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Within half an hour truce terms had been struck. The Nazis understood, on the word of the German Minister, that Dr. Schuschnigg had agreed to send them with an Austrian army escort to the German frontier, where, again on the word of Dr. Rieth, they would be admitted. Vastly relieved, the nervous Nazis promptly surrendered, threw down their arms and jumped cheerfully into army trucks which jounced them off not to Germany but to jail.
Radio station RAVAG had meanwhile been seized after it had been nearly cut to pieces with machine guns and grenades. The Nazis left alive within were savagely beaten, half stripped of their clothes and marched to jail, prodded and beaten on the way by bayonets and rifle butts. Not until 10 p. m. was the Austrian Government ready to give out the first explanation of why the Ballhaus truce was not observed and the first news that Engelbert Dollfuss was dead.
"The others—God forgive them." Stepping to the microphone Major Fey told in a low voice, broken with emotion, how, before his appearance on the balcony, the Nazis had taken him in to where Chancellor Dollfuss lay caked with clotted scarlet on the divan.
"To me," said Major Fey, "his last words were, 'Take care of my wife and children. Settle this with as little bloodshed as possible.' "
To two captured police officers who saw the Chancellor after Major Fey was forced to leave him. Engelbert Dollfuss gasped what were probably his last words: "Boys, you have been good to me! I thank you. Why are not others the same? I wanted only peace. The others — may God forgive them!" Then after a long, gasping sigh: "Give my love to my wife and children."
As loud and firm over the radio as Major Fey had been husky and broken. Minister of Education Dr. Schuschnigg announced: "The Putsch has failed!" According to him, the Government made truce with the rebels without knowing they had killed Chancellor Dollfuss. That unspeakable crime, he maintained, cancelled the truce.
Prince, Rebels and "King Anton." Dr. Schuschnigg was automatically supplanted as Acting Chancellor by Vice Chancellor Prince Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg when His Serene Highness returned by air from Venice.
This scion of Austria's oldest and proudest nobility was left 13 castles and several hundred servants by his father. In 1923 he came under Adolf Hitler's spell and was with the No. 1 Nazi in the Munich beer hall Putsch that failed. Later the Prince broke with Hitler because of Der Führer's crackpot "race" theories. Back in Austria Prince von Starhemberg started drilling his servants as members of the Heimwehr ("Home Guard"). Getting thoroughly interested, His Highness bought them green uniforms and rifles and called for volunteers. Eventually so many Austrians flocked to Prince von Starhemberg's standard that he found the Home Guard was driving him into bankruptcy— but by that time he had found an angel, Benito Mussolini.