Page - 272 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

272 Adjusting to a Longer War What remained was a battlefield  – one of many  – the horrific sight of which shocked even a hardened General Staff officer such as the head of the Evidenzgruppe (military intelligence group) of the 4th Army, Lieutenant Colonel Baronet Theodor von Zeynek : ‘A warren of trenches running in all different directions, all filled with cartridge cases, broken rifles, bent bayonets, wooden board covers shot to pieces, rotten straw, ground- water, and food that had been left uneaten. Often, prayer books were still lying there, Austrian caps, Prussian spiked helmets, Russian wool hats, followed by entire networks of newly-dug, unused trenches, burned-down houses, villages shelled to rubble, over- turned telegraph lines, and demolished bridges. Groups of wailing, crying farmers and their wives and children passed, who did not know where they could go ; then there was a heap of dead soldiers, then we saw long rows of freshly dug graves, and numerous horse carcasses. In the villages terrible images of destruction, the population for the most part transported out or fled, the fields trampled to mud and in the sky vast flocks of screaming, scavenging crows’.653 The pursuit of the Russian 3rd and 8th Armies continued for several more days. Dur- ing the battle, which finally lasted until 20 December, they were successfully thrown back to the Tarnów area. During the process, the Imperial and Royal 4th Army ad- vanced through to the Dunajec River. The 3rd Army was forced back to the Carpathi- ans, but the Russian breakthrough into Silesia and Hungary had been prevented. As a result, the blueprints for dividing the Monarchy agreed in Russia, France and Serbia became obsolete.654 Belgrade and the Failure in the Balkans In Constantinople, the Sultan Caliph Mohammed V proclaimed the Jihad, or holy war, against the British, French and Russians on 14 November 1914. He called on all Mus- lims to participate in this war on the side of the Ottoman Empire and its allies, Ger- many and Austria-Hungary. In so doing, he was indicating not least to the Muslims in the Balkans that their place in this war was in the ranks and at the side of the Imperial and Royal Monarchy.655 Who would have thought that this would be possible after the second siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1683 ? Already by the end of August, around 7,000 predominantly Islamic inhabitants of the Sanjak of Novi Pazar had gone over to the Bosnian side. At the start of November, the Islamic Bosnians organised demon- strations in support of the Habsburg Monarchy. They were intended to emphasise the fact that the Muslims considered themselves to be particularly reliable subjects of the distant Emperor in Vienna. For its part, Austria-Hungary lost no time in shrugging off the former wars as ‘water under the bridge’, and in underlining common ground. The country and people were described, and particular mention was made of the bravery of