The Price of Glory (46 page)

What is Your Imperial Highness thinking of? Whom do you think you have in front of you? I am an experienced
Prussian
General!

One might think this was hardly the best way of getting results from a hypersensitive ally. Even Falkenhayn’s own entourage warned him from time to time that he ought to adopt a more diplomatic attitude towards the Austrian commanders, but he merely replied that ‘one must be tough with the Austrians if one wishes to prevail’. Worst of all, his form of ‘toughness’ included making no attempt to disguise his views on the current military prowess of the Austrians, whom he regarded with much the same kind of contempt that the
Wehrmacht
leaders reserved for their Italian and Rumanian allies. A few months after Falkenhayn’s appointment, Conrad noted in his diary a deadly insult uttered — again in the
presence of Archduke Karl —to the effect that ‘our troops were disorganised… we achieved nothing, our troops did not march’.

There was, undeniably, a great deal of truth in Falkenhayn’s remark. About Austria-Hungary’s only success in the war had been the elimination of tiny, primitive Montenegro; a dubious triumph. When confronted by the Russians her miscegenate, half-hearted forces of which forty-seven per cent were Slavs — Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Slovenes and Croats — and eighteen per cent Magyars, disintegrated like sand castles licked by the sea. Again and again the Germans had to come to their aid on the Eastern Front. All this was particularly unbearable to Conrad — who was in fact as a general and a strategist far superior to Falkenhayn. He was one of the most outstanding on either side, the unique instance in the First War of where a commander was actually
better
than the troops he commanded (he also lasted longer than either Joffre or Falkenhayn; thirty-one months to their twenty-eight and a half and twenty-three and a half respectively). Lastly — but by no means the least consideration— long before Ludendorff indiscreetly proclaimed that Austria should by rights be ‘Germany’s prize of victory in this war’, Conrad was well aware of Big Brother’s political intentions, and as early as the seventh month of the war was referring to the Germans as ‘our secret enemies’.

From his weaker position, Conrad developed his own way of striking back at Falkenhayn. At their rare meetings, he never tried to match Falkenhayn’s superior power of rhetoric; instead he remained silent and sullen, giving Falkenhayn the false impression that his view had prevailed. Later, Falkenhayn would be infuriated to discover — by letter or by an action — that Conrad had not changed his mind at all. In November 1914, soon after Falkenhayn’s appointment, the German and Austrian liaison staffs had tried to arrange a first meeting between their Commanders-in-Chief. But Falkenhayn, already displaying a disastrous lack of tact, insisted that Conrad come to meet him in Berlin; Conrad retorted by sending his Adjutant, a mere lieutenant-colonel. That same autumn, on purely rational administrative grounds, Conrad asked that the German Ninth Army, newly arrived on the Russian front should be placed under Austrian command. Falkenhayn, not countenancing any diminution of his own control over that front, refused. A short time later Conrad retaliated by refusing a similarly reasonable German request to have
the Austrian First Army put under Hindenburg, after the Warsaw offensive had been held up by lack of co-ordination between the two forces.

To us it all seems almost unbelievably petty and childish — though one only has to recall Lloyd George and Haig to realise that the relationship between Falkenhayn and Conrad was by no means the exception in the First War. With this background of personal animosity alone, it was perhaps hardly surprising that the two warlords never saw eye to eye on the conduct of hostilities. But, apart from this, their strategic philosophies were in sharp discord. Falkenhayn was essentially, as has been noted earlier, a ‘Westerner’, though his policy of ‘security at all points’ precluded a knock-out offensive anywhere. Partly influenced by his Austrian orientations, Conrad was an  ‘Easterner’, as well as being a disciple of von Schlieffen to the extent of believing that the Central Powers could only win by concentrating on their enemies one at a time. Agreeing in principle with Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who wanted to stand on the defensive in France until Russia was smashed, at the same time he felt that successive minor blows should dispatch from the war the weaker Allies — Serbia, Montenegro and Italy — which would then release Austria’s full strength for use against Russia. Conrad’s belief that the biggest plums were to be plucked in the East was substantially endorsed by the huge success of the Gorlice Offensive in May 1915. No campaign of the whole war produced greater material results than Gorlice; 1,500,000 prisoners and 2,600 guns taken, and an advance of 430 kilometres (the equivalent in five months at Verdun: 65,000 prisoners, 250 guns and ten kilometres). And Gorlice had sprung originally from an idea of Conrad’s; to his fury, when it succeeded Falkenhayn claimed it for his own.

