Page - 275 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Belgrade and the Failure in the Balkans 275 the third time in three months. The Imperial and Royal 5th and 6th Armies, together with Army Group Krauss formed from the remaining sections of the 2nd Army and newly added troops, broke through the Serbian front at the beginning of November during several days of severe fighting. Once again, Valjevo was the first major goal. And although the distance became ever greater between the fighting troops and the supply convoys that were sinking into the unpaved roads, on 15 November, the 5th and 6th Armies finally reached the Kolubara River and were able to enter Valjevo. At a single stroke, all the setbacks appeared to have been forgotten. Potiorek’s reputation grew boundlessly. He was honoured by the Emperor and was made an honorary citizen of various towns, while in Sarajevo, a street was named after him.662 This spurred the Commander of the Balkan forces further on, and led him to allow his troops to con- tinue the advance. The Serbian Army was to be destroyed, and Serbia occupied. As early as 8 November, the Serbian government met for a crisis session, during which the Chief of the Serbian General Staff, Putnik, spoke of the option of declaring a ceasefire and signing a separate peace. However, the government would not hear of it, and Prime Minister Pašić declared that if Austria-Hungary were offered negotiations, his government would resign.663 The Serbian troops were to continue the fight. The Imperial and Royal troops found no rest. Potiorek drove them on mercilessly. ‘The harsh weather conditions give us great cause for concern for the state of health of our men, who are still dressed in summer clothing’, noted the Commander of the 29th Infantry Division, General Eduard Zanantoni. ‘Discipline and spirit began to suffer. The complaints all came to nothing ; Potiorek was deaf to the justified concerns of the lower-ranking commanders and made increasingly categorical demands for : ‘forwards, forwards !’’664 The artillery remained behind and had hardly any ammunition left. As a result, even more infantry had to be used without supporting weaponry in order to break the Serbian resistance. In the main German headquarters in Charleville-Mézières, a mood of pessimism had already taken hold, and the designated Quartermaster Gen- eral West, Wild von Hohenborn, wrote to his wife that in Serbia, the Austrians ‘have ground to a halt on the Kolubara. I have now sent an officer to the Serbian theatre of war. If the Austrians send 3 corps from there to Kraków, it might still come out alright. But they won’t get any further forward in Serbia.’665 Even so, Potiorek’s troops reach the Ljig River, where a new battle flared up between 26 and 28 November. The Serbs were forced back to Kragujevac. They lost the battle on the Kolubara and appeared to have reached the end. Discipline was almost impossible to maintain. General Jurišić-Šturm, who in August had still referred to the ‘Swabians’ as ‘impudent‘ and ‘ignorant’, threat- ened the death penalty for acts of desertion, self-mutilation or the discarding of weap- ons and ammunition. The families of soldiers attempting to escape from the fighting were to share the liability, and would lose all their property and be branded as dishon- ourable.666 Even so, all attempts to force the troops to keep up the resistance would have