Page - 304 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

304 The First Winter of the War were rapidly consumed and seemed to provide a foretaste of what has so vividly been called “blood pump” in the context of the Battle of Verdun. The Russians proceeded in a similar way : masses were deployed and decimated in an alleged calculated risk. Over- all, the numbers of fighting troops did not decline, however. On the contrary, more troops were led into battle than losses occurred. In this way, however, the potential for trained soldiers was exhausted particularly drastically for the first time. On average, a frontline soldier served at the front for only five to six weeks before  – statistical- ly-speaking  – he was dead or taken prisoner or transported to the rear either injured or sick.721 Then it was the turn of the next replacement formations. War Minister Georgi had reported to Emperor Franz Joseph in December that 170,000 reservists were available per month and that soldiers could be mustered for another year of the war without any problems.722 It had merely been necessary to re-examine the eligible generations, abolish the exemptions that had been in place and call up those eligible for enlistment on time  – and that did the trick. The corps and divisions were driven forwards in the Carpathians through snow and ice, always with the objective of Przemyśl in sight. They were forced on until their com- plete exhaustion, as the Commander of the Imperial and Royal VII Corps, Archduke Joseph, reported : even fire from the rear could no longer prevent the troops from aban- doning their posts and ‘people at the front committed suicide from total exhaustion’. After all, as the 3rd Army reported, the stop in the trenches near Przemyśl had been the last opportunity for rest ; since then, no-one had slept. The fighting to relieve Przemyśl, however, had in fact only just begun, and compared to that, the surrounded fortress  – which had triggered this military lunacy  – was actually doing better. Even in Przemyśl, however, losses increased. This was less because Russian attempts to storm the fortress had to be repulsed, and more because Kusmanek wanted to continue threatening and engaging the Russians. The first Battle of the Carpathian Passes was followed by the second. Now the weather changed from one extreme to the other. On 8 February, the thaw began, the roads be- came almost impassable and only pack animals could transport the necessary supplies. Then there was heavy snowfall again.723 The Commander of the Imperial and Royal 2nd Army, General Böhm-Ermolli, requested a brief delay of the attack, but Conrad insisted on attacking as soon as possible between the Uszók Pass and the Łupków Pass. As a distraction and also in order not to give Romania the impression that the Imperial and Royal troops would not be present in Transylvania and Bukovina as well, the army group of General Pflanzer-Baltin was slated to reconquer Bukovina, most of which had been lost to the Russians. Weather conditions here on the most southerly section of the Eastern Front were also like deepest winter, but on 18 February the Russians were ousted from Kolomyia (Kolomea) and the capital of Bukovina, Chernivtsi (Czer- nowitz). No sooner had this been achieved than the army group command ordered the