Mein Kampf
Monarchy in 1914 than have offered help to Germany.
Very few people at that time realized how great were the dangers and added difficulties which the alliance with the Danube Monarchy involved.
In the first place Austria had too many enemies who hoped to inherit the decaying State; in the course of time Germany was bound to be exposed to some hatred as the obstacle to the universally longed-for dismemberment of the Monarchy. People came to the conclusion that in the end Vienna could be reached only by way of Berlin.
In the second place, Germany thus, lost its best and most promising possibilities of alliance. In their stead came ever-increasing tension with Russia and even with Italy. The general temper particularly in Rome, toward Germany was as friendly as that toward Austria, slumbering in the heart of every last Italian, and often even blazing high, was hostile.
Since the commercial and industrial policy had been chosen once and for all, there was no longer even the slightest reason for a struggle with Russia. Only the enemies of both nations could have any real interest in it. And in fact it was chiefly Jews and Marxists who used every means to stir up a war between the two states.
Thirdly and lastly the Alliance concealed one enormous threat to Germany: any great power hostile to Bismarck’s Empire could easily mobilize a whole string of states against Germany because enrichment at the expense of the Austrian ally could be promised to each one.
All of Eastern Europe, especially Russia and Italy, could be raised in uproar against the Danube Monarchy. The world coalition begun by King Edward would never have come into being if Austria as Germany’s ally had not been an irresistibly tempting legacy. Only thus was it possible to unite in a single attacking front states with such otherwise heterogeneous wishes and goals. In a general advance against Germany everyone could hope to enrich himself at the expense of Austria. The peril was increased to the extreme because Turkey also seemed to belong
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