Seite - 223 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Official Announcements 223 thousands were mobilised to man this fortress. As can be seen in the case of Przemyśl, however, the most powerful bulwarks could be surrounded and destroyed. The feared breakthrough in Galicia did not happen, however, even if the fortifica- tions in the east and the north were lost, with the exception of Kraków. Yet for the larger part of the Danube Monarchy, the danger of a battle for the central areas very soon receded. Thus, the war remained somewhere ‘out there’. People attempted to find out where exactly with the aid of the army reports. Official Announcements The basis for the army reports, which were compiled on a daily basis in the Operations Division of the Army High Command, constituted the dispatches from the individual sectors of the front. These dispatches were generally unvarnished portrayals and as- sessments of the situation. The army reports, however, were not passed on in this form. Even the ‘Emperor’s report’, which was passed on to the Emperor, was temporally no longer entirely up to date ; this repeatedly prompted murmurings of discontent on the part of the Emperor, and was above all amateurishly thrown together in terms of its message. The same applied to the reports that were sent to the War Ministry and to both Prime Ministers. A summary of the army reports was ultimately sent to the War Press Bureau, which was prudently not accommodated at the headquarters of the Army High Command but rather as far away as possible. There the Austrian, Hungarian and German journalists, as well as those from other allied and neutral countries, could put their talent to the test of reading between the lines. The writer Karl Hans Strobl, who has since been largely forgotten but worked at the time in the War Press Bureau, very vividly described in his book Das Igelhaus (The Hedgehog House) the work in this newsroom : ‘They sat there elbow to elbow, each one endeavouring to embellish the succinct style (of the meagre draft report) with adornments of his own personal views. What emerged were intriguing details on events at the front, impressions of someone who had been there and depictions of such objective fidelity, as though they had been written directly at the scene. It was a bustling enterprise. There were virtuosi of their subject, who, equipped with nothing but the Hartleben travel guide for Galicia and a map, created a great scenario for the […] dramatic actions delivered [by the Army High Command].’534 The editorial offices on the home front endeavoured no less to adapt to the require- ments of war journalism. Almost from one day to the next references to supply short- ages, the effects of the war on the stock market or other changes that could primar- ily be discerned from the business pages were subjected to censorship, and likewise everything that was reported on events at the front or on high politics. Thus, initially