those final weeks, he spent most of his time at the other end of the city, in the streets and cafes close to the West Terminal: his original port of arrival whose precinct had been the haunts of his early years in Vienna from 1907 to 1909. He seemed to be revisiting the ambitions that had driven him to the city in the first place. They had been dashed; yet they were still fermenting, as fierce as ever. Now he would fulfill them in a worthier land. On Saturday, May 24, 1913, he rose for the last time from his seat in the Writing Room of the Mannerheim. He went to pack the few belongings that cluttered his cubicle. Then he took the streetcar to the West Terminal to board a Third Class compartment on the train to Munich.
May 1913 promised Hitler hope and change. It also brought him safety. His passport recorded his birth date: April 20, 1889. At twenty-four he had just passed the age of conscription, having failed to register for service since 1909. The man who turned into the century's most thunderous war lord no longer needed to fear that some border guard would hold him as a draft evader.
The Honorable Joseph Redlich, diary-keeper, centrist member of Parliament, and Christian convert born into the Jewish haute bourgeoisie, did not watch the May Day march of 1913. However, two days earlier, on April 29, 1913, he observed another movement on the Ringstrasse, a sight that on the surface seemed unremarkable. A gentleman, all by himself, gray-haired, dapper under a bowler, was sauntering in the balm of noon. He had come out of Ballhausplatz 1, the Foreign Minister's residence, and was heading for the Ministry of War. As Redlich's diary attests, the buoyancy of this single stroller turned out to be more momentous-in the short run-than the resolute tramp of a hundred thousand proletarians forty-eight hours later.
'Good morning, Excellency,' Redlich greeted Alexander Baron Krobatin. 'How are you today?'
'I am well,' said the Minister of War of Austria-Hungary. 'Very well. Very well-at last.'
From one knowledgeable insider to another, no more needed to be said. It was a bad day for pacifists like Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand. It was a fine day, at last, for hardnosed patriots like General Conrad, the Chief of Staff, or like the two men now smiling at each other on the Ringstrasse: His Majesty had just authorized the drafting of an ultimatum. It was to be sent off today, Tuesday, and it gave the bandit government of the kingdom of Montenegro-ally of the bandit government of Serbia-until Thursday to pull its troops out of the Albanian town of Scutari. Failure to respond would prompt instant Austrian military moves to restore stability in the Balkans- regardless of Serbian or even Russian repercussions.
The ultimatum delivered this message in more diplomatic but no less unequivocal language. The two gentlemen could bask in its forcefulness as they sauntered together along the sunny boulevard. At last the Emperor had made a stand that would re-establish Austria's credibility as a major power.
By the morning of May Day, Thursday, Montenegro had not budged. But that afternoon its King wired Franz Joseph that he 'was reviewing the situation.' On Sunday, May 4, Montenegrin troops began to withdraw. Happy rumors began to animate coffeehouses like the Landtmann. Monday morning, May 5, hours before the news was officially announced, the Vienna stock market rose as it hadn't risen in years. For the first time in a long time (thought Krobatin, Redlich, Conrad, et al.), the old monarchy had taken a firm young step. Neither Serbia nor Russia did more than a bit of diplomatic mumbling.
Even Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand, who had cautioned in vain against the ultimatum, could not deny its success. It had improved the international standing of the realm that was his inheritance. Yet at the same time he kept advising against any further bravura displays, and he assiduously documented his admonitions. From Austria's most brilliant intelligence specialist, Colonel Alfred Redl, the Archduke had obtained an assessment of the Montenegrin army; it showed how potent that small force was and, therefore, how costly a potential showdown. Also from Redl came an analysis of a growing undercover movement in Bohemia directed against Habsburg. Franz Ferdinand used it all in his long-distance exclamations to the Imperial Palace. He was still staying in the Empire's South, at Fiume on the Adriatic shore. From there he worked the Imperial Courier Service and burned the telephone wire to the Emperor's chancellery. He still avoided audiences whenever possible. He was still afraid his temper might overpower his manners. But in messages he could drape the vehemence of his alarm in formulas of deference: those reckless, short-sighted circles that wanted to push the Empire into exterior adventures before the interior was pacifiedwould His Majesty graciously deign to bring them to reason?
