Cornwall M. The Undermining of Austria-Hungary: The Battle for Hearts and Minds

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Italy's Campaign against

Austria-Hungary

6.1 The British contribution

The fully coordinated propaganda offensive which was launched on the Italian

Front in April 1918 would always remain a largely Italian enterprise. Since the

end of the First World War, most literature written about this `Allied campaign'

has tended to highlight Great Britain's supposedly predominant role, often

suggesting that the British, through Lord Northcliffe's Enemy Propaganda

Department at Crewe House, initiated or even controlled the campaign. Harold

Lasswell in his seminal work asserted that `it was the British who did most of

the propaganda of dissolution against Austro-Hungarian armies'.

Such an

emphasis is misleading but not surprising. Northcliffe's very public appoint-

ment was

itself a propaganda coup since his name aroused alarm in the Central

Powers to a degree which Luigi Albertini could never emulate, even if he had

followed Northcliffe's example. Northcliffe's organization, moreover, was the

most publicized of its kind and therefore became a clear focal point in 1918 for

those in the Habsburg Empire who became paranoid about the machinations of

`enemy propaganda'.

As we

have seen in Chapter 1, this reputation gained ground after the war

when two members of Northcliffe's `team', Sir Campbell Stuart and Henry Wick-

ham Steed, published accounts which emphasized the role of Crewe House.

From Vienna the former AOK staff officer Edmund von Glaise-Horstenau, in

reviewing Stuart's work, commented, `we can no longer ignore the fact that

besides [President Woodrow] Wilson, Northcliffe and his Austrian reporter

Steed were the destroyers of the Danube Empire'.

In his later works Glaise

adopted a more moderate tone, but he still accorded Northcliffe's initiative a

definite weight when he mentioned the propaganda campaign on the Italian

Front.

Subsequently, historians have usually used Crewe House as the starting-

point for their discussions, most recently adding valuable substance to under-

standing the

campaign from a British perspective.

Italian scholars have also

174

Italy's Campaign against Austria-Hungary 175

pursued the Italian dimension, but to a surprisingly limited extent.

What has

been lacking has been a full and balanced analysis of the most sophisticated

wartime campaign of front propaganda, by pulling together the various strands

± Italian, Austrian, British, etc. ± of which it was composed. The British role seen

in this overall context was essentially twofold. Firstly, it was to bring Italy and

the Yugoslavs to some agreement which could be used as a partial basis for

effective propaganda at the front; secondly, it provided, in the shape of Crewe

House and its personnel, a centre which helped to coordinate the Italian

campaign in April 1918 and subsequently gave some inspiration to the Italian

propagandists.

Prior to

the creation of the Enemy Propaganda Department (EPD) in February

1918 there had been little official British propaganda specifically directed at

undermining the Habsburg Empire. Indeed, propaganda against the Central

Powers as a whole had been on a small scale, organized by two separate centres

which were both linked to British military Intelligence. In early 1916, possibly

in response to an increase in German propaganda on the Western Front, a new

section MI7(b) was set up at the War Office under the Director of Special

Intelligence, General George Cockerill. Its purpose was to carry on a `paper

war' against Germany on the Western Front, and it continued to do so under

Cockerill's supervision until the summer of 1918.

A separate initiative was

taken by Austin Guest, an official who worked at Wellington House, the War

Propaganda Bureau which had been established in September 1914 to counter

Germany's `propaganda' and educate public opinion abroad. Guest's remit was

Holland and Germany, and by 1916 he had discovered ways of smuggling

literature into enemy countries via Holland and Switzerland.

Both Cockerill and Guest concentrated their efforts upon Germany, Britain's

foremost enemy; and in both cases the work could be described more as a

continuous routine than as a campaign of the kind launched by the Central

Powers against Russia in 1917. Guest's efforts, however, impinged on Austria-

Hungary. It is clear that some of his Intelligence contacts in Switzerland were

using similar channels to Tullio Marchetti's Intelligence network or those of the

Czech underground organization (the Mafie) in order to smuggle subversive

material into the Empire. One of Guest's contacts was an official, Deneke, who

worked under cover of the British consulate in Zurich. Another centre was

Geneva where the two vice-consuls, Middleton Edwards and Hugh Whittall,

were both working for British military Intelligence and had interlocking duties

of collecting information and organizing propaganda in Switzerland and in

enemy countries.

