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14 Emperor Charles and the Dissolution of the Habsburg Army: 1916-1918 The old emperor was buried with pomp and circumstance in the family crypt below the Church of the Capuchins. His successor, the Emperor Charles, his grand-nephew, was a well-meaning young man of humanitarian inclinations, but volatile, lacking in balance and experience, and strangely unable to make and stick with decisions. Most of his major civilian advisors, including Ottokar Count Czernin, his new foreign minister and virtual head ofall the Austrian governments that succeeded each other from January 1917 to October 1918, and Arthur Count Polzer-Holditz, his private secretary, who detested the Magyar aristocracy, had belonged to the Belvedere circle of Francis Ferdinand. While highly regarded by the civilians, the military members of that group, including Conrad, Krobatin, and Bardolff, were much more skeptical about the new monarch. They were apprehensive about his aspirations for military command, dubious about his firmness, and worried about his announced intention to bring peace at almost any price. They also were perturbed about the influence which his forceful wife, the Empress Zita from the House of Bourbon-Parma, exerted over him.! The new emperor also disturbed the Magyars who feared that Charles might try to appease the Slavs at the expense of the dualistic system and the Kingdom of St. Stephen. To prevent this, Tisza rushed to Vienna, assured the young monarch of Hungary's continued allegiance and support, and in return obtained an early coronation in Budapest which committed Charles to uphold dualism. In the final analysis this act forestalled any immediate change from above in the structure of the Dual Monarchy, though it did little to halt the quarrels among the various national groups for which the death of Francis Joseph had loosened many traditional restraints. "Every class and every nationality," two English historians have observed, "was preparing for a struggle to enforce change, or to resist it."2 Even if Hungary had been willing to tolerate some modifications in the imperial and royal structure, the preconditions for any new departure in internal, foreign, and military policies required a substantial reduction in the power of the A.O.K. and a redefinition of relations with Germany. And while in military matters Charles was much more self-assured and prepared to assert his sovereign prerogatives , he realized, though he resented it, that he depended on German support and the consent of the Magyars. 3 On November 22, 1916, the day after the death 201 202 Chapter 14 of the old emperor "who has led you, your fathers, and grandfathers," Charles issued his first general order to the armed forces. "Soldiers," the document stated, "I have survived with you the hard and glorious days of the gigantic struggle. In these great times I step from your ranks to the head of my battlehardened army and navy as supreme war-leader, with unshakable belief in our holy right and in the victory, which, with the aid of God, and in union with our loyal allies, we surely will achieve."4 Troops everywhere took their oath to their new monarch on November 23, and in the wave of awards and promotions that followed, Archduke Eugene and General Conrad were raised to field marshals, a rank until then reserved to Archduke Friedrich. But these displays of imperial favor concealed Charles's intention to reduce the power of the military and to assume personal command. His estrangement with the A.O.K. dated back to the autumn of 1914, and the rift had never healed. But Charles always remained strangely incapable of making a firm decision. In September 1916, for instance, when Francis Joseph had asked him to report on Conrad's possible replacement, he had composed a most ambivalent reply. On the one hand, he pointed out that Conrad should be retained because of his high reputation with the Germans and because of the difficulty of finding a worthy successor; on the other hand he wrote that "one cannot clear out the mismanagement of the A.O.K. as long as Excellency Conrad is in control there."5 He recommended his replacement with Archduke Eugene. Francis Joseph had not acted, but once on the throne, Charles slowly proceeded to strip Conrad of authority. As a first step, on December 2, 1916, he issued an order personnally assuming supreme command of the army as well as operational control of all combat units of the army and navy. Archduke Friedrich was named as the new...

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