Page - 433 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Army High Command and Domestic Policy 433 resentatives used their influence ‘without any understanding for the gravity of our times’ in order to stir up the people against the authorities and to refuse to give the army ‘the dutiful support that is now so urgently needed’.1032 In this affair, as well as others, no attempt at differentiation was any longer made on the part of the military, nor by the civilian representatives ; instead, a show of solidarity was made. This was also discov- ered by the State Governor of Tyrol, Baron Theodor von Kathrein, who approached the Commander of the Tyrolean National Defence with demands for an improvement of the position of the Standschützen (members of rifle companies) and was then rep- rimanded not only by General Dankl but also by Archduke Eugen. After Dankl had given Kathrein a dressing down, the latter turned at the beginning of November 1915 to the Archduke and wrote : ‘When the commander threatens to intervene with the harshest means, we are not afraid. He can imprison me or, if he thinks fit, have me shot […].’ Archduke Eugen replied to him that it was inadmissible ‘that third parties, who rely on ‘unauthorised’ information, interfere between the responsible superiors and subordinates, seeking to bring about by way of theories a supposedly urgently necessary improvement’.1033 General Archduke Eugen and General Dankl ‘firmly closed ranks’. Very far-reaching proposals on state, administrative and school reform, which were based on an irredentist study from autumn 1915, emanated from the Command of the South-Western Front. When the command of Archduke Eugen sent the first such po- sition paper, it happened without the knowledge of the Army High Command, which promptly reacted with the strict order for all domestic political reports, applications and studies to be sent exclusively via the Army High Command.1034 It should be prevented under all circumstances that the Command of the South-Western Front become inde- pendent. However, it was only the attempt to intervene in domestic politics that was rebuked by the Army High Command. It was absolutely in agreement with the pro- posals made by the Command of the South-Western Front, and indeed subsequently added to them and combined them with applications of the Army High Command, which had in some cases been submitted earlier. Thus, already at the end of 1914, the senior commands had called for ‘wartime experiences’ that were not limited to military observations but should instead comment on all sorts of issues. The Commander of the Imperial and Royal XII Corps, Major General von Kövess, for example, felt impelled to make suggestions on the correct national education and a change in the national school system.1035 From July 1915 to August 1916, the Army Command did indeed address the reorganisation of the school system. All schools, above all primary schools, were to be nationalised and all teachers were to become state officials. The teaching staff was to be purged of unreliable teachers, teacher training reformed, the social class of the teachers raised, and finally the German language intensively cultivated. The ap- plications were approved in principle by the Imperial-Royal Minister of Education Max Hussarek-Heinlein, the Imperial-Royal Interior Minister Karl von Heinold and