Page - 616 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

616 The Death of the Old Emperor Quotations such as the words attributed to the Emperor but not confirmed, on hearing the news of the assassination in Sarajevo : ‘A superior power has restored that order which I unfortunately was unable to maintain […]’, or the well-known ‘I am spared nothing’, also convey an image of a resigned, wise, suffering monarch who, heavily marked by fate, cleared the path to war. This may well have been true to a certain extent, since the 84-year-old Emperor and King had most certainly envisaged spending his fi- nal years differently  – if he had envisaged anything at all  – than seeing himself returned to the first years of his reign. After all, at that time, he had been just eighteen. In 1848, Austria had been threatened with collapse ; in 1914, the Emperor instigated its demise with his decision to go to war. In 1848, he had been given a degree of power that was almost impossible for him to gauge. In 1914, he nolens volens had a degree of power, the scope of which was no longer clear to him. In 1848, he was supported by a few closest associates and advisers, and above all by an army that was at least in a position to strike down the revolution in Austria and win victory over an enemy that was anything but equal, Piedmont-Sardinia and the revolutionaries in the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. In 1914, he was surrounded by a number of older gentlemen who advised and shielded him ; from the Imperial and Royal Army, however, it was expected that, as in former years, it would defeat and destroy an enemy that was anything but equal  – Serbia  – within a very short space of time. Yet, at the end of the day, any attempts at comparison were futile. The Monarch had become old, very old. His degree of power was relativised, since Franz Joseph was obliged to have far greater regard for the peoples of his empire than he had 66 years previously. Absolutism had become a thing of the past. Yet the re- newed political structures also didn’t fit at all, could frequently no longer be brought in line with those of the surrounding European countries, and even led Franz Joseph to make the statement passed on by Carl J. Burckhardt : ‘I have been aware for a long time the degree to which we are an anomaly in today’s world.’ The Emperor had three ministers who were responsible for the central tasks of the Empire  – yet the heads of these ministries were rarely his trusted associates. He had two governments, each of which attempted to control one half of the Empire, respectively  – yet Franz Joseph regarded the prime ministers and members of the government as merely replaceable figures. Overall, during the course of his reign, he had appointed and dismissed around fifty governments and hundreds of ministers. There were two parliaments : the Hun- garian, which was at times able to conduct its work, and certainly had been capable of doing so since 1913, and the Austrian, which due to the Czech obstruction in March 1914 had been suspended, as though the aim had been to give it pause for reflection at a time when no-one was prepared to do so. Yet, the Emperor and King still did not think much of his parliaments. Finally, the army, for Franz Joseph the epitome of power and the object of his fervent attention throughout his life, had for a long time ceased to be