e
children. He himself was so entirely free from pretensions that it
cannot have been a question of his own comfort that prevented his
coming.

The Emperor's desire to restore the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand to a
post of command was for me a source of much unpleasantness. The
Archduke is said to have been to blame for the Luck failure. I cannot
judge whether wrongly--as the Emperor maintained--or rightly; but the
fact remains that the public no longer had confidence in him. Quite
accidentally I learnt that his reinstatement was imminent. As a matter
of fact, this purely military proceeding in no way concerned me, but I
had to reckon with the feeling of the populace, who were in no mood
for further burdens, and also with the fact that, since Conrad had
gone, none of those in the Emperor's entourage showed the slightest
disposition to acquaint him with the truth. The only general who, to
my personal knowledge, was in the habit of speaking frankly to the
Emperor, was Alvis Schonburg, and he was at this time somewhere on the
Italian front. I therefore told the Emperor that the reinstatement was
an impossibility, giving as my reason the fact that the Archduke had
forfeited the confidence of the country, and that no mother could be
expected to give up her son to serve under a general whom everyone
held to be guilty of the Luck catastrophe. The Emperor insisted that
this view was unjust, and that the Archduke was not culpable. I
replied that, even so, the Archduke would have to submit. Everyone had
lost confidence in him, and the most strenuous exertions of the people
could neither be expected nor obtained if the command were handed to
generals who were unanimously regarded as unworthy of the confidence
placed in them.

My efforts were vain.

I then adopted another course. I sent an official from the Department
of Foreign Affairs to the Archduke with the request that he would
resign voluntarily.

It must be admitted that Joseph Ferdinand took both a loyal and a
dignified attitude, as he himself notified the Emperor that he would
relinquish his command at the front. A short correspondence followed
between the Archduke and myself, which on his side was couched in an
indignant and not over-polite tone; this, however, I did not take
amiss, as my interference had been successful in preventing his
resuming the command.

His subsequent appointment as Chief of the Air Force was made without
my knowledge; but this was of no impor