Page - 473 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Salonika Problem 473 burg-Schwerin was already being referred to as the future Serbian king.1117 The Army High Command advised caution and argued that the Serbs had not yet been definitely defeated. The German Supreme Army Command, however, regarded the campaign as being over. Conrad now attempted to put an end to the degradation of the Imperial and Royal Army High Command to a mere conveyor of orders and an element of implementation, and declared on 25 November that for his part Mackensen’s authority over the Austro-Hungarian troops was at an end as soon as no further joint operations were undertaken.1118 He regarded himself as all the more entitled since he had ascer- tained on several occasions that the Army High Command had not only been repeat- edly bypassed in the issuing of orders, but that in at least two instances Falkenhayn had discussed matters relating to the conduct of war in the Balkans with the Bulgarians or with Enver Pasha, the Turkish generalissimo. Falkenhayn could only spare sarcasm for Conrad’s objections, which caused Conrad to make the counter-statement that he, Conrad, had grown up with Balkan problems and did not require any tutoring in this respect. At the end of November the expulsion of the Entente troops from the southern Slav region was jointly accomplished, but then neither German nor Bulgarian troops were permitted to cross the Greek border, thus rescuing the Allies from a probable heavy defeat and Greece from becoming a war zone. Conrad, however, did not want to give in. He informed Falkenhayn that he  – in contradiction of his original intentions  – was planning an operation against Montenegro under the leadership of the Army High Command, and when Falkenhayn described this as unnecessary and demanded for his part  – in accordance with an assurance that had already been given  – the sending of two Austro-Hungarian divisions to the western front, Conrad responded that he could not make these two divisions available but that he would leave it to Falkenhayn to remove the German formations of the South Army in Bukovina. With this controversy, which in the end was continued only in writing, the relationship between the two general staff chiefs had  – not entirely surprisingly  – reached its low point.1119 Falkenhayn repeatedly summoned the German Plenipotentiary General attached to the Army High Command, August von Cramon, and explained to him that it was impossible to work again with Conrad, since the latter did not adhere to his obligations and concealed from him, Falkenhayn, the most important information.1120 What Falk- enhayn had studiously overlooked, however, was the circumstance that he had blatantly issued orders over the heads of the Austro-Hungarian authorities and also cherished the illusion of being able to conduct the Serbian campaign as a predominantly German affair. In the meantime, the German Supreme Army Command had also been shown that absolutely nothing was simple in the Balkans and could not be measured by Prus- sian yardsticks. Austria-Hungary, for its part, was also not content to subordinate itself to the German Supreme Army Command and its war aims. The differences in opinion