Page - 693 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Strategic Harmony After two-and-a-half years of war, the strategy of the belligerents was still intact, but the operational theories were repeatedly called into question. If at the beginning it had been believed that it would be possible to encircle field armies or even entire land ar- mies in large-scale envelopment operations and force them in this way to surrender, then this method had failed in France and Russia. One failed envelopment operation was followed by another, until the fronts had widened to such a degree that it was no longer possible to discern a flank ; on maps, only a continuous line was recognisable. By means of the corresponding massing of armed forces  – which could be achieved as a result of what initially appeared to be an inexhaustible human reservoir  – and with wire entanglements, field fortifications and machine guns, the fronts proved to be stable and largely invulnerable.1573 In order to be able to carry out operations again, formulas were sought for the breakthrough. The most straightforward option seemed to be the mass- ing of artillery. In Flanders and on the Isonzo River, but also in Russia, the large-scale concentration of artillery took place in order to destroy enemy positions and to achieve a breakthrough in this way. This succeeded only in Russia. The limited depth of the front and thrusts that built on the element of complete surprise had enabled a successful transition to a war of movement for the Central Powers at Gorlice–Tarnów and for the Russians at Lutsk. Both times, however, the offensives had petered out after a few weeks without the battle having been decided either way. Thus, aside from the Balkans, where the strategy of bringing down the enemy had been crowned with success, attrition had become a characteristic of the war. It was consciously applied at Verdun, but elsewhere it more or less merely occurred of its own accord  – and with effect. In this way, all bel- ligerents had been forced to accept a strategy of fatigue as the sole strategic foundation. The war consumed the people, the economy, a part of history and a part of the future. With its blockade measures, Great Britain aimed at the paralysis and exhaustion of combatants and non-combatants alike. No questions were posed as to the human- ity and legitimacy of such a strategy. The German Empire and, to a modest extent, Austria-Hungary attempted by means of the submarine war to provide relief and to decimate the Allied fleets. Here, as well, humanity and international law got caught under the wheels. In the abstraction of the war theorists and strategists, the war in its absolute form not only drew closer but also emerged as that which Clausewitz and his interpreters