By influencing the Swiss press, the propagandists could

expect that their views might eventually peter into Austria or be taken up by

some enemy newspapers. However, the principal route for Guest's network

seems to have been direct. According to a `propaganda map' drawn up by the

British Department of Information (into which the War Propaganda Bureau

176 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

was incorporated in February 1917), propaganda into Austria-Hungary and

Germany in 1917 consisted chiefly of the `secret distribution of pamphlets'.

John Buchan, the director of the Department of Information, was only prepared

to set down limited evidence on paper about Guest's activity:

The branch

of the Department which deals with propaganda in enemy

countries has from the beginning worked in closest connection with the

various branches of the Military Intelligence concerned with the same sub-

ject. . .

. The subject is complicated and details must necessarily be kept

secret. It may be said generally that suitable propaganda literature is specially

printed in miniature for the purpose, and through various channels a large

amount of skilfully disguised material is conveyed to enemy readers.

The network was similarly praised by Henry Wickham Steed who learnt about it

from Guest on 7 March 1918. In Steed's words, parts of the organization were

excellent `and one of his Swiss channels might be used by us to get our stuff into

Austria. But his work hitherto has been of a mild ``poison gas'' type . . . our

methods will have to be mainly of the ``high explosive'' type.'

From the beginning of the war, Henry Wickham Steed himself had been

engaged in unofficial propaganda (in the broadest sense of the word), designed

indirectly to undermine and destroy the Habsburg Empire. As The Times cor-

respondent in

Vienna from 1902 to 1913 and as foreign editor in London from

1913, Steed had come to believe by the outbreak of war that Austria-Hungary

should not survive. He began to campaign for a radical transformation of the

Eastern European map, including independent Yugoslav and Czechoslovak

states, as an essential condition of any lasting peace. While he was infected

by his employer Lord Northcliffe's obsession with winning the war, he regularly

emphasized the Habsburg dimension to an Allied victory: `the position of

Austria-Hungary as the most vulnerable point in the enemy combination'.

He was joined in his campaign by the historian and Eastern European expert

R.W. Seton-Watson, who

in the decade before 1914 had probably travelled

more widely than any other British scholar in the Monarchy and the Balkans.

Having initially decided upon a `programme of amputation of the Monarchy'

in order to create a Southern Slav state, Seton-Watson by the autumn of 1914,

after talks with the Czech e

migre

leader Toma

ÂÏ

s Masaryk, was also converted to

the idea of an independent Czechoslovakia. The creation of such a state would

inevitably mean the death of the Empire. Seton-Watson and Steed acted from

the start as confidants for Yugoslav and Czech e

migre

s such as Supilo, Trumbic

and Masaryk, and as intermediaries through whom they might try to influence

British official circles. At the same time they actively publicized their vision,

especially for a Yugoslav state, and worked in an ever more coordinated fashion

from late 1916 through the foundation both of a Serbian Society of Great

Italy's Campaign against Austria-Hungary 177

Britain and a weekly journal, The New Europe. Most of their propaganda in the

early years concentrated on boosting the reputation of Austria's adversaries

rather than damaging the Monarchy directly. However, by December 1916,

with the belligerents beginning to compete over war aims, Seton-Watson felt

it necessary to state bluntly in the pages of The New Europe that the logic of

Britain's promises to its allies was that Austria-Hungary was to be destroyed.

In the field of front propaganda it was Steed who had the wider experience of

the two publicists. According to his memoirs, Steed had advised Masaryk as

early as September 1914 that those Czechs who wished to desert on the Eastern

Front should sing nationalist songs such as Hej Slovane

in order to cross safely

into the Russian lines. Steed rather typically credits himself with some successes

from this advice, but the episode still illustrates that he was conscious from

early in the war that Habsburg army morale might be undermined and, as a

journalist by profession, sensed the potential of spreading ideas across the front

lines. In June 1916 Steed accompanied Northcliffe on a trip to the Italian Front;

he learnt of S

tefa

nik's recent propaganda flight over the Austrian trenches and

also heard about a `Yugoslav' officer who had deserted to Italy in order to betray

Austrian positions around Gorizia.

Both Steed and Seton-Watson felt that

such occurrences, and their wider dream of a Yugoslav state, had been seriously

obstructed when the Entente promised Italy Yugoslav regions in the Treaty of

London. The effect had been to `galvanize Austria-Hungary into new life' since

southern Slav regiments had acquired a reason to fight against Italy in order to

protect their homeland.

