Page - 719 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Clam-Martinic Faces Defeat 719 was no longer in a position to support the government. On 1 June, Bobrzyński was dismissed. However, it was not just the Poles who were unwilling to continue supporting the direction that domestic policy was taking. The southern Slavs, too, began to show their defiance. The 33 representatives for the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs of the Austrian half of the Empire had agreed to form a combined club, and that this was to be a southern Slav one. As such  – in a similar manner to the Czechs and the Ruthenians  – they pre- pared a programmatic declaration. At the first meeting of the House of Representatives, the new club chairman, Anton Korošec, read out the ‘May Declaration’ of the southern Slavs, in which it was stated that ‘on the basis of the national principle and the Croatian constitution, [we] demand the unification of all territories of the Monarchy inhabited by Slovenes, Croats and Serbs to form an independent state body, free from all foreign rule, under the sceptre of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty’.1638 The May Declaration was not paid much attention, since at this meeting, so much was demanded, voiced and urged, and usually in a far more radical form, that the more moderate statements no longer aroused any interest. However, here, there must have been a sense that a time bomb was ticking. Soon, it was claimed that the May Declaration should only be re- garded as a minor demand. If necessary, it could be implemented without Austria and the Habsburgs. A campaign to gather signatures, in which women in particular also took part, was intended to give greater substance to the May Declaration. Clam-Martinic did not give up yet. The first reading of the provisional budget was planned for 12 June. On the same day, Clam was also intending to issue a government declaration.1639 He talked of the peoples of Austria, who ‘at no point in their history [have] more powerfully exhibited their indissoluble sense of belonging together, their great will to support the state, or succeeded in evolving their victorious power of de- fence and attack with an elementary force, than in this global conflict in our time’. Then, Clam-Martinic moved on to the national agitation, which had immediately begun unhindered. These programmes of the nationalities, said Clam-Martinic, could not be realised alongside each other, simply for the reason that they came into conflict with each other and were contradictory. The attempt to implement them would provoke new, never-ending and hopeless conflicts. The government had a programme, however, that offered ‘instead of a wavering prospect, a steady one ; instead of parts, the whole ; instead of nebulous, floating state structures the successful, tested, powerful state. […] The programme of the government is Austria […] as an honourable, proud, strong and eternal bastion of its people.’ It was important to stick together, he said, since after the war, the country would face huge economic tasks. Just as important as the further development of the constitution was the continuation of the war economy until the fight had been successfully concluded and preparations could be made for the transfer of the economy to peacetime conditions. Parts of Clam’s government declaration were