The Monarchy’s Allies: Aggressive Berlin, Dubious Rome, Uncertain Bucharest

Abstract

In 1867 Count Julius Andrassy, as a leading Magyar, negotiated the Ausgleich. Twelve years later, as foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, Andrassy signed a secret, five-year alliance with Otto von Bismarck. Together the Ausgleich and Dual Alliance defined the parameters of Habsburg domestic and foreign policies from 1879 until the monarchy’s collapse in November 1918. The impact of the Compromise on the conduct of Habsburg foreign and strategic policies has already been examined. An analysis of the monarchy’s place in the international system is now necessary, focusing in this chapter upon the Triple Alliance and in the next the Triple Entente and Vienna’s probable enemies.