Certainly from May 1915 the Habsburg military were

able to use `Italian imperialism' as a useful propaganda stick among the Croat

and Slovene regiments. It therefore became one of the priorities for Steed and

Seton-Watson to foster some Italian±Yugoslav compromise or understanding.

The chief aim was to give credence in Allied circles to the idea of a viable

Yugoslav state, but a secondary consideration was that Italian±Yugoslav solid-

arity would

then proceed to weaken the Habsburg enemy.

Although Steed

seems to have become more optimistic after his visit to Italy,

when he had talked to Bissolati and Albertini, it was not until a year later that

he and Seton-Watson sensed that change was really in the air. Both on the

Yugoslav and the Italian side there seemed to be signs of a willingness to

compromise. Among the Yugoslavs, Steed and Seton-Watson played their part

in persuading the head of the Yugoslav Committee, Ante Trumbic

, to visit the

Serbian government on Corfu in order to negotiate a joint declaration of

Yugoslav solidarity ( July 1917). Steed would later claim that the Corfu Declara-

tion had

had serious results for enemy morale, `stimulating a movement among

the southern Slav troops of Austria-Hungary in favour of unity and conse-

quently of

defection from the Habsburgs'.

This seems highly unlikely (witness

Pivko's own ignorance of the pact), but in the following months it suited Steed

as an argument in order to encourage some Italian±Yugoslav agreement. Italy,

178 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

he wrote, `must understand that the hardest blow she could hit Austria [sic]

would be to be able to announce an agreement with the Southern Slavs as the

basis for her whole programme of liberating the Hapsburg peoples'; this would

counteract the effect of the `wretched ``pound of flesh'' Convention [the Treaty

of London]'. By August 1917, Steed was encouraged by Albertini's conversion

and the stance of the Corriere della Sera; and also by talking in London to Italian

politicians such as Romeo Gallenga Stuart (soon to be Italian Under-Secretary

for Propaganda).

Gallenga too was a convert to the idea of an Italian±Yugoslav

deal in order to destroy Austria and strengthen Italy's postwar influence.

Steed sensed correctly that influential Italians were now moving towards his

own standpoint. At the same time, he could know from Seton-Watson that the

voices of discontent and war-weariness in the Habsburg Empire were mount-

ing.

Thus, his growing perception that a psychological offensive could be

launched against the Empire was dependent on changing circumstances in the

Italian and enemy camps.

However, it

required the jolt of Caporetto for further progress to be made. If

Austria-Hungary won the war, neither the Italian or Yugoslav dream would be

realized; hence the need for them to combine efforts on the basis of the

nationality principle. The Czechs under Hlava

ek were able to exploit Italian

fears in Italy itself. The Yugoslav Committee, however, had less adept leaders

than the Czechs and were naturally hampered by the sensitivity of their cause

in Italy. It was therefore Steed in London who took the initiative to pull Italy

and the Yugoslavs together, thereby laying a basis for that vital cooperation if

Italian propaganda against the enemy was to be truly effective. Significantly, it

was the Italian military whom Steed approached first on 5 December, suggest-

ing that

General Mola, the military attache

in London, should begin talks with

the Yugoslav Committee; Mola easily secured the approval of his superiors in

Italy. A week later Steed persuaded a nervous Trumbic

that the Italians were

amenable to the idea of some agreement since they `understand that the

Convention [the London treaty] is a mistake which rebounds on them'.

Steed then arranged two meetings between Trumbic

and Mola at his house,

attended also by Seton-Watson, Emanuel and some members of the Yugoslav

Committee.

From the start Steed emphasized that because of the Allies'

critical situation a general Italian±Yugoslav agreement was vital which could

be used as the basis for a `political offensive' against the Habsburg Monarchy.

Pointing to the `results' already of the Corfu Pact (which had supposedly even

influenced FM Boroevic

Steed added that `by this means the Austro-Hun-

garian ``home front'' might be broken and the defeat of Germany hastened'.

The idea

naturally appealed to Mola and his superiors. Trumbic

, however,

following his instincts as an experienced lawyer, wanted any Italian±Yugoslav

agreement to bind Italy as closely as possible to the Corfu Declaration; above

all, Italy had to renounce the Treaty of London. This was a sticking-point (and

Italy's Campaign against Austria-Hungary 179

would remain so for the rest of the war), for whereas Trumbic

wished for

something tangible, Steed and the Italian military simply wanted a vague

agreement for propaganda purposes. Nevertheless, out of the meetings there

emerged a preliminary compromise which gave some satisfaction to both sides.

