Page - 274 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

274 Adjusting to a Longer War 5th Army applied for a re-imposition of martial law on the basis of ‘the crime of cow- ardice’.659 Potiorek complied with the request. If it had been thought initially that the Czechs would also be easily led into a war against the Serbs and Russians, a different attitude now appeared to have taken hold, and the Czech regiments began to be regarded with suspicion. They were clearly more shocked than others by the events of battle, and also let it be known that this was an- ything but ‘their’ war, and searched for ways of avoiding the fighting. Still, there was nothing that could be done. Even the troops who had been reprimanded were sent back to the front. Thus, Brigadier Panesch (to whom the 28th Prague Landwehr Infan- try Regiment was also subordinated), the Commander of the 41st Landwehr Infantry Brigade, which in turn belonged to the reprimanded 21st Landwehr Infantry Division, described the events of 19 September 1914 very vividly in his war memoirs : ‘The battle group achieved significant successes, the machine guns mowed easily into the enemy, but we were crushed, since everything turned against us. The machine guns were lost, and everyone flooded back […]. I hit out with my stick, while all the officers threatened with their revolvers, forcing the men to turn back to the firing line. The battle came to a standstill.’660 Panesch, who was accused of lacking decisiveness and of failure by his corps commander, Major General Alfred Krauß, was dismissed shortly afterwards and sent into retirement for health reasons. The self-mutilating soldiers faced the prospect of trial by a military court. However, it appeared that the replacement organisations of the Imperial and Royal Army smoothly succeeded in compensating for the loss of troops. After five weeks of ‘re-establishment’, the term used in the Imperial and Royal jargon for recuperation, the troops were again ready for action. However, the relative calm was not prevalent in all sections of the front. The Serbs had attempted to push forward to Sarajevo via the Romanija Planina. They had failed, but had demonstrated that they continued to be capable of attack, and had cleverly disguised the fact that their situation was become increasingly difficult. During the course of October, Serbia had no longer been able to fully compensate for the losses of the first weeks of the war to a similar extent as was the case in Austria-Hungary. There were already signs of a lack of ammunition. Food also became scarce. The Russians, French and British had become involved with military missions and had also actively intervened to defend Serbia. The Russians had mined the Danube and Sava, and on 23 October had in fact sunk one of the Imperial and Royal monitors, the Temes, which was the flagship of the Danube Flotilla and the same monitor that had in effect begun the war.661 However, what would have been of far greater benefit, namely a generous replenishment of armaments, weapons and am- munition, failed to materialise. Since mid-October, it had been raining, and snow had been falling in the mountains. Despite this, on 31 October, the Austro-Hungarian troops now attacked once again, for