Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 34. (1981)

BRIDGE, Francis Roy: Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire in the Twentieth Century

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fore she could be granted a loan140); and at Austrian support for Russia’s attempts to secure a seat on the Ottoman Debt Commission as the price of agreeing to the latest Turkish request for a 3% customs increase — especially as the Austrians were hoping thereby to get Russian support for their own efforts to control, together with Italy, the economic development of the new Albanian state141). The Turks were in fact by no means prepared simply to accept Austro-Italian domination of what was after all a predominantly Moslem area, so recently part of their own dominions. They had been involved since January 1914 in sporadic attempts to set up a Moslem régime, and certainly had a hand in the great Moslem rebellion in central Albania which, together with Greek intervention, bade fair by the summer to topple the throne of the Prince of Wied, a nominee of the powers but by then a pro- tégé of Austria-Hungary1414). In these affairs the Germans gave their allies no support whatever. Already in 1913 Jagow had slightlingly told the Austrians ‘daß ein katholisches Protektorat über ein Land mit nur 15% Katholiken und 60% Mohammedanern imhaltbar sei’142). As for Wied, Wilhelm II declared: ‘Es ist besser, er verduftet und ... ein Mohammedanischer Prinz löst ihn ab’143). Yet right up to the outbreak of war the Austrians were vainly striving to establish Wied’s position, much to the disgust of Berlin, Athens, and Constantinople.

The same desperate concern with prestige, coupled with a somewhat cavalier disregard for the interests of other powers, and leading in the end to failure and embarrassment, characterized Austro-Hungarian diplomacy in the Asiatic parts of the Ottoman empire. When discussions started in the summer of 1913 about a possible reform scheme for Armenia under European control, Berchtold started from the premise that Austria-Hungary had an interest in maintaining Ottoman rule in Asia Minor144). This was why he disliked the Russian Mandelstam scheme, which would in effect have made the six Armenian vilayets into a privileged province after the fashion of Macedonia under the Mürzsteg scheme. Pallavicini was full of foreboding145): since the assassination of Mahmud Shevket Pasha, he reported on 28 June, the situation in Turkey had become extremely precarious, and the new grand vizir, Halil Bey, could not master it. ‘Ich sehe, daß sich in der asiatischen Türkei ganz derselbe Prozeß vorbereitet wie jener, der der europäischen Türkei ein Ende gemacht hat’. As the wars of 1911 and 1912 had shown, the real threat to the Ottoman empire came, not from within, but from without. In the end, Russia would get the lion’s share, including Constantinople, fobbing off the

14°) Ibid. 112.

141) Ibid. 222.

14ia) Crampton The Hollow Détente 155-159.

142) Löding Balkanpolitik 159.

143) GP 36/2 (1926) No. 14.462.

144) PA XII 462: Note pro domo 395, 21 January 1914.

145) PA XII 463: Pallavicini to Berchtold, No. 33 C, 10 June 1913; private letter, 28 June 1913.