Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

Here again there were only two possibilities: either we were in a pact with the Habsburg
monarchy or we had to lodge protest against the repression of Germanism. But once a power
embarks on this kind of undertaking, it usually ends in open struggle.
Even psychologically the value of the Triple Alliance was small, since the stability of an
alliance increases in proportion as the individual contracting parties can hope to achieve
definite and tangible expansive aims. And, conversely, it will be the weaker the more it limits
itself to the preservation of an existing condition. Here, as everywhere else, strength lies not
in defense but in attack.
Even then this was recognized in various quarters, unfortunately not by the so-called
'authorities.' Particularly Ludendorff, then a colonel and officer in the great general staff,
pointed to these weaknesses in a memorial written in 1912. Of course, none of the
'statesmen' attached any value or significance to the matter; for clear common sense is
expected to manifest itself expediently only in common mortals, but may on principle remain
absent where 'diplomats' are concenned.
For Germany it was sheer good fortune that in 1914 the war broke out indirectly through
Austria, so that the Habsburgs were forced to take part; for if it had happened the other way
around Germany would have been alone. Never would the Habsburg state have been able, let
alone willing, to take part in a confiict which would have arisen through Germany. What we
later so condemned in Italy would then have happened even earlier with Austria: they would
have remained 'neutral' in order at least to save the state from a revolution at the very start.
Austrian Slavdom would rather have shattered the monarchy even in 1914 than permit aid to
Germany.
How great were the dangers and difficulties entailed by the alliance with the Danubian
monarchy, only very few realized a' that time.
In the first place, Austria possessed too many enemies who were planning to grab what they
could from the rotten state to prevent a certain hatred from arising in the course of time
against Germany, in whom they saw the cause of preventing the generally hoped and longedfor
collapse of the monarchy. They came to the conviction that Vienna could finally be
reached only by a detour through Berlin.
In the second place, Germany thus lost her best and most hopeful possibilities of alliance.
They were replaced by an evermounting tension with Russia and even Italy. For in Rome the
general mood was just as pro-German as it was antiAustrian, slumbering in the heart of the
very last Italian and often brightly flanng up.
Now, since we had thrown ourselves into a policy of commerce and industry, there was no
longer the slightest ground for war against Russia either. Only the enemies of both nations
could still have an active interest in it. And actually these were primarily the Jews and the
Marxists, who, with every means, incited and agitated for war between the two states.
Thirdly and lastly, this alliance inevitably involved an infinite peril for Germany, because a
great power actually hostile to Bismarck's Reich could at any time easily succeed in
mobilizing a whole series of states against Germany, since it was in a position to promise
each of them enrichment at the expense of our Austrian ally.
The whole East of Europe could be stirred up against the Danubian monarchy-particularly
Russia and Italy. Never would the world coalition which had been forming since the initiating
efforts of King Edward have come into existence if Austria as Germany's ally had not
represented too tempting a legacy. This alone made it possible to bring states with otherwise
so heterogeneous desires and aims into a single offensive front. Each one could hope that in
case of a general action against Germany it, too, would achieve enrichment at Austria's
expense. The danger was enormously increased by the fact that Turkey seemed to be a silent
partner in this unfortunate alliance.
International Jewish world finance needed these lures to enable it to carry out its longdesired
plan for destroying the Germany which thus far did not submit to its widespread