Chlumecky was busy in Switzerland. His task was to get the support of the Vatican and to open relations with Paris, while Count Albert Mensdorff was instructed to deal with London direct and also to pull strings in Paris, since Austria was no less eager to turn France than England against us. In Paris, it was, however, taken as an insult that Count Andrássy should have been selected to carry on the negotiations which were in progress in Switzerland towards the middle of October, since he had been no less pro-German than Tisza throughout the war; nor did Count Mensdorff or Baron Chlumecky succeed in their main purpose, which was to get hold of Clemenceau. Neither Clemenceau nor anybody connected with French governing circles was accessible to their suggestions. The Austrians were too tactless; and the agreement at Geneva between our Prague Delegation and Dr. Beneš upset their last diplomatic undertaking. Dr. Beneš demanded that all links with the Hapsburgs should be snapped, and the delegation snapped them emphatically. On his return to Paris he made good use of their action; and when he was invited, as the Foreign Minister of the recognized Czechoslovak Government, to take part in the Armistice negotiations with Germany, the attempts of Austria to open secret negotiations were frustrated.
The Allies had expected Austria definitely to break off her alliance with Germany, just as in 1917 England had awaited a clear Austro-Hungarian declaration in regard to Belgium, and France an unequivocal pronouncement upon Alsace-Lorraine. Had these things been done, peace negotiations would have taken place earlier. Austria might perhaps have saved herself if she had cut adrift from Germany and had turned against her. To such lengths even Viennese insincerity was not prepared to go, less on account of moral scruples than out of fear of the Magyars and of the Austrian Germans; and when, at the last moment, Austria accepted Wilson’s conditions and decided to make a separate peace, France, in particular, thought her action insufficient.
Yet, by acting swiftly and vigorously on the basis of Lammasch’s policy, the Austrian Government might have gained considerably. I doubt, however, whether Lammasch had any real influence. He proposed that all the Hapsburg peoples should be represented at the Peace Conference, which should settle territorial questions and decide whether or not a League of Hapsburg States should be formed. On such a basis the Viennese thesis might have been advanced with some effect and supported, as regards us, with arguments ad homines.
