A General Sketch of the European War: The First PhaseBelloc, Hilaire
History
A General Sketch of the European War: The First Phase
Belloc, Hilaire
World War, 1914-1918
So far as we can judge, perhaps--and it is a very rough estimate--we
may put the whole body which Austria-Hungary was thus moving in the
first phase of the war beyond the Carpathians at more than 750,000,
but less than 1,000,000 men. Call the mass 800,000, and one would not
be far wrong. Of this mass quite a quarter lay in reserve near the
mountains behind the first army. The remaining three-quarters, or
600,000 men, were fairly evenly divided between the two groups of the
first and of the second army--the first, or northern, one being under
the command of Dankl, the second under that of von Auffenberg. Each
of these forces was based upon one group of depots of particular
importance, the northern operative army (I) relying upon Przemysl, and
the southern one (II) upon Lemberg.
It was less than a week after the first German advance bodies had
taken the outer forts of Liége when Dankl crossed the frontier,
heading, with his centre, towards Krosnik and farther towards Lublin.
His troops were in Russian territory upon the Monday evening or the
Tuesday, 10th-11th August.
The second army meanwhile stood fulfilling its rôle of awaiting and
containing any Russians that might strike in upon the south. It had
advanced no more than watching bodies towards the frontier, such as
the 35th Regiment of the Austrian Landwehr, which occupied Sokal, and
smaller units cordonned out southward between that town and Brody.
Here, at the outset of the large operations that were to follow, it is
important for the reader to note that everything depended upon the
resisting power of the second, or southern, army.
Observe the problem. Two men, a left-hand man and a right-hand man,
go out to engage two other men whom they hope and believe to be
unready. The left-hand man is particularly confident of being able to
drive back his opponent, but he knows that sooner or later upon his
right the second enemy, a stronger man, may come in and disturb his
action. He says therefore to his right-hand companion: "Stand firm and
engage and contain the energy of your opponent until I have finished
with mine. When I have done that, I shall turn round towards you, and
between us we will finish the second man."
Seeing the paucity of Russian communications, and the physical
necessity under which the Russians were, on account of the position of
their depots and centres of mobilization, of first putting the mass of
their men on the south, the physical impossibility under which they
lay of putting the mass of their men in the north for the moment, the
plan was a sound one; _but_ its success depended entirely upon the
tenacity of the second Austrian army, which would have to meet large,
and might have to meet superior, numbers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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