Page - 989 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Emperor’s Manifesto 989 but no longer identical power structures. At least theoretically, political representatives could belong to several bodies and still enter the Reichsrat for the unity of the Empire, whilst separatist objectives were pursued in the new institutions. The union became increasingly an illusory world. Now the Emperor wanted to act independently. The Germans of Austria also spoke up : the Social Democrats, who had demanded on 3 October the application of the right to self-determination for the Germans of Austria, and the Christian Social Party, which had advocated on 9 October the trans- formation of Austria into a league of free, national commonwealths.2429 These already existed de facto, and not only in the south, but also in Poland. On 7 October, the War- saw Regency Council called for the annexation of all Polish territories by a sovereign Polish state. Now the Emperor wanted to take independent action. Emperor Karl had received a recommendation from the Chief of the General Staff, Arz, in which the latter argued the case for settling the constitutional question for the entire Monarchy by means of an imperial manifesto,2430 since the Army High Com- mand was evidently no longer willing to continue to sit by and watch the inefficient policies of the political representatives of the two halves of the Empire. The Army High Command benefitted from the fact that one of the closest advisors of the Emperor in domestic policy and constitutional matters, Baron Johan Andreas Eichhoff, functioned as the representative of the Ministry of the Interior in the Army High Command. Therefore, a draft for an imperial manifesto had already been drawn up in mid-Sep- tember in Baden, and Arz had submitted it to the Emperor. He, however, continued to wait ; until a crisis then forced him to act. On 11 October, the governments of Hussarek and Wekerle resigned simultaneously. They were still entrusted with taking care of government business, but they now only had limited freedom of action. Above all in Hungary a radicalisation manifested itself of those groups that opposed all ‘sub-dualistic’ or trialistic solutions and a federalist restructuring of the Danube Monarchy. They  – with the former Hungarian Prime Min- ister Count Tisza at their head  – called the compromise into question. On 11 October, Wekerle also assumed this standpoint : ‘We can see that we are not confronted by the same Austria with which we had concluded agreements in the past. In its new form, Austria is not even able to fulfil its defensive duties anymore.’2431 What was said here al- ready possessed the clear features of an eminent state crisis ; evidently, however, radical formulations of people who had for years proven to be the guardians of commonality were also no longer sufficient to halt an even stronger radicalisation and emotional- isation. ‘Peace, democracy, independence’ were the slogans of the time. In Hungary, the hour of the left wing of the opposition came and with it the brief triumph of the ‘Independence and 48 Party’ under Count Mihály Károlyi.2432 The Emperor utilised the government crises and finalised his manifesto, which had, however, developed in the meantime into a document that gave consideration above