There is no evidence of a specific response on Franz Ferdinand's part. But that month he made devastatingly plain his position vis-a-vis Conrad.
For three days starting September 14, large-scale war games involving six divisions of the Austro-Hungarian Army were to unfold in Bohemia, on a terrain about fifty miles south of Prague. Conrad arrived on September 11 to prepare mock battles involving field telephone and telegraph as well as bomber aircraft. The exercises were to show how well the Empire could fight a twentieth-century war.
On the thirteenth, the Crown Prince's automobile roared up, followed by a huge detachment of horse. Instantly, brutally, he asserted his new rank of Inspector General, which gave him supreme command over all maneuvers. He cancelled a number of troop movements and changed the timing of all others-everything that Conrad had mapped out with such care. A three days' program was squeezed into little more than one, in order to make room for the Archduke's own plan.
Most of the second day went into a rehearsal over which the Crown Prince presided, frowning triumphantly astride his Lippizaner. On the sixteenth, he let his operation explode before the eyes of his wife and an assembly of Bohemian princes watching from a grandstand: Down the slope of Mount Tabor galloped tier upon tier of cavalry. It was a dust wreathed extravaganza of hussar bravado. In real war it would have been mowed down-drawn swords, flowing capes, plumed shakos, and all-by laconic bursts from a few machine gun batteries.
The impresario of this passe magnificence was not one of your backward-minded Viennese. On the contrary, Franz Ferdinand preferred a powerful motorcar over the fastest thoroughbred. And in ordnance beyond the Army Chief's immediate sphere-the Austrian Navy, for example-the Archduke urged the most modern armaments. Franz Ferdinand had turned these maneuvers into a historial joke not because he liked antiquated valor but because he hated the Chief of Staff. To undo Conradian policy, the Crown Prince must undo Conrad himself in every way.
The horse droppings left by the hussar commotion had not yet been scooped when the Crown Prince barked at the Chief of Staff: Why hadn't he attended field Mass? Five minutes later, he barked at him again, this time in front of other generals: Why had he permitted cars to park in the path of the cavalry attack?
Conrad listened mutely. His handsome mustache twitched with his tic. He saluted and excused himself. He boarded alone his command train back to Vienna. He did not want to share his humiliation with his brother officers. But to his beloved Frau von Reininghaus he could pour out his heart about". this battle-farce" the Archduke had put on, "… this ludicrous spectacle for amateurs and children" which"… the Archduke must have anticipated and intended because he must have known that I can accept all this no longer."
***
The day after his return from "the farce," on September 17, Conrad addressed to the Archduke a written request to accept his resignation, leaving it "to your Imperial and Royal Highness to most graciously decide what official form or reason should be assigned to my voluntary removal."
Franz Ferdinand had already picked out Conrad's successor-General Karl von Tersztyansky, head of the Budapest Army Corps. But at this juncture the Emperor himself intervened. At the moment the Balkan situation was still too unsettled, the military contingencies too unpredictable, for Austria to dispense with a seasoned commander like Conrad.
The Crown Prince was summoned to a discreet audience at the Hofburg. He returned to Konopiste where he exercised, furiously, his famed marksmanship on over a hundred heathcocks. Then he sat down to do something unusual, for him. Something quite Viennese: He smiled a fine smile over clenched teeth. "Dear General Conrad," he wrote on September 23, "Much as I understand your wish not to remain much longer in office, I do hope and trust that you shall be able to display in some other high position your inestimable abilities, your patriotic commitment and your generally admired qualities as a soldier for which we are much indebted to you. But for the moment I would like to ask you most earnestly, in the interest of a good cause and in my own name, not to change your command and to remain in your thorny office at least until spring, and thereby make a sacrifice to the Army and to all of us entrusted with its leadership."
The tone suggests anything but vintage Franz Ferdinand. These phrases are not only too humble, they are far humbler than the Emperor required. Strategy, not sincerity, produced the Archduke's compliments. If their intent was to tempt the General into overconfidence, they did their work well within a month.
Conrad, of course, withdrew his resignation. He had retained power with his dignity vindicated; his foe was beaten back, his opinion bolstered by the news of the day. Each week in October brought new reports of fighting along Albania's border with Serbia. Serbia claimed it was repelling an invasion. Albania, which consisted of tribal war lords shooting off Austrian rifles, accused Serbia of aggression. Conrad felt that the mounting chaos could only be resolved by a showdown with Belgrade. Since that might mean war with Russia, however, Austria needed to be backed by its own strong ally, Germany. Yet on just that point Berlin had been evasive, or worse.
On October 1, Wilhelm, writing to Franz Ferdinand, had been rather sympathetic to the Serbs; he had actually referred to "Albania's habit, incited by Turkey, of pouncing on Serbia. " This implied that the real inciter and protector of the Albanians, Austria, would ignite a needless conflagration from which Germany had a right to remain apart.
Conrad had been trying to enroll Berlin on Vienna's side. At an audience some months ago, he had-cautiously and respectfully-asked Franz Joseph to obtain some personal commitment from the Kaiser in case of a wider conflict. Franz Joseph's reply had been one short, brusque sentence. "It is the duty of kings to keep peace."
But that had been much earlier in the year, at a time less favorable to Conrad's cause, with Serb aggressiveness lying relatively low and the Crown Prince riding high as chief of the appeasers. Now, in October, it was the other way around. Now was the time to take by the horns that bull of bulls-Wilhelm II of Germany.
***
On October 18, 1913, the German monarch celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig, where Prussian, Austrian, and Swedish troops had vanquished Napoleon. Wilhelm, who loved to wallow in borrowed glory, wallowed away. He decreed a great tattoo in Leipzig; ordered the boom of guns saluting, the blare of trumpet, fife, and drum; convened a titled assembly of gold braids, of fringed epaulettes, of tunics sashed, starred, and bemedalled.
Dignitaries of the three victor countries laid wreaths at the foot of the gigantic monument built for the occasion. As leaders of the Austrian delegation, Franz Ferdinand and General Conrad then sat down at a table (set at the Gewandhaus for four hundred and fifty) to rise again and again to heel-clicking toasts proposed by the German Emperor.
After the banquet Wilhelm held a cercle, that is, an informal reception. And Conrad made his move. By way of paying his respects, he expressed his humble gratitude to His Majesty for underlining with this festivity the importance and the might of the alliance between German and Austrian arms in the past and thereby emphasizing its continued importance in present or future circumstances.