Page - 429 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Army High Command and Domestic Policy 429 The cycle of emergencies with which the Army High Command sought to expand its influence on domestic policy began on 26 November 1914, when the Army High Command asked the Prime Minister to combat with all the power of the state the ‘treasonous activities’ in the Sudetenland, which had already had repercussions for the armed forces.1022 It was furthermore requested that the authority of the civilian state government be transferred to the Army High Command and the military jurisdic- tion extended to the entire Sudetenland. All requests were rejected by Count Stürgkh. Before he had even sent his response, the Army High Command applied for the ap- pointment of a general equipped with exceptional powers as governor of Silesia. The application was submitted to the Emperor. The justification for this, namely that the reliability of the replacement personnel and the limited dependability of the Czech regiments could only in this way be increased, did not make a great deal of sense, for why should a soldier be more reliable just because he was subordinated to unrestricted military discipline until his departure for the front ? The dispute continued in January and February, though the Army High Command was told that the data procured by the War Surveillance Office on the limited reliability of the Czechs in Bohemia and the incidents there partially did not correspond to the facts.1023 In March 1915, the question of the relief of the Governor of Bohemia, Count Franz Thun-Hohenstein, was once more updated, but the resignation of Thun and the appointment of the present Governor of Silesia, Count Max Coudenhove, took the wind out of the sails of the Army High Command. The calm admittedly only lasted until mid-May. It was then made clear that the Army High Command was also dissatisfied with Coudenhove. It renewed its application for the appointment of a general. In doing so, it not only argued with incidents from the past, but also demanded immediate action in view of the entry of Italy into the war. ‘The limitations and benefits caused by the war’, wrote Conrad, ‘can lead the unpatriotic populace, incited by unscrupulous agitators, to the most dan- gerous actions, all the more so since the state authority facing it has provided signs of the most regrettable weakness and the few remaining troops are in no way sufficient for a rebellion to be hopeless from the outset.’1024 On 21 May, Conrad wrote to Bolfras of an impending revolution in Bohemia,1025 and on the same day, without the knowledge of the government in Vienna, he had the Young Czech deputy Karel Kramář and the President of the Bohemian Gymnastics Organisa- tions, the Sokols, Josef Scheiner, arrested. Kramář was accused of high treason, because he had been in contact with the Italian consul in Prague. The Emperor was apparently angry at the step taken by the Army High Command, but was unable to do anything without diminishing his own standing and reducing his power. Stürgkh, on the other hand, was stunned. Not only that ; he was in fact directly affected, since he was linked to Kramář by an almost amicable relationship. By striking at Kramář, the Army High Command had also struck at Stürgkh. Nonetheless, further developments corresponded