The Eastern Front 1914-1917 (57 page)

¹⁷
Figures for respective strengths are taken, unless otherwise specified, from Vatsetis p. 28f and the Reichsarchiv
volume p. 370f
: Golovin’s figures/Nachalo p. 345 are fanciful, based on an assumption that all German divisions were of first-line strength, and that Russian second-line divisions did not count. In reality, nearly half of Germany’s infantry divisions, and more than half of those fighting in the east, were second- or third-line, with half or less than half of the artillery of a first-line division; while Russian second-line divisions had as many guns as first-line ones, whatever the differences in quality between them.

¹⁸
Vatsetis p. 29.

¹⁹
G. Frantz:
Russland
(op. cit. Chapter 1) p.128, Kondzerovski p. 52. The famous story that Rennenkampf and Samsonov had come to blows during the war with Japan appears to lack foundation (v. Savant p. 261). The general with whom Rennenkampf quarrelled was Mishchenko. Just the same, it is clear that Samsonov and Rennenkampf came from different cliques of the army—Rennenkampf a well-known protégé of Grand Duke Nicholas, well-established at Court, and able to mobilise many high aristocrats on his behalf when there was a danger of his being blamed for Tannenberg; Samsonov, commanding general in Turkestan—an appointment controlled by the
Glavny Shtab
, and hence a Sukhomlinovite satrapy.

²⁰
Sbornik
No. 147 (Rennenkampf to Yanushkevitch, 19th August. Rennenkampf put the blame for it all on Zhilinski).

²¹
German plans: E. Ludendorff:
Kriegserinnerungen
(Berlin 1919) p. 37f., but cf. Hoffmann p. 14, 29f.

²²
Vatsetis p. 40.

²³
Sbornik
p.210ff. nos. 214–60. Intelligence (p. 211) showed on 23rd August that the Germans had retreated.

²⁴
Sbornik
p. 228ff(nos. 261–86) covers I Army until 1. September, p. 245–322 (nos. 287–438) II Army in the same period. There are also useful remarks as to Rennenkampf ’s behaviour in Savant, passim.

²⁵
Golovin:
Nachalo
p. 234f., Vatsetis p. 165f. and
Sbornik
no. 356.

²⁶
Sbornik
p. 269–70, no. 347 (intelligence showed that there was only one corps before II Army), and cf. Vatsetis p. 134 for Mileant’s report that the Germans were retreating, and Bayov’s that both 1. and 17. Corps had retired into Königsberg. The group opposing II Army was of course quite small—20. Corps (Scholtz) and two Landwehr groups. It is characteristic of Golovin’s methods (p. 206f) that he should reckon that Scholtz’s group was actually superior to the centre of II Army—four infantry divisions, with 42 batteries, against five and 36 on the Russian side. First, only two of the German divisions were ‘active’, with 12 batteries each. The other two were third-line, with three batteries each. Again, each Russian battery contained eight guns; each German, six.

²⁷
Vatsetis p. 169f and Reichsarchiv p. 184f.

²⁸
Sbornik
p. 564f. covers the Russian 4th infantry division, which lost 5,283 men and 73 officers.

²⁹
Golovin p. 230, and Reichsarchiv p. 170f.

³⁰
Sbornik
p. 556f. and 559f.; no. 429 pp. 316–8 is Postovski’s report, and no. 428 pp. 313–6 Zhilinski’s; cf. Hoffmann p. 80ff. for the surrenders.

³¹
O. D. Yanushkevitch to Zhilinski 24 August cf.
Sbornik
p. 791f. and Vatsetis p. 291f.

³²
O. D. Yanushkevitch to Zhilinski 18th August cf. Savant p. 186 and, overall, Reichsarchiv p. 268f.

