With the complete failure of the Austro-Hungarian defense of the border, the lords and factions headed by Emperor Karl I were clearly in a bit panicked.

The Hungarian faction, in particular, was eager to reach an immediate agreement with the Entente to ensure that the Hungarian region would not be occupied and destroyed.

In the face of its own interests, the interests of the empire appear somewhat narrow. In particular, under the premise that Hungary and Austria are already somewhat contradictory, it has become impossible to unite the two regions regardless of their own sacrifices.

Not to mention the contradictions between these two regions before the war, even during the war, the contradictions between Austria and Hungary were not small.

From the topography, it can be seen that Hungary is a very excellent grain producing area because of its Hungarian Great Plain, and it is also an important grain producing area of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Austria is a mountainous region, and the grain output is naturally not comparable to that of Hungary. Therefore, a large part of the grain from Hungary has been transported to Austria to relieve the food shortage of the entire empire.

However, since the outbreak of the war, the price of grain in Hungary has risen rapidly, and the Hungarian capitalists have lavished grain and even refused to sell grain to the government.

Because of the rapid depreciation of the krona, the Hungarian capitalists were no longer willing to exchange the Austro-Hungarian krona for grain, but instead used the stronger value of the pound sterling or gold.

At this time, the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not have enough pounds to trade, and it was impossible to give the kingdom of Hungary its gold reserves, which were important to the country, in exchange for grain.

Because of this, the Royal Hungarian government was ashamed to say that Hungary was also short of food, which in turn required the imperial government to allocate funds to the Hungarian government to buy enough food from the private sector to alleviate the food crisis in Hungary.

Such a statement is simply a bit ridiculous, the empire's largest grain producing area is actually short of grain, isn't this equivalent to a lack of water in the sea and a lack of stones on the land?

The Kingdom of Hungary, which had been specially designed by the Imperial Government to combat hoarding before the war, could not be implemented at all, because the Kingdom of Hungary had its own laws.

Especially after the death of Franz I, Karl I, who was in an economic position, could not obtain the allegiance of the government of the Kingdom of Hungary at all.

The simplest example, the Austro-Hungarian krona was not popular in Hungary, which made almost the whole of Europe laugh at the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The fact that its own currency could not be circulated in its own country also made the Austro-Crarian krona depreciate more rapidly in an instant.

For the people, even the government of the Kingdom of Hungary is reluctant to recognize the value of the krona, doesn't this mean that the value of the krona is not trusted by the government at all?

To make matters worse, the big landlords and big capitalists in Hungary have jointly declared that it is precisely because of the imperial government's previous large-scale grain purchases in Hungary that Hungary is now in a crisis of food shortage and rising food prices.

Although the credibility of the claims of these big capitalists is not high, there are still ordinary people who are willing to believe them.

All of a sudden, the support of the imperial government in Hungary fell sharply, and the Kingdom of Hungary was faintly divided into Austria-Hungary.

On April 21, 1917, Prince Sixtus of Parma asked for a meeting with the French government on behalf of the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Karl I, and conveyed Karl I's desire for peace.

Sixtus stated that Karl I was willing to cede Dalmatia, Bosnia, and Trento in exchange for peace on behalf of the Austro-Hungarian government.

For Karl I, although this would have cost the Eu-Hungarian Empire a large amount of territory, at least it ensured the stability of Austria, Hungary, Galicia, and the Czech Republic, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was still able to maintain its position as a great power.

But the price offered by Austria-Hungary was clearly not agreed to by France, not to mention that France had the entire Entente behind it.

You know, all the conditions offered by Austria-Hungary were under the control of the Entente. This also meant that the Entente could forcibly occupy these lands at any time as long as they wished, and there was no need for Austria-Hungary to cede them.

Sixtus's request was not even conveyed to the Entente conference and was directly rejected by the French government.

Although the surrender of Austria-Hungary was conducive to the victory of the Entente in this war, the defeat of the Central Powers was already inevitable, and both France and the Entente wanted to gain more benefits.

The news of France's rejection of the request for peace talks had just reached Karl I, and before Karl I could get angry and panicked, an even worse bad news came.

After dozens of days of offensives, the Balkan coalition forces were closing in on Slovenia, and the Italian army had captured Innsbruck and was advancing towards Klagenfurt and Graz.

It was clear that even with the help of an overorganized German army group, the Austro-Hungarian front was in a precarious position.

The long hours of fighting had caused the soldiers to lose their fighting spirit, and the problems between the various peoples and states of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had become more and more intense.

For Austria-Hungary, it was impossible to completely withstand the attack of the Italian and Balkan coalition forces.

The Entente army spread from the southwestern border of Austria-Hungary to the southeastern border and even the eastern border, and Austria-Hungary simply did not have enough forces to defend these areas.

What's more, although Russia has not waged a campaign since the civil strife, no one dares to guarantee that the Russians will not fall into the ground at such a critical moment.

Austria-Hungary already had a hatred for Russia, and if the Russians added fuel to the fire, it was very likely that the entire Austro-Hungarian defense line would collapse.

Of the more than 1 million Austro-Hungarian troops, nearly 400,000 were deployed on the border between Galicia and Russia, which is the real reason why Austro-Hungarian had less than 800,000 troops to mobilize.

