The Stumble Toward War, July 1914

It was on this day in 1914, in the wake of the assassination of the heir to the Habsburg throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, that the Imperial-Royal government of Austria-Hungary issued a list of demands which amounted to an ultimatum for the Kingdom of Serbia. They were demands which were so far-reaching that many have since speculated that the Austrian government never intended them to be accepted and was simply following the traditional pattern of issuing an ultimatum as a prelude to war. Yet, if Austria-Hungary was overreaching, it should be entirely understandable. The assassination of the heir to the throne was only the latest and most tragic act by Serbian terrorist groups in what had been a long campaign of antagonism. Vienna wanted this stopped and were prepared to use force to make that happen. The Emperor of Austria-Hungary, Francis Joseph, did not want war but he was also not prepared to let this anti-Habsburg campaign continue without response.

The world was shocked when the Kingdom of Serbia agreed to all but one of Austria's demands. There had been hardly anything in the ultimatum that any independent country would have agreed to and, yet, Serbia agreed to comply almost entirely. Why was this? They knew just how high up in the halls of power in Belgrade that the anti-Habsburg secret societies reached and they knew that if they did not comply, war would result and everyone expected that Austria-Hungary would completely crush Serbia in such a war. Serbia's only hope was Czar Nicholas II of Russia, as only the threat of Russian intervention might make Austria think twice about attacking Serbia. Czar Nicholas II was prepared to do the right thing, he was not prepared to tolerate the Austrian conquest of a Slavic, Orthodox nation yet, like Emperor Francis Joseph in Vienna, he did not want war either. Russia's last war, against Japan, had ended in defeat and with the monarchy badly shaken, both by internal unrest that was eager for any sign of weakness and by more professional revolutionaries paid by the Japanese to undermine the Czar. Any threat of war against Austria-Hungary would also surely result in the German Empire coming to the defense of their Austro-Hungarian allies.

Czar Nicholas II is almost never given credit for this, yet it was he who persuaded the Serbians to agree to all but one of the Austrian demands, something which could have stopped the outbreak of World War I. The Czar of Russia took a very clear position; if the Austrians insisted on invading Serbia, he would intervene but as long as there was any hope for a peaceful resolution, he would press the Serbs to agree to almost anything so that the crisis could be ended. King Peter I of Serbia and his regent Crown Prince Alexander, both supported the expansionist movement to create a Yugoslav state under Serbian leadership, yet they also knew that without Russian support, they stood little chance against Austria-Hungary and so, because of the part played by the Czar of Russia, agreed to all but one of the Austrian demands. In short, none of the monarchs involved wanted to go to war and Czar Nicholas II in particular deserves credit for doing all that he could to prevent such a disaster. Yet, it happened anyway. How? Even after the first declarations of war, it still seemed possible but was not.

Not a few historians have said that, rather than German Kaiser Wilhelm II (who had all blame heaped on him after the war), the real villain of the tragedy was Count Leopold Berchtold, the Austrian Foreign Minister. At Ischl, he presented the declaration of war against Serbia to Emperor Francis Joseph and obtained his signature by a flat out deception. He informed his monarch that the Serbs were already attacking Austria-Hungary, which was simply not true. The Serbs had mobilized first as there were hotheads in Belgrade just as eager for war as some in Vienna, but they had taken no hostile action. Berchtold thus obtained the Austrian declaration of war against Serbia by dishonesty and then allowed subsequent opportunities to stop the conflagration to pass by him on the grounds that Austria-Hungary had already declared war and the time for talks was over. If one were to insist on guilty culprits to blame for the outbreak of the Great War (and there was blame enough to go around), I would have to say that three men dominate the scene and none of them were reigning monarchs. There was the Austrian Foreign Minister Count Leopold Berchtold who lied to his monarch to obtain a declaration of war against Serbia and brushed aside opportunities for peace; there was the French Ambassador to Russia Maurice Paleologue who pushed relentlessly for war between Russia and Germany and finally Sir Edward Grey, the Labour Foreign Secretary of Great Britain who might have put the Germans off the whole affair if he had made it clear from the outset that Britain would intervene on the side of France and Russia.

