Page - 518 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

518 South Tyrol : The End of an Illusion (I) The Army Group Command continued to decline to intervene directly. It received re- ports, and passed on its impressions and recommendations. The Army High Command was unable par distance to decide whether the Army Group Command or Dankl was correct, or whether Major General Archduke Karl should not more decisively command his XX Corps to press ahead. However, the Army High Command did everything it could to release further Austro-Hungarian troops from the eastern front in order to make them available for transportation to the south-west. On 21 May, at the moment when it must have been felt by everyone that Army Group Archduke Eugen had it in its power to conquer Italy, Emperor Franz Joseph or- dered that the Command of the South-Western Front was to report directly to the Mil- itary Chancellery, and not via the circuitous route of the Army High Command. Clearly, the Monarch and those closest to him wished to be informed directly and comprehen- sively, and not simply by means of the ‘Emperor’s reports’. It can only be surmised that, in this way, not least dynastic interests were to be served by the introduction of a more independent command for Archduke Eugen. At any rate, Conrad was furious.1222 He rightly regarded the measure as an unpleasant restriction of the field of competence of the Army High Command. ‘What the Army High Command has done to deserve this’, he wrote to Bolfras, ‘I do not know, least of all now, after the Italian campaign.’ However, it was indeed not yet ‘after the Italian campaign.’ The campaign was still in full swing. Yet it was Conrad more than anyone else who would not be robbed at any price of the success and satisfaction of having dealt Italy the death blow. He let it be known that the Army High Command had planned this offensive for months, and that he himself bore a large share of responsibility by having ordered the attack, even though Falkenhayn had made urgent attempts to dissuade him from doing so. The armed forces needed for the offensive could now ‘be mustered [only at the cost of a] serious weakening of our Russian front and our Isonzo front’. Everything was interlinked : the railway transports, the telegraph facilities, and the supply of artillery. The Army High Command, he said, had made a conscious decision to remain reticent and ‘only felt it necessary initially to intervene with regard to operations’, when the Army Group Command ordered the offensive to Brentonico in the Valsugana Valley. The leadership must therefore remain in the hands of the Army High Command. What Conrad did not realise was that with the command facilities available at that time, it was impossible to lead a campaign from a distance of 800 kilometres, and what he refused to accept was that Archduke Eugen did indeed gain a certain degree of independence by reporting directly to the Military Chancellery. Conrad vigorously challenged this state of affairs. The operations, he claimed, should and must remain united under a single command. And to make his overall argument even clearer, he added on 23 May : ‘I still have too strong memories of the extra aims that Potiorek attempted to pursue with his arrogant notions of independ- ence at that time. […] the facts have proven me right.’1223