Page - 602 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

602 The Nameless interests in all occurrences in Austria, it is not surprising that ultimately political and military advisors of the German imperial government also voiced their suggestions for the reorganisation of Austria. The fact that they went so far as to propose that the old Emperor be persuaded to abdicate and that the heir to the throne be installed in his place and enlisted for the realisation of German desires for a reconfiguration of Austria, was just one facet of this constellation. The idea was then not simply dropped but instead its feasibility was systematically examined. The German Supreme Army Command sent the aforementioned Lieutenant Colonel von Stoltzenberg to the Army Group Archduke Karl.1386 Stoltzenberg was ostensibly supposed to smooth out any tensions between the Senior Chief of Staff of the Army Group, General von Seeckt, and the heir to the throne. In fact, he was assigned the role of informant. This was also the reason why Conrad von Hötzdendorf felt the need to expressly warn the heir to the throne against Stoltzenberg.1387 The latter had already sent a position paper to Luden- dorff in September, in which he unmistakeably formulated : if Austria should believe that it ‘cannot manage [its tasks in the war] alone, as a result of the blood sacrifices we have already made for its preservation we have acquired not only the right but also the duty to interfere not only in an advisory capacity in its operations and organisations but also in its politics as the currently inseparable basis of its military. This is all the more so the case if, as everything indicates, it is expected that we take the initiative for all things.’ The very vague formulation of ‘all things’ that were ‘expected’ did not relate to con- crete German intentions or even to deliberations, but rather to Austrian ones, and probably primarily to the thinking of the Chief of Staff of the Imperial and Royal 2nd Army, Baron Carl von Bardolff. Brigadier Bardolff, until 1914 Chief of the Mili- tary Chancellery of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, had drawn up ‘Guidelines for Future Austrian Policies’, and it can be assumed that Stoltzenberg’s suggestions formed the basis of this position paper. Stoltzenberg regarded this as the implementation of an  – alleged  – political testament of the murdered heir to the throne. Bardolff had not only made people sit up and take notice with this document, but probably even more so with his proposals for the conclusion of a military convention between Austria-Hungary and Germany.1388 Conrad von Hötzendorf was also well-disposed towards the conclu- sion of a military convention, though he pointed to the lack of political prerequisites for such an agreement. And the heir to the throne Archduke Karl was repeatedly the subject of discussion. Berlin consistently continued to take the course of honing the heir to the throne as a political force and winning him over for Germany. The prerequisites were also conceivably favourable, since it was noticeable how Archduke Karl in Vienna was kept away from the political decisions and how it was attempted to relegate him to military matters. There, however, at least in the Army High Command, he had not encountered more than the bare minimum of respect and played an imaginably peculiar role in the