Page - 233 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Death of General Wodniansky 233 application by the 12th Infantry Division ‘because he does not measure up’. He was allegedly a severe neurasthenic and had lost his self-assurance.562 The next bomb was dropped on 29 September : the Commander of the Imperial and Royal 4th Army, General Auffenberg had reported sick. Auffenberg could not explain it ; neither could others. Archduke Friedrich could, however, and he wrote to the Em- peror : ‘Even before his departure from Vienna, I had the impression that GdI Auffen- berg went to war with little confidence.’ But then there was the success at Komarów, which Archduke Friedrich claimed had been exaggerated and was in no way decisive. Subsequently, however, Auffenberg had not been equal to the task, the Army had lost faith in him and, finally, Auffenberg had ‘broken down under the weight of events’. His successor would be Archduke Joseph Ferdinand.563 Auffenberg was indeed at the end of his strength and had been visibly scarred by the events that followed the Battle of Komarów. All that remained of the very well-known figure of the one-time Imperial and Royal War Minister was a picture of misery. He, whom others had certified ‘a keen, critical spirit’, ‘which he combined with scintillating wit’ and who had instilled trust in others, had changed beyond recognition. ‘Now I saw […] a tired, broken old man, who relayed his experiences and his opinions with a weary voice and a resigned countenance’,564 noted one of his subordinates. Auffenberg was removed and sent to Vienna. It should not be overlooked that Auffenberg had already dismissed three of his four corps commanders (Hortstein of the IX, Schemua of the II and Huyn of the XVII Corps). Only Boroević, the Commander of the VI Corps, was able to survive. The fall of Auffenberg was nevertheless tinged with intrigue. Shortly thereafter, Auffenberg had to defend himself, however, due to a completely different matter, namely dubious business connections, and was briefly imprisoned. On 6 October, the Commander of the 49th Infantry Brigade (II Corps, 4th Army), Brigadier Robert Edler von Langer, was dismissed, whilst Brigadier Haustein von Haustenau was declared unfit for service on 12 October.565 Brigadier Gustav Mallász, the Commander of the 64th Infantry Brigade (IV Corps, 2nd Army), was forced into retirement shortly thereafter.566 It was no less ‘lively’ in the armies in the Balkans. Army and corps commanders searched for reasons to explain the lack of success of their troops and frequently found them in the failure of the respective troop commanders. If this went hand in hand with incidents in the troop bodies, which were already under surveillance due to an as- sumed or even just conjectured lack of commitment, then the dismissals became more frequent. Brigadier Maximilian Csicserics, the chief of staff of the Imperial and Royal 5th Army, was transferred to the bridgehead in Vienna. General of Cavalry Arthur Giesl von Gieslingen, the Commander of the VIII Corps, was dismissed and likewise the Commander of the 41st Landwehr Infantry Brigade, Brigadier Othmar Panesch, among others. It seemed that the list would never end. At the end of the year, two army