The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922

by Edmond Taylor

In October seven German divisions were sent to reinforce the Austrians on the Isonzo front. It was felt in Berlin that a spectacular victory would be the best cure for Austrian despondency. The rout of the hated Italians at Caporetto — the background for one of the dramatic episodes in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms — did help to raise Austrian morale, but it also tied Vienna more firmly to Berlin’s apron strings. When in October the German government proclaimed, “Germany will never, no never, make any concessions on the subject of the Alsace-Lorraine,” Austria’s Foreign Minister, Count Czernin, echoed obediently, “We fight for Alsace-Lorraine just as the Germans fight for Trieste.”