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168 ‘Thank God, this is the Great War!’
promptly ordered, although precisely in the way specified by the railway office. This
also made it clear, however, that it was not Serbia, but Russia that would be the main
enemy, and that as a result the mass of the Imperial and Royal armies, in other words,
the A Echelon and the strategic reserve, the B Echelon, would have to deploy to the
north-eastern front.
Discussions were held until just before midnight, and particular heed was paid to
the pressure from the German General Staff, which vehemently advocated making the
Balkans a subsidiary theatre of war. Conrad had to decide. However, he was only too
aware of what his supreme commander wanted – to first bring down Serbia – and also
had a plausible argument to hand. According to the information given by the head
of the railway office of the General Staff, Colonel Johann Straub, the railway system
would no longer be able to cope if deployment to the Balkans were to be immediately
broken off and the direction of the Imperial and Royal 2nd Army suddenly changed. It
would also be of no benefit, since the troops destined for Galicia would arrive on time
despite the detour via the Balkans.389 Not even those troops who were still waiting to
be transported could be taken directly to Galicia, since this would cause formations
and large army units to be torn apart, with one regiment of a brigade arriving in Serbia
while the other was rolling towards Galicia, for example. Only more sections of two
divisions could be redirected. Yet according to the railway office, the mass of the B
Echelon would have to travel to the Balkans. And this is what then happened, even
though by 31 July only very few transports had been made. Now, the price was being
paid for the fact that the plans for the railway deployment had not been fundamentally
changed since 1908, but had instead only been adjusted and updated rather than being
completely re-written.390 As the evidence has already long since shown, on 30 July only
31 trains departed in the direction of the Balkans, with 42 trains leaving for the same
destination the following day. This amounted to roughly four divisions, in other words,
slightly more than one corps.
Certainly, it is not to be expected that a regiment that had already been entrained
could not be brought back to its peacetime barracks only in order to be entrained once
again. This would not only have made no sense in terms of transportation. For reasons
of morale and the popular mood at home it was not possible to turn around entire large
army units. After all, the troops had been sent off with flags, flowers and brass bands, and
with enthusiastic participation by the local population. However, it was equally certain
that transports could be halted and redirected. Here, it was not only a question of com-
pleting the transports without the diversion via the Balkans and of keeping up appear-
ances. The main aim was to be ready for operation earlier against the Russians on the
north-eastern front ; it was a matter of at least one week, and, as it would later transpire,
of far more than that. However, no-one recommended turning back – least of all the
railway office. And Conrad seemingly bowed to the judgement of Colonel Straub and
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