Seite - 182 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

182 ‘Thank God, this is the Great War!’ a large forested area in order to find out what was on the other side. Like most of the cavalry divisions, it had also been given line infantry and artillery, although to keep the troop formations together, the riders could not take advantage of their speed. So they rode on ahead. They came upon Russian cavalry, particularly Cossacks, that had also been sent on a reconnaissance mission. The following day, a mounted engagement took place at Jarosławice, which was only prevented from ending in a severe defeat for the traditionalist Austro-Hungarian dragoon and Uhlan regiments as a result of the timely arrival of the infantry. However, the losses were significant. The rifles and, in particular, the machine guns of the Russian rear infantry raged below the cavalry regiments. They were forced to retreat as quickly as possible. The mounted engagement at Jarosławice, the largest cavalry for the Imperial and Royal troops in Austria-Hungary’s final war, was not only a rout for the traditionalist cavalry ; it was a clear reflection of the fact that a branch of the military service had met its end. The cavalry, the aristocratic weapon par excellence, had a very strong class spirit, and strove like no other arm of the military to maintain traditions while refusing to adopt new developments in tactics and weaponry. All the cavalry formations of the powers fighting the war were faced with a very similar problem. However, almost none of them experienced the end of equestrian grandeur so suddenly and with such losses as those of Austria-Hungary. The previous over-exertion and long-distance reconnaissance had reduced the number of horses by half. The Russian cavalry and infantry added their own contribution. Subsequently, Conrad was to judge the cavalry activities at the beginning of the war very harshly : ‘Aside from just a few exceptions, our brave cavalry divisions were destroyed at the very beginning of operations by their incompetent leaders. The entire impractical uniform and training, and the superior numbers, which were con- stantly more than double their own, also played their part.’432 However, this insight came late, since before the war, Conrad had certainly found no fundamental fault with the cavalry. The dragoons, hussars and Uhlans preserved the art of mounted engage- ment, primarily practised attacking, had successfully resisted adopting modern uni- forms, abhorred battle on foot and had clearly chosen to ignore the fact that automatic weaponry and rapid-fire rifles had created a different reality. Ultimately, they would only have needed to peruse the ‘Drill Regulations for the Imperial and Royal Infantry’ to realise what their leaders expected from the cavalry. Here, the fight against troops on horseback was presented as one that would almost always end in favour of the infantry. While during the raids by the Imperial and Royal Cavalry in Poland, the Russians may have also suffered losses, they had at the same time neither risked nor sacrificed much. Also, their reconnaissance results were perhaps better. They had at their disposal an extensive network of confidential informers that had already long been developed during peacetime. And behind the veil of the cavalry formations, they carried out their deployment. According to their Plan 19, Version A, they formed their south-western