Page - 606 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

606 The Death of the Old Emperor It was one of many political murders. It was certainly not the most far-reaching in its consequences, and yet it was prominent, and if one leaves aside for a moment the mo- tives of the assassin and the question as to whether it was the mental illness that was rampant in his family or indeed political motives that had led to the assassination, then the following should be noted : Stürgkh was not killed by a member of a non-German nationality, but rather by a German Austrian. Admittedly, the killer felt obligated to internationalism and not Germanism. The attitude of the Social Democrat movement, its partial agreement to the plans for Central Europe, the isolation of the left and the political truce, not least on the part of his father, had caused him to reach for the revolver.1398 Finally, with this murder, Adler had not only become a tool of his own convictions but also a tool of the Army High Command, the German Supreme Army Command, the upper house of the Reichsrat and the heir to the throne. And this had been very far from his intention. As the Saxon envoy in Vienna, Count Rudolph Karl Rex, had written in a secret report for King Friedrich August III roughly a year before Stürgkh’s murder : ‘In our imperial German interests, an overthrow of Prime Minister Count Stürgkh could only be met with joy, since he is decidedly a stumbling block for Germanism in Austria.’1399 What the German ambassador in Vienna, von Tschirschky, ultimately said at Stürgkh’s coffin was then simply called a ‘sermon’ and not an obit- uary.1400 According to the most widespread tone, the deed should be condemned and the dead person shown respect ; straight afterwards, however, his political errors and failures were recited. Even if the murder of Count Stürgkh can certainly not be characterised as a run-of- the-mill death, at a time when death occurred daily not only by the dozen but thou- sand-fold, alongside the horror over the fact of Stürgkh’s murder it could be discerned from the vast majority of reactions that the death did not go very deep. It merely seemed that an obstacle of sorts had been removed.