On April 14, 1918, Charles I, the last ruler of the Austro-Hungarian empire, dismissed his foreign minister Count Ottokar Czernin. The immediate circumstances of Czernin's fall from power have been known for many years, and the recently opened documentary collections in the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv in Vienna add little of substance to what is already known. Since neither the Czernin nor the Habsburg families have opened their private papers to the scrutiny of scholars, our information is still based on contemporary accounts of high government and court officials. From the evidence at hand we know little more than that Czernin had often treated Charles in a high-handed manner and that the foreign minister's refusal to assume full blame for the Sixtus Affair so angered the emperor that he accepted his minister's resignation. Thus, according to the consensus of his contemporaries, the reasons for Czernin's dismissal were emotional: the wounded pride and momentary anger of Emperor Charles. Certainly few would contend that these factors were unimportant; the emperor had often rendered similar imprudent judgments earlier in his brief reign. Still, one should be cautious about accepting this reason as the only one without searching for other more complex causes.