Seite - 540 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

540 Lutsk : The End of an Illusion (II) also present at the negotiations in the lounge area, the Archduke did not want to adopt a fundamentally different point of view. At least a partial victory was achieved by the advocates of the joint command : Hindenburg should in addition command only the Army Group Linsingen, which was fighting south of the Pripyat Marshes, and ulti- mately  – corresponding to a wish of Conrad’s  – also the Imperial and Royal 2nd Army, which had lost Brody whilst the talks in Pszczyna were taking place. The ‘Hindenburg front’ now stood, although the German field marshal was formally tied to the Imperial and Royal High Command for the operations south of the Pripyat Marshes. Hinden- burg set up his headquarters in Brest-Litovsk (now Brest). Just as this was being finalised, the Russians hammered anew against the Aus- tro-Hungarian sections. They did this in the intention, already explained to the Entente powers, of driving Austria-Hungary from the field. The Imperial and Royal 4th Army (Tersztyánszky) was attacked on 28 July by the Russian 8th Army and suffered several days that were almost as catastrophic as those at the beginning of June at Lutsk. The Army, which had anyway brought only 25,000 soldiers to the front line, lost on this day 15,000 rifles and 10,000 men, which means that a far greater number of soldiers than those who fell, were wounded or taken prisoner had simply thrown away their rifles. A German corps was immediately inserted. And again the phenomenon could be observed that the mere presence of German troops was enough to bring about a halt to Russian attacks. A few days later, Hindenburg visited the 4th Army and hugely impressed its staff  – only the army commander, General von Tersztyánszky, remained reserved. Brusilov repeatedly renewed his offensive on new sections of the front, but a sweeping suc- cess eluded him. The German troops had evidently brought the Russian offensive to a standstill. General Cramon was tasked with making Cieszyn emphatically aware that Austria-Hungary ‘once again’ had to thank ‘solely Germany for its salvation’. But he had ‘the feeling that Austria does not duly appreciate this, because it is repeatedly empha- sised that this is also in our [that is, Germany’s] interest, because if Austria were to go to the dogs, Germany’s demise would be an inevitable consequence’.1275 The ‘Hindenburg front’ ensured that a shift of German forces or the alternate subor- dination of Austro-Hungarian and German troops could take place most quickly and in a way that was suited to the situation in question. Tersztyánszky could hardly go wrong, since his 4th Army was suddenly under the command of the German General Litzmann. He himself commanded German troops. But it was ultimately only a system of temporary assistance. And there was above all one thing that it could not achieve, namely prevent Romania’s entry into the war. The Austro-Hungarian Army High Command had long feared that Romania would take this step, then expected it, and finally from July 1916 at the latest even believed it had knowledge of the details of the bargain that Romania had just struck with the En-