General Staff. Had the Revolution not broken out in Russia, Prince Sixtus would have negotiated also with the Tsar at the wish of the Emperor Charles.
The Viennese overtures began, so to speak, concentrically from several points. At first Count Czernin approached the Entente, ostensibly on his own initiative, through his friend Count Revertera, a former Austro-Hungarian Counsellor of Embassy, and other acquaintances. Revertera met Count Armand, the Chief of the French Intelligence Service, at Freiburg in Switzerland, the negotiations lasting from July 1917 until February 1918. Mr. Lloyd George was informed and approved of the suggested policy. In the spring of 1918 Dr. Beneš was in touch with Count Armand who, at that time, hoped for a revolution in Austria-Hungary and perhaps worked for it in the expectation that it would increase Austrian readiness for peace. The French General Staff, and even Marshal Foch, knew and approved of Count Armand’s negotiations. On the French side they had been authorized by Painlevé and Clemenceau. Meanwhile, conversations between Austria and the Allies were also carried on by the former Austro-Hungarian Ambassador in London, Count Mensdorff, and General Smuts, who discussed peace in September and December 1918 and, according to some accounts, as late as January 1918. Dr. Seton-Watson suspects that Mensdorff’s proposals were communicated to the Allied Governments, and that Lloyd George’s pro-Austrian declaration, which President Wilson cited in January 1918, was prompted by them.
Before I left London for Russia in May 1917 I had heard of the negotiations begun by Prince Sixtus. They had been talked about in Berlin, whence some account of them had reached England. I did not hear nor did I need to hear the full story; it was enough for me to know that Austria was already in direct touch with the Allies. I could guess what Vienna wanted and was probably proposing. The details I learned later.
My own view of the overtures was that, from the outset, the Allies had thought it feasible to detach Austria from Germany. They would have been prepared to make peace with Austria but would have gone on fighting Germany until she was completely beaten. To this conclusion I was led in the winter of 1914 by reports from London, and it was confirmed everywhere by Allied official views about Austria. Austrian propaganda worked in the same sense, letting it be understood that Austria was acting under German compulsion
