Seite - 195 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
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The Initial Campaigns 195
both Germans and Austrians. On the part of the Austrians, this was already added to
by feelings of deep embitterment. Clearly, the Germans had informed Emperor Franz
Joseph’s Military Chancellery behind the back of the Army High Command that the
exceptionally high losses among the Imperial and Royal troops, which were verifiable,
could be traced back to incorrect tactical behaviour and poor leadership. The Austrians,
they said, had simply dashed off instead of creating advantages by smaller-scale envel-
opment activities and by conserving their forces. The Chief of the Military Chancellery,
Bolfras, asked Conrad what this really meant. The Chief of the General Staff was now
not in a position to pretend that the losses were not high, even very high, and assigned
the blame to the unbridled desire for attack that caused the commanders to get carried
away. Instead of waiting for artillery support, they had permitted an immediate offen-
sive. Yet what was one to do against boldness and the thirst for victory ? The German
liaison officer attached to the Army High Command, Kageneck, indulged in insinua-
tions such as : ‘The causes of this can be traced back in 1866.’465 For Conrad, who was
naturally angered by the ally’s criticism aimed indirectly at him, this was reason enough
to also vent his fury himself. On 5 September, he wrote to Bolfras : ‘I fully agree with
your view that the Germans are winning their victories at our expense ; they have […]
left us high and dry.’466
The Austro-Hungarian armies were on the retreat. Since they had advanced by fan-
ning out and their lines had become increasingly thin, it was easy for the Russians to
pierce through between the briefly victorious Imperial and Royal 1st Army and the 4th
Army. Both were threatened with being circumvented, and were forced to withdraw in
great haste. However, the bulk of the Russian 9th and 5th Armies was targeting the
Imperial and Royal 3rd Army in the Lviv area. The surrender of the eastern parts of
Galicia was a result of a strategic error by the Imperial and Royal army command, and
was at least partially due to operational mistakes made by generals who had only been
trained in manoeuvres. To this was added the inferiority of numbers and the lack of
homogeneity of the formations. Only rarely was it possible to determine failings among
local commanders or soldiers, who in most cases gave their all and fought with a for-
midable readiness to suffer and make sacrifices. Within the space of just a few hours,
the line infantry, cavalry, artillery and other troops in the Common Army, in addition
to the Imperial and Royal Landwehr and Imperial and Royal Honvéd, as well as Land-
sturm formations, had already undergone experiences that would leave their mark : the
first dead, the nerve-shattering artillery fire that was so difficult to combat since the
Russians were equipped with more modern, longer-range guns than the Imperial and
Royal troops, the screams of the wounded, hunger and exhaustion. The Russians also
had more machine guns. And they were superior in numbers. The fall of the Galician
capital, Lviv, on 3 September was of no great military significance. And yet this event
had far-reaching effects, and forced the last dreamers to wake up to reality.
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