Page - 613 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Death of the Old Emperor 613 following passage : ‘Of him [Koerber] it can be expected that he has intensively occu- pied his mind with the problem implied by the Central European design of the future. We are experiencing the blessings of our entrenched society every day, and the longer that fate forces us to hold out in order to destroy the foolish hopes of fragmentation of our enemies, the clearer the desire becomes that the Quadruple Alliance, that stretches from the Baltic to the Black Sea, will grow into peace.’1412 However, Charmatz also expected Koerber to undertake immediate reform of domestic policy. He was highly critical of the bureaucratic style of rule by his predecessors, which had been anything but close to the people, and had hopes that Koerber’s liberalism and constitutionalism would lead to a rapid convocation of parliament.1413 All in all, the liberal Koerber, who also enjoyed a great deal of respect in Social Democrat circles,1414 had been a clever choice. In particular, however, the existence of a civilian prime minister was to be of huge significance for the late autumn of 1916, since this accelerated the process of disempowerment of the Army High Command in a particular way. The war had again been brought back by degrees into the political arena, and  – in Austria-Hungary at least  – would never again be released from it. While Koerber again formed a type of civil servants’ cabinet, it was composed not only of specialists and state officials, but primarily also of representatives from im- portant political groups. Outstanding personalities  – aside from the Prime Minister himself  – were the member of the Bohemian upper aristocracy, Count Clam-Martinic, who took over the Ministry of Agriculture, or the Minister of Justice Franz Klein, who had consistently come out in support of recalling parliament and mitigating press censorship.1415 This at least hinted at the fact that these issues would play a part in the programme of government. For Koerber, however, it was not the recall of parliament that became the actual touchstone, but the issue of imperial reform. Since, like Stürgkh, he refused to alter the constitution to guarantee the German majority in the Reichsrat, as well as to exclude Galicia from it and to divide Bohemia into a German and a Czech part, he almost instantly lost the support of the German parties.1416 As early as May 1915, Koerber had considered ruling the Monarchy from Budapest, as Bismarck had also envisaged.1417 Plans of this nature were likely to be approved in Hungary, but not among the German Austrians, and probably also not among the Slavs, who would have felt as though they were jumping from the frying pan into the fire. In order to be able to understand Koerber’s rapid failure, however, the demands must also be taken into account that were made on the Prime Minister by the Army High Command. These included not only the nomination of military governors in some parts of the Empire, and militarisation and disciplinary measures in the hinterland. The Army High Command also expected above all that the Prime Minister would take immediate and radical measures in the food sector. Here, the circumstances were