Page - 303 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Death in the Carpathians 303 versy that flared up in the context of preparations for the Carpathian offensive regard- ing the mixing of Austro-Hungarian and German troops as well as over the command appears peculiar. Such a strong mixing of the German and the Imperial and Royal troops had in fact already taken place that there was a regimental coexistence not only in the armies and the corps but also in the divisions. The ‘German’ South Army, which had been set up for the offensive, comprised three German infantry divisions, two Im- perial and Royal infantry divisions as well as a German and an Austro-Hungarian cavalry division. At the end of January, there were even exclusively Austro-Hungarian divisions subordinated to the German General von Gallwitz. At the same time as the offensive in the Carpathians commenced, Hindenburg also wanted to attack in East Prussia. Here Schlieffen’s operational school was once again discernible ; at the time, Schlieffen had begun to concern himself with the double en- velopment whilst taking into account the study on Cannae by the prominent historian Hans Delbrück. The Eastern Front High Command wanted to launch a major pincer movement : Austrians and Germans from the south and Germans from the north. Ra- diant confidence prevailed in the Eastern Front High Command, yet only two weeks later it had become evident that the Austro-Hungarian Carpathian offensive was a failure. It had already been started with comparatively weak numbers of personnel.719 On the Austrian side, no more than 175,000 infantrymen mustered with approximately 1,000 guns. This time, however, the enemy was not only the Russian soldier ; this time it was above all the cold that had to be fought. At minus 25 degrees in a very snowy, icy landscape, covered by dense forests and highly disorientating, the troops readied themselves. The ridge of a low mountain range, which averages only 800 metres, was to be used to get close to the encircled fortress. ‘Up to 100 km apart, mountain passes transcend the many lateral ridges running parallel ; between them are a few poor paths that are buried in deep snow during the winter’, as Major General Zanantoni de- scribed the offensive region.720 ‘There were only few settlements and these few were wretched. For the most part we avoided these and, though exhausted, with our last ounce of strength we built ourselves large holes in the snow in order to find protection from the cold. Death from exposure to cold was lurking every time one fell asleep in the open air. Many a brave soldier has even been delivered from his toils in the wooded Carpathians. In the night the wolves came and satisfied their gluttony on the sleeping. […] It must have looked something like that in 1812 in Russia.’ The soldiers received no warm meals for days on end and had no accommodation ; in this way thousands perished from the cold, whilst tens of thousands suffered the most serious frostbite. This affected not only the frontline troops, however. If anything, the sacrifice of the replacement troops had an even more lasting effect. Enough men could still be called up, trained, brought in mass transports to the front and thrown into battle. There they