Trumbic

and Mola confirmed that Austria-Hungary was to be dismembered and

new frontiers created according to strategic interests and the principle of

nationality. For Trumbic

this statement in itself was a considerable step for-

ward, since

Mola, acting `privately' but clearly with some official military

backing, had conceded that Italian claims to Dalmatia might be modified and

the Treaty of London revised. For the Italian military a first step had been taken

towards what Mola termed `a force of moral cooperation to use as a weapon of

war against the enemy'. The next move was to negotiate `a public declaration

which affirms the full agreement between Italy and Yugoslavia'.

In early January 1918, the speeches made by Lloyd George and Woodrow

Wilson (his `Fourteen Points') pushed the Italians and Yugoslavs further in this

direction. Both speeches contained passages which effectively denied that the

Treaty of London would be implemented or that the United States or Britain

favoured Austria's dissolution. Both Italian and Yugoslav aspirations seemed

under threat, and both parties became convinced that their best course lay in

making some public declaration of their common interests. Trumbic

remained

justifiably cautious about treating with the Italians since, in his own words,

`everything is still in embryo and . . . we are treading on ice'.

But he was now

encouraged to maintain an Allied spotlight on the Yugoslav cause, not least by

his representative in Paris, Ivo de Giulli. At the end of January De Giulli, who

was himself stimulated by regular contact with other e

migre

s in the French

capital, urged Trumbic

that `now the psychological moment is favourable for

us, but when people begin to forget the Italian defeat, and if they should have

some success no matter where . . . the situation could be more favourable for

them'.

Trumbic

also felt pressure to act because he could expect no initiative

from the Serbian government-in-exile. Pas

at this time made what Trumbic

considered to be a feeble protest at the Allied speeches, and he also opposed a

suggestion that Serbia convene a `Yugoslav assembly' to proclaim the Corfu

Declaration. Since Pas

was clearly prepared to sacrifice Trumbic

and his fellow

Croats and Serbs as long as Serbia secured Bosnia-Hercegovina as war booty, the

Yugoslav Committee decided to take the lead and seek recognition for their full

Yugoslav cause through agreement with Italy.

Among Italians the Allied speeches encouraged many to feel that the line

advocated by the Corriere della Sera was the best means to victory, since it would

provide sympathy for Italy among the enemy's oppressed peoples and among

Italy's own allies. In late January Orlando himself visited London to seek an

explanation from Lloyd George about the terms of his speech; he was told that

the full Treaty of London could never be implemented even in the case of

180 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

complete victory. Steed and Mola (who continued on behalf of the Italian

military to encourage Steed to intensify an anti-Austrian campaign)

per-

suaded Orlando

to meet Trumbic

. Trumbic

on this occasion emphasized that

the Treaty of London was the only obstacle to Italian±Yugoslav cooperation,

cooperation which would supposedly stir the Slav nationalities into destroying

Austria from within. He came away from the meeting believing correctly that

Orlando was `flexible' [ gibak] and anxious not to hinder an agreement.

In fact

the visit to London had convinced Orlando not that Italy should renounce the

London treaty, but merely that it was expedient for Italy to wear the mask of

`nationality politics' for the purpose of propaganda among the Allies and

against the enemy on the Italian Front. He hinted as much to Steed when he

said that Italy resembled someone who had made a calculation, found that it

did not add up, and was forced to alter the arithmetic: Orlando did not suggest

that the final total would be any different.

Orlando's public `conversion', which through Steed's prompting he

announced at the opening of the Italian Parliament on 12 February,

was

sufficient for those grouped around the Corriere della Sera. For Albertini and

his colleagues, who from January were engaged in a campaign in the news-

paper's columns for Italian cooperation with the Czechs and Yugoslavs, it was

not only vital that Italy should adopt the nationality principle. Even more

urgent perhaps was the publicizing of the new course so that Italy could

claim the leadership of the oppressed peoples of Austria-Hungary. This was

the thinking behind the idea of staging a `Congress of Oppressed Nationalities'

in Rome. The idea originated with G.A. Borgese and matched the lessons he

had learnt from his visit to Switzerland the previous summer. On 10 January,

Borgese had written a memorandum for Albertini in which he proposed that a

congress be held in order to influence President Wilson over the Austrian

question, and also to place Italy `at the head of the Habsburg peoples'.

