COMMANDERS WHO HAVE PASSED

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 17, 19 July 1918, Page 6

COMMANDERS WHO HAVE PASSED

Austria-Hungary and Italy having both dismissed their former military chiefs, there is now perhaps room to speculate on the transitory nature of human glory, and the particular susceptibility of high soldierly authorities to prevailing epidemics; for it is hardly reasonable to suppose that the list pi closed military careers is anything like complete. General Cadorna's retirement, it may be noted, was not averted by being long deferred; nor was Conrad yon Hoetzendorff saved by Cadorna's previous disaster from the consequences of his (Yon Hoetzendorff's) later failure at the Piave. Either Yon Hoetzendorfi was awarded no marks for the defeat of Italy last year, or else his military credit was of no avail against Germany's demand for a scapegoat. This latter explanation seems the more feasible when it is remembered that the Austro-Hungarian reverse came at a time when any hitch in the programme was for Germany a political disaster. It does not require much imagination to depict the state of mind in Berlin when the Austro-Hun-garian offensive' failed; and it is also commonly understood that the new Ger-man-Austrian dynastic agreement has enlarged the German military, control of the Austro-Hungarian army, and given Berlin a direct voice -in tho military direction of the Dual Monarchy. Of Italy it may at any rate be said that Cadorna was dismissed by the Italians; but who would say the same of the Austro-Hun-garians and the* once omnipotent Yon Hoetzendorff?