Seite - 301 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Death in the Carpathians 301 ‘perhaps the last time that the allied armies would be afforded the opportunity to beat Russia before the intervention of currently neutral powers makes the idea of wrestling down Russia altogether illusory’.712 In the event of a German troop increase, Conrad also wanted to oblige a German request to lead a limited offensive against north-eastern Serbia, in order to open the route of the Danube to the Black Sea and in this way supply the Turks with the urgently needed armaments. How this should be achieved, however, was not clear, since Conrad began shortly thereafter to transfer three divisions from the Serbian theatre of war to the north and on 16 January also proposed the removal of the XIII Corps, which was deployed in Syrmia. Much to his own surprise, this was possible without any difficul- ties, since the new commander of the Balkan troops, Archduke Eugen, most obligingly agreed to a reduction of his armed forces.713 That was not all : Eugen also offered the VIII Corps. In doing so, he had practically handed over an entire army, and the Em- peror raised the question as to what exactly justified such a weakening of the South Army.714 Archduke Eugen, however, was absolutely convinced that the Serbians would not so soon be capable of launching an attack. Even so, Falkenhayn continued to defer resuming the offensive in the east. Hinden- burg and Ludendorff regarded the problems of the north-eastern theatre of war in a different light, however, than the Chief of the Great General Staff did. This was ulti- mately the reason why the Commander-in-Chief East, Paul von Hindenburg, agreed to Conrad’s plan for an offensive from the Carpathians to the extent that he offered to strengthen the Austro-Hungarian troops with Germans without consulting Falken- hayn. Conrad sought with this offensive above all to relieve Przemyśl, in order with a clear victory to prevent neutral states from entering the war. On 8 January 1915, the German Kaiser also agreed to the relocation of German troops to the Carpathians. This was with the purpose of assembling an Austrian ‘South Army’, the Linsingen Army. General Ludendorff was designated its chief of staff. In this way, Falkenhayn had at least achieved a partial success, since he had separated the Hindenburg and Ludendorff team from each other. But for the Chief of the German General Staff the matter was by no means over  – on the contrary. Falkenhayn had given in at a moment when his own demise appeared to be imminent.715 Hindenburg had namely campaigned extensively for the re-appointment of Moltke and even threatened that he would otherwise refuse a command position. Kaiser Wilhelm reacted extremely severely. He compared the intrigue that had been concocted, and above all the conduct of Hindenburg, with the affectations of Wallenstein and wanted to summarily court-marshal the field marshal. Now the German Imperial Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg interposed and let it be known to the Kaiser that in the event of Hindenburg’s dismissal he could no longer bear the responsibility for the political leadership of the German Empire. Field Mar- shal Hindenburg was thereupon requested not to leave his supreme commander in the