Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy conclude the Triple Alliance

On 20 May 1882 in Vienna the Austro-Hungarian foreign minister, Count Gustav Kálnoky, the German ambassador, Prince Henry VII Reuss, and the Italian ambassador, Count Carlo Felice Nicolis di Robilant, signed a secret treaty that came to be called the Triple Alliance. The isolated Kingdom of Italy thereby bound itself to the two empires that had been joined since 1879 by the Dual Alliance. The alliance was to last five years; it survived for more than thirty.

Tunisia and the journey to Vienna

It was France that drove the Italians into the alliance. In the spring of 1881 a French corps marched into Tunisia, on which Rome had designs of its own, and on 12 May the Bey signed an agreement that in practice placed the country under a French protectorate. Bismarck had encouraged the French in this expedition, hoping that, busy with colonies, they would forget the lost Alsace and Lorraine. The Italians sought support in vain in London, Constantinople, Vienna and Berlin. The Tunisian affair showed them how little they counted without allies.

From 27 to 31 October 1881 King Umberto I, with the Prime Minister, Agostino Depretis (PL), and the Foreign Minister, Pasquale Stanislao Mancini, was the guest of Emperor Franz Joseph I in Vienna. The visit was a demonstration of reconciliation with a former enemy against whom the Italians had fought for their unification. Negotiations began in the winter. The Italians wanted their allies to guarantee them possession of Rome, taken from the Pope in 1870, and to back their plans in North Africa. Vienna rejected both demands. Bismarck pressed for a quick conclusion, because he did not count on Italian help; he only wanted to be sure that Italy would not side with his enemies. He later said that he would be satisfied if, in a war, “one Italian corporal with the Italian flag and a drummer at his side” took the field on the western front against France rather than on the eastern front against Austria.

What the treaty promised

The preamble spoke of the desire to strengthen peace and “the social and political order” in the three monarchies, and of the treaty’s “essentially conservative and defensive” nature. The parties promised one another peace and friendship, and undertook not to enter into any alliance directed against any one of them. The key clause was Article II: if Italy, “without direct provocation on her part”, were attacked by France, Germany and Austria-Hungary would come to its aid with all their forces. Italy assumed the same obligation towards Germany, but not towards Austria-Hungary. If any of the parties were attacked by two or more Great Powers outside the alliance, it was owed help by all. Should a single power threaten one of the allies and the latter be forced into war, the others promised benevolent neutrality and reserved the right to join the fighting.

It followed from the terms that if Russia alone attacked Austria-Hungary, Italy would merely remain neutral. The duty to help Austria against Russia rested solely on Germany, under the treaty of 1879, of which the Italians knew nothing. The treaty was concluded for five years from the exchange of ratifications, which took place on 30 May. The parties promised to keep secret its contents and even its existence.

At the request of the Italians, whose long coastline was particularly exposed to attack from the sea, and therefore to British hostility, the allies also exchanged declarations that the treaty was “in no case” directed against England. Mancini signed the Italian declaration on 22 May, and Vienna and Berlin made identical ones on 28 May.

Afterwards

The Triple Alliance was renewed in 1887, 1891, 1902 and 1912. In 1883 Romania became linked to it through a treaty with Austria-Hungary. At the first renewal the Italians won promises of support for their interests in the Balkans and North Africa, but as early as 1896 they made it known that they would not take part in a war in which France and Great Britain together were the alliance’s opponents. In the summer of 1914 Rome held that the defensive alliance did not oblige it to join the war, and declared neutrality.