Page - 639 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Will 639 populis meis’, this brief quote was subsequently inscribed on the monument to ‘good’ Emperor Franz in the inner courtyard. It is certainly possible that Franz Joseph had this passage in mind when he went to work on the text of his will at Hofburg Palace. Even less convincing was the paragraph in which the Emperor addressed the army and the fleet. The text of this article at least should have been altered. As it was, however, the testament formulated in 1901 made no reference to the war that the Imperial and Royal troops were waging in the name of their Emperor and King in order to secure the existence of his Empire and the reign of his dynasty. At the same time, it could not be claimed that the Emperor had been unaware of the sacrifice that was being made, and had not at least tried to ameliorate the suffering. Yet he was unable to find any new phrases to express this, and also did not deem it necessary to alter the material provisions in his will. On 23 November 1916, the Wiener Zeitung published the official part of the passages in the testament that related to the peoples of the Empire and the armed force in a special edition. Everything else remained unpublished. The Emperor was dead. Long live the Emperor !