10 - Austrian (and Some German) Scholars of English and the First World War

Summary

Let me begin with a remarkable document: the report of the extraordinary session of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna held on July 1, 1914. It must be one of the shortest and most colorless reports in that august institution's history.

Der Präsident macht Mitteilung von dem am 28. Juni 1914 erfolgten Ableben Seiner k. und k. Hoheit des durchlauchtigsten Herrn Kurators der Akademie der Wissenschaften Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand.

[The President begs to inform of the decease on 28th June, 1914 of His Serene Imperial & Royal Highness, Curator of the Academy of Sciences, Archduke Franz Ferdinand.]

I doubt whether anyone could still find out what was actually said. As it stands, this statement is a classic instance of reserve. One does not need to go to the first scenes of Karl Kraus's Die letzten Tage der Menschheit to know that at the time such reserve was a rarity. On first reading “Serbien muß sterbien” (Serbia must bite the dust) and all the other jingoist slogans, I admired the author's ingenuity without realizing that it was stark realism, as some contemporary posters and descriptions setting them in their historical context make abundantly clear. Nor was the world of learning always proceeding sine ira et studio (without wrath and heat) in those trying years.