Page - 996 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

996 The War becomes History ernment of Max von Baden. Renner had also been inclined to accept, but the party leadership rejected the offer.2461 Thus, the search for an Austrian prime minister con- tinued. Lammasch declared himself willing to assume the office, but he discovered that Austria no longer existed. Now his only objective could be a peaceful liquidation.2462 A southern Slav national council had been formed in Zagreb, which had proclaimed an independent state. Most of the Polish deputies were no longer in Vienna and in the Reichsrat, but had instead travelled to Warsaw. Disintegration and the end of in- stitutions, some older, some newer, manifested themselves everywhere. In Prague, the situation even had something tragicomical about it. The atmosphere had been seething for a long time. The station commander, Major General Zanantoni, feared time and again that violence would break out, but nothing really serious had yet happened, even if there was a feeling of sitting on a ‘powder keg’. The troops of the garrison ‘were al- ready tired of being assigned and perpetually at the ready’. On 10 October, Zanantoni was called to the governor, Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, who informed him that the proclamation of the republic was imminent on 14 October. Coudenhove requested the station commander ‘to do everything to prevent the proclamation of the republic at least in Prague, the regional capital’. In response to his objection that only a few battalions would be available to the station command by 14 October, Coudenhove placed the entire Gendarmerie of Prague ‘at the disposal’ of the Major General, as well as the state police of the city.2463 Zanantoni decided not to use the police, however, since they comprised almost exclusively Czechs and appeared too unreliable to him. Eventually, seven auxiliary battalions were at his disposal for 14 October, each with approximately 600 to 800 men ; a further three auxiliary battalions had been promised him as reinforcements. Zanantoni distributed his troops across Prague in the early hours of 14 October in such a way that the access routes to the city centre were already blocked by the military at 5 a.m. When the groups of protesters gathered and wanted to move to Alstädter Ring under the leadership of Václav Klofáč in order to proclaim the republic there, they very soon recognised the impossibility of doing so and postponed their undertaking. On 15 and 16 October, the Prague station commander also had the city cordoned off. No incidents occurred, although following the announcement of the Emperor’s Mani- festo to the People all further measures to prevent a proclamation of a republic had be- come pointless. As early as 14 October, the Governor of Bohemia, Count Coudenhove, had been told by Vienna in response to his question how he should proceed : ‘Avoid any bloodshed, do not make a scandal and arrange a peaceful transition to a nation state.’2464 The disintegration commenced almost simultaneously in the hinterland and at the front. On 20 October, Hungarian, Galician and Czech troop bodies, which had been relocated from Ukraine and eastern Romania, mutinied in Jagodina, Kragujevac, Rušava (Orsova) and Turnu Severin.2465