Page - 740 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

740 Summer 1917 should be taken into greater consideration than the fact that he had already been in of- fice in 1914. In this way, it was therefore impossible to persuade him to step down. Karl wanted to make a further move towards democracy in Hungary, and demanded that a new election law be drafted. However, when Tisza produced the draft, Karl disagreed with it. He wanted a general, uniform and direct right to vote, as had been the case in Cisleithania since 1907, even though  – as Redlich put it  – ‘nobody among the Magyars in Hungary wants it’.1713 Ultimately, Tisza became thoroughly entrenched in the voting rights issue, and ex- pressed so little willingness to make concessions that it was an easy step for the oppo- sition to portray him as a reactionary. Tisza and the ‘Party of Work’ embodied the hard line. The Hungarian Prime Minister argued that only four years previously, election reform had been implemented in Hungary. The only matter on which he was persuaded was the extension of the right to vote to small landowners, industrial workers and those who had been awarded the honorary title of ‘vitéz’, or ‘brave’.1714 Karl, like the Hungar- ian opposition, remained dissatisfied with this. Demonstrations against the Hungarian Prime Minister grew at an increasing rate, while the counter-demonstrations attracted fewer supporters.1715 Tisza’s National Party of Work was divided on the issue of elec- tion reform. After the Emperor and King demanded one final time that the Prime Minister present him with a new election law for Hungary, and Tisza again refused to do so, on 22 May 1917, Karl asked Tisza in no uncertain terms to step down. Tisza did as requested. However, what Karl had certainly not intended was the triggering of a chain reaction : on 10 June, the ban of Croatia, Skerlecz, and the governor of Rijeka (Fiume), Count Stephan Wickenburg, also requested permission to be relieved of their posts in light of the new political circumstances.1716 The fall of the Hungarian Prime Minister was not without its consequences. There was regret at his removal in the German Empire in particular, and the Saxon envoy in Vienna, von Nostitz, concluded that : ‘In the interest of the Monarchy, it would have been advantageous, however, to put the change of cabinet into effect only after the end of the war  – if only to take into account the outstanding significance with which Tisza as a personality is acknowledged abroad […]. However, anyone who is even only slightly familiar with the Hungarian situation will doubt strongly whether the game played by the opposition is really meant in earnest, since the Andrássy and Apponyi [families] are at heart just as equally opposed to an emancipation of the non-Magyar nationalities, as would result from a free right to vote, as Tisza.’1717 The regret expressed with regard to Tisza’s demotion to the opposition was different in every way to the remarks made in passing following the death of Prime Minister Stürgkh or the government restruc- turing in Austria. He was again credited with being by far the strongest personality in Austria-Hungary, an independent spirit and a consistent advocate of the alliance with Germany.1718 Only Emperor Karl felt that for him, a nightmare was over.1719 In Hun-