Did two leftist foreign ministers and one Czech aristocrat start the First World War? No, that would be a considerable overstatement. However, they ultimately had far, far more culpability than did the emperors of Austria, Russia and Germany.

December 7, When America Went to War ... with Austria

December 7, 2016 marks the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the event which brought the United States of America into World War II, or, in other words, the day Japan decided that the Axis powers didn't really want to win anyway. However, much, much less well known is that December 7, 2016 is also the 99th anniversary of the day that the United States of America declared war on Austria-Hungary in 1917. By that time, of course, the U.S.A. was already at war with the German Empire, having declared war on Kaiser Wilhelm's government on April 6, 1917, several days after President Woodrow Wilson requested it. At that time, President Wilson said that it would do to wait and see how things developed with Austria-Hungary, admitting that the Emperor Charles I in Vienna had committed no acts of aggression against the United States and had done no Americans any harm upon the high seas. The declaration of war against Germany, despite Wilson's grandiose call to "make the world safe for democracy" was undertaken mostly due to German submarine attacks on American shipping and the hair-brained scheme to enlist Mexico in a post-war carve-up of U.S. territory. Austria-Hungary could not be accused of such hostile acts, so a decision on that issue was postponed.

Emperor Charles I of Austria-Hungary

It was, actually, Austria-Hungary which made the first tentative move toward war, a war probably everyone regarded as inevitable given how closely linked were the war efforts of Germany and Austria, particularly by 1917. Two days after the American declaration of war against Germany, Emperor Charles I recalled his ambassador and broke off diplomatic relations with the United States, the usual prelude to war and presumably done to show solidarity with his German partners (who were rather suspicious of the Emperor's commitment to their partnership after the Sixtus Affair). Several months later, on December 4, in his State of the Union address to Congress, President Woodrow Wilson finally responded by asking for a declaration of war against Austria-Hungary. In his speech, Wilson regarded this as simply a means of better executing the war against Germany, characterizing Austria-Hungary as a vassal of the Germans, an instrument of Berlin, rather than an actual independent power. That is not true of course but, given the war situation at the end of 1917, it was not so far from reality as the loyal admirers of the "Dual-Monarchy" would like to think.

The actual declaration of war was a much more procedural affair than the dramatic declaration of war on Germany and not all that many people seemed to notice, perhaps not even in Austria-Hungary which was near to collapse in any event. Oddly enough, the bill, proposed by Democrat Congressman Henry Flood, was approved by a larger majority than had approved the declaration of war on Germany! The bill passed with only one vote of opposition in the House of Representatives (cast by an anti-war socialist) and unanimously in the Senate. Republican Congresswoman and anti-war icon Jeanette Rankin (who would later cast the only opposition vote for the bill declaring war on Japan after Pearl Harbor) had voted against declaring war on Germany but voted in favor of declaring war on Austria-Hungary. Her explanation, that the declaration of war on Austria-Hungary was a mere formality and meant little given that war had already been declared against Germany, does not quite make sense given that her "no" vote to the war against Germany was itself largely symbolic, both chambers being overwhelmingly in favor of war after the revelation that the Germans had attempted to persuade Mexico to attack the United States. If a symbolic act of defiance was appropriate for the declaration of war against Germany, why not Austria-Hungary?

U-35 scores a success. American perhaps?

Why it happened, of course, is as ridiculous as the entire First World War was in its inception. Another in a long list of things that did not need to have happened and should not have happened. No one alleged for a moment that Austria-Hungary had committed any sort of attack on the United States. There was no fear of Tyrolean riflemen splashing on to the Jersey shore or Hungarian hussars clattering down Sixth Avenue. The official report made by the House Foreign Affairs Committee justified the call for war on the grounds that the Austro-Hungarian ambassador, Konstantin Dumba, (who had already been recalled) had been implicated in a conspiracy to disrupt American munitions production by causing labor strikes and, ridiculously, that an unknown submarine had sunk an American schooner in the Mediterranean and that one of the officers on this submarine was heard to be speaking -and no I'm not joking the report actually said this- "Austrian", causing them to naturally assume it must have been an Austrian submarine. Truth is stranger, and often more comic, than fiction. If it matters, the ship in question was almost certainly sunk by the German submarine, U-35. One cannot help but wonder if he identified the vessel as being from the United States after hearing the crew speaking "American".