³³
VIII. Army now contained 232 battalions, 124 squadrons and 1,212 guns, of which 184, 94 and 1,074 were concentrated for this battle. The Russians had 398, 288 and 1,492, but failed to concentrate. I Army had, scattered, 228, 173 and 924.
Sbornik
no. 795 gives X Army’s strength, somewhat later, as 150,000. These were not really used. In I Army, corps had on average 25,000 men and 100 guns (50 per infantry division), with only 811 officers for 40,000 men (Mileant’s figure,
Sbornik
no. 764 p. 791). V. Pflug, ‘10. armiya v sentyabre 1914 goda’ in
Voyenni Sbornik
(Belgrade) V (1925) pp. 231–60 is revealing; cf. Savant p. 286f. and 349f.

CHAPTER FOUR

¹
N. Stone: ‘Army and Society in the Habsburg Monarchy’ in
Past & Present
33 (1966) pp.95–111.

²
F. Franek: ‘Probleme der Organisation in ersten Kriegsjahr’ (
Ergänzungsheft
of the Austro-Hungarian official history, Vienna 1932) p. 18; H. Kerchnawe: ‘Die unzureichende Rüstung der Mittelmächte…’ (Vienna 1932) p. 8.

³
The following account of Austro-Hungarian planning and mobilisation is based on study of the relevant documents in the
Kriegsarchiv
, Vienna: study has been made of private papers (Conrad, Kundmann, Potiorek) as well as of the records of planning in the General Staff, of railway-timetables for individual units, and of the activity of particular armies and army corps in July and August 1914. Full reference to these is made in the author’s article: ‘Die Mobilmachung der österreichisch-ungarischen Armee 1914’ in
Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen
(Freiburg i.B.) 1974/II pp. 67–95, which also contains a detailed account of the author’s disagreement with versions, hitherto given prominence, of these events. An important but unpublished source is the manuscript, prepared for the Carnegie series on the history of the war, by Emil Ratzenhofer:
Oesterreich-Ungarns Mobilisierung, Transport, Versammlung Sommer 1914
, known as ‘Ratzenhofer Deposit’ in the archives of the Hoover Institution, Stanford, California. The draft of this exists in Ratzenhofer’s
Nachlass
in the
Kriegsarchiv
, Vienna (B/691 Kartons 30–40). Ratzenhofer, as head of the
Russland-Gruppe
of the General Staff’s railway-section, was in an excellent position to survey events, and had an important part in them. The original record of the railway experts’ transactions is the Straub-diary:
AOK. Quartiermeister-Abteilung
,
Faszikel 4119
from which my quotations are taken.

⁴
There had also been delay in partial mobilisation, against Serbia. It was proclaimed in the evening of 25th July, but the first day of mobilisation was not until 28th July. Conrad said that the delay occurred because the railways needed it. The railwaymen denied this, at least in private. Probably the delay occurred, like many others on the Austro-Hungarian side in the July crisis, because of ‘nerves’.

⁵
Conrad had told everyone that ‘the fifth day of mobilisation’ would be the decisive point. If he knew by then that Russia would intervene, then ‘B-Staffel’ could go north
east directly; but if Russia intervened only after then, ‘B-Staffel’ would have started its road south, and would have to complete the Serbian campaign before going north-east against Russia. He said this more or less word-for-word to Burián, Tisza’s representative, on 28th July (
Gróf Tisza István összes munkai
vol. 2, Budapest 1924, p. 35). In fact, 1st August was the fifth day of this mobilisation-programme; and yet the experts found on 31st July—the fourth day—that ‘B-Staffel’ was irrevocably committed to the Balkans. Maybe it was just blundering; or maybe the whole question of fifth day had not very much meaning, but was merely a technical-sounding justification for Conrad’s proceeding to knock Serbia, despite the threat of Russian intervention, and despite the protests which he knew to expect.

⁶
Ratzenhofer, manuscript p. 214.

⁷
B. Enderes (and others)
Verkehrswesen im Krieg
(Vienna 1930) p. 60–5 record civilians’ disenchantment with the railway-experts’ ways. Other details are taken from the war-diaries of army commands: v. Stone,
Mobilmachung
note 41.

⁸
e.g. 4th
Armeekommando
, Faszikel 3, op. nr. 33, 37, 114.

