Page - 122 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

122 Unleashing the War the Emperor. After all, he had defended his own prerogatives tooth and nail, especially in the military realm. He regarded himself as ruler by the grace of God and considered it a matter of course that every civil servant and, above all, every soldier swore a personal oath of loyalty to him : ‘I swear by God the Almighty […].’ Could it be mentioned in defence of the Emperor’s absence from the Council of Ministers on 7 July that he had not expected decisive resolutions ? Did he assume that he would in any case be informed on time and asked for his consent ? Perhaps he first had to reach a state of peace with himself. Ultimately, all these considerations can be discarded. The fact that a lot was at stake on 7 July 1914 was beyond dispute, and, as subsequent months would demonstrate, it was not Franz Joseph’s consistent intention to remain absent from the sessions of the Joint Council of Ministers, for he indeed later  – admittedly only occasionally  – attended such sessions. Even the argument that matters were discussed that had already been decided on, for example the question of a swift end to the war, is redundant because such a thing was never mentioned during a session of the Joint Council of Ministers during the war years of Franz Joseph, and the Emperor and King attended sessions at which far less important things were discussed but still possessed the character of Privy Council meetings. It can thus only be con- cluded that the old Emperor assumed that everything that was important had already been said. The joint Finance Minister, Biliński, was also certain that the Emperor had made a definite decision to go to war on the day before his departure for Bad Ischl. But the dice had already been rolled earlier. And the consequences were clear. The Emperor had demonstrated his will and assumed that actions would be taken accordingly. So he was free to leave Vienna. His absence was also designed to signalise that the Monarch was ready to defer personal considerations and rely on the judgement and the deci- sions of the most important representatives of his Empire. The latter was very much in fitting with a long-established practice, for Franz Joseph had adopted it as his basic principle to trust people to whom he had given responsibility and to let them bear this responsibility. Furthermore, he had contented himself for a long time with simply being informed. Another idiosyncrasy had evolved : Franz Joseph evidently shied away from conferences or even consultations that were attended by several people. The Austrian and Hungarian prime ministers were never simultaneously called to see the Emperor, even where important questions relating to the Compromise were concerned or when the consonance of political, legislative, social or other measures in the two halves of the Empire had to be ensured. Even that might have been a vestige of an absolutist notion of government ; modern and, above all, in keeping with the unprecedented situation in July 1914 it certainly was not. In Bad Ischl, away from the daily routine and yet with an only temporary link to the actual power centre in Vienna, the Emperor received reports. There he learnt of the proceedings of the Joint Council of Ministers on 7 July and received the memorandum