Page - 398 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

398 The Third Front their homeland. ‘When it comes to the mentality of this mountain people, it cannot be held against them when they now fail to understand why the Bavarians, who have come to their aid against an equally common enemy, are limited in their scope of fighting.’941 The national defence commander for Tyrol, General Dankl, believed however that he could ignore the barriers put in place with regard the German Alpine Corps and planned to use it for offensive purposes in the Marmolada area. This triggered a prompt rebuke from Cieszyn (Teschen), as a result of which Dankl tendered his resignation.942 Emperor Franz Joseph was also enraged by the attitude of the Germans and on 11 June ordered the Military Chancellery to avoid the expression ‘brothers in arms’ in tel- egrams to German posts.943 However, the absence of greater German forces rendered illusory any thought of an offensive. Since Conrad could only plan defensive action, all available forces were brought as far forward as possible, to the border. It was implied to Dankl that he would have to retain his command and refrain from making applications for reinforcements.944 There was no strategic reserve. The existence of the Alpine Corps was not even mentioned. This went so far that the Army High Command, despite an urgent request by the Germans, instructed that the existence of the Alpine Corps should continue to be ignored, even though fighting broke out between Italians and Germans from the first days onwards. Even so, the Germans were strictly forbidden to set foot on Italian soil, and were only permitted to play a role in defensive actions. An order by the German Kaiser to this effect on 8 July left no room for any possible doubt. The purpose was to prevent Germany from being forced into the war against Italy through the back door, as it were, since if German troops were to conduct operations on Italian soil, the Italians would have no other choice than to also declare war on the German Empire. And this was not in Italy’s interests. This applied equally to the Ger- man Empire, which although it finally recalled its ambassador from Rome, and warned Italy against advancing into Austrian territory, refrained from sending its own troops to the main area of the Italian attack. The Imperial and Royal 5th Army with the XV and XVI Corps, Army Group Rohr together with the VII Corps and the troops from the Tyrol national defence command under General Dankl deployed a total of 224,000 infantry, 3,000 horsemen and 640 mobile guns.945 The number of Italian troops was three to four times as large, although it was above all the 2,000 and more mobile guns that were of greatest significance. However, there were also considerable weak points. The Italian infantry regiments had only two machine guns each, while the Imperial and Royal troops had two machine guns per battalion, in other words, four times as many. At the start of the war, the Italians had possessed almost no hand grenades, and the production rate of a model grenade from 1891 was just 2,500 pieces per month, as a result of which some of the Italian troops were still armed with outdated models.946 In the air, the Italian Army had a far lower presence at first than had been feared. Above all, the licensed constructions