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After the War Lieut. Dollfuss went back to his farmers, became Secretary of the Lower Austrian Bauernbund or Farmers' League, began organizing a farmers' co-operative trade union, which was later to become one of the country's most important political parties. Railroads are vital to Austrian farmers. In 1930 the farmers got him a seat on the State Railway Board; by October he was President of the Federal Railways. Next year saw him Minister of Agriculture & Forestry in the Cabinet of Chancellor Otto Ender (now Minister-without-portfolio in the Dollfuss Cabinet) and he held the job through the Government of Chancellor Buresch. In May 1932 that fell, and kindly old President Wilhelm Miklas called on 39-year-old Engelbert Dollfuss to form a Government. He gave no answer, but went to his favorite church and spent the entire night in prayer. In the morning he went home, bathed, shaved, ate a steaming bowl of his favorite potato soup with whipped cream, and accepted.
Hirtenberg. Last February the Great Powers realized for the first time what steel is in the spine of this little fellow who looks like a cross between Actor Ernest Truex and a French bull pup. Italy, busily weaving Austria and Hungary into his chain of military alliances against France and the Little Entente, had sent some 50,000 rifles and 200 machine guns to be "repaired" at the factory in Hirtenberg near Vienna where they were made (see map p. 15). France and Britain "discovered" that these arms were actually bound for Hungarian troops. They sent a sharp ultimatum to the Dollfuss Government that the arms must be either returned or destroyed, and, moreover, that the Austrian Chancellor must submit a sworn statement from the Austrian customs that the arms had recrossed the frontier, or evidence that they had been destroyed.
Chancellor Dollfuss approached the British and French Legations, asked them to withdraw the note. They refused. Promptly he summoned Parliament to extraordinary session, invited the foreign Press, read the entire secret ultimatum, and slapped it down on the rostrum in front of him with the statement that Austria, a sovereign nation, does not answer such notes at all. Four months later Engelbert Dollfuss was in Britain, a darling of the British Press & public during the World Economic Conference. But in the meantime the world had awakened to the folly and menace of Hitlerism. Today no one can pluck the capercailzie on Dollfuss' cap without plucking the Roman eagle, the French cock, the British lion as well. Six months after the note on smuggled arms, these allies gave Dollfuss permission to enlarge Austria's army by 36% (TIME, Sept. 11).