them in a world
catastrophe.

Franz Ferdinand will remain portrayed in history as a man who either
loved or hated. But his tragic end at the side of his wife, who would
not allow death to separate them, throws a mild and conciliatory light
on the whole life of this extraordinary man, whose warm heart to the
very last was devoted to his Fatherland and duty.

2

There was a widely-spread but entirely wrongful idea in the Monarchy
that the Archduke had drawn up a programme of his future activities.
This was not the case. He had very definite and pronounced ideas for
the reorganisation of the Monarchy, but the ideas never developed into
a concrete plan--they were more like the outline of a programme that
never was completed in detail. The Archduke was in touch with experts
from the different departments; he expounded the fundamental views of
his future programme to prominent military and political officials,
receiving from them hints on how to materialise these views; but a
really finished and thought-out programme was never actually produced.
The ground lines of his programme were, as already mentioned, the
abolition of the dualism and the reorganisation of the Monarchy to
form a federative state. He was not clear himself into how many states
the Habsburg Monarchy should be converted, but the principle was the
rebuilding of the Monarchy on a national basis. Having always in view
that prosperity depended on the weakening of the Magyar influence, the
Archduke was in favour of a strong preference for the different
nationalities living in Hungary, the Roumanians in particular. Not
until my return to Bucharest and following on my reports did the
Archduke conceive the plan of ceding Transylvania to Roumania and thus
adding Greater Roumania to the Habsburg Empire.

His idea was to make of Austria separate German, Czech, Southern Slav
and Polish states, which in some respects would be autonomous; in
others, would be dependent on Vienna as the centre. But, so far as I
know, his programme was never quite clearly defined, and was subject
to various modifications.

The Archduke had a great dislike for the Germans, especially the
northern Bohemians, who were partisans of the Pan-Germanic tendencies,
and he never forgave the attitude of the Deputy Schoenerer. He had a
decided preference for all Germans in the Alpine countries, and
generally his views were very similar to those of the Christian
Socialists. His political ideal wa