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Brigadier von Bolzano
is Missing 935
in Italy, and not least as a result of imperial attempts to cut back the war effort and
to reduce the overall strength of the army, the Monarch not only dismissed the oldest
cohorts among the enlisted men and certain groups of people but also launched into
a thorough clearance of the generals. He ordered a personnel conference under his
chairmanship for 1 February 1918, at which every single general officer was to be eval-
uated : assignment, age and entire period of duty were to be stated, and finally a decision
should be made on every general regarding his further use or the end of his term of
service, and indeed from the highest-ranking to the most junior, i.e. from Field Mar-
shal Archduke Friedrich, who was as the disposal of the Supreme Commander, down
to Brigadier Karl von Sendler, the Military Plenipotentiary in Romania. The number
of generals that were to be assessed was 429.2253
It was clear that the most senior group, the field marshals and the full generals, and
likewise the archdukes, remained without comment in the prepared documents. The
Monarch alone was supposed to decide what happened with whom. After that, however,
the whole list was sifted and it was not stinted on remarks such as ‘splendid’, ‘very good’,
‘not suitable as a divisional commander’, or ‘might be considered for a march formation’.
Baronet Josef von Rothe and Ludwig von Fabini received the comment : ‘not suitable
as an army commander‘. On Prince Alois Schönburg-Hartenstein, Baronet Johann von
Goglia and Alfred Krauß, it was noted : ‘[eminently] suited to be army commander’.
Other comments included ‘suitable’ as corps or divisional commander, ‘not suitable’,
‘has not measured up’, was ‘not physically equal to the challenges’, ‘invited by the AOK
[= Army High Command] to report sick’, ‘requires respite’ or ‘objective achieved’. In
the case of dozens of them, at the end of the evaluation was the word ‘resignation’. One
of them was the subject of a judicial enquiry, and for 64 generals the personnel confer-
ence ended with the observation that the gentlemen should resign during the course of
the year and apply for their pension. Fifteen per cent of the generals were affected in
this way. And there was not much hanging around. Most of them, above all the older
ones, were already prompted on 1 March to apply for their retirement. Generally, dates
were named by when the applications were expected. Some requested that they con-
tinue to be utilised, which was rejected as a rule ; most of them complied. In summer
1918, the flood of requests was to swell once more. The original 64 generals were added
to, and above all the group of field marshals and full generals was reduced. Conrad von
Hötzendorf lost his army group command and became a count and a ‘colonel of all the
Guards’. He was deeply aggrieved. Field Marshal Boroević avoided his dismissal only
out of consideration for the fact that it would look strange to remove two field marshals
from the same theatre of war. The long-time Commander of the 2nd Army, Field Mar-
shal Böhm-Ermolli, had to give up his command over the Eastern Army. However, the
prospect was held out of the position of Chief of the General Staff, at which point he
immediately commenced the inspection of the south-western front.2254
THE FIRST WORLD WAR
and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
- Title
- THE FIRST WORLD WAR
- Subtitle
- and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
- Author
- Manfried Rauchensteiner
- Publisher
- Böhlau Verlag
- Location
- Wien
- Date
- 2014
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-205-79588-9
- Size
- 17.0 x 24.0 cm
- Pages
- 1192
- Categories
- Geschichte Vor 1918
Table of contents
- 1 On the Eve 11
- 2 Two Million Men for the War 49
- 3 Bloody Sundays 81
- 4 Unleashing the War 117
- 5 ‘Thank God, this is the Great War!’ 157
- 6 Adjusting to a Longer War 197
- 7 The End of the Euphoria 239
- 8 The First Winter of the War 283
- 9 Under Surveillance 317
- 10 ‘The King of Italy has declared war on Me’ 355
- 11 The Third Front 383
- 12 Factory War and Domestic Front, 1915 413
- 13 Summer Battle and ‘Autumn Swine’ 441
- 14 War Aims and Central Europe 469
- 15 South Tyrol : The End of an Illusion (I) 497
- 16 Lutsk :The End of an Illusion (II) 521
- 17 How is a War Financed ? 555
- 18 The Nameless 583
- 19 The Death of the Old Emperor 607
- 20 Emperor Karl 641
- 21 The Writing on the Wall 657
- 22 The Consequences of the Russian February Revolution 691
- 23 Summer 1917 713
- 24 Kerensky Offensive and Peace Efforts 743
- 25 The Pyrrhic Victory : The Breakthrough Battle of Flitsch-Tolmein 769
- 26 Camps 803
- 27 Peace Feelers in the Shadow of Brest-Litovsk 845
- 28 The Inner Front 869
- 29 The June Battle in Veneto 895
- 30 An Empire Resigns 927
- 31 The Twilight Empire 955
- 32 The War becomes History 983
- Epilogue 1011
- Afterword 1013
- Acknowledgements and Dedication 1019
- Notes 1023
- Selected Printed Sources and Literature 1115
- Index of People and Places 1155