Page - 786 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

786 The Pyrrhic Victory : The Breakthrough Battle of Flitsch-Tolmein result, in light of the problems with supplying food in the large cities, as well as in rural areas, which were dependent on additional supplies, Austria could not afford such op- erations as these ones, where deployment was being conducted carelessly and without any regard for the consequences.1833 What looked like a bureaucratic headache that put a damper on the hopes for suc- cess against Italy, was in fact far more than that. Straub had given to understand that the offensive would be conducted at the expense of the hinterland. And it could already be calculated that the greater its success, the longer the means of transport would have to be committed. In other words, no locomotives, and no wagons, would be available to transport civilian goods. Paradoxically, the greater the victories by the troops at the front, the more difficult life would become for the hinterland. However, by 20 October, no changes could be made to the plans. And who was to have made them, anyway ? At the beginning of September, the High Command of the German 14th Army had been established, which was to lead the offensive against Italy under the command of General of Infantry Otto von Below. In order to coordinate the battle procedures, in mid-September, the Germans were given 100 copies of the Austrian guidelines for mountain war.1834 However, the German general and his chief of staff, Major General Krafft von Dellmensingen, by no means intended to use only the Austrian experience of mountain fighting. They were far more interested in carrying out a strategy that  – if not already frowned upon by the Imperial and Royal Army  – was at least almost en- tirely left out of the operational deliberations : the so-called ‘valley thrust’. Here, in contrast to the standard practice of the Austro-Hungarian troops, which had been attempted during the South Tyrol offensive in an already strategic approach, the fo- cus was to be placed not on the ridges of the mountains, but in the valleys. Only the support operations were to be led over the mountain heights. Operational theorists had long argued over whether a thrust over the mountains or through the valleys was preferable. Now, an attempt was primarily to be made at pushing forwards through the basins and gorges. Naturally, friction soon arose, since operation ‘Loyalty to Arms’ did not begin en- tirely as the High Command of the German 14th Army and the German Supreme Army Command had envisaged it. The Germans complained about the slowness of the Austro-Hungarian transportation. The railways were too sluggish and did not travel far enough. The onward transport only continued slowly. The apparent cosiness of ‘Com- rade Lace-Up’ was once again the subject of criticism. Indeed, not everything did func- tion properly, but it should have been taken into account that the workers in the labour battalions and the members of the Landsturm who were tasked with the major portion of the transportation work were older, emaciated men. Supplies to the 14th Army alone required 2,400 wagons to be loaded. Furthermore, additional supplies to the Isonzo armies and for the Imperial and Royal troops who were not subordinate to the German