Page - 478 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

478 War Aims and Central Europe a novelty for the Russians. Extended positions had been set up, similar to those that ex- isted in Flanders. Every possible means of engineering, above all barbed wire obstacles, were used, whilst troops and artillery were distributed in such a way that the Russians got stuck in the deeply staggered positions of the Imperial and Royal formations and suffered heavy losses. The Russians were stuck in a considerable crisis, and this became clear in the final weeks and months of 1915. The masses of men had become noticeably thinner, even if they were still referred to as the ‘steamroller’. But there was very little hidden behind this steamroller. And the stubborn attacks against enlarged positions contradicted all experiences they had made so far in the war. The Russians had consid- erably fewer guns at their disposal than the Austrian troops, however, and the artillery teams suffered furthermore from a striking lack of ammunition. Taken together, this brought about the victory in the Neujahrsschlacht. Conrad was certainly aware that the Russian Army was still a long way from being beaten in the field,1127 and he expected a major new offensive in the spring. He also wrote this in December to Bolfras, whereby he formulated it as follows : ‘[…] yet the fact that we, as you correctly say, will face some hard tests, is certain. I have been expecting for a long time the Russian thrusts against us, and likewise a major, general offensive (presum- ably in the spring) rather than local offensive thrusts. One of these is currently in process against the 7th Army. Prepared for it, we directed troops to the endangered front on time ; the Russian attacks have so far been deflected, hopefully this will continue.’1128 It appeared that Conrad had every reason to be confident. In spite of the ‘autumn swine’, the Imperial and Royal Army was again looking good in the Russian theatre of war, and the offensive for the conquest of Montenegro and thus the expulsion of the rest of the Serbian Army from the Balkans, which it had begun against the will of the Germans, appeared to be succeeding. In the euphoria of victory, however, it was a temptation to see the war objectives of the Central Powers in a very simplified fashion, and it was precisely those around Conrad who believed they had finally found a reason for why the Germans no longer wanted to support the Austro-Hungarian war aims in the Balkans, and why specifically Falkenhayn rejected the planned offensive against Italy and repeatedly attempted to make all kinds of difficulties. It was claimed that Germany could have no interest in seeing an Austria-Hungary emerge that exceeded by far its own strength, to which half of Poland, half of Serbia and also part of Italy would be added.1129 This observation in the vicinity of Conrad was evidently only partially correct, however, since at least in the German Supreme Army Command there flickered something akin to sympathy for Austria, and they wanted to be generous in negotiations over territories. Thus, the Prussian War Minister Wild von Hohenborn wrote to his wife on 1 November 1915 : ‘I think that if we take Courland with Lithuania [and] the Vilnius, Kaunas [and] Suwałki Governorates, and regulate our border properly up to the southern end of Silesia, it