The Great War: Difference between revisions

Meanwhile, at the beginning of the 20th century, the threat of Russian and British influence over Europe loomed. The [[Venice#Invasion%20of%20the%20Papal%20Adriatic%20(1908)%2C%20and%20the%20Alps%20against%20Austria%20(1911-1912)|Venetian invasion of the Papal Adriatic in 1908]], sponsored by the British, outraged France and Austria. They saw this as another act of Venetian and, by extension, British aggression. Both France and Austria issued diplomatic protests against the British, demanding the return of papal holdings occupied by Venice, but nothing came out of it. Rising diplomatic tensions eventually led to the Alps War in 1911, when Austria declared war on Venice. Austria called on the French to join the war, but France refused due to the communard government's instability at the time. The war ended in status quo ante bellum, and Austria was forced to recognize Venice's acquisition of territory in the Marche. This fueled even greater French and Austrian resentment against Britain.

The neostabilists of Austria saw Faramundism, or the ideology of German unification, as a threat to Austrian hegemony in Central Europe. As such, Emmerich Stefanov worked on suppressing any German nationalism inside and on the peripheries of the Austrian Empire. By the 1920s, the neostabilists began to grow concerned about the affairs in the Kingdom of Saxony, where Faramundism and other ideologies deemed by the Austrians as radical (such as National-Republicanism) were allowed to flourish freely. A British intelligence report in early 1935 reported a military presence building upon the Austrian-Saxon border. As such, the British were on high alert but wanted to avoid resorting to military intervention at all costs should an Austrian-Saxon conflict happen.