Seite - 551 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The ‘Joint Supreme War Command’ 551 non-one could warm to this idea, and ultimately dramatic changes occurred on this day and in the days that followed. Italy declared war on the German Empire and Romania declared war on Austria-Hungary. Romania attempted, as Italy had done, to divide the Central Powers, since no declaration of war was sent to Germany. But what had worked once did not work a second time : one day after the Romanian declaration of war on the Habsburg Monarchy, the German envoy in Bucharest presented the declaration of war of the German Empire. The German reaction was mildly reminiscent of May 1915, when Austria-Hungary had become aroused about the ‘perfidiousness’ of Italy. Since Falkenhayn had let the German Kaiser know time and again that Romania posed no threat, the Chief of the German General Staff was no longer credible. When Cramon rang Falkenhayn to inform him of the news, the latter simply did not want to believe it, and the German Plenipotentiary General had to expressly and personally vouch for the accuracy of the message before Falkenhayn would go to Kaiser Wilhelm. The next day, Falkenhayn was dismissed and replaced by Hindenburg. Ludendorff received the position of First Quartermaster. It was the third German Supreme Army Command of the war. If Conrad had hoped, however, that Falkenhayn’s dismissal would take care of the question of the supreme war command or at least result in a solution in the interests of Austria, he was mistaken. For one thing, in the German Empire a joint war command had not been pursued only by Falkenhayn  – far from it ; and for another thing the For- eign Ministry in Vienna did not give up, since it sought to fetch the war back into the political sphere and continue to push for the demolition of the Army High Command. Cramon had found an outstanding contact person in the Army High Command in the form of Count Herberstein, who became the mouthpiece of his Army Supreme Com- mander, who evidently did not want to emerge from the shadows himself but instead continue to play the role assigned to him  – Archduke ‘Fritzl’, the silent Habsburger ! Friedrich and Count Herberstein could always be certain, however, of the agreement of the Military Chancellery. On 2 September, a telegram from Bolfras reached the Army High Command. It stated : ‘His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty deems the achievement of complete agreement in the sense of a decisive supreme command as necessary.’ Conrad turned to Ludendorff, but he was not interested in a war council, either. For Ludendorff, the supreme war command could only consist of the German Kaiser holding supreme command. Conrad turned to the Foreign Ministry for support, and argued that this matter was also to be seen from the perspective of what effect German preponderance would have after the war.1300 But the Foreign Ministry was in absolute agreement with developments. Finally, Conrad presented his deliberations to the Emperor once more during an audience on 3 September lasting one and a half hours. He argued by saying ‘that according to the 1st point of the official communication, all military decisions