Page 226 - Il 1916 Evoluzione geopolitica, tattica e tecnica di un conflitto sempre più esteso - Atti 6-7 dicembre 2016

226 il 1916. EvoluzionE gEopolitica, tattica E tEcnica di un conflitto sEmprE più EstEso

tro-Hungarian 1 Army - Artur Arz von Straußenburg (1857-1935) - then suc-
st
ceeded in pushing the Rumanian troops out of Transylvania.
In the meantime, the Bulgarians had also launched an offensive in the Do-
brudscha and the Rumanians had suffered several defeats. Despite adequate
relief offensives by the Russians and Entente troops of the Salonika Front, the
Situation of the Rumanian troops remained precarious. After the occupation of
the Walachia, the Allied Forces were able to take Bucharest on Dec. 6 , 1916.
th
The Rumanian Army was defeated. During that short war half a million of its
soldiers had been killed, wounded or taken prisoner.
12
So at the end of 1916, the Central Powers had faced the fact that their indi-
vidual plans and operations had failed and regarding the crisis at Luck/Okna
almost caused a full collapse. Although the severe situation on the battlefields
had been stabilized, the German Supreme Command urged to establish a com-
mon High Command for all Central Powers, which was put in function at the end
of 1916 and enabled a positive perspective for 1917.

Comments on the development of the k.u.k. war-doctrine
1914 – 1916
At the beginning of the war numerous tracts on training regulations and
handbooks were used by the Austro-Hungarian army. The basic theory and
guidelines in these books were taught at the various military institutes and in
a wide range of courses to instruct officers and non-commissioned officers and
co-ordinate their training of newly conscripted recruits. The best way to de-
13
termine the Standard of training within the Austro-Hungarian army at the time
is to read the regulations they used, and it should be noted that the army and
both branches of the reserves (the Austrian Landwehr and the Hungarian Hon-
ved) received identical regulations, so there was no difference in their training.
The last set of general rules to be developed and implemented before the war
was known in Austria as the ‘Exerzierreglement’ (training manual), and was
introduced for the infantry in 1911. This stresses ‘attack at all costs’ as the most
important rule of warfare, and states that an attack is the best route to success

12 Rest Stefan, Ortner M. Christian, Ilming Thomas, The Emperor´s Coat in the First World war,
Vienna, 2002, p. 17
13 On principle every male citizen in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was obliged to perform
military Service. Fitness for military duty was established at the so-cailed ‘muster’ by a com-
mission after medical examination. The decisions could be ‘fit’, ‘less fit’, ‘deferred’, ‘unfit’ or
‘to be omitted’. So ‚fit‘ meant Integration in the armed forces.