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176 ‘Thank God, this is the Great War!’
had no desire to work with Generals Frank and Potiorek.417 As a result, Potiorek was
made commander of the troops designated to fight against Serbia. Throughout the
years, he had been Conrad’s competitor for the post of Chief of the General Staff, and
was regarded by Conrad as a ‘genius’. Potiorek was familiar with the future theatre of
war. However, he did have several severe handicaps. He was a man to take decisions
on his own, and was not a good team player. Even more seriously, although this would
only come to be recognised as a real problem during the course of the following weeks,
Potiorek wanted to lead a revenge campaign. He was filled with bitter hatred.
Until the beginning of August, he had been responsible for conducting the deploy-
ment measures in the Balkans, but without knowing whether and how he would be in-
volved in the command. Nonetheless, he had already made preparations for starting the
offensive against Serbia as soon as possible. The fact that the strategic reserve was also
transported southwards could only mean in Potiorek’s eyes that the campaign against
Serbia and Montenegro should be conducted with three armies. Furthermore, a com-
mand letter on 31 July stated that : ‘The arrangements made by the War Ministry for
war scenario B and specifically the deployment remain valid.’418 Potiorek then drafted
a plan of operations with the full inclusion of the Imperial and Royal 2nd Army under
General of Infantry Böhm-Ermolli, which was to deploy to the Danube and in Syrmia.
He passed all of this information on to the Army High Command. Potiorek gave 12
August as the date of the beginning of operations.
However, on 6 August, the day on which he was given command of the Balkan forces,
the Army High Command informed him that the 2nd Army was to be diverted to the
Russian theatre of war.419 While Potiorek now felt a sense of satisfaction at being given
the command over ‘his’ theatre of war, he wanted to use all three armies rather than
overturning his plan of operations. Indeed, in the short term, he had no other option,
since the 5th and 6th Armies, which Potiorek was to have at his disposal at all events,
had deployed in the west of Serbia on the Drina and Sava Rivers, and with an imme-
diate withdrawal of the 2nd Army, no troops would have been present on the Danube
and in Syrmia. However, Potiorek could of course have remained defensive, if he had
not received contradictory orders from Vienna, and – more importantly – if it had not
been for his own ambition. This was to be ‘his’ war, his punitive campaign, and more
still : his revenge for Sarajevo. After all, he naturally felt the heavy burden of guilt for
his share of the blame in the murder of the heir to the throne and his wife. For him, the
war was of a very different nature than for Conrad, for example, who wanted to wage
it on the basis of cool calculation and who was cocooned in Social Darwinist thinking.
For him, revenge had no part to play. But for Potiorek, things were different. And this
is what was so problematic about the Emperor’s decision – which was driven by the
Chief of the Military Chancellery in particular – to nominate the General of Artillery
as Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial and Royal Balkan forces.
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