These, of course, were simply clumsy efforts to justify an action being taken done, as Wilson himself said, in order to make the prosecution of the war against Germany easier. It was inevitable with the declaration of war on Germany given that both sides had forces serving alongside their allies on every front. There were Austrians supporting the Germans on the Western-front, there were Germans supporting the Austrians on the Italian front, there were even Germans and Austrians both supporting the Turks in the Middle East. The American Expeditionary Force would easily avoid the small Imperial-Royal detachment on the western front but in Italy the two sides were bound to clash and after the major German commitment to the Italian front for the Battle of Caporetto, which ended only the previous month, that was something the U.S. military leadership was very concerned about. It would, effectively, be impossible to fight the Germans without fighting the Austro-Hungarians as well. The United States did not, however, go to war against Bulgaria or the Ottoman Empire which, by December 1917, had lost Jerusalem and was crumbling fast.

Ambassador Dumba

In any event, Americans and Austro-Hungarians would see very little combat against each other. Some U.S. forces did serve on the Italian front against Austria-Hungary but they, as with the British and French, had arrived mostly after the crisis of Caporetto was over and the Italians recovered and carried on with the war on their front mostly on their own. On the western front, the small Austro-Hungarian contingent was deployed far from the primary area of operations for the American Expeditionary Force. Yet, in spite of the American and Austro-Hungarian forces having little to do with each other, the war between the United States of America and the Austro-Hungarian Empire would actually continue for longer than most people realize. In fact, it continued for some time after Austria-Hungary no longer existed. This was because the United States, quite wisely in my opinion, refused to endorse the whole Versailles peace fiasco and likewise refused to be party to the Treaties of Germain-en-Laye and Trianon by which the other Allies carved up the Hapsburg lands. The United States, therefore, remained officially at war until 1921 when the U.S. made separate peace treaties with Austria and Hungary. In fact, the U.S. believed the war reparations being demanded by the other Allies on Austria and Hungary were too harsh and actually assisted the Austrian and Hungarian governments with these onerous payments. It was a rather fitting end to a conflict that, like the Great War as a whole, should not have been fought in the first place by powers who had no real reason to be enemies.

The Weapon That Almost Won the Kaiser the War

When most think of German submarine achievements, they think of World War II with the Battle of the Atlantic, the great “aces” like Kretschmer, Topp, Schepke, Prien and so on and the famous words of Winston Churchill who said that the u-boat menace was the only thing that made him worry Britain might lose the war. However, while the German submarine fleet of World War II was larger and faced a more experienced foe, it was the u-boats of the Imperial German Navy in World War I that set most of the records, that developed the first weapons which the most successful of World War II were built upon, where the tricks of the trade were first developed and the Kaiser’s u-boats actually came much closer than most people realize to winning the First World War all on their own. This is all the more remarkable considering that, at the outset of World War I, not many people saw the submarine as possessing much potential. The leadership of the German High Seas Fleet tended to look down on submarines as being of little practical value and at the start of the war Germany actually possessed far fewer submarines than the British did. The Germans had never shown much interest in submarines compared to the Americans, French, British or Italians. However, it was the Kaiser’s submarines who would show the world, for the first time, what submarines were capable of.

Otto Hersing

At the start of the war, doubts about the viability of the u-boats seemed to be confirmed. The early models were all small, coastal boats which handled poorly and were driven by kerosene-powered engines that produced a telltale column of smoke that made them easy to spot. The first boats to be equipped with diesel engines were also so innovative that they were initially fairly unreliable as they were still working the bugs out. Their first war patrols were a complete failure, some being forced to return to port with engine trouble, one being sunk and none having any success against the British. The naysayers, which included Grand Admiral Tirpitz, seemed to have been proven right. However, they soon had reason to doubt that assumption when, on September 5, 1914, U-21 under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Otto Hersing became the first submariner to sink an enemy warship with a free-swimming torpedo when he successfully attacked the British cruiser HMS Pathfinder, sending her to the bottom with a single torpedo that hit near the magazine causing a massive explosion that quickly sent the ship plunging beneath the waves. This got some attention but many could still dismiss it as a lucky shot.

