Page - 766 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

766 Kerensky Offensive and Peace Efforts a separate peace with the Entente to the suicide of a man who shoots himself out of fear of death.1791 Emperor Karl, on the other hand, feared nothing more than a German peace. That would be ‘our ruin’, as he had already written to the Foreign Minister in May 1917.1792 Czernin attempted to consolidate his position by pursuing the candidature of an Austrian prime minister who was acceptable to him. He also regarded Seidler as only an interim solution. But he was alarmed by the Emperor’s consultations first with Redlich and then with Lammasch. Both of them were from the Austrian Political So- ciety and most certainly did not count among the unconventional and power-conscious Czernin’s partisans. A few days before Lammasch was summoned to the Emperor in July, he had advised Czernin to issue the German Empire with an ultimatum to con- sent within 48 hours to the secession of Alsace-Lorraine or Austria-Hungary would otherwise conclude a separate peace. Czernin promptly passed this demand on to the German ambassador in Vienna, von Wedel, and added that he, Czernin, would not create a ‘mess’.1793 The influence of German people in power on the Emperor, Czernin’s arguments that the alliance politics were a vital matter for Austria-Hungary and a de- viation from them would inevitably lead to its demise, as well as the indecisiveness of the already elderly Heinrich Lammasch, led to the failure of the project to make him prime minister. Once again, a ‘July Crisis’ had been overcome. This was not only merely a triumph for the Foreign Minister, however, but also at the same time the transition to a phase of politics in which it was the Foreign Minister and not foreign policy who dominated, and in which the Austrian half of the Empire was administered but not really led. Czernin attempted for a time to install Baron Max Wladimir von Beck as prime minister, but then he was entirely satisfied with Baronet Ernst von Seidler. He was more easily guided. The temporary became the permanent. And Czernin could extract himself from supporting his Emperor as longer in the latter’s efforts to make peace. This was nowhere more deeply noticeable than during talks conducted between the Bavarian Professor Friedrich Wilhelm von Foerster on behalf of Emperor Karl and the representative of the American President Wilson, David Herron. At a meeting in Switzerland, Foerster had indicated to Herron that the Austrian Emperor was looking for support among the western powers for his reform plans. Foerster related the diffi- culties that Karl had experienced with his ministers in the wake of the amnesty decree. The Monarch had a mind to turn away from Prussian militarism. Austria-Hungary was not a German empire but a multi-national state in which Germans comprised a hopeless minority. Given the size of the Dual Monarchy, the best solution would be a confederation, which would serve as an ‘antidote’ to Germany.1794 Herron forwarded Foerster’s account to London. The Munich professor returned to Vienna in order to report to the Emperor. But here, not only had Czernin been able to