Page - 391 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Pre-emption 391 parently, one of the trains was boarded by just one single passenger : an actor who was visiting Lienz by chance as a guest performer.928 In other places, the danger was so obvious, for example in the Val Canale and Gail Valley, that from 24 May onwards, force was almost no longer necessary. On this date, the Italians already began their artillery attack, making the necessity to flee self-evident. Flight, evacuation and the forward march of troops merged with each other, and in this way once again, for hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of people, life changed fundamentally within a space of 72 to 96 hours. Once again, the towns and villages were hung with flags and the trains were decorated. The music bands played when- ever there was an evacuation or when troops marched out or were loaded on to trains. ‘Zu Mantua in Banden’, the ‘Kaiserjäger March’ or the ‘Khevenhüller March’ were the standard songs that were played, and which with time became hackneyed. For the military, as always, the purpose was to calculate on a different basis than an emotional, enthusiastic or fearful one. Since August 1914, military preparations had been made in case Italy entered the war. Initially, it had been a type of emergency plan. On 13 August 1914, General of Cavalry Baron Franz von Rohr received the or- der to monitor the situation on the border and to make preparations for a rapid alert procedure. Rohr, who had been born in Arad and who before the war was Inspector General of the Honvéd (Hungarian standing army), established a group command and attempted to gain some degree of clarity regarding the military developments in Italy. He sent one report after another to the Army High Command and the Military Chancellery of the Emperor, but, overall, was only able to sketch out the almost hope- less inferiority of the Imperial and Royal troops if Italy were to attack. The situation looked more than dismal when the numbers were added up. Since September 1914, 17 battalions and twelve mobile guns were available for the five Tyrol regions, with 23 battalions and eight mobile guns for Carinthia and the Austrian Littoral. Here, the Tyrolean section had the advantage that the barrier forts on the plateau of Folgaria, which were designed to block access from the Sette Comuni to Trento, could very quickly be made ready for defensive action, and the artillery force of these fortresses was naturally to be included in the overall planning. Around 20,000 men worked to complete the fortress complexes. A far greater risk was posed to the Carinthian and Littoral sections. The very weak forces were gradually joined by the voluntary forces mentioned above. Carinthia established four regiments of volunteers with 10,000 men in total, while Salzburg offered six battalions, Upper Austria four battalions and Trieste one young rifle battalion. This made up a total of 26,000 volunteers, around a quarter of whom were suitable for use as fighting troops. In Tyrol and Vorarlberg  – as mentioned above  – it was primarily the Standschützen who were provided. Until the regular troops arrived, at the beginning of May 1915, General Rohr, therefore, had at his disposal 112 battalions, nine squadrons and 49 batteries.