AUSTRIA'S STRATEGY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17110, 15 March 1919, Page 1 (Supplement)

AUSTRIA'S STRATEGY.

ITS FATAL INVERSION. BY M.-COL. A. A. OHAOE, N.Z.F.A. BBSEBYB. Austria's military task, at the beginning of the war, appeared to be of a comparatively simple and easy nature. With some three million troops immediately at her disposal she was asked to carry out an active defence against the Russians who were invading Galicia, and to invade and conquer Servia, Both of these things seemed easy for her to accomplish, since the line of JJie San and of the Upper Dniester was highly defensible, and isolated Servia could muster no mora than somr 250,000 troops. But in both oases her failure was significant. In Galicia, after a series of disastrous defeats, the Austrian's abandoned Lemburg, fell back from the San-Dniester line, left the garrison of Przemysl to its fate, and retreated through the passes of the Carpathians; while in the south three successive attacks against Servia failed ignominiously. Indeed, the invasion of Hungary was imminent, in the spring of 1915 there seemed nothing to prevent the victorious Russian armies, occupying the Carpathians, from the Dulke to the Usok Pass, from striking at the very heart of Austria, so soon as the snows of winter melted. But, (/"this juncture, Germany, unable to see hep principal ally fall before the invading armies of the Czar, abandoned temporarily her aggressive operations in the west, and, concentrating immense forces against the Russians, turned her defensive operations in the east into an aggressive of tremendous magnitude, Austria was saved, tlrt Russian army was everywhere driven back, but the Germans' major plan of campaign against France was dislocated and upset.

A Respite (or the Western Allies. The summer of 1915 saw Austria acting offensively against Russia, and defensively against Italy. True, the Teutons' successes against Russia brought Bulgaria to them as an ally, and sealed the fate of Servia, but it ia a question whether the drastic inversion of their initial strategical plan did not in reality lead, more than anything else, to their final overthrow. They occupied Poland, liberated Qalicm, invaded Kovno and Oourland, and drove the Russians eastward of the Pripet, but, contrary to Hindenburg's dictum, that the war was to be won by the Teutons in the east, these apparently marvellous and successful operations in reality led to nothing, decisive, hut used up valuable resources of men and materiel, which would have been better employed in the west than in the east. It was imperative that Germany should save Austria..from invasion by the Grand Duke Nicholas' armieß, in the spring of 1916, but it was not imperative to turn the Teuton's active defence of their eastern frontiers into a major offensive. But, apparently, the transcendent predilections of Hindenburg bore more weight in the councils of the Kaiser than did the mature and well.considered plans of the German General Staff, formulated under the younger Von Moltke before the war began, and for good or ill Russia received, during the summer of 1915, the full impetus of the Teutons' aggressive power, while the Western Powers —Prance, Italy, and Britain— granted respite during some twelve months in which to strengthen their battle-fronts, and to develop their military resources. Divergence from a. Military Principle.

So far as Italy was concerned, Austria's strategy would naturally seem to have been one of the .most vigorous aggression, but for an entire year— May, 1915, to May, 1916— Austria was pursuing an aggressive policy in the east, Italy was permitted to force her way into Austrian territory, alone the entire length of her battlefront, and to occupy, in the alpine country bordering the Italian plains, de- ; fensible positions of great strength. So that, whereas the strategy of active defence had been abandoned by Austria in the east for a strategy of offence, in the west where she should havo been attacking she was defending. It is not by such divergence from the principles of military science that wars are usually won. With the help of Bulgaria, Austria quickly conSuered Servia, just at) with the help of lermany she had invaded Russia, but in the west, where it wan plain to everyone, except Hindeburg, that the war was to be lost and won, the Allies' strength had been augmented by that of Italy, and Italy had been permitted to establish her armies in the fastnesses of the Alps; whereas, upon her declaring war on Austria, she should immediately have been invaded, and the war have been carried into the fertile, populous plains of northern Italy.

Success Neutralised by Failure. The year 1916 saw a partial recovery of Russia and the successful invasion of Bukowina by the armies under the command of General Brusiloff. This success wrought Rdumania to the side of the Allies, and though she was quickly overwhelmed because of the weakening of Russia's military efforts, yet the Austro-Eulgarian success was incidental rather than deciI sive, and did not affect very mated- ! ally the major issue, In May, 1916, tho i Austrians had tried to assume the en* I sive against Italy by attacking from the Trentino, but the result was ineffectual, and General Cadorna had managed with great skill to turn the Austrian failure to his immediate advantage by successfully attacking along tho whole line of the Isonzo, and capturing Gorizia, So that the prestige which Austria had gained in tho east, during 1916, was to a great extent neutralised by her failure in the west, the more particularly by her inability to carry out her proper task against Italy. But in the autumn of 1917, though belatedly, when there was no longer an enemy to occupy her in she turned her whole strength against Italy. The breaking of General Cadorna's battlefront on the Isonzo, and the invasion of Venetia, formed a military achievement of maximum importance, arid, if simultaneously it had been accompanied by a vigorous stroke from the Trehijno, there is reason to think that Austria 'might possibly have brought about the decisive defeat of the Italian army, but, though she won a remarkable victory, it remained indecisive because of her comparative weakness. While she had been prodigally using up her strength in the east, where, in spite of Roumania's defeat and of Russia's collapse, final victory could not bo won, Italy had been left free to build up a military strength which was so great that even the loss of 180,000 troops and 1800 guns in Venetia paralysed her only momentarily. As a matter of fact, Austria's great offensive against Italy was made a year too late, as was the case with the Germans' great effort against Verdun. If those two tremendous offensives could have been made to sychronise, in 1915, perhaps victory might have rested with the Teutons, but in that year their eyes were looking towards the east, rather than to the west, as the place where the war was to be brought to an end. As matters finally fell out, Austria, having used up the flower of her manhood, in directions where nothing decisive was to be accomplished, collapsed when the capitulation of the Buigarian Army left her southern borders open to invasion by the Allied army of the Balkans, under the command of General D'Espcrey. She had been compelled to make her strategy conform, in the main, to the ill-conceived, strangely vacillating and strategical plans of Germany. Where the one failed the other could hardly succeed. •So that, finally, when a state of exhaustion had been reached by Germany as well as Austria, we behold the entire structure of Teutonic greatness fall to the ground, while as yet [ the Allied armies were almost everywhere outside the borders of the Central Empires.