 By this time , the war was closing in on the embattled Emperor . A Union of Czech Deputies had already sworn an oath to a new Czechoslovak state independent of the Habsburg Empire on 13 April 1918 , the prestige of the German Army had taken a severe blow at the Battle of Amiens , and , on 25 September 1918 , King Ferdinand of Bulgaria broke away from his allies in the Central Powers and sued for peace independently . Zita was with Charles when he received the telegram of Bulgaria 's collapse . She remembered it " made it even more urgent to start peace talks with the Western Powers while there was still something to talk about . On 16 October , the emperor issued a " People 's Manifesto " proposing the empire be restructured on federal lines with each nationality gaining its own state . Instead , each nation broke away and the empire effectively dissolved . 