His uncle's responses from the Palace were immovably noncommittal. They were also unfailingly courteous. Furthermore, 'reason,' or an approximation thereof, appeared to be in vogue again, at least for a while. Montenegro's retreat before Vienna's ultimatum appeased war-happy circles; it removed some of the rationale for 'exterior adventures.' As the world calmed and greened around the Crown Prince, he let the amenities of May enfold him.
With Sophie and the children he returned to his beloved estate at Konopiste. This was the finest time to stalk wood cock, snipe, and capercaillie. Mornings were for hunting, afternoons for flowers, all hours for his family. He whispered with his children as they watched for game. He crowded them into the pony trap to range through the vasts of his rose garden; the Dark Archduke, who never smiled in public, laughed freely as they invented names for the flowers they didn't know.
A certain prospect enhanced his mood. On May 24, Kaiser Wilhelm's daughter, Princess Marie Luise, was to marry Prince Ernst August von Braunschweig and Lueneburg. Attending would be two of the Kaiser's cousins, Tsar Nicholas II and King George V of England-also called 'the twins' because of their resemblance. Confident of an invitation, Austria's Crown Prince looked forward to using on the Tsar the big-teddy-bear charm he could surprisingly produce when the occasion warranted it. And this was the moment-after the Montenegro set-to-to warm Russia into trusting Austria.
The Berlin wedding held still another promise. Away from the Austrian capital, beyond the reach of the Hof burg camarilla, yet against a backdrop august and imperial, Franz Ferdinand's Sophie would not be treated as some inflated concubine. In Berlin she would emerge as the Crown Prince's full-fledged, fully honored consort. Side by side with AllHighest wives, Sophie would shine in photographs of the reviewing stand, would be featured in Court Gazette accounts of the state dinner table and in newspaper reports of the pew seating in church.
With such trophies he would then come to Vienna with his family to enjoy the Derby the first week of June. It was, or should have been, a very pleasant spring.
May lost some warmth toward its end; the twenty-fourth dawned as the coolest day of the month. It was a nippy Saturday, yet sunny and clear-and very exciting for at least three people in Vienna. In different ways it brought them the elation of a payoff long delayed.
That morning Adolf Hitler left for Germany, having sweated out seven sour years in the Austrian capital. That afternoon the chance to pounce finally came to Detective Sergeant Ebinger and Detective Sergeant Steidl, both attached to the Intelligence Bureau of the Imperial and Royal Army.
They had been on a stake-out for six long weeks. Their mission was the climax of a hunt that was secret and urgent and international. Under an agreement set up in 1911 by Colonel Alfred Redl, then in charge of Austrian Counter-Intelligence and its most capable leader in decades, the counter-espionage agencies of Austria and Germany exchanged mutually relevant information. Early in April 1913 Berlin directed Vienna's attention to a letter addressed to Herr Nikon Nizetas, c/o General Delivery, Vienna. Unclaimed, it had been returned to Berlin, the place of its postmark. There its bulk attracted the curiosity of the Secret Police who opened it. Inside were 6,000 kronen together with two addresses, one in Paris, one in Geneva, both known to be used by Russian spies.
An exciting discovery. It might help solve a problem of considerable concern in recent years: the leak of vital Austrian military secrets to Russia. The German office handed the letter to its Viennese colleagues. They re-sealed it carefully, returned it to the General Post Office on Fleischmarkt Square. In a room of the building opposite, Detectives Ebinger and Steidl took up position. Here they waited through all hours during which the General Delivery window was open. They waited for a certain sound-the ringing of an electric bell whose wire ran from their hide-out to a button under the desk of the General Delivery clerk.
Ebinger and Steidl waited for days and days. Nothing happened but the arrival of two more letters addressed to Herr Nizetas. Austrian intelligence opened them to find two more bland little notes together with cash sums totalling 14,000 crowns. These letters, too, were re-sealed and returned to General Delivery in the hope that their addressee would call.
Many more days passed. Herr Nizetas did not appear to claim his money. The detectives kept vigil by the bell that would not ring. Their chief, Colonel Redl, had by then been transferred to head the General Staff of the Eighth Army Corps in Prague. But he still retained wide intelligence responsibilities in view of his forthcoming appointment as Chief of In telligence for all the Empire's armed forces. Still present in the Vienna bureau were the skills and