The final, fatal rift between Falkenhayn and Conrad occurred later in 1915. Falkenhayn had agreed to lend German troops to finish off Serbia (there was a certain parallel with the Germans and Italians in Greece in 1941) where the Austrians — many of them Croats, with little desire to fight against their blood brethren — had been struggling ineptly since 1914. Characteristically, he insisted that all forces there should be placed under a German, General von Mackensen. Conrad resisted, but had to climb down when the Bulgarians supported Falkenhayn. When Conrad attempted to exert some influence over the course of the campaign (where the majority of the troops engaged were still Austrian) he was coldly informed that
Mackensen could only receive orders from the German High Command.

As soon as Serbia was conquered, Conrad, true to his philosophy, announced that he was going on alone to liquidate Montenegro. In mid-December, he wrote to Falkenhayn that  ‘now the campaign in Serbia is over, it is considered that the subordination of the Third Army under Mackensen is also ended’. On receiving this letter, Falkenhayn expostulated:  ‘That would tear up the agreement with the Bulgarians.’ But before he could protest to Conrad, Conrad had already marched on Montenegro. Livid with rage, Falkenhayn declared that it was  ‘a breach of solemn promises’ and broke off all personal relations with Conrad.

After he had successfully concluded the operation against Montenegro, Conrad wrote a conciliatory letter to Falkenhayn. He received no acknowledgement. About this time, he also wrote proposing a blow to knock out Italy in 1916, using sixteen Austrian divisions and four German, plus another four German divisions to relieve Austrian forces on the Russian front that would be required for the offensive. He received a cold, almost insulting, reply. In his Memoirs, Falkenhayn contemptuously dismissed the scheme on the grounds that Italy was of no military importance.
¹
Meanwhile Falkenhayn was busy with his plans for Verdun. Motivated partly by his obsession for secrecy, but also without any doubt by his pique with Conrad, Falkenhayn never breathed a word of what was to be Germany’s principal effort for 1916 to his chief ally.

It was incredible. When he first heard of the offensive in February, Conrad was quite understandably almost speechless with rage. If the Germans treated him this way, well then he too would go his own way without consulting them. With a secrecy that would have commended itself to Falkenhayn, he set about planning an offensive against the Italians single-handed. Five of the best Austrian divisions were withdrawn, without replacement, from the Russian front and transferred to the Tyrol. Unfortunately for Conrad, the Alpine weather was against him; late snows caused the postponement of the offensive for the best part of a month, until May 15th, by which time
the element of surprise had been lost. The Italians at Asiago suffered heavy losses, but within a month they had stopped Conrad’s advance.

Suddenly one of the worst disasters of the whole war hit the Austrians. In answer to President Poincaré’s desperate pleas to the Czar for a relief offensive to loosen the Germans’ teeth from Verdun, Russia’s ablest commander, General Brusilov, attacked with forty divisions on June 4th. He struck the Austrians in Galicia at the weakest point in the line; just where Conrad had withdrawn his five crack divisions for the offensive in Italy. The blow fell without any warning, and the Austrian front collapsed like the walls of Jericho. Off galloped the artillery, leaving the infantry in their thousands to the mercy of the charging Cossacks; but frequently the Slavs in the hotchpotch Austro-Hungarian Army did not even wait for the guns to depart before they threw down their arms. By the time the Brusilov Offensive petered out, 400,000 prisoners had been taken. It was Russia’s supreme moment, and the only successful campaign of that war to go down in history adorned with its author’s name.

It seemed as if the whole Austro-German line in the East might cave in. On June 8th, the day the new German offensive was unleashed at Verdun, Conrad came to Falkenhayn in Berlin, pleading for German assistance. Falkenhayn, now seeing the whole of his grand strategy falling in ruin, hardly spared him in this hour of greatest humiliation.

