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Lothar Höbelt
In this article Lothar Höbelt analyses the political crisis that existed in Bohemia in 1913, which was the result of the paralysis of the Bohemian diet by the obstructive tactics of the German and Czech ethnic parties. In order to provide the revenues for the continuation of the work of the Bohemian provincial administration, the Emperor issued the ‘Annenpatent’, which suspended the Bohemian constitution. When tested in the courts, the Patent was rightly judged to have been unconstitutional, but in political reality it created a short-term solution that was de facto acceptable, both to the Bohemian factions and to the imperial government in Vienna. The outbreak of war in 1914 meant that the longer term consequences of the imperial coup were never able to develop, and what the outcome might have been will now never be known.
