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Deployment in Echelons and
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Prime Minister Tisza that the plan was to arrest Putnik, which would be advantageous
in several ways to the Imperial and Royal Army. Tisza agreed but also wanted to hear
the opinion of the Foreign Minister. The opinion was delayed. And so the Vojvoda was
detained in the Budapest military casino. In this way, Austria-Hungary doubtless had
a special hostage, and if the authorities had known that Putnik was even rumoured to
have the keys to the safe in which the mobilisation plans were kept in Belgrade, they
would have been all the keener to hold on to him (and for longer). Evidently, the as-
sumption in Belgrade was that the Austrians would not release the Chief of the Serbian
General Staff, and the safe with the deployment plans was forced open.401 However, the
Foreign Minister had his doubts, and surprised the political and military leadership in
Budapest with the order that the Serb should be released immediately. On 26 July, the
country was not yet in a state of war. As a result, it was not so easy to detain the Chief of
the Serbian General Staff. A decisive reason for Berchtold’s change of mind was almost
certainly the attitude of the Monarch. Emperor Franz Joseph demanded the immediate
release of Putnik. Not only that : he also ordered his Military Chancellery to deliver a
letter to War Minister Krobatin that stated, among other things, that regardless of who
issued the order for detention, ‘You shall notify him at once of my utmost disapproval.
I expect from all generals of high rank independent, rapid, but at all times tactful and
never rash action.’402
A further example served to underline the fact that the attitude of the Monarch
was bound to a particular code of honour. On 25 August, the War Ministry wanted
to know whether for certain troop formations of the Imperial and Royal Army, rulers
or family members of the ruling dynasties would continue to function as proprietary
colonels whose states were now at war with the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, and
whether these formations should still be known by their current names. There was
Infantry Regiment No. 27 ‘Leopold II. König der Belgier’, Dragoon Regiment No. 12
‘Nikolai Nikolajevitsch, Großfürst von Russland’ or Hussar Regiment No. 12 ‘Edu-
ard VII. König von Großbritannien und Irland, Kaiser von Indien’. On the following
day, Franz Josef made his decision known : he ordered with immediate effect that
the regiments should continue to bear their names. However, the rights to ownership
would be suspended for the duration of the war, and in fact, from the first day onwards,
the names of the owners were omitted from the names of the regiments. The same also
happened in other countries – with the exception of the names of the respective allies
and armies.
To return to the railway deployment : it had been calculated that around 300,000
carriages would be needed for the full deployment of the Imperial and Royal Army.
These were not available.403 A process of entraining, transportation, return and renewed
entraining was therefore required. There were infantry trains, cavalry trains and artillery
trains, as well as medical services trains. In order to maintain an overview of the trans-
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