They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [98]
And so it went on. Parallel to every event of world importance was some manifestation of purely parochial interest in Budapest; and when the Agadir incident was closed and the revolt in Albania came to a temporary halt, then other sinister happenings disturbed the peace of Europe, many of them close to the borders of Hungary, matters so dangerous and so close to home that one would have thought someone in Budapest would have noticed.
The next move was once again in the Balkans, close to the Hungarian border.
The Franco-German agreement was signed on September 28th. Two days earlier two Italian fleets sailed from Syracuse, one to conquer Tripoli, the other to attack the Turkish empire.
Both of these moves were unexpected and came as a surprise to Vienna as to Berlin. It had been long recognized that France had agreed to Tripoli being in Italy’s sphere of influence, even after that country had seized upon Tunis; but no one had thought of it as being anything more than a sop to Italian sensibilities, a sort of consolation-plaster to be applied to the Italian public’s wounded heart, and of little importance as there were so few Italians living in that part of North Africa. And indeed few people had given it a thought for some time past.
Now, all of a sudden, Rome remembered she was short of colonies and declared war on the Sublime Porte. Of course, when Germany had seen fit to ignore the international agreements settled at Algeciras and took her own individual line at Agadir, a proceeding whose negotiated settlement effectively closed the old open-door to Morocco, she did irreparable harm to Italy’s trading interests. At much the same time Aehrenthal’s sudden announcement of the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina had encouraged Italy to enter, even if somewhat belatedly, the European powers’ race to acquire colonies. And this she did, independently of her allies and, as Austria had done with Bosnia in 1908, keeping her intentions secret until the last minute. Once again those international agreements, on which the peace of Europe had so long depended, were ignored.
This had happened in October, but despite the inevitable international repercussions, in Budapest no one seemed to notice and in public life nothing was changed. Political argument and obstruction went on as before, with the political leaders all claiming to be acting in the nation’s best interests. Public opinion remained unawakened to the implications of what was happening abroad; and though Apponyi asked the House to consider what would happen if the Turko-Italian conflict spread to the Balkans, in the very same session all that seemed to interest Mihaly Karolyi, one of the leading opponents of the government, was the possibility of obtaining cheap meat from the Argentine.
The Speaker, Berzeviczy, tried to arrange a meeting between the government and the opposition in the Karolyi palace … but only three ministers turned up, and the negotiations and the obstruction continued for a whole month until Berzeviczy resigned. There was then a short truce so that the Budget could be passed, during which time matters of defence were put on the shelf until, three weeks later, they were brought up again only to be the object of renewed obstruction.
By this time it had become obvious that the ‘Entente cordiale’ – Britain, France and Russia – which had brought Germany to her knees over the Moroccan question, would present a solid front whatever happened and that Italy’s war in Tripolitania was being backed by Britain