⁹
M. v. Pitreich:
Lemberg 1914
(Vienna 1924) p. 21. On Jaroslawice, Max Hoen:
Jaroslawice
(Vienna 1921) which should be compared with the (surprisingly numerous) Russian accounts: E. Tikhotski:
Ataka avstro-vengerskoy konnitsy
(Belgrade 1938); A. Slivinski:
Konny boy
(Belgrade 1912; V. Grebenshchikov: Noviye danniye o konnom boye 10. K. D.’ in
Voyenni sbornik
(Belgrade 1925) 7 pp. 111–9.

¹⁰
The battle of Galicia in August 1914 is best judged in the following, of which I have made extensive use:

a) F. Conrad von Hötzendorf:
Aus Meiner Dienstzeit 1906–1918
(5 vols. Vienna 1921–25), vols. 4 and 5.

b)
Oesterreich-Ungarns letzter Krieg
(v. 2 ed. Vienna 1930)

c) M. v. Pitreich:
Lemberg
(1924) and
1914. Die militärischen Probleme unseres Kriegsbeginnes
(Vienna 1934) which I have found to be most reliable;

d) A. Beloy:
Galitsiyskaya bitva
(Moscow 1929), most reliable work on the Russian side;

e) N. Golovin:
Galitsiyskaya bitva
v. 1 (Prague 1930) and 2 (
Dni pereloma
) (Paris 1940) which have the usual faults of over-estimation of enemy strength and vendetta against Sukhomlinov and his friends in the General Staff;

f) Memoirs, the most useful of which are M. v. Auffenberg:
Aus Oesterreichs Teilnahme am Weltkrieg
(Vienna 1920) and R. Pfeffer:
Zum 10. Jahrestag der Schlachten von Zloczów und Przemyślany
(Vienna 1924).

¹¹
4th
Armeekommando
Faszikel 34 (Evidenzen 1–330) passim, and the orders issued in Fasz. 4 (501—999) on the basis of this information. The information was sent on to the German VIII Army, with a request that it should attack across the Narev precisely because the Russians were so strong against Austria-Hungary (v.
AOK. Verbindungs-offiziere Oberost
. Fasz. 6180 No. 48 of 14th August).

¹²
Conrad-
Archiv
B/6 No. 100 (from Berchtold 18th August) cf. 4th
Armeekommando
Fasz. 3 No, 115 of 13th August and No. 36/1 of 13th August.

¹³
Beloy p. 353.

¹⁴
O. D. Yanushkevitch to Alexeyev and Ivanov, 9th and 10th August 1914.

¹⁵
Beloy p. 350, O. D. Yanushkevitch to Zhilinski 31st August.

¹⁶
Beloy’s
Vykhod iz okruzheniya
(Moscow 1925) is a special study of this battle. It should be compared with Auffenberg’s account (
Teilnahme
).

¹⁷
On Ruzski’s behaviour, a controversy developed both in Soviet and émigré publications after the war: for instance, in
Voyennoye Delo
(Moscow 1918–20) especially nos. 23, 25,
and 27 of year 1, and 1–2 of year 2, where Klembovski and Bonch–Bruyevitch kept the controversy going, and in
Voyenni sbornik
(Belgrade) nos. 7f. where Dragomirov added his voice.

CHAPTER FIVE

¹
W. S. Churchill:
The Great War
(1930 ed.) vol. 3 p. 500.

²
These figures have been taken from the German official history: Reichsarchiv:
Der Weltkrieg
vol. 8 (Anlage 2 p. 629); Oberkommando des Heeres:
Der Weltkrieg
vol. 12 (1939) p. 477 (cf. Beilage 28); Bundesarchiv:
Der Weltkrieg
vol. 13 (1956) p. 47f and from the French equivalent:
Les Armées françaises dans la Grande Guerre
vol. 5 ii pp. 34, 45 and 47.

³
My account of strategy in the latter part of 1914 is based on the following:

a)
Sbornik dokumentov mirovoy voyni na russkom fronte. Manevrenny period. Varshavsko-Ivangorodskaya operatsiya
(Moscow 1938) and
Lodzinskaya operatsiya
(1939), each with a volume of maps. Like the collection on East Prussia, these are collections, for Red Army use, of the important documents on strategy, individual engagements, and supply: