The safeguarding of Austria's independence seemed to be one of the declared goals of French and Italian foreign policy in the 1930s. The "Accords de Rome," signed by Benito Mussolini and Pierre Laval on January 7, 1935, included, alongside a particularly interesting arrangement of mutual colonial interests in Africa (Tunisia, Abyssinia) and Europe, the safeguarding of this independence in secret additional protocols that only became known 20 years later.

Using the synoptic analytical method of neorealism, the work demonstrates that any effort to secure the independence of the Austrian state was doomed to fail from the outset due to the differing foreign policy objectives of France and Italy, the increasing strength of Germany, and the yielding stance of England.