Page - 150 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

150 Unleashing the War for war. Soon, distrust on the part of one individual against another arose regarding whether they had gone to war equally willingly for God, Emperor and fatherland or whether it was just for show. The emergency regulations were only announced to the senior military and admin- istrative organs, and secretly, in an ‘Orientation Aid on Emergency Regulations in the Event of War for the Kingdoms and Countries represented in the Imperial Assembly’ and in a parallel action in Hungary. The ‘Orientation Aid’ already envisaged the crea- tion of a new central authority, the ‘War Surveillance Office’ (Kriegsüberwachungsamt). This was established as the executive authority for handling the emergency regulations in the Imperial and Royal War Ministry and had the task of disabling everything that could have negative repercussions for the front and the armed forces in a time of war by means of permanent surveillance of life in the hinterland. The authority assumed its duties one day before the official declaration of war on Serbia. The rules for implementing the ‘Orientation Aid on Emergency Regulations’ cited in detail the objects that should be recorded by this complete  – or at least that was the aim  – militarisation of daily life. The emergency regulations would be restricted in time, however, and were further- more bound by the agreement of the Common Ministry and the approval of the Em- peror. But for Austria the emergency situation became permanent. This can be explained by the actual ungovernability of Cisleithania. In Vienna, there were at least reflections during the July Crisis on permitting the Reichsrat (Imperial Assembly) to meet again. However, the German parties were strictly against this and even the cabinet of State Governor Stürgkh feared that the non-German parliamentarians would engage in an unprecedented level of obstructionism during a war against Serbia and Russia. The fear of anti-war rallies or demonstrations could not be dismissed. It was also to be assumed that all Slavophiles would see in the war against the Tsarist Empire an attack on their own ideals. What of the southern Slavs ? Would they be prepared to march against Serbia and Montenegro ? And what of the Czechs and the Ruthenians ? Would they want to wage war against Russia ? Now, one could of course expect that the military structure and the might of any military should be sufficient to maintain discipline and enforce orders. Elected deputies in regional diets, the Reichsrat or the Reichstag, however, would by no means be brought to heel so easily. If necessary, they could be de- prived of their forum  – or arrested. The decision not to convene the Austrian parliament was thus justifiable. In retrospect, however, it must be seriously doubted whether there would have been open resistance. The example of a functioning parliamentarianism in the Hungarian half of the Empire could be cited as counterevidence. Ultimately, it was established that the decision not to convene the Austrian parliament had a devastating impact, as it was understood from this that the government had no faith in the peoples of the Empire.356 ‘With this’, as Redlich wrote after the war, ‘the imperial government