned to admit France to a share in the Turkish section of the Orient railway, which with the return of the Turks to Adrianople had assumed a new importance for Germany as a vital link to the Bagdad railway; and they in turn helped to frustrate a scheme for Austro-French control of the Greek and Serbian sections of the railway139). The Turks, for their part, took umbrage at the Austrians’ reluctance to support German demands that Bulgaria first agree to take over a proportion of the Ottoman debt be13s) Löding Balkanpolitik 197ff. 136) PA XII 207: Pallavicini to Berchtold, No. 58 A, 2 October 1913. 137) Ibid. 138) Ibid. 139) Löding Balkanpolitik 179, 181.
