Die Protokolle des cisleithanischen Ministerrates 1867‒1918, Band VIII: 1914‒1918

On July 23, 1914, the Cisleithanian Council of Ministers learnt from prime minister Karl Stürgkh of the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia. On November 22, 1916, the Council’s first session of was dedicated entirely to a “declaration of mourning on the occasion of the passing away of His Majesty Francis Joseph”. The present volume is a scholarly edition of the Ministerial Council minutes between these two dates. The Council underwent a major reshuffle in 1915. Stürgkh was assassinated in October 1916, and the short-lived cabinet Ernest Koerber II followed. The Council of Ministers addressed key issues and took momentous decisions at the onset of World War I: the end of civil society: the shut-down of the Reichsrat and all provincial diets, a restriction of civil liberties, the take-over of regional governments and judiciary by the military; and a toleration of preemptive arrests for potential future offences; war-time economic absolutism: state-regulated provision for the population, interventions into social legislation; and a predecessor of the “Kriegswirtschaftliches Ermächtigungsgesetz” introduced by the Ministerial Council by emergency executive order; financing military expenditure by means of a proliferation of paper money, the issuing of war bonds and tax increases; managing military mobilization as well as the war’s humanitarian costs: care for the injured, the invalid and the bereaved as well as for the country’s impoverished civil service; war-time Dualism: handling Austrian-Hungarian relations under stress. Including the minutes that have survived the 1927 Palace of Justice fire and extant transcripts, as well as cabinet presentations by the Minister of Finance, the volume offers numerous new and in-depth insights into many aspects of the First World War from an Austrian government perspective.