on 23 June 1903 to the position of Prime Minister of Hungary. Nevertheless, he continued to interfere in Croatian state affairs and has helped Nikola Tomašić to become Croatian Ban. At the beginning of the World War I, he stated that the idea of creation of Yugoslavia from the Croatian point of view was inappropriate due to the Serb question and that the solution for Bosnia and Herzegovina's status was in its annexation to Hungary. Prime Minister (1903) At the elections of 1901 the Liberal Party had obtained a considerable majority, and Prime Minister Kálmán Széll formed a government. He faced the greatest difficulty on 16 October 1902, when the Minister of Defence, Géza Fejérváry tabled a bill in the House of Representatives about the conscription of 20 thousands reservists. Against this proposal of the defence minister, the opposition, led by the Independence Party, launched an endless obstruction under the slogan of "no more soldiers without the introduction of Hungarian as the language service and command". In the face of opposition, which paralysed the work of the parliament, the Széll government proved impotent. On 23 May 1903, King Francis Joseph authorised Károly Khuen-Héderváry, ban of Croatia, to initiate negotiations among the Hungarian politicians about the prospects of forming a new government. The ban, who had no immediate knowledge of the political conditions at Budapest, briefly acquainted himself with the situation and resigned his commission as he saw his situation utterly hopeless. Consequently, the ruler asked István Tisza on 16 June to agree as future prime minister with the politicians of the Liberal Party about the composition of the government. But the members of the governing party, fearing that Tisza would eventually break down the obstruction with violent means, refused to assume the ministerial posts offered to them one after the another. In aftermath of Tisza's failured efforts to form a government, king withdrew Széll's commission and asked Khuen-Héderváry to start new initiative to form government in Budapest but this time it should be accompanied by negotiations between broader political fractions. To successfully fulfil the king's expectations, Khuen-Héderváry made a favorable political deal with Independence Party by promising their leaders that he would drop Fejérváry's new conscripting proposition and support the bill for enlisting only a regular number of yearly recruits, if they agreed to support to his government and end obstruction to form new government. Soon after the new Khuen-Héderváry