Seite - 609 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

O n hearing of the murder of Count Stürgkh, Emperor Franz Joseph is claimed to have said that his death was incomparably worse than a lost battle.1401 For the Monarch, who had himself been feeling ill for months, the death of one of his leading statesman was a severe blow. However, not everyone shared his view. In order to also satisfy the sense of malice, the newspapers mentioned more than merely in passing what Stürgkh had been served for his final lunch. The image that arose could only be interpreted in one way : one of the upper crust gentlemen is dining on barley soup, beef and plum tart, while the people go hungry. Stürgkh’s counterpart, Tisza, only recorded the fact of the murder in his diary, with- out adding any personal comment. Burián asked himself who would be the successor, and named the Joint Finance Minister, Ernest von Koerber, with a certain degree of concern.1402 Josef Redlich wrote of ‘dull defiance’, and noted that the people showed no anger over the murderer and what he had done.1403 This was not quite true. There were only very few people who had become so radicalised that they were prepared to consider murder. However, it was in reality no surprise that the opinion was widely held that here, the change that had been so very necessary at the top of the Austrian administration had now been violently precipitated. One of the most interesting comments on the murder of the Austrian Prime Min- ister again comes from the German Ambassador, Baron von Tschirschky, who after the death made a connection between Austrian, Hungarian and German politics. He was, however, of the view that the murder of the Austrian Prime Minister was linked primarily to the growing level of hardship in Austria, which is why he could not com- prehend Burián’s statement that the murder had been only a political act.1404 In the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, where von Tschirschky came to express his condolences, he had an opportunity to collect impressions, opinions and states of mind. The Minister of Railways described the situation to him as ‘anarchic’ ; the Employment Minister, Baron Trnka, characterised the attitude among the miners as ‘dangerous’ ; the Imperial-Royal Finance Minister von Leth reported unrest and strikes in the vil- lage of Heimburg, ‘which [could] only be beaten back with the aid of the military’. Baron Erasmus von Handel, the incumbent Imperial-Royal Interior Minister, claimed that Count Tisza ‘bore most of the blame for this murder’, since Hungary had stood and watched while the privations in Austria had increased. In the interim, the food demonstrations had spread and had also shortly before led to violent riots in Graz. The German Ambassador simply confirmed that ‘Germany has a vital interest in seeing all