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186 ‘Thank God, this is the Great War!’
areas. There were other problems, too, when it came to the leadership. The army corps
that made up the Imperial and Royal 5th and 6th Armies consisted of troops who to a
significant degree had been recruited from the Slav reinforcement districts of the Mon-
archy, with Croats and Serbs counting for up to fifty per cent. This was not the result
of any deliberate policy of perhaps sending Croats to war against Serbs. To a far greater
extent, it was simply due to the fact that in peacetime, the troops were replenished from
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dalmatia and Croatia. However, the question naturally arose as
to whether the troops would obey unconditionally. And even if this was the case, the
envoy Alexander von Musulin was probably right when he pensively remarked that this
was likely to be the last time in the history of the Habsburg Monarchy that Croats
– let
alone Austrian Serb nationals – would allow themselves to be led into a war against
Serbs.440
The fact that there was also to be a Montenegrin front appeared to be no particular
cause for concern to anyone in Vienna. Conversely, the obvious Austrian superiority
had forced the Montenegrin King Nikola and his Prime Minister, Serdar (Commander)
Janko Vukotić, who was simultaneously War Minister and Chief of the General Staff,
to take the initiative. Vukotić and the Serbian Chief of the General Staff, Vojvoda Put-
nik, wanted to coordinate their conduct of war as well as possible. A joint war plan was
presented on 6 August. Six days later, the Austro-Hungarian troops attacked.441
It was mid-August, and very hot. The troops had been given no respite after often
gruelling marches. A delay of the attack by 48 hours, as had been requested by General
Frank, the Commander of the 5th Army, was out of the question. His army was to attack
across the Sava and take Šabac as its first target. To the south, the 6th Army had been
ordered to cross the Drina and to advance against Montenegro. For the Imperial and
Royal manoeuvring generals, these goals were easily achievable. The troops attacked at
a right angle to the river courses and hill ridges and had an arduous task of overcoming
them. The columns struggled through scrub and forest terrain and through two-metre
high maize. And the Serbs were tough and clever defenders. The Commander of the
VIII Corps, General of Cavalry Arthur Giesl von Gieslingen, the brother of the same
Baron Giesl who had been the envoy in Belgrade until 25 July, attempted to reflect
these factors in his records. However, Giesl did not put this to paper in order to glorify
the campaign, but did so after the war at the request of the commission installed by the
Austrian parliament for investigating military breaches of duty during the war, which
was making enquiries in relation to Potiorek.442 Giesl, who – like many others – was
later the subject of fierce criticism, noted that the troops were tired from the long train
journey, and had to undergo difficult marches in very high temperatures. Furthermore,
the provisions and munitions convoys and medical facilities had not yet arrived in full.
The Drina was to be crossed at two points, but transition materials were only provided
for one bridge. Once the corps had taken the other bank under heavy Serbian fire, the
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