Page 289 - Il 1919. Un’Italia vittoriosa e provata in un’Europa in trasformazione. Problematiche e prospettive - Atti 11-12 novembre 2019

IV Sessione - L’Italia a Versailles. Aspetti di politica internazionale 287

the armed forces and therefore was rejected by Deutsch. In general, none of the
three parties seemed to prioritise the quick military reinvigoration of German-
Austria, especially after declaring oneself a part of the German Empire and
thereby a contingent of a larger German army which had to be taken more seri-
ously. While the plan in Vienna was that of using a strategy of becoming a “free-
loader” in terms of defence policy, not least for financial reasons, a significant
Austrian military contribution to a new German army was seen in Berlin as an
effective way of regaining military strength. The advanced negotiations came to
an abrupt ending by the clauses of Versailles and forced the government in Vi-
enna to deal with the problem of an independent military after all. Afterwards,
economic issues became paramount, by either significantly reinforcing the gen-
darmerie as a temporary solution to employ out-of-work Imperial and Royal mil-
itary personnel (Christian Social Party) or by creating a militia army after the Swiss
model. However, the Treaty of Saint Germain dictated the creation of a profes-
sional army with enlisted soldiers, the most expensive solution, which led to the
situation that the allowed maximum number of 30,000 soldiers was only reached
in 1935. If the high cost and issue of a civic financial return of the armed forces
can be asserted as a significant factor or simply their availability cannot be made
entirely clear, however, the number of assistance operations during natural dis-
asters and major emergencies by the future Bundesheer began to rise sharply. In
the years after 1920, it was an average of 40 per year and in 1928 a total of 80
assistance operations were requested from the Bundesheer, in addition to “charita-
ble work” for large building projects. However, there was a stark contrast between
disaster relief efforts quite popular with the population and security policy assis-
tance operations. The military presence in an internal political context was anal-
ogous to the rise of the political paramilitary formations at the end of the 1920s.
Nevertheless, the deployment of the armed forces always was subjected to the
primacy of politics and there never was an autonomous interference with interior
politics, which the army even was retroactively reproached for after the riots of
42
July 1927. On the other hand, the Bundesheer clearly showed its power potential
during the events of October 1928 in Wiener Neustadt and the “Pfrimer coup”
in September 1931. After the National Socialists had come to power in Germany
and the transition of Austria from republic to a dictatorship, the Bundesheer was

42 Zettel, Assistenzeinsätze, p. 334