Page - 195 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Initial Campaigns 195 both Germans and Austrians. On the part of the Austrians, this was already added to by feelings of deep embitterment. Clearly, the Germans had informed Emperor Franz Joseph’s Military Chancellery behind the back of the Army High Command that the exceptionally high losses among the Imperial and Royal troops, which were verifiable, could be traced back to incorrect tactical behaviour and poor leadership. The Austrians, they said, had simply dashed off instead of creating advantages by smaller-scale envel- opment activities and by conserving their forces. The Chief of the Military Chancellery, Bolfras, asked Conrad what this really meant. The Chief of the General Staff was now not in a position to pretend that the losses were not high, even very high, and assigned the blame to the unbridled desire for attack that caused the commanders to get carried away. Instead of waiting for artillery support, they had permitted an immediate offen- sive. Yet what was one to do against boldness and the thirst for victory ? The German liaison officer attached to the Army High Command, Kageneck, indulged in insinua- tions such as : ‘The causes of this can be traced back in 1866.’465 For Conrad, who was naturally angered by the ally’s criticism aimed indirectly at him, this was reason enough to also vent his fury himself. On 5 September, he wrote to Bolfras : ‘I fully agree with your view that the Germans are winning their victories at our expense ; they have […] left us high and dry.’466 The Austro-Hungarian armies were on the retreat. Since they had advanced by fan- ning out and their lines had become increasingly thin, it was easy for the Russians to pierce through between the briefly victorious Imperial and Royal 1st Army and the 4th Army. Both were threatened with being circumvented, and were forced to withdraw in great haste. However, the bulk of the Russian 9th and 5th Armies was targeting the Imperial and Royal 3rd Army in the Lviv area. The surrender of the eastern parts of Galicia was a result of a strategic error by the Imperial and Royal army command, and was at least partially due to operational mistakes made by generals who had only been trained in manoeuvres. To this was added the inferiority of numbers and the lack of homogeneity of the formations. Only rarely was it possible to determine failings among local commanders or soldiers, who in most cases gave their all and fought with a for- midable readiness to suffer and make sacrifices. Within the space of just a few hours, the line infantry, cavalry, artillery and other troops in the Common Army, in addition to the Imperial and Royal Landwehr and Imperial and Royal Honvéd, as well as Land- sturm formations, had already undergone experiences that would leave their mark : the first dead, the nerve-shattering artillery fire that was so difficult to combat since the Russians were equipped with more modern, longer-range guns than the Imperial and Royal troops, the screams of the wounded, hunger and exhaustion. The Russians also had more machine guns. And they were superior in numbers. The fall of the Galician capital, Lviv, on 3 September was of no great military significance. And yet this event had far-reaching effects, and forced the last dreamers to wake up to reality.