Page - 247 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Fortress on the San 247 in reality to gain victory over France within a short space of time was to blame for the fact that the Dual Monarchy had suffered such a decisive defeat in Galicia. If Kaiser Wilhelm had put more effort into the war in the east, instead of worrying about his hunting grounds in East Prussia, matters would probably have been different.593 Berch- told appeared only to have been waiting to be prodded in this way, and let it be known via the Austrian ambassador in Berlin, Prince Gottfried zu Hohenlohe-Schillingfürst, that the German Empire bore the responsibility for the defeat in the east, and that the Danube Monarchy may be forced to make a separate peace. He also claimed that the German march into Belgium had brought Great Britain into the arena and led to the neutrality of Italy and Romania. Everything else had occurred simply as a result of this ill-considered course of action. At this point at the latest, Austria-Hungary began a battle of self-assertion against the German Empire. Defying German demands while at the same time demanding support from Germany very quickly developed into one of the most characteristic pat- terns of action. This lent an additional quality to the military measures : once, war was waged in order to win victory over the enemy and to force it to take certain political steps. Then, war was waged with the goal of preventing those powers that were not yet involved and those that were neutral from entering the war, and to impress them with the superiority of the Central Powers. Third, however, the Austro-Hungarian war was also planned with a view towards asserting itself against the German Empire. Yet was there also an overreaction here ? Already on 23 September, the German Supreme Army Command let it be known that it was against being too closely linked to the Imperial and Royal Army, since the Germans risked having no operational freedom. And anyway, those Austrians ! It was no better than Hradec Králové (Königgrätz) in 1866 !594 Still, there was no choice but to collaborate with them. Initially, the general staffs agreed to improve the coordination between their oper- ations in the Russian theatre of war. The Imperial and Royal 1st and 4th Armies were to again press forward to the north and advance towards the Germans, while the 3rd Army was to cross the San once more. In conjunction with the newly-formed German 9th Army (under Hindenburg), which was to attack from Silesia in the direction of Warsaw, plans were made at least to force the Russians back to the Vistula and the San Rivers. The Imperial and Royal 2nd Army under General Eduard Böhm-Ermolli, which had in the interim amassed in the north-eastern theatre of war, was to be put to use for the first time as a closed unit, and to operate from the Carpathians in the direction of Przemyśl. As a result, the Russians had little time left to conquer Przemyśl. However, General Brusilov, the Commander of the Russian 8th Army, which was positioned in front of the fort, had miscalculated the strength of the garrison. As a result of the arrival of more personnel and the fact that the troops from the front had remained behind, the garrison