ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the foreign policy of the Schuschnigg government, which was part of a more expansive strategy designed to prevent the conquest of Austria by Nazi Germany. Schuschnigg rejected attempts by Mussolini to conclude a bilateral pact of joint military assistance between Italy and Austria, which, only at some later date, could have been opened to British, French, and German participation. In the wake of Austria's failure at Geneva that September, however, both the French and Italian governments recognized that the Austrian state did indeed require an effective guarantee in order to be protected from the Reich. The Military Accords dealt exclusively with mutual Franco-Italian military assistance in case of a German attack on either country and with the defense of Austria by French and Italian troops. Italian civil and military authorities followed up these assurances by collaborating with the Austrians militarily.
