Seite - 246 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

246 Adjusting to a Longer War and of the state overall, the Balkans had become of secondary importance. Other things had changed too, however. The euphoria of the first weeks, and the hopes for a short war, had proven to be a mirage, and as early as September cautious forecasts were being made that the war may also continue during and beyond the winter. On 7 September, the Joint War Minister, General of Artillery Baron Krobatin, stated that suitable cloth- ing was also available for the army in the event of a winter war. He claimed to have 915,000 fur jerkins in stock, with a further 216,000 on order.591 As though this were any realistic indication of the actual possibilities for waging a winter war ! However, one thing does become clear from this comment, which was if anything made in passing : that the dream of a short war was now finally over. This was reflected both by the overall picture and in the individual details. In Germany, too, there was disillusionment. Following the ‘miracle on the Marne’, the hope had vanished of bringing down France in six to eight weeks. The French armies were reinforced by British corps. By contrast, the German Army was forced to draw back to the north-east and to establish a defensive position from the Channel coast in Flanders through to the Swiss border. At the north of the German eastern front, however, General von Hindenburg had suc- ceeded in beating back the Russians at Tannenberg and around the Masurian Lakes. As a result, for this section of the eastern front, which had been a focus of some concern, the immediate threat had in fact been eliminated. However, the entire war strategy of the German leadership had failed overall, and all the plans that had been forged over decades between the German and Austro-Hungarian general staffs were now irrelevant. Now, a new concept had to be developed. The Chief of the German General Staff, von Moltke, was already dismissed in mid-September. However, for appearances sake, this was concealed from the public for several months. His successor, General Erich von Falkenhayn, appeared to be very open to shifting the focus of the German operations to Poland. However, since the an- ticipated rapid victories had failed to materialise, it also became necessary at a political level to make preparations for a longer war. In order to reduce the pressure on the Cen- tral Powers through political measures, Berlin suggested that Austria-Hungary should make extensive territorial concessions to Romania and Italy, so that the Triple Alliance could finally become fully functional. The same German Empire, therefore, that had two months previously encouraged the Danube Monarchy to take up arms against Ser- bia to ensure its long-term existence now exploited its undoubted superiority in order to convince the government in Vienna to give up a part of its state territory.592 However, Austria-Hungary was not fussy in choosing its means. It developed the kind of approach taken by poor relatives, in whose opinion the rest of the family is ultimately there for the purpose of helping them, or otherwise the entire family would be seen in a bad light. As early as 8 September, Conrad informed the Foreign Minister, Count Berchtold, that the inability of Germany to act on its pre-war agreements and