had given the Italians an opportunity of flinging powerful masses of troops on to the hard-pressed mountain front, thus averting catastrophe for the time being.
The turn of events in the east called for new decisions, and a few days after Luck the two chiefs of the General Staffs of the Central Powers met in Berlin to form these decisions. The idea of leaving the eastern front in Falkenhayn's words " to look after itself " was, it may be assumed, only theoreti- cally discussed. Neither did such resolutions come under con- sideration, either then or later, as those executed in 1914 by the Central Powers when they shook off the enemy by one mighty move backwards and thus again deprived him of the initiative. The scarcity of food alone, under which the peoples of the Central Powers were already beginning to suffer heavily, made it imper- ative to cling to every foot of fruitful soil in Volhynia or East Galicia at all costs. On the other hand, the situation was so grave on all other fronts that for the moment any assistance proposed for the eastern front must be of a modest order. The commanders of the armies fighting against Russia indeed attempted, even within their own areas, to keep their forces together for use as units rather than to use them to fill up gaps. Gen. von Linsingen, for example, made frequent efforts in the area of his own group of armies at Luck to concentrate strong forces for counter-attack. But the strength of these attack- groups, in most cases, very soon exhausted itself against the numerical superiority of the enemy. Similar attempts were made several times in East Galicia and also in the Carpathians. Mention should be made in this connexion of a plan formed in the beginning of July 1916 to form a XII. Army out of the German and Austro-Hungarian troops in East Galicia and to attack with it on both sides of the Dniester. This idea certainly promised success; but the divs. selected for the purpose were, in view of the new increase of the Russian attacks, in most cases diverted to some particular danger-spot on the wide-spreading defence front; and the construction of the XII. Army, together with the task to be entrusted to it, had to be given up. There was nothing for it but to persist in the method practised since the middle of June, and contest every inch of ground in dogged local defence-battles. And even this mode of warfare was conditional on a considerable expenditure of force. Between the beginning of June and the end of Aug. about 17 German divs. had to be brought over from France and 8 to 10 Austro-Hungarian divs. from Italy. In addition, the front to the N. of the Pripet transferred a large portion of its regts. and divs. to the southern section, receiving in exchange only worn-out troops.
Since the beginning of July 1916 the Russians had also with- drawn strong forces from Kuropatkin's and Ewerth's fronts to add them to Brussilov's. Finally, at the beginning of Sept. the area S. of the Pripet, with 71 divs., had 20 divs. more than the northern section. The attacks during the summer offensive of 1916 cost the Russians enormous bloodshed. Great as were the results, the sacrifices far outweighed them. The Russian Su- preme Command remained true to the methods practised in the Carpathians. It is quite impossible to point to any great con- ception underlying the operations of the Russian Command in these battles. They worked on purely local considerations and prospects, and often did not even make use of these, as for instance immediately after the first great blows delivered at Luck, when they gave their opponents time to close a gap of 50 km. which had been made. More than once did the Russian Supreme Command let slip an opportunity of a mortal blow.
Creation of the " Hindenburg Front." The great crisis on the eastern front, lasting several months, reacted strongly on the relations between the armies of the Central Powers. The Austro-Hungarian troops had, from the very first Russian attacks, shown considerably less power of resistance than the German. The Austro-Hungarian armies fighting at Luck and Ocna had, within a few days, left a quarter of a million prison- . ers in the enemy's hands. Even in peace-time the conditions in the polyglot Dual Monarchy were less favourable by far than those in the German Empire for a display of military power, and the unexpectedly long duration of the war increased the
difficulties enormously. It should also be remembered that in the first year of the war the Austro-Hungarian military forces had had a considerably larger drain on their men than the German. At the end of 1915 only a small remnant of the forces deployed at the beginning of the war was left at the front. The rest were dead, wounded or prisoners. In the quiet period before the Rus- sian summer offensive of 1916 the training of the drafting reserve was certainly better organized than in the first year, when recruits had on occasion to be sent to the front after a month's training. But between the young, systematically trained peace-time forces, full of heroic self-sacrifice, with which the war started, and the Landsturm troops of the later cam- paigning years, some of them physically and morally unsound to begin with and many of them far too old, there could be no comparison. This was particularly the case with a considerable proportion of the Slav and Rumanian forces, on whom the great national crisis could not act as a spur but rather as the reverse, as was not infrequently proved. Under these difficult conditions the lack of good regular officers was most keenly felt. The flower of these had Been left on the battle-fields of 1914.
In consequence of the internal weakening of the Austro- Hungarian army in the east which was not noticeable in anything approaching the same degree where the army was opposed to its ." hereditary enemy," Italy a rule was made that on every point of the battle-front where the Russians were using great pressure German units should be flung in. In this way, from the beginning of July, the whole Austro-Hungarian section was interspersed with German troops. This system of " stay-boning," as it was sarcastically called, naturally brought with it a powerful increase of German influence in the combined army. It also happened that the Austrian leading provoked frequent criticism on the part of the German commanders. Immediately after the first Russian assault at Luck, for instance, the commander of the IV. Army, Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, was relieved of his command on the explicit demand of the Ger- man General Staff. Added to this, between the new commander arid his Austrian subordinate commanders intermediate posts were interposed and filled by German generals, who alone exercised direct power of command over the troops. As the number of German forces on the Austro-Hungarian front in- creased, the ambition of the Germans to get the principal com- mands into their own hands became more and more evident. Immediately after the beginning of the Russian offensive, the area commanded by the German Gen. Linsingen, which began on the Pripet, was extended to the boundary of Galicia. At the same time Falkenhayn proposed to entrust Field-Marshal Mackensen, who was in Bulgaria, with the supreme command of all the allied troops fighting S. of the Pripet. Conrad von Hotzendorff was opposed to this arrangement, but offered to confer on Mackensen the command of a group of armies in East Galicia. This Falkenhayn declined.
In July Falkenhayn made the proposal to recall Field-Marshal von Hindenburg from Kovno and appoint him supreme com- mander between the Pripet and the Dniester. To this plan Conrad agreed, though without seeing any particular meaning in it. As a matter of fact Falkenhayn's proposal was made more on personal than on practical grounds. The chief of the German General Staff had from the start few friends but many enemies. Since the failure of the attack on Verdun, Emperor William had begun to be besieged with complaints against the man who had his particular confidence. The Imperial Chancellor also urged that Falkenhayn should be replaced by Hindenburg, with a vigour quite unusual with him. The summer battle made the situation more acute. A depression fell over Germany, the army lost faith in the Supreme Command, and louder and louder became the clamour for Hindenburg.
Falkenhayn, though realizing that his relations with Hinden- burg and Ludendorff had been somewhat strained for more than a year past, felt obliged to fall in with the general opinion. He therefore proposed assuredly more or less against his inward conviction that Hindenburg should receive the appointment alluded to, that of supreme commander from the Pripet to the