The

idea was seized upon by Amendola and Albertini and sold to members of the

Fascio della Difesa Nazionale in early February after their grand assembly at

Milan. Although the French in turn had been toying with organizing `leagues'

of the oppressed nationalities in Paris, they were reluctantly persuaded that

Rome should be the setting for the first of a series of congresses.

On 15

February, Albertini proceeded with Orlando's approval to set up an Italian

executive committee, whose purpose was to organize a Rome Congress. Much

to Salvemini's disgust it included nationalist members of the Fascio such as

Barzilai and Di Cesaro

, an indication of Albertini's own more flexible interpreta-

tion of

`nationality politics'.

It was now the Corriere grouping, working

through this committee, which pursued the initiative taken by Steed after

Caporetto. Albertini proposed to send one of the committee, Andrea Torre

(former Rome correspondent of the Corriere), to London to make a `general

agreement' with Trumbic

which would then be proclaimed at the Rome

Italy's Campaign against Austria-Hungary 181

Congress.

The aim of both Albertini and Steed was the same, to maintain the

momentum in order to pursue propaganda which would damage the Habsburg

Empire. As Steed noted, `the matter now most urgent [is] to agree upon general

principles rather than to discuss details'.

Under Steed's auspices the Torre±Trumbic

agreement was finally signed on

7 March. It consisted of two parts. The first made general statements about the

right of the oppressed nationalities to fight `against the common oppressor for

their entire liberation so as to attain complete national unity in free and united

states'. The second applied to relations between Italy and `Jugoslavia', affirming

that the national unity and independence of both countries was a vital interest

to both, and that territorial disputes would be settled on the basis of nation-

ality, self-determination

and `in such a manner as not to infringe vital interests

of the two nations'.

Trumbic

was not fully satisfied with these vague terms

for, in the words of a colleague, he did not `believe in the sincerity of the

Italians in which these naõ

ve English believe'; after all, the Treaty of London

was not renounced, nor was the Corfu Declaration mentioned, nor was the

Italian government officially bound by the agreement since Torre was only

the representative of an ad hoc committee. However, Trumbic

had to weigh

the dangers of obstinacy. He was conscious that agreement would not simply

improve the standing of his Committee; it would also create `a good mood

among the oppressed nations ± especially the South Slavs ± and would have

favourable results in the Austrian ranks on the Italian Front'.

He was only too

aware of Italy's priorities and realized what Torre had managed to secure for

Italy: a general declaration which could be used for propaganda purposes both

at the Rome Congress and in a psychological offensive at the front.

It could

be argued that this Italian±Yugoslav basis was essential if Italy was to

launch an effective campaign against Austria-Hungary with the nationality

principle as the leading argument. In the same way, Austria-Hungary's propa-

ganda campaign

seemed effective in the spring because it was playing on the

reality of Italy's low morale and the apparent strength of the Central Powers on

all fronts. The weakness of the propaganda campaigns came when their argu-

ments diverged

too far from reality. In the Italian case this danger would always

exist because even though Italy's official circles seemed to be embracing the

Yugoslavs, they refused to abandon the Treaty of London; Orlando kept Son-

nino in

office because he himself was trying to keep both irons in the fire. It

remained to be seen if this ambiguous policy would have detrimental effects on

the practice of front propaganda. In fact, what seemed to be evidence of sudden

Italian±Yugoslav solidarity, beginning with the Torre±Trumbic

agreement,

might be sufficient for the purposes of the propagandists who only required

broad and not detailed arguments in their campaign. It was in producing this

framework that Steed had played a major role. He had been instrumental in

bringing `official Italy' into contact with the Yugoslav e

migre

s even if the final

182 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

success had depended as much on Albertini and the Corriere grouping. At the

same time, the British were becoming more directly associated with the idea of

a propaganda offensive because of their creation of a Department of Propa-

ganda in

Enemy Countries. The launch of the EPD did not launch Italy's

campaign since, as we have seen, a certain amount had already been achieved

in that direction by the Italians themselves. Rather, the EPD served as a stimu-

lus to

greater coordination of an existing campaign.

On 13

February Lloyd George had persuaded Lord Northcliffe, the proprietor

of The Times, to accept the post of director of the EPD. The precise origin of the

EPD is not quite clear. Certainly it stemmed in part from Lloyd George's general

reorganization of British propaganda in January 1918, according to which John

Buchan's Department of Information was abolished and replaced by a Ministry

of Information under Lord Beaverbrook.

