A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918

by G.J. Meyer

The intrigues were endless. In Vienna the desperate Conrad and Berchtold came up with a scheme for getting Italy to mediate a general eastern settlement. Italy’s reward would be the South Tyrol, part of Austria-Hungary’s Alpine domain. Russia would be won over with offers of part of Galicia, Constantinople, and the whole chain of waterways from the Dardanelles to the Black Sea. That these plans would have been a flagrant betrayal of the Turks and likely would have been seen as a betrayal of the Germans as well appears to have been of no concern to either Conrad or Berchtold. Emperor Franz Joseph, when he learned of the idea, dismissed Berchtold. Thus the man most responsible for the war departed the stage before the conflict was a year old.