State services were to continue unchanged, although Coudenhove himself decided to resign his post, as he was unwilling to co-operate with the National Committee.
On the same day, in the afternoon, the Ministerial Council met at Vienna, and sanctioned the arrangement which had been arrived at in the morning between the National Committee and Coudenhove, who was given provisional leave. Lammasch and several members of the Cabinet, however, severely criticized the action of the military authorities for having given the various military commands authority to co-operate with the national committees on the previous day, without having obtained beforehand the sanction of the civil administration. In fact, the Cabinet declared that the military authorities were entirely to blame for what had happened at Prague.
At five o’clock on the afternoon of October 29th the Ministry of War issued its long overdue reply to the proposals of the military command at Prague. For the greater part it approved the agreement between the military command and the National Committee, but on the most important point it disavowed the attitude of the military authorities in Prague. It declined to permit the formation of a special Czechoslovak Army from officers and men offering themselves voluntarily for service, and gave instructions that all were to be retained at the duties undertaken under the terms of their military oath until they could be properly demobilized and allotted to the new national States. The Ministry further announced that they were sending General Bardolff to Prague to superintend the military arrangements there, and that until he arrived the command were not to enter into any further arrangements with the National Committee unless the Ministry had previously given its sanction.
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The military command at Prague thereupon endeavoured to withdraw that part of the agreement with the National Committee to which the Ministry objected, and it therefore prepared a proclamation of martial law against civilians who incited soldiers to infringe their military oath. It also freed officers from their vow to the National Committee, and refused to permit Dr. Scheiner to continue his official activity at the military headquarters.
This denoted an opposition, at least for the time being, against the formation of a special military force taking its orders from
