Page - 935 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

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