When the Republic was proclaimed the imperial house of Habsburg and all family members had all their privileges withdrawn, members of the bureaucracy and the military were released from their oath of loyalty to the emperor, and the imperial ministries were wound up. However, before he left Austria in March 1919, Emperor Karl still emphasized in a manifesto that for him the measures passed by the new government were ‘null and void’. The newly elected National Assembly reacted to this provocation by expelling the imperial family from the country and confiscating their property. At the same time a law was passed which forbade the use of aristocratic titles and made it a punishable offence.
