party. Adler had always been a Pan-German, but regarded the disruption of Austria and the union of German Austria with Germany as a distant goal which had no place in the practical politics of the moment. He aimed therefore at establishing a friendly relation between the nations on the basis of democracy. When the Austrian Germans were threatened by the language ordinance of Count Badeni, and Parliament itself by a coup d'état, Adler made an alliance with the German parties, rallied the working classes, and overthrew the Polish prime minister (1897). At the party congresses, Adler tried to accommodate the conflicting national standpoints on the basis of the principles laid down in the Brünn programme (equal rights and national autonomy). But the unified organization of the trade unions and the union of the Social Democratic parties were destroyed in consequence of these differences, more especially by the intransigeance of the Czechs. No general party congress of the different Austrian nationalities has taken place since 1905.
In the congresses and in the secretariat of the International Adler, with Jaurès and Bebel, played the most prominent part, whether as leader, adviser, or mediator. He took part in the great peace demonstration of the International at Basel, and in the meeting of the secretariat in Brussels immediately before the outbreak of the World War. In spite of bad health, which for many years in succession had compelled him to spend much time on the Riviera and at Nauheim, he travelled in the spring of 1917, immediately after the trial of his son Friedrich, to Stockholm to the proposed Socialist congress. After the collapse of Austria in 1918, at the constituent session of the provisional German-Austrian National Assembly, which was formed by the meeting of all the German deputies, he read the declaration of the Social Democrats, in which they expressed their willingness, in association with the other German-Austrian parties, to build the new State on the basis of democracy and the self-determination of their own and other nationalities, without prejudice to a possible association with the German Empire.
In his opening words Adler said: "You will permit an old man to say that at last we see the accomplishment of what we have longed for since our youth." He did not long survive that day. He held for a few days the office of Foreign Minister, entrusted to him by the new State Council (Staatsrat), but in spite of his iron determination he was not able to bear the strain. He broke down on Nov. 11 and died on the 12th, 1918, the day on which the State Council had decided to proclaim German Austria a democratic republic and an integral part of the German Reich.
His works include articles scattered in various newspapers, in the Neue Zeit, Kampf, Deutsche Worte, in addition to those in the Arbeiterzeitung; pamphlets, among which are Die Fabrikinspektion, insbesondere in England und der Schweiz (1884); Die Arbeiterkammer und die Arbeiter (1886); Das allgemeine, gleiche und direkte Wahlrecht und das Wahlunrecht in Oesterreich; Alcoholismus und Gewerkschaft (many editions). See also Die Gleichheit vor dem Ausnahmegericht (1889); Schwurgerichtsprozess gegen Doktor Viktor Adler wegen Verbrechens der Störung der offentlichen Ruhe (1894).
His son, Friedrich Adler (1879–), Austrian politician, was born at Vienna July 9 1879. He was educated at the Realgymnasium in Vienna, and studied philosophy at the university of Zurich. He was privatdozent (lecturer by diploma) in physics at the university of Zurich from 1907 to 1911, editor of the Social Democratic daily Volksrecht from 1910 to 1911, and from 1911 to 1916 secretary of the Austrian Social Democratic party and editor of the monthly Kampf. During the World War he was in sympathy with the conclusions reached at the conferences of the Socialists of the Left at Zimmerwald and Kienthal. In despair over the break-up of the International, he shot (Oct. 21 1916) the Austrian prime minister, Count Stürgkh, in the expectation that the deed would be a signal for the rising of the proletariat against the war. After a speech in his own defence which aroused much attention he was, on May 19 1917, condemned by a special tribunal to death, a sentence commuted to 18 years' imprisonment. During the chaos of the autumn of 1918 he was amnestied (Nov. 1). In 1919 he was elected to the National Assembly, and became vice-president of the committee of the Social Democratic party and of the Union of the Social Democratic deputies. As president of the Austrian National Workmen's Council and of the Vienna District Workmen's Council he exercised great influence in the party. On his initiative was founded the International Labour Association of Socialist Parties, of which the first meeting was held in Vienna in Feb. 1921. He made the opening statement, and became secretary of the Association.
His works are: Die Erneuerung der Internationale (1918); Ernst Mach's Ueberwindung des mechanischen Materialismus (1918); Ortszeit, Systemszeit, Zonenzeit und das ausgezeichnete Bezugssystem der Electrodynamik, eine Untersuchung über die Lorentzische und die Einstein'sche Kinematik (1920). See also Friedrich Adler vor dem Ausnahmegericht (1919).
ADMIRALTY ADMINISTRATION (see 1.195).—The history of the British Admiralty during the World War of 1914–8 is the history of the evolution of the naval staff and of a great expansion of the technical and administrative departments. All departments expanded during the war, but the evolution of the naval staff was more than mere expansion, for it represented the adoption of definite principles of staff work which were intended to prevent those responsible for the conduct of naval operations being crushed under a load of administrative business.
This was, indeed, no new trouble. It had been experienced ashore and afloat in peace and war. Kempenfelt and Tryon had commented strongly on it. "We are every day," wrote the former to Middleton in 1770, "plagued and puzzled with minutiae from morning to night whilst essentials are neglected." "It cannot be right," wrote Tryon in 1890, "that the Commander-in-Chief should find himself devoting his time to coaling and watering, provisioning, storing and repairing." They were seeking after a solution of the difficulty which lay in a clear distinction between fighting and supply, between the use of the weapon, and its supply and maintenance in an efficient state. This principle had been introduced into the British army by Lord Haldane, and is equally applicable to naval work. It is a principle vital to war, for on the outbreak of war the whole rhythm of work changes. Work expands tenfold in extent and an hundredfold in urgency, and without some clear distinction of this sort it is impossible to give to the conduct of operations the attention it deserves.
The principle was not to be found in the British Admiralty at the beginning of the war. The First Sea Lord was just as interested in the design of ships as in operations, and the War Staff lacked some of the most important elements of staff work. The important distinction between fighting and supply was not to be found; the Chief of the War Staff had no seat on the Board, and the methods of conducting the work of a large staff had not been studied. Up to 1909 the Intelligence Department had to some extent filled the place of a staff. It had gradually grown from the Foreign Intelligence Branch or Committee instituted in 1883, and had developed into the Naval Intelligence Department, consisting of four divisions—foreign, trade, mobilization and war—of which the two latter were evidently tentative efforts towards an Operations Division. In Sept. 1909 it split into two separate departments, intelligence and mobilization, of which the latter was clearly the beginning of an Operations Division, but was killed by its name, for it soon became immersed in the task of manning and mobilization, which belongs wholly to the sphere of supply. The Intelligence Department sank more and more into the position of a mere handmaid for the collection of data and translations from the foreign press. Its development was hampered by the intense suspicion with which most flag officers regarded anything that seemed to trespass on their prerogative of command. The idea of a staff was held in great disfavour. The word was anathema at the Admiralty and not allowed to be used in War College publications, and it is no secret that the most distinguished flag officers were opposed to the institution of a staff in 1912.
The naval staff really dates from the Memorandum of Jan. 1912 issued by Mr. Churchill, after the breakdown of the old system at the Agadir crisis, but it had not had sufficient time to develop before the World War broke on it and broke it up. It consisted of three small divisions—operations, intelligence
