Page - 55 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The ‘entire armed force’ 55 controversies among the decision-makers repeatedly prevented the implementation of changes that would have been possible in themselves or at least the acceleration of acquisition processes. This was the case in the fortification of the country and it reached its grotesque climax in the conflict between the Chief of the General Staff Conrad and the commander-in-chief of Bosnia-Herzegovina Potiorek regarding the question of introducing modern mountain artillery and reconstructions, where new expert opinions were repeatedly demanded.104 Ultimately, Austria-Hungary went to war with completely outdated artillery. The army was also the subject of political disputes, particularly where the army’s role in the nationalities question was concerned. Yet for all the attention the army attracted as an instrument of politics, it was in fact never infringed as a prerogative of the crown, though frequently regarded as a ‘hobby of the Monarch and his ambitious entourage’.105 ‘In accordance with this, it was regarded in many cases as downright patriotic to thwart the timely arming of the army […] by denying the necessary funds or at least to use the authorisation of these funds as a means of extortion in order to achieve so-called ‘na- tional’ demands’, as the Imperial and Royal diplomat Emerich Csáky, who came from a Hungarian aristocratic family, summarised it. With the reference to the financial means at the disposal of the entire armed force of the Habsburg Monarchy, Count Csáky  – and he was not alone  – brought up a very painful subject, and once again it was not the absolute figures that best illustrated the circumstances but rather the comparison : the expenditure for the military decreased between 1870 and 1910 from 24.1 to 15.7 per cent of the budget.106 Per head of the population, Great Britain expended more than five times as much on the military as the Habsburg Monarchy, France more than twice as much, Germany two-and-a-half times and even Russia and Italy did more for their military than Austria-Hungary.107 Regardless of this, the Imperial and Royal Army saw itself as the most important pillar of state power and cultivated a feeling, which was indeed suggested to the army, of being the strongest and last unifying bond of the Empire. This feeling could be encountered in particular within the officer corps. What this expressed, however, was only partially accurate. On the one hand, it was a sentimental impulse and was most applicable to the active officer corps but not to the reserve officers ; but then it could be assumed that the civil service, the majority of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie as well as the peasants were loyal to the monarchy. In general, no single social group can be accused of a lack of loyalty to the Empire. We have furthermore already established that even radical nationalist politicians scarcely speculated seriously about the end of the monarchy. However, the image that became fixed within the Common Army was accurate in one respect : the army, as it undoubtedly possessed authority, was better and more obviously suited than other pillars of state power to embody the will to unite the monarchy and a certain strength of the multinational state. Integrating tendencies ad-