Page - 552 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

552 Lutsk : The End of an Illusion (II) are actually placed in the hands of the German Kaiser, and thus the German Army Command. To put it quite clearly : the latter can therefore relocate troops as it sees fit and can thus, for example, say that we should evacuate South Tyrol and send the troops there to another theatre of war, to Courland or to the Vosges Mountains.’ Conrad again wanted to integrate the Foreign Ministry, but he received a rebuff. The Emperor let him know that it was now only a question of maintaining the Monarchy and since Austria-Hungary was too weak and dependant on German forces, it was only right if the German Kaiser were given the deciding voice, ‘since ultimately someone must make the decision in points of controversy’. Emperor Franz Joseph was very well aware that he was relinquishing part of his rights as sovereign and granting the German Kaiser a visible primacy. Ultimately, it was the latter who would decide whether the war would be continued or whether there would be peace. The Supreme War Command became reality on 7 September 1916. The relevant ‘Provisions’ stated, among other things : ‘In order to guarantee the unified command of the future Bulgarian-German-Austrian-Hungarian-Turkish operations, His Majesty the German Kaiser assumes the supreme command of the operations of the Central Powers and their allies. […] The Supreme Command extends to the fundamental ob- jectives of the operations carried out in the different theatres of war, the forces used for these […] [and the] chain of command and subordination. For exercising the Supreme Command, the army supreme commanders of the allied armed forces and their gen- eral staff chiefs are at the disposal of the German Kaiser.’ Agreement should always be reached, but after consulting the others, the ‘decisions made by the German Kaiser’ were ‘binding for all allied armed forces’. The army supreme commanders were obliged to continually ‘provide reports’ to the German Kaiser. The conduct of negotiations be- tween the allies ‘is the entitlement of the German Supreme Army Command’. Austria-Hungary and Germany had agreed to grant the Habsburg Monarchy and above all its Monarch a special status by means of (secret) supplementary agreements  – but only vis-à-vis the Turks and the Bulgarians. For this reason, the agreement stated that in all measures related to the conduct of the war the German Kaiser would be guided by the principle of ‘considering the protection and integrity of the territories of the Austro-Hungarian equal to those of the German Empire’. But the safeguarding of prestige could not change the fact that here sovereignty had been relinquished on a huge scale. And it was not yet foreseeable that now an instrument had been created that could be used against Austria-Hungary and against any solo action on the part of the Habsburg Monarchy in the war. The new German First Quartermaster, Erich Lu- dendorff, who actually assumed the position of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, very soon made it clear that he regarded his remit as also stretching to Austria-Hun- gary. He spoke of the greatest efforts to utilise Austria-Hungary’s human material. All