Page - 501 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Easter Demands 501 (Deutscher Nationalverband) in 1916. In March 1916, the National League wrote a memorandum entitled ‘The Position of the German National League Regarding the New Order of Matters in Austria’.1182 It stipulated the following basic principles : 1. The alliance with Germany is essential. Germany and Austria-Hungary are depend- ent on each other. Therefore, the alliance must be developed and efforts made to se- cure it in the state constitution, while maintaining Austria-Hungary’s independence. 2. The alliance should retain its stability through the economic approximation of both empires. The economic area created in this manner shall be expanded through the inclusion of other Central European states. 3. In Austria, a change to the constitution is required, which shall reduce the domestic conflicts to an unavoidable minimum scale, if not entirely eliminate them. 4. The mutual relationship between the two halves of the Empire should remain unal- tered in principle ; however, in the economic sphere, the duration of the agreements should be specified as 25 years. 5. The Monarchy must shed the Slav dominance, for which reason Galicia must be separated from the close state association. 6. Following implementation of the necessary changes to the constitution, the Reichs- rat (Imperial Assembly) should resume its duties immediately. 7. The domestic language for official authorities and communications is German, and the language used in trials before the supreme courts is also German. All state au- thorities are to receive submissions in the German language. Where another lan- guage is the common regional language, written or verbal attachments may also be produced in the common language of the region. 8. The language of instruction in primary schools in German areas is German. In the mixed language areas, the communal authorities shall decide the language of tuition. If there are at least 40 children with an average age of five in a community whose mother tongue is different to that of the language of tuition, a primary school with the relevant language of tuition is to be established at the request of the parents. 9. Care should be taken that administrative areas are created that have a uniform lan- guage. This applies to Bohemia in particular. In this memorandum, similar lines of thought were expressed that had been heard in the Central Europe movement, as well as in the opinions voiced by the Army High Command and the Command of the South-Western Front on reforms to domestic policy. For the radical German parties, however, this was not enough. In the ‘Easter Demands’ of Easter Sunday, 23 April 1916, they set their aims down on paper and, in so doing, expressed even more unequivocally that in Austria, only the Germans should in fact be fully entitled citizens ‘and that with regard to the needs of this state nation,