Seite - 653 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

From Koerber to Clam-Martinic 653 From Koerber to Clam-Martinic The visits to Cieszyn and Pszczyna were finally rounded off with Prime Minister Koer- ber, who had accompanied the Emperor on the trip, being tasked with the commence- ment of negotiations in other matters. It concerned one-and-a-half million metric hundredweights of grain that Germany had not delivered because Austria owed the stipulated amounts of crude oil, and it also concerned Silesian coal, which was needed not least for operating ammunition factories, which could otherwise no longer produce anything. Koerber was unsuccessful, though. As a result, the failures in the question of the bilateral relationship between the German Empire and Austria-Hungary had a defining impact on Karl and became a veritable trauma. It seemed obvious, then, that he would make those people responsible who had been unable to prevent these failures : Conrad, Burián and Koerber. In the case of the latter, the relationship soon came to a head. It was a matter of con- stitutional questions and whether the Emperor should swear an oath to the Austrian constitution without imposing any alterations beforehand. This was a problem that had run like a red thread through Koerber’s time as Prime Minister since 23 November, the day on which Karl had requested Koerber to submit to him proposals concerning the matter.1483 When Koerber returned from Cieszyn, he was already prepared to resign. The Im- perial and Royal Prime Minister and Karl were unable to find common ground. Ko- erber did not simply want to allow the Reichsrat to reconvene, which was just what the Monarch demanded. Koerber was bypassed on important matters, for example when the Emperor appointed Prince Hohenlohe as Joint Finance Minister without even consulting Koerber, or when Karl decreed German to be the official language in Bohemia against Koerber’s will. Koerber also did not accept the settlement negotiated with Hungary at the end of the Stürgkh government. He considered it too burdensome for Cisleithania and therefore advised the Emperor to reject it. It would probably have required a longer period of time for a bond of trust to develop between the Monarch and the Austrian Prime Minister. But Karl wanted to act swiftly here as well and above all surround himself with people whom he had selected, who enjoyed his trust and who would make it clear that a breach had occurred. And it was a breach. On 13 December, Koerber submitted his demission, which was immediately accepted.1484 In his political notations, the Emperor found rather simple words for this : ‘I dismissed Prime Minister Koerber because he was a clown of the old system.’1485 That same day, the Trade Minster in Koerber’s Cabinet, Alexander Spitzmüller, was summoned as head of an interim government. He was an outstanding expert on the settlement with Hungary and was supposed to conclude the negotiations in the short- est possible time. Karl wanted to put the settlement into effect by means of an octroi.