Page - 637 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Will 637 that is money matters. However, the question that preoccupied him was not ‘How is a war financed ?’, with regard to which the Austrian Finance Minister was occasionally called to present a report, but far more banal : how are the imperial finances faring ? For this reason, the private chamberlain, the Director General of the Imperial Fund, Privy Councillor Franz von Hawerda-Wehrlandt, to the circle of people who were frequently given appointments with the Monarch. On repeated occasions, there was a matter that needed to be regulated, with payments to Franz Joseph’s private coffers and funding for family members such as the somewhat problematic granddaughter, Princess Win- disch-Graetz, the subject of discussion. It was Hawerda whose job it was to make the payments to Frau Schratt and, ultimately, to cover the compensation amount for the passionate and almost insatiable gambler. He advised the Emperor in all financial matters resulting from the death of Franz Ferdinand and the appanage to Archduke Karl, and was also responsible for enabling Franz Joseph to act as an example by sub- scribing to war bonds. Finally, he was one of the few men in the Emperor’s entourage with whom he spent many hours. Aside from the military aspects of the war and the necessary political contacts, financial matters were the most important subject of Franz Joseph’s attention, even until the last days of his life. On the Sunday after the farewell ceremony for Franz Ferdinand, Hawerda was with the Emperor, and subsequently re- turned at regular intervals, around once a month, and sometimes within the space of a few days. And in each case, he was granted longer, and sometimes very long, audiences. Finally, he came to Schönbrunn on 7, 15 and 18 November 1916, three days before the Monarch died, at a time when only his closest circle had access to him. However, the last items had already been regulated long ago, and the will had been written and deposited. Anyone who had perhaps expected that Franz Joseph might wait until the moment of his passing to leave behind a surprise of one kind or another was to be disappointed. His last will and testament contained not even a tentative reference to a desire for peace, no blazing appeal, no words of warning to his successor  – or anything else of the kind.1457 The testament was like the man : correct, unimaginative, and with no un- expected phrases. It is perhaps also astonishing that Franz Joseph had failed to modify and re-draft the testament that he had written in 1901. On 2 March 1889, soon after the suicide of his son Rudolf, the Emperor had begun to divide up his assets. In 1901, he had put this idea into practice by establishing an entailment institute, and in it, listed those properties that were to be bequeathed to his successors undivided, in other words, in their entirety. The agnates of the dynasty, the older archdukes, had accepted this. On 6 February 1901, Franz Joseph had then written his final testament, which was signed by a series of witnesses, including the Foreign Minister and Minister of the Imperial Household, Count Agenor Gołuchowski, and the First Adjutant General, Count Paar. The heir to the throne at the time, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, expressly wrote his