But the evidence suggests that the

idea of a separate EPD was chiefly a response to what the British perceived as the

Central Powers' `successful' use of front propaganda in late 1917. The key

successes were taken to be the events in Russia and at Caporetto, and these,

together with the disaster of Passchendaele on the Western Front, convinced

many that the enemy needed to be answered in kind. On 16 November North-

cliffe himself,

having returned from heading the British War Mission in the

United States, had published an open letter to Lloyd George in The Times.Init

he discussed one of his favourite themes, the insidious nature of German

propaganda: `we have had the tragedy of Russia, due partly to lack of Allied

propaganda to counteract that of the Germans. We have the tragedy of Italy

largely due to the same enemy propaganda.'

Later, Northcliffe claimed that

he had been asked to become director by those who had `seen the effective

propaganda of Germany among our former Russian and present Italian

Allies'.

By the turn of the year Lloyd George was fully aware of the influence

ascribed to enemy propaganda, for example by British military and diplomatic

representatives in Italy, and may have weighed this factor when trying to find

suitably energetic people to direct British propaganda.

However, the precise idea of a separate EPD may have originated with Sir

William Tyrell of the Foreign Office who thought of it particularly as an

instrument for propagating Allied war aims, such as Wilson's Fourteen Points,

in Europe and thereby weakening the enemy's pervasive influence. Northcliffe

was the logical choice as director because of his clear obsession with the subject,

and perhaps also because Lloyd George wished to muzzle him as a critic of

governmental policy.

It was partly because of this danger that Northcliffe was

rather reluctant to accept. He was undoubtedly attracted, however, by the lure

of running his own independent department, subject only to the Prime Min-

ister, and

was then urged to accept by Steed. Steed clearly saw in the EPD a

means to pursue his own maturing plan of a political offensive against Austria-

Hungary. Having urged the Italians for some months that they should seize the

Italy's Campaign against Austria-Hungary 183

moment, he was now provided with a legitimate platform for his own actions

in the shape of the EPD. Indeed, since Northcliffe was unwell for most of 1918

(though still an interested and influential figurehead), it was to be Steed who

dominated the organization from the start. It enabled him to exert greater

influence on British governmental policy than had been feasible as foreign

editor of The Times, and at the same time it further enhanced his standing

among the Italians. Perhaps the EPD's first triumph in mid-February was in

Italy, where news of its creation was successfully used by Albertini and others to

reinforce their argument for a coordinated propaganda offensive.

In the

previous weeks Steed had repeatedly urged the Italian government to

adjust its policies by proclaiming the nationality principle, thereby seizing the

`moral leadership of the Alliance in Europe'.

With the creation of the EPD

Steed could pressure the British government to move in the same direction.

Although he was undoubtedly sincere in his belief that effective propaganda

needed to be based on clear guidelines which were fully in harmony with gov-

ernmental policy,

he now turned this connection on its head: since the British

were committed to propaganda against the enemy they must clarify their pol-

icy and

commit themselves openly to the destruction of Austria-Hungary. Steed

and Seton-Watson were aware that the government in recent months had

continued to make overtures to Austria about a separate peace, but through

the EPD they moved to sabotage any further contacts.

Northcliffe was easily

persuaded by Steed that Crewe House, where the EPD was to be based, should

concentrate its efforts first upon `smashing Austria-Hungary'. Steed's rather

shaky logic for this was that after the Russian and Italian disasters only Austria's

and not Germany's morale could be seriously damaged. He thereupon drew

up a memorandum for Northcliffe on EPD policy for presentation to the For-

eign Office.

The document

was closely based on a more detailed study by Seton-Watson

and, when sent, it contained a short introduction in which Northcliffe men-

tioned his

own personal concern to publicize in Austria news of American

strength. It then set out two possible but distinct options for British policy.

Option (a) was for the Allies to work for a separate peace with Emperor Karl, a

policy which had been tried and found to be impossible chiefly because of

Germany's influence. Option (b), which the memorandum favoured, was that

the Allies `try to break the power of Austria-Hungary as the weakest link in the

chain of enemy states, by supporting and encouraging all anti-German and

pro-Ally peoples and tendencies'. Since the Foreign Office at this time was still

pursuing links to Vienna ± `anxious that the door remain ajar'

± in replying

to the memorandum on 26 February, the Foreign Secretary observed that the

two policies outlined were not mutually exclusive, since by encouraging the

anti-German elements one would be inducing the Emperor to make a separate

peace and modify the constitution of his empire. The British government, to