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184 ‘Thank God, this is the Great War!’
and Belgrade would not be left to the enemy without a fight, this was to result in an
almost textbook military operation, in which the Serbian forces would be encircled
and destroyed. Now, however, when the time came to put this plan into action, the
northern army – none other than the 2nd Army – was to be removed, and would only
be available until 18 August, the date on which it was to be broken up and removed.
This reduced the prospects of success in the Balkan theatre of war significantly, since
following the departure of the Imperial and Royal 2nd Army, Potiorek had not much
more than two armies with which to cover 900 km of front. The number of men at his
disposal amounted to around 280,000 to 290,000, together with the guards garrisoned
in the various fortresses, as opposed to the 370,000 he would have had if the 2nd Army
had remained in its entirety.434 Of these large units, around half could be attributed to
the command posts. The Serbs were in turn estimated to have between 210,000 and
350,000 men, depending on whether or not the reservists were included. To these were
added the Montenegrins with between 40,000 and 60,000 men. Vojvoda Putnik, who
had returned from Bad Gleichenberg via Budapest on 5 August thanks to the gentle-
manly behaviour of the Austrian Emperor, set up his headquarters in Kragujevac.
Despite the fact that the situation was not entirely clear for the Imperial and Royal
troops in terms of numbers, the aforementioned command letter spoke of an offensive
with rapid victories.435 Potiorek wanted to make his contribution and, above all, to
exploit the fact that the 2nd Army was still available. It was to stage a demonstration
on the Danube, and to tie up as many Serbian troops as possible in order to enable
the other two armies to succeed. Furthermore, he also felt, however, that it ‘would be
highly desirable’ if the 2nd Army were to be moved across the Danube and conquer
Belgrade.436 Even though this quite clearly contradicted the orders of the Army High
Command, Potiorek was not overly concerned. He had no interest in the future in
sending requests or making applications, ‘but instead, to lead and command to the best
of my knowledge and ability’. He also paid no thought to the possibility of remaining
on the defensive, but intended to attack at the earliest possible opportunity. For this
reason, he rejected the request by the commander of his 5th Army, General Frank, to
delay the start of the offensive by two days. It had to be launched on 12 August as
planned, and was clearly a gamble. However, what applied here were the words written
by the Chief of the Military Chancellery of the Emperor to the Supreme Commander
of the Imperial and Royal Balkan forces : ‘Great enemy, great honour !’437
The law of action was initially and unequivocally on the side of the Imperial and
Royal Army. After the Danube Fleet had been given a sign and the shooting war had
begun, there was more to be done than simply staging a demonstration and firing a
few generally harmless shots at Belgrade. Despite the destruction of the bridge over
the Sava River, for the Imperial and Royal troops, Belgrade was there for the taking.
Couldn’t – in fact shouldn’t – the formations under the Balkan Supreme Command
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