Page - 718 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

718 Summer 1917 dictate of Berlin. However, he said, since the war was nearing its end, the impression must not be created that Austria was merely a German vassal.1637 Clam-Martinic said that he agreed with Czernin’s position. However, three ministers  – two Germans and one Pole  – spoke out vehemently against this view : the Trade Minister Karl Urban, the Minister without Portfolio Josef Maria Baernreither, and the minister for Gali- cian affairs, Bobrzyński. They demanded of Clam-Martinic that the Cabinet resign. The Prime Minister refused. In response, the three tendered their resignation from their functions. Clam-Martinic sent them to the Emperor. He promptly rejected these attempts at resignation and assured the three ministers that they had his confidence. Thus, the government remained in office and was obliged to present itself to a House of Representatives that accused it of lacking tenacity. The very first legislative act completed by the Reichsrat was to pass an order of busi- ness to tighten up the procedures somewhat and to block any attempts at obstruction. The period in office of the representatives was prolonged, since otherwise, most of them would no longer be eligible to sit in parliament in the first place. Finally, a provisional budget with a period of validity until December 1917 was passed. After that, however, business really began in earnest. There were not only 181 emergency decrees that had to be converted into legislation or annulled ; there was a flood of government regulations, bills, requests and interpellations. Only the smallest portion of these could possibly be dealt with by 1918. The major part of the emergency decrees never became law, since the decrees were assigned to committees, where they remained as unfinished business. The Clam-Martinic government not only had failures or unfinished business to report, however. In the area of social provision, it had in fact achieved a real break- through. As early as December 1916, Clam-Martinic had drafted a social policy pro- gramme. This covered care for the elderly and sick, the establishment of soldiers’ homes and youth facilities. Empress Zita was particularly interested in this topic. However, strangely, the only minister to support the scheme was the Minister for National De- fence, Baron Georgi. Finally, preparations were made for the creation of a new ministry, on which the Prime Minister reported to the Emperor on 31 May. It was to be named the Ministry for People’s Health and Social Provision. However, first, the foundations for the new portfolio had to be drawn up, and the Clam-Martinic government then resigned even before the new ministry was created. On the last day in May, the Minister without Portfolio, Bobrzyński, took the con- sequences of the fact that following the opening of parliament, the Polish Club had quite clearly positioned itself in opposition to the government. The accusation was not only directed at the Army High Command that emergency legislation had been used to recklessly cause havoc with a bevy of decrees ; the governments from Stürgkh to Koerber to Clam-Martinic were also accused of tolerating all of this, and that they had done nothing, in spite of repeated promises. The Polish Club declared that it