Page - 69 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Military Accords 69 This finding, however, was not only addressed to the person most responsible for the military planning of the Habsburg Monarchy, the Chief of the General Staff Conrad von Hötzdendorf, but to an even greater extent to the responsible politicians, who culti- vated an almost exclusively Eurocentric view and for whom the in any case rare trips of the units of the Imperial and Royal Navy beyond the Mediterranean were merely exotic excursions, just as the diplomatic presence in overseas countries was still regarded as a transfer for disciplinary reasons, similar to the post in Washington at the beginning of the 19th century. For the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, the military problems of a war were, at least since the signing of the Franco-Russian alliance and a supplementary military convention in 1892/93, almost exclusively problems of a two-front war. During the term in office of the Chief of the German General Staff Count Alfred von Schlieffen the plan emerged that was named after him, which was designed to solve the problem for Germany by initially wrestling down France with a clear numerical superiority in the west and taking a defensive approach to Russia until the forces in the west had be- come available again and could be transferred to the east. This concept, which was not understood in Austria-Hungary and against which Conrad’s predecessor as Chief of the General Staff, General Friedrich von Beck-Rzikowsky, was already opposed, led to an almost complete breaking-off of military contact at the highest level.141 Until 1906, there were no even remotely concrete agreements, let alone binding ones, between the chiefs of the German and the Austro-Hungarian general staffs. Only at the beginning of the new era, which was characterised in Germany by Hel- muth von Moltke, the nephew of the ‘old’ Moltke, and in Austria-Hungary by Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, was closer contact achieved. This contact was decisively pro- moted by the annexation crisis. The initiative was taken by Conrad. At the beginning of 1909 he sketched out the political situation of the Dual Alliance and counted France, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro among potential opponents.142 With regard to their respective behaviour, Conrad claimed that Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey were not pre- dictable, Italy would remain neutral and Romania would enter the war on the side of the Triple Alliance, or rather the Dual Alliance. That just left Great Britain, though evidently Conrad had nothing to say on this subject. Against whom, however, should the main strike be made ? Conrad referred above all to the problem that would arise if Austria-Hungary were to become involved in a war against Serbia and Russia were to enter the war at a later date. It could also happen the other way around and Serbia could intervene in a war between the Dual Alliance and Russia. Moltke responded immediately and pointed to the current Schlieffen Plan : regardless of what happened, in a two-front war between alliances the German army would have to wrestle down France and only then turn all its forces against Russia. He added, however, that Austria-Hungary would have to be in a position to hold Russia