Page - 925 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Attack 925 Alfred Jansa, who was sent to the 6th Army by the Army High Command as ‘pleni- potentiary staff officer’, more or less bluntly accused the Chief of Staff of the Isonzo Army, the General Staff colonel Theodor Körner, of bearing responsibility for falsely positioning the army. ‘By contrast, he was of the opinion that restriction to a narrow area of attack was unnecessary […].’2234 Everyone had reason to hurl accusations at the Army High Command, which had provided neither a focal point for the operation, nor sufficient reserve troops. The last phase of the Piave battle was also already accom- panied by urgent German demands to halt the offensive. On 21 June, Hindenburg declared : ‘From the perspective of the Supreme War Command, I therefore express my view that the Austro-Hungarian Army should halt its attacks in Italy, and bring all forces made available by this act to the western theatre of war.’ (This will be discussed below.) There was something that could have been added in passing to this statement : if the Germans took on responsibility for supplying several divisions on the western front, then at least it would no longer be necessary to worry about their provisioning. The more than 11,000 dead and 25,000 missing soldiers also no longer needed to be fed. But the balance could not be drawn in such a way ! Over 80,000 Austro-Hungarian soldiers had been wounded. The total losses in the June battle in the Veneto region thus amounted to over 118,000 people. Then there were the enormous quantities of weapons and equipment that had been lost ; in addition, everything that had been shot and used up, and that was no longer retrievable, also had to be added to the balance. And it had not even been possible to bring in the hoped-for provisions from the enemy. On the eve of the Piave offensive, Austria still had 430 wagons of grain in stock. From 17 June, no more flour was available for Vienna.2235 The German Empire was also unwilling to help, since the flour requisitioning in Ukraine and Romania had only brought a part of what had been hoped and planned for. Emperor Karl then declared the Berlin agreements of May 1918 to be invalid.2236 The situation became increasingly chaotic. Here, several wagons with grain were brought in, were shunted about and sent to their destinations, while there the same was done with a few potatoes. Requisition- ing took place in Hungary, while at the same time a voluntary support campaign was conducted under the banner : Budapest helps Vienna. The public kitchen initiatives were extended, and in Vienna, for example, around 100,000 more meals were issued to the poorest citizens every day. However, the word ‘more’ was an only too clear in- dication of the catastrophic situation. All possible precautions were taken in order to harvest the grain at the earliest possible date, and to thresh and grind it immediately in order to be able to prepare flour from the new harvest one month early. The fact that this was an encroachment on the stocks for 1919 was common knowledge, but the main task was to survive today, with no thought given to tomorrow. The Allies referred to the June offensive as a ‘hunger offensive’, and to a certain extent, this was accurate.2237 For the western powers, the outcome of the offensive was