Page - 186 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

186 ‘Thank God, this is the Great War!’ areas. There were other problems, too, when it came to the leadership. The army corps that made up the Imperial and Royal 5th and 6th Armies consisted of troops who to a significant degree had been recruited from the Slav reinforcement districts of the Mon- archy, with Croats and Serbs counting for up to fifty per cent. This was not the result of any deliberate policy of perhaps sending Croats to war against Serbs. To a far greater extent, it was simply due to the fact that in peacetime, the troops were replenished from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dalmatia and Croatia. However, the question naturally arose as to whether the troops would obey unconditionally. And even if this was the case, the envoy Alexander von Musulin was probably right when he pensively remarked that this was likely to be the last time in the history of the Habsburg Monarchy that Croats  – let alone Austrian Serb nationals  – would allow themselves to be led into a war against Serbs.440 The fact that there was also to be a Montenegrin front appeared to be no particular cause for concern to anyone in Vienna. Conversely, the obvious Austrian superiority had forced the Montenegrin King Nikola and his Prime Minister, Serdar (Commander) Janko Vukotić, who was simultaneously War Minister and Chief of the General Staff, to take the initiative. Vukotić and the Serbian Chief of the General Staff, Vojvoda Put- nik, wanted to coordinate their conduct of war as well as possible. A joint war plan was presented on 6 August. Six days later, the Austro-Hungarian troops attacked.441 It was mid-August, and very hot. The troops had been given no respite after often gruelling marches. A delay of the attack by 48 hours, as had been requested by General Frank, the Commander of the 5th Army, was out of the question. His army was to attack across the Sava and take Šabac as its first target. To the south, the 6th Army had been ordered to cross the Drina and to advance against Montenegro. For the Imperial and Royal manoeuvring generals, these goals were easily achievable. The troops attacked at a right angle to the river courses and hill ridges and had an arduous task of overcoming them. The columns struggled through scrub and forest terrain and through two-metre high maize. And the Serbs were tough and clever defenders. The Commander of the VIII Corps, General of Cavalry Arthur Giesl von Gieslingen, the brother of the same Baron Giesl who had been the envoy in Belgrade until 25 July, attempted to reflect these factors in his records. However, Giesl did not put this to paper in order to glorify the campaign, but did so after the war at the request of the commission installed by the Austrian parliament for investigating military breaches of duty during the war, which was making enquiries in relation to Potiorek.442 Giesl, who  – like many others  – was later the subject of fierce criticism, noted that the troops were tired from the long train journey, and had to undergo difficult marches in very high temperatures. Furthermore, the provisions and munitions convoys and medical facilities had not yet arrived in full. The Drina was to be crossed at two points, but transition materials were only provided for one bridge. Once the corps had taken the other bank under heavy Serbian fire, the