Seite - 25 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
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The Powder
Keg 25
The states that began the war against Turkey enjoyed a series of easy victories, with
the Bulgarians making the greatest advances. However, Serbia pushed through to the
Adriatic, nurturing the hope that it would be given assistance by Russia in its efforts
to occupy Albanian territory. To the disappointment of Belgrade, Russia brushed such
a possibility aside, however. Great Britain and France also declared that they were un-
willing to begin a war simply because Serbia was advancing towards the sea and Aus-
tria-Hungary wished to stop it from doing so. The Russian envoy in Belgrade, Nikolai
Hartvig, who was regarded as the ‘mastermind’ of the Balkan coalition, went beyond the
instructions given by St. Petersburg and suggested to Serbia that the Russians would
also offer support in a war against the Danube Monarchy. The Serbs and Montenegrins
therefore continued their forward march, while risking a war with Austria-Hungary.
On 7 December 1912, Emperor Franz Joseph agreed to ready troops from the XVth
and XVIth army corps in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Dalmatia for war. This did not yet
amount to mobilisation, but as a result of the measure, the number of men in the units
was increased to 100,000, compared to a peacetime level of 40,000.29 The following day,
the famous ‘War Council’ took place in Berlin, which has been described in such detail
by the German historian Fritz Fischer and others, and of which an American historian
has commented that compared to the discussions taking place simultaneously in Vienna,
it was ‘beinahe bedeutungsloses Geschwätz’.30 In the interim, the meeting convened by
Kaiser Wilhelm II was almost entirely relativised.31 On 11 December, however, Con-
rad von Hötzendorf was appointed Chief of the General Staff, although to Conrad’s
disappointment, Emperor Franz Joseph refused to take further military steps. Here, the
Emperor was strongly supported in his position by Berchtold. Several days later, on 24
December 1912, the Foreign Minister faced a new onslaught from the War Party when
General of Artillery Oskar Potiorek, State Governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina and
the highest-ranking military and civilian official of the two provinces, demanded the
conscription of reservist troops for his two corps areas, as well as troops assigned to
the Landwehr (Austrian standing army) and the Landsturm (reserve forces). Potiorek
enjoyed wholesale support in this demand from the Imperial and Royal War Minister
Baron Moritz Auffenberg, as well as the Chief of the General Staff.32
The Joint Finance Minister responsible for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Baronet Leon von
Biliński, also expressed his support for military measures. The disappointment over
Austrian reticence was vented in drastic terms. The Viennese constitutional law pro-
fessor Josef Redlich claimed that : ‘The Monarchy has outplayed its role in Europe’,
adding that ‘The Emperor does not even have the courage to have others lose their lives
on his behalf.’33 Yet once again, Berchtold quashed the demands. In Berlin, the perma-
nent secretary in the Foreign Office, Alfred Kiderlen-Wächter, expressed the view that
Germany had brought Austria-Hungary to reason and saved the peace, and in a letter
to his sister even embellished his opinion with the comment that : ‘we have secured the
THE FIRST WORLD WAR
and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
- Titel
- THE FIRST WORLD WAR
- Untertitel
- and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
- Autor
- Manfried Rauchensteiner
- Verlag
- Böhlau Verlag
- Ort
- Wien
- Datum
- 2014
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-205-79588-9
- Abmessungen
- 17.0 x 24.0 cm
- Seiten
- 1192
- Kategorien
- Geschichte Vor 1918
Inhaltsverzeichnis
- 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