Page - 62 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

62 Two Million Men for the War exercise journeys and the numerous manoeuvres were designed to ensure the managea- bility of the army and also provide information on who might be best suited to leading large formations in a repeatedly sought-after future war. There appeared to be no limits to what could be achieved in the context of the war games and evidently aspirations were confused with reality. For example, it was assumed that troops would be able to march 25 km a day, every day for more than ten days, fight a four-day battle at the end of it and then go straight over to pursuing the enemy.121 In fact, whilea lot was of expected of officers and soldiers, many things could not be simulated in training, however tough it was. For the appointment to senior functions, it was ultimately not always just what was on paper that was decisive but also a conglomeration of criteria, of which the question of whether the gentleman being proposed enjoyed the favour of the heir to the throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand was not the least important. Shortly after his re-appoint- ment in 1913, Conrad himself was informed by Franz Ferdinand of his imminent dis- missal, which was planned for 1914, as a result of some discord at the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig and several at most minor differences of opinion. As there existed in peacetime only the sixteen army corps of the Common Army as the highest organised unit of the army, the appointment of army commanders was something that possessed a particular significance. It was chiefly the Archduke Frie- drich as commander-in-chief of the Imperial-Royal Landwehr as well as generals Bar- onet Adolf von Brudermann, Oskar Potiorek, Liborius Frank, Moritz von Auffenberg and Baron Ernst von Leithner who were foreseen for the function of army command- ers.122 It was intended that they lead the operations with army general staffs that would be formed ad hoc. At the beginning of the war it would be seen whether the deploy- ment and campaign concepts of the Operations Division of the General Staff, which were revised on an annual basis, were based on realistic assumptions. One thing was certain and was then also expressed in the crisis of July 1914 : the Imperial and Royal Army was ready for battle. The words of Bismarck were repeatedly quoted : ‘If Emperor Franz Joseph mounts his horse, the nations of the Dual Monarchy will follow him.’ Dual Alliance and Triple Alliance Now, the Emperor was already too old to mount his hourse. Yet others would do so and they should be able to rely on the German Kaiser mounting ‘his horse’ if Austria required his help. The basis for the military-political relationship and the interplay be- tween Austria-Hungary and the German Empire was the Dual Alliance of 1879.123 The treaty had been conceived of as a defensive alliance in the event of a French attack on Germany or a Russian attack on Austria-Hungary. In this form the alliance  – which had initially been kept secret  – would never have had to be activated.