Just as Moltke had transferred two vital army corps to meet the Russian threat to East Prussia, thereby crippling the German lunge into France in 1914, so now Falkenhayn was forced to dispatch hastily eastwards three divisions from the Western Front. At Verdun, the Crown Prince received orders to suspend the offensive temporarily; there were unmistakable signs that the long-awaited British offensive in the West could not be very far off, and more reserves would be required to meet that. For over a week Falkenhayn hesitated. During this time, the Crown Prince seized the opportunity once again to persuade Falkenhayn to give up the Verdun offensive for good. Once again he was thwarted by his father and Knobelsdorf. His memories of this period, he wrote later, were  ‘amongst the most painful of the whole war… I was absolutely opposed to the idea of continuing the attack, yet I had to obey orders’.

But the danger from the East soon began to look less menacing; in the West the British batteries had not yet opened their ranging fire, and Falkenhayn was still Knobelsdorf’s man. The resumed effort against Fort Souville was now fixed for June 23rd. However, the critical moment for the French had meanwhile passed. Nivelle — thanks to Brusilov — had to some extent been able to replenish his desperately low reserves and repair his defences.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THE CRISIS

One more effort, said the Commander, and we have it. They said it in March, April… and up to the middle of July, and then they said it no more.—ARNOLD ZWEIG,
Education Before Verdun

In their minds there appeared a vision, pale and bloody, of the long procession of their dead brothers in
Feldgrau
. And they asked: Why? Why? And in their tormented hearts most of them found no answer.—
Reichs Archives
, Vol. 14

F
ORT
S
OUVILLE
commanded the last of the major cross-ridges running down to the Meuse on which the Verdun defences had been based. Behind it lay only Belleville Ridge, with its two secondary forts which were not reckoned capable of any serious resistance. Otherwise from Souville it was downhill all the way to Verdun, less than two and a half miles away, and once the fort (which constituted part of Pétain’s original  ‘Line of Panic’) fell into enemy hands it would be but a matter of time before the city itself was rendered untenable. The approach to Souville in front lay along a connecting ridge, placed like the bar in a letter  ‘H’, linking the Souville heights to those that ran from Froideterre to Douaumont. The distant end of the bar was commanded by the disputed
Ouvrage de Thiaumont
, currently in French hands, and astride it lay the important village of Fleury. Both these had to be captured before an assault on Souville could be made.

For the attack, Knobelsdorf had somehow scraped together 30,000 men — including General Krafft von Dellmensingen’s recently arrived Alpine Corps, one of the most highly rated units in the German Army. Compressed within a frontage of attack of about three miles, the new effort represented a greater concentration of force than even the initial thrust of February. Despite Brusilov’s interruption, von Knobelsdorf — in sharp contrast to his Army Commander — was brimming over with optimism. He would be in Verdun within three days. Already he had ordered up the colours and bands of the various regiments for the triumphal entry to follow, and invited the Kaiser to watch the administering of the
coup de grâce
from Fifth Army Headquarters. During the days before the attack, Colonel Bansi, commanding the German heavy guns, noted rapturously the joy of once again being able to gallop his horse from battery to battery, ‘through the glorious summer weather, and fresh blooming fields.… That gave one heart and courage, a freer and fresher feeling.’ The Germans’ light-hearted confidence was not entirely braggadocio nor just wishful-thinking. Von Knobelsdorf had one last trick up his sleeve.

As the German storm-troops passed by the artillery emplacements on their way up to the line, their eyes fell upon great piles of shells all painted with bright-green crosses. There was a deliberate air of mystery and secrecy surrounding the unfamiliar markings, but it was widely sensed that it had something to do with the leaders’ assurances that this time they were going to break through to Verdun, and no mistake.

* * *

On the evening of June 22nd, Lieutenant Marcel Bechu, an officer on the staff of the French 130th Division, was sitting down to supper with his general at his command post near Souville. It was a beautiful summer night without a breath of wind, spoilt only by the German bombardment that had raged all day. Abruptly all the German guns ceased. For the first time in days there was silence, total silence; a silence that seemed ‘more terrible than the din of the cannonade’. The officers glanced at each other with suspicion in their eyes; for, as Bechu remarked, ‘man is not afraid of fighting, but he is terrified of a trap.’ The French guns went on battering away, but for once were unanswered. For minutes that seemed like hours the uncanny silence continued, while in the shelter disquiet mounted. Then there came a sound above, said Bechu poetically,