Chapter 237: Austria-Hungary's Response

Vienna, Schonbrunn Palace

Standing in front of the door of His Majesty the Emperor's office, Field Marshal Conrad of the Austro-Hungarian Empire held a stack of documents in his left hand and solemnly arranged his uniform with his right hand.

He was a tall man, with gray hair cut into a bush-like shape and a thick mustache that turned up at the corners of his mouth. He looked very majestic.

"Dudu"

Conrad knocked on the door.

"Come in"

After receiving permission, Conrad opened the door and walked into the spacious office.

Walking on the black and white tiles, there is a clicking sound.

Franz, the old Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was immersed in documents behind his desk. Standing beside him was Lucas, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was reporting to His Majesty the Emperor on the progress of the London Conference in London at this time.

Emperor Franz raised his head and saw that it was his field marshal, Army Chief of Staff Conrad. He lowered his head again to deal with the documents: "What's the matter, Conrad?"

"Your Majesty, I am sorry that Serbia has achieved its expansion goals in the Balkans. I think the Austro-Hungarian Empire must do something instead of watching idlely as the Russian nails in the lower belly of the Austro-Hungarian Empire become stronger and stronger." Kang Ladd shouted.

In the previous Balkan War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not do nothing. After seeing that the Serbian army’s military operations in Kosovo encountered almost no effective resistance from the Ottoman army, the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Belgrade immediately reported to the Serbian government After issuing warnings and being ignored, they chose to mobilize troops stationed on the north bank of the Danube to put pressure on Serbia.

It's just that after Serbia received the support of Big Brother Russia, it reached an alliance with Bulgaria, and it was obviously confident.

As a nationalist, after serving as the Ottoman Empire's chief of staff, Conrad was exposed to many imperial secrets that ordinary people could not touch.

However, the more information he was exposed to, the more worried Conrad became. He had many ideas, but was trapped by the fragile sword in his hand.

"The threat from the Slavs has grown one more point," Conrad solemnly emphasized.

Emperor Franz and Foreign Minister Lucas looked at each other, and then asked: "Serbia has the support of the Russians, Conrad, once we really take action against Serbia, the Russians will not sit idly by and ignore it. The Russian Bear has recovered from the wounds of the Russo-Japanese War and cannot be like last time."

The last time Franz was talking about was the Poch crisis.

In 1908, the Austro-Hungarian Empire took advantage of the civil strife in the Ottoman Empire and took the opportunity to annex Poch, which was originally just a trusteeship of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Since the main population of Boch was Slavs, this caused great dissatisfaction in Serbia.

Russia, which has always regarded itself as the protector of the Slavs, naturally would not sit idly by and stood firmly on the side of Serbia. The two sides were once on the verge of war.

However, later on, Austria-Hungary was assisted by Germany, and Russia had not yet recovered from the losses it suffered in the Russo-Japanese War, so it had to accept the result in humiliation.

As one of the great powers, the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not mean that it could act unscrupulously.

The Balkan War of 1912 was a war between three small Balkan countries against the Ottoman Empire. Once the Austro-Hungarian Empire came to an end, it would definitely cause a chain reaction among the European powers and trigger a great melee that swept across Europe.

The reason why Serbia hated Austria-Hungary was that the contradiction between the two sides was almost irresolvable.

After Serbia became independent, nationalism rose sharply, both among the people and at the government level. The Serbian people called on the government to regain its lost territory and liberate its fellow Serbians.

In the eyes of the Serbs, it is not only Boch that was annexed in 1908, but also Croatia, Slovenia, where the majority of the population is Slavs in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and even the north bank of the Danube River, which has abundant rain and is rich in food. Vojvodina should be part of Serbia.

Wherever Serbians exist, they should belong to Serbia. This sentence can be used to describe the nationalist sentiments of the people in Serbia.

Moreover, the Serbs put this knowledge into action. Taking advantage of nationalist sentiments, underground secret organizations supported by Serbia carried out many acts of incitement, assassination, subversion and sabotage in Austria-Hungary, just as they did at the same time. The same underground military operations were carried out in Macedonia, which belonged to the Ottoman Empire.

In the eyes of the Serbian people, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was no different from the Ottoman Empire.

Under such circumstances, one can imagine the bad relationship between Serbia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

"Your Majesty, the entire Balkan Peninsula is now almost all countries close to the Allies, which is very detrimental to the security of the Austro-Hungarian Empire." Conrad walked to the Balkan map hanging on the wall and explained to the two of them.

"Greece in the Balkans has always been close to Britain, Serbia is close to Russia, and Bulgaria is generally close to Russia."

"Despite the incident of ignoring Russia's warning and attacking Constantinople without authorization, the relationship between Russia and Russia once again cracked," Conrad famously said with his hand outstretched halfway across the Balkans.

"Your Majesty, I think that from the perspective of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, some measures should be taken to divide and win over the Balkan countries. We cannot sit back and watch the Allies win over all three countries. The Allies will operate the Balkans as a monolith, which is very detrimental to the cause of the Allies." As a diplomat Minister Lucas agreed.

"Bulgaria and Greece are now engaged in a fierce battle over the ownership of Thessaloniki. I think Bulgaria is an object worth fighting for," said Conrad.

"Bulgaria has territorial disputes with almost all neighboring countries. Romania and Bulgaria have disputed territory in South Dobruja."

"There are even more disputed territories between Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire strongly opposed the cession of Adrianople and Eastern Thrace to Bulgaria, but now these places are under the control of the Bulgarians."

"Bulgaria and Greece have different opinions on the ownership of Thessaloniki, and both sides attach great importance to it," said Conrad, pointing to the location of Thessaloniki on the map.

"In addition, there is another benefit of winning over Bulgaria and alienating the relationship between Bulgaria and Russia, which is that it can also disrupt the power among the Slavs in Eastern Europe and effectively ease the increasingly tight encirclement of Slavic forces around the empire," Lucas added.

After hearing this, Franz's eyes lit up and he was obviously moved.

In recent years, the Russians have held high the banner of nationalism, using religion as a natural bond, claiming to be the protector of the Slavs, not to mention how awkward it made the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The Slavic forces under the influence of the Russians almost half surrounded the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire - Poland (Poland at this time was under Russian rule) bordered the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was located in the northeast of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; in the northeast, the Austro-Hungarian Empire also bordered Ukraine under Russian rule; in the south was Serbia, and in the southeast was Bulgaria.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was sandwiched and surrounded by Slavic countries.

"Although Bulgaria is also a Slavic country, Bulgaria has a long history and does not look down on Russia in its heart, and is not willing to be Russia's follower"