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154 Unleashing the War
him. Friedrich was tremendously rich, but was regarded personally as very modest and
liked to see himself as a patron.364 He appeared to be an exemplary family man and was
occasionally referred to as the ‘Imperial and Royal grandpa’.
Archduke Eugen was admittedly brought into play once more and was supposed to
assume command at least in the Balkans. The Emperor summoned him on 1 August.
The audience lasted ten minutes. But Eugen turned him down anew.365 The Balkan
armed forces were then placed under the command of the hitherto regional commander
for Bosnia and Herzegovina, General of Artillery Oskar Potiorek.
Whilst the question of the supreme command was not easy to solve, or was at least
dependent on a series of considerations, there was no doubt that the Chief of the Gen-
eral Staff would be the actual focal point and that he ultimately held all threads in his
hands. He was thus from the first moment on the hero of the day. Everyone believed in
his virtues as a commander and both he and his close entourage were most convinced
that he was the only man who could wield supreme command, whilst the actual Su-
preme Commander, Archduke Friedrich, was regarded more or less as a ‘nobody’. For
Conrad and the members of the General Staff Office, it was a foregone conclusion that
the Army High Command would not have its headquarters in or near Vienna, for it
would then have been subjected too much to the influence of the central authorities
and also the very active court camarilla. There were also military reasons for locating
the Army High Command closer to the front, as it seemed impossible to conduct op-
erations from a long distance away.
From here on in there existed the typical wartime division into two independent
domains : the front and the home front. Connected to this was also the creation of
new centres of power and the displacement of others. Whereas before the war Vienna
had been a single power centre, in which domestic, foreign and military policies were
made for both halves of the Empire and which was of course also the focal point of
the administration of Cisleithania, now the existing structures admittedly remained in
the imperial capital and seat of royal residence, but in the Balkans and above all at the
headquarters of the Army High Command new power centres emerged in which the
abuse of power played a role from the first day on.
Representatives of the Foreign Ministry and both Ministries of the Interior were
attached to the Army High Command and to the Balkan High Command. The rep-
resentative of the Imperial-Royal Interior Ministry attached to the Army High Com-
mand, Baron Eichhoff, described the situation as follows : ‘No-one at the time knew
what significance this assignment had, at least none of us civilians. The assignment was
provided for in the secretive logbook for senior commanders. This logbook was the work
of the General Staff, but even they didn’t really know what they should do with me.’366
If Eichhoff had really not received any instructions, then it was the fault of his Inte-
rior Minister, Baron Heinold. The Foreign Minister had certainly given his represent-
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