Even though the southern front was already in jeopardy, the Austro-Hungarian military top brass still had no intention of mobilizing troops on the Russian border.

The imperial government was well aware that the Italians and Balkans only wanted to cut flesh on Austria-Hungary, and the Russians really wanted to take out Austria-Hungary and annex Galicia and Hungary.

If Austria-Hungary could be completely defeated, the Russians would be able to control the entire Balkan Peninsula, exert influence over Constantinople, extend their tentacles to the Mediterranean, and even to the Middle East.

As a result, Austria-Hungary would fall into an abyss from which it would never recover, and it would be impossible for Austria-Hungary to rise again when it was surrounded on several sides by foreign powers.

Even the territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire would be divided among the great powers, as was the case with the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The saddest thing for a country is to be surrounded by several more powerful countries.

Not only will their own development path be cut off, but even their own land area will be divided by others.

At the suggestion of the Chief of the Austro-Átro-Kharenal General Staff, Waldsteden, Karl I signed an order to take a general defense in the Slovenian region, to mobilize the German Army Group and the Austro-Hungarian elite to southern Austria, in an effort to take the lead in the settlement of the Italian army.

In the eyes of Austria-Hungary, the Italian army, though numbered more than 500,000 men, was much larger than the Balkan army, which was divided into two lines.

However, the Italian army lagged far behind the Balkan coalition led by the Australasian army, which also gave the Austro-Hungarian military top brass hope for a quick solution to Italy.

As long as the Italians can be dealt with quickly, and then the Slovenian region can be defended with all its might, although it will not completely change the status quo of Austria-Hungary, it will definitely be much better than the current situation.

This was the last resort for Austria-Hungary, and if it did not change the predicament facing Austria-Hungary, it could only pray that the Germans would be victorious in the spring offensive.

As the clock ticked into May, the Australasian army was closing in on Klagenfurt. But unexpectedly, the Austro-Hungarian army faced along the way was not as effective as before, resulting in the Australasian attack not gaining much resistance.

Although the advance of the forward line was much slower due to the full resistance of Austria-Hungary and the various cities and fortresses, the advance was very smooth.

Just when General Thomas was puzzled, the battle report from the Italian side resolved General Thomas's doubts.

Since the start of the campaign, the Italian army has shown combat effectiveness that does not conform to the image of other countries.

In fact, this was also due to the fact that the Austro-Hungarian army that the Italian army faced was either a group of recruits or an army composed of multi-ethnic armies.

The combat effectiveness of this army was still much weaker than that of the elite armies faced by the Balkan coalition, which is why the Italian army attacked so quickly.

But as the clock ticked into May, the Italian army was immediately attacked by the German Army Group and the elite Austro-Hungarian army.

As soon as they encountered the elite troops of the Central Powers, the Italian army immediately showed real combat effectiveness, and was beaten by the Central Army to the point that it lost its armor, and even returned Innsbruck, which had been captured with great difficulty.

Seeing that Trento was at risk of being captured, Italy suddenly couldn't sit still, and asked Australasia in the Balkans to speed up the attack, and at the same time asked Australasia if it could send reinforcements to help Italy.

To the request of the Italians, General Thomas, naturally, refused. Australasia had a small army, and he had no intention of sending troops to the Italians as cannon fodder.

What's more, Australasia could not gain any benefit from the land captured for the Italians, and this kind of thing would only increase casualties for himself, which Arthur had repeatedly told to avoid before General Thomas set out.

In any case, the Australasian Expeditionary Force has independent command, and no country, including Britain and France, has the right to forcibly mobilize the Australasian Expeditionary Force.

Although Hungary moved its elite troops to the front line with Italy, General Thomas's original plan to join the Italians in Klagenfurt fell through.

But this is also a good thing for General Thomas. Because of the elite of the Italians to contain Austria-Hungary, the Australasian army could safely attack Austria-Hungary, and only needed to reconnoiter the land west of Klagenfurt to avoid outflanking the elite troops of Austria-Hungary.

In this way, the Italians would not only have to bear the responsibility of the Austro-Hungarian elite troops, but also the credit for the capture of Austro-Hungarian territory would also fall into the hands of the Australian army.

This kind of good thing of letting others get hurt and getting credit for himself, General Thomas will naturally not let go.

Throwing the Italian player telegram in the trash, General Thomas immediately ordered his army to immediately go north to surround Klagenfurt in an effort to capture the Austrian town as soon as possible.

To the northeast of Klagenfurt is another important town called Graz, which is not far from each other and is an important fortress in southern Austria.

If Austria-Hungary lost these two cities, the journey to Vienna would be smooth, and the capital of the Austrian Empire would be wide open, waiting for hundreds of thousands of Balkan troops.

It has to be said that Austria-Hungary made a risky move. If they can beat the Italians in a short period of time and get back to defend Klagenfurt and Graz, this is a perfect strategic plan.

If it was dragged for a period of time by the Italians, resulting in the capture of Klagenfurt and Graz, it would be a devastating blow to Austria-Hungary.

3400 words for the second update, ask for a monthly pass, ask for support!

(End of chapter)