Seite - 621 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Obituary for the Father Figure 621 Tisza may have made during his 20-minute audience on 30 June, Franz Joseph was no longer prepared to make compromises. While the course was therefore being set in the direction of war, the Emperor was sitting in the royal train on his way to the Salzkammergut. If Austria-Hungary had been a constitutional monarchy, in which the monarch had no more than a representational function, the fact that the monarch was so obviously absent would perhaps not have played such an important role. However, in the Habsburg Monarchy, the Emperor had far more power than merely a represent- ative role, and it was precisely decisions regarding war and peace that depended on the vote of the Emperor. Could it be mentioned in defence of the Emperor’s absence from the Council of Ministers on 7 July that he had not expected decisive resolutions ? Did he assume that he would in any case be informed on time and asked for his consent ? Perhaps he first had to reach a state of peace with himself. Ultimately, all these considerations can be discarded. The fact that much was at stake on 7 July 1914 was beyond dispute, and, as subsequent months would demonstrate, it was not Franz Joseph’s consistent intention to remain absent from the sessions of the Joint Council of Ministers, for he indeed later  – admittedly only occasionally  – attended such sessions. Even the argument that matters were discussed that had already been decided on, for example the question of a swift end to the war, is redundant because such a thing was never mentioned during a session of the Joint Council of Ministers during the war years of Franz Joseph, and the Emperor and King attended sessions at which far less important things were debated, but still possessed the character of Privy Council meetings. The conclusion can there- fore only be drawn that the old Emperor assumed that on 7 July, everything had already been said, or that he wished to indicate that he was ready to defer personal consider- ations and rely on the judgement and the decisions of the most important representa- tives of his Empire. However, they already knew of the Emperor’s wishes, and simply worked to ensure that they were satisfied. And the Emperor also had no doubt that his decision would be respected. He therefore needed no further consultation sessions at which he was present in person and expressed his views to a committee. Franz Joseph evidently also shied away from consultations that were attended by several people. The Austrian and Hungarian prime ministers were almost never simultaneously called to see the Emperor, even where important questions relating to the Compromise were concerned or when the consonance of political, legislative, social or other measures in the two halves of the Empire had to be ensured. Even that might have been a vestige of an absolutist notion of government ; modern and, above all, in keeping with the un- precedented situation in July 1914 it certainly was not. Franz Joseph apparently said a year after the war was unleashed : ‘I am a constitu- tional monarch, not an absolute ruler, and for this reason could not act otherwise ! From the beginning, I had all the influential advisors to the crown against me ; for a full three