But what country in Europe did not suffer such bouts of "spring fever"? Austria's potential adversaries were hardly immune. In Serbia, the opposition withdrew all its deputies from the Belgrade parliament, alleging unconstitutional practices by the government in budget matters. In Russia, four thousand workers walked out of the Treugolnik rubber factory in St. Petersburg. They were joined by thousands more at the Siemens electric plant. Comrades in industrial installations in Moscow and Riga followed suit until the strikers numbered nearly one hundred thousand. In France, the elections set for May produced daily clashes between supporters of President Raymond Poincare, who wanted to keep the three-year conscription period, and the followers of the Socialist leader Jean Jaures who insisted on reducing it. Even England was losing the last of its Victorian seemliness in 1914. In April dozens of special Save Ulster! trains rolled almost daily into London. They brought demonstrators who flooded through the streets with shouts of "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!" The Protestants' orange banners cursed the Catholic Irish for wanting to reduce Ireland to the Pope's footstool. In Dublin green cadres of the Feinians marched for self-government. By the Thames, Parliament shook with debates over the Home Rule Bill. The issue convulsed the British Isles.
By comparison, the disturbances in Vienna seemed almost minor. Most played out on the Ringstrasse where the architecture absorbed much of what tumult there was into the histrionics of the facades.
Spring absorbed the rest. Even the most bilious townsman couldn't help knowing that the Vienna Woods undulated only a few streetcar stops away. And here the lilacs exhaled their sweetness, the baby leaf waved its miracle green, and the zither called from the vintner's garden. Together they seduced politics into pleasure.
Soon the only enduring controversies appeared to be deliciously traditionaclass="underline" Was this year's wine as good as last season's? Had the Court Opera been right in turning down Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos? Could a soprano like Maria Jeritza, who made her mark as Elsa in Lohengrin, sing Adele in Die Fledermaus?
How pleasant, the answers. Yes, the new year's wine promised to match its predecessor. Yes, La Jeritza did prove to be a marvelous Adele. And something in Viennese logic justified the rejection of Ariadne. This logic concluded that the city's talent was not modernist like Richard Strauss; that the phrase "Wien bleibt Wien" (Vienna remains Vienna) summed up the city's virtuosity; that timelessness, not timeliness, expressed its soul.
Princess Pauline Metternich seemed to prove the point. This grand dame was the ancient but ever-buoyant daughter-inlaw of the Chancellor who had been Napoleon's nemesis. At the end of April she gave an Alt-Wiener Jause, that is, an Old Viennese High Tea where select company in Biedermeier dress enjoyed delicacies and three-quarter time offered in the style of a century ago.
That was how the haut monde perpetuated Alt Wien. For the people at large another Alt Wein rose up in the Kaisergar- ten. The Emperor's garden was the Imperial Palace pleasance, and for the occasion His Majesty admitted the public to its lawns. Here they found highlights of a time that was no more, sculpted of papier-mache, meticulously reproduced in scaleddown size after old paintings or illustrations in yellowed books: razed landmarks like the original Court Theater, romanesque churches perished in wars, early baroque mansions consumed by fires. Reborn here, all their turrets, pediments, gargoyles presented themselves once again to the gaze of a twentieth-century public.
Wien bleibt Wien. More than ever Vienna remained itself at the end of April 1914. And just then it learned something that was not quite imaginable.
The First Lord Chamberlain issued an announcement. His Majesty's cold, having turned into bronchitis, had now developed into pneumonia. Leading specialists were in attendance. His Imperial and Royal Highness, the Crown Prince, had been summoned from Konopiste to the capital.
Franz Joseph had reigned for sixty-six years. Firmly, if secretly, the notion had established itself, somewhere deep back in the mind of the town, that he would reign for another six hundred. Now Vienna must deal with the absurd possibility that he might not.
16
NEVER HAD THE HUGE GATES OF THE IMPERIAL PALACE GROUNDS IN SCHONbrunn opened to so many humble vehicles-to quite ordinary taxis. From their doors emerged the physicians who were trying to keep the monarch alive. Grand automobiles of dignitaries also rolled into the broad graveled driveway. Sentinels presented arms as their passengers emerged: Count von Berchtold, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Count von Krobatin, Minister of War; Count von Sturgkh, the Premier. But unlike the doctors they were not admitted to the All-Highest bedside. His Majesty was too ill. They could only leave their reports, their respects, their wishes, and their prayers.
Often the serious-faced Excellencies would then direct their chauffeurs to drive from Schonbrunn, in Vienna's southwest, to Castle Belvedere in the southeast. Here the Heir Apparent resided and waited-but not for them. Other visitors' cars remained parked far longer at the Belvedere. They belonged to members of the Crown Prince's shadow cabinet about to move into the sun.
Who were these, and what did their comings, goings, stayings, portend? In the late April days of 1914 such questions dominated a third meeting ground, namely the restaurant Meissl & Schadn. Its facade on the Karntnerstrasse pictured all five continents, reflecting the concerns of its clientele: key officials of sub-cabinet rank of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of War. They would be the caretaker team between monarchs. In a special back room of Meissl & Schadn-the Extra Stuberl-they enjoyed the establishment's vaunted Tafelspitz while caucusing on the problems of transition in the Palace.
It was bound to be dramatic. They'd already heard that almost the entire court planned to stand down the moment last rites were administered at the All-Highest bed. The First Lord Chamberlain, Prince Montenuovo, had in hand letters of resignation written in advance by himself as well as by equerries, adjutants, lords-in-waiting. These instruments would be signed and dated minutes before the old Emperor's death. That would prevent the new ruler from cashiering the retinue en masse with a consequent loss of their pensions.
But the prospect of Franz Ferdinand striding toward the throne also raised an issue far graver than retirement benefits of cup-bearers. The back room at Meissl & Schadn worried over nothing less than civil war.
At Castle Belevedere a post-accession plan had been drawn up. To anyone in the upper circles of government its content held few secrets. It would implement the Crown Prince's absolute determination to remove the Hungarian Prime Minister Tisza and to change Hungary's suffrage laws by which Tisza maintained power. At present the electoral system was heavily skewed in favor of the landed gentry-Tisza's political base. The new Emperor would grant equal votes to all Magyars. Agricultural workers, landless and therefore voteless until now, would be able to ballot their bosses out of office. Three million Croats, semi-enslaved within Hungarian borders, would gain a strong voice against their suppressors. Beyond that, Franz Ferdinand intended to radically revise the constitution of the entire Habsburg realm. Under him "Austria-Hungary" would be superseded by a "United States of Austria." With the Empire federalized, many present bedevilments would vanish.