However, the next victory for the u-boats would be so spectacular that everyone, in Britain and Germany, had to start taking them more seriously. That same month, on September 22, Oberleutnant zur See Otto Weddigen in the elderly, kerosene-powered U-9, encountered three British cruisers off the Dutch coast. He had spent the night on the bottom, to give his men a break from the heavy seas and his batteries were not fully recharged when he encountered the enemy but he submerged his boat and prepared for an underwater attack. After moving in to a hair-raisingly close range of 500 meters U-9 hit HMS Aboukir with a single torpedo, sending her to the bottom. The British all assumed the ship had hit a mine and stopped to pick up survivors. Weddigen then targeted HMS Hogue and soon hit her with two torpedoes, sending her to the bottom. However, the sub briefly broke the surface and was spotted by the remaining cruiser, HMS Cressy, which opened fire on the u-boat. However, Weddigen turned his boat around and fired the two torpedoes from his stern tubes. These were spotted by the British, but U-9 was so close that there was no time to avoid them and HMS Cressy was mortally wounded. Weddigen then brought his boat around to finish off the enemy cruiser with his remaining torpedo after which he returned to port to reload. He and his crew of the U-9 had sunk three British cruisers in less than an hour!

Captain & crew of the U-9

Upon returning to Germany, the men of the U-9 were bona fide war heroes. The Kaiser was thrilled and every member of the crew was decorated with the Iron Cross, Second Class and Weddigen additionally received the Iron Cross First Class. The U-9 itself was given the honor of displaying the Iron Cross on its conning tower. In the second month of the war the submarine had just proven itself in a major way and no one would be quite so dismissive of them again. In addition, more success was on the way and both Hersing and Weddigen were well on their way to becoming two of the most celebrated submarine commanders of the war. And, although anti-submarine warfare was necessarily in its infancy, they faced a powerful enemy with the largest fleet in the world and in these early days of the war it was the Royal Navy that was the primary target of the German submarines rather than the merchant fleet. In October of 1914 the U-26 under Kapitanleutnant von Berckheim sank a Russian cruiser, the Pallada, followed, a few days later, by Otto Weddigen taking out yet another British cruiser, HMS Hawke.

Johannes Feldkirchener

The British, having denied the problem as long as possible, were suddenly thrown into a panic, sending out new orders, rerouting ships and even moving the home fleet from their anchorage in Scapa Flow until it could be fortified against submarine attack. On October 18, 1914 Kapitanleutnant Wegener in U-27 became the first submariner to sink an enemy submarine when he took out the British boat E-3. Two days later U-17 became the first sub to sink an enemy merchant ship when the freighter Glitra was stopped, inspected, had her crew off-loaded and was then sent to the bottom. November was less successful for the u-boats with more being lost but as the year ended the submarine had more than proven its worth and more Germans began to believe that it could be the key to defeating the Royal Navy. The sinking of the Glitra was also a pivotal event. With the British enforcing an ever tighter blockade of the entire North Sea, the Germans began to think of changing their strategy of submarine warfare to target merchant ships bound for the British Isles rather than Royal Navy warships.

U-24

Still, British overconfidence allowed the Germans to score some stunning victories. At the start of January, 1915 HMS Formidable, sailing with no escort destroyers, was sunk by U-24. The British responded with more patrol ships, wider use of anti-submarine nets and by laying more mines in areas u-boats had to cross through. At the time, there was little more they could do as this was before the use of underwater search gear or weapons such as the depth charge. For a British surface vessel, if you spotted a sub on the surface you shot at it of course and if you spotted a periscope you charged it, ramming the submarine and ripping it in half. Ships were also ordered to sail in a zigzag pattern and to show extra caution when traveling near waters where u-boats were most likely to be on the prowl. These measures were actually fairly effective and of all the German u-boats lost in action in World War I the majority were victims of mines and the Royal Navy did their best to lay belts of mines across the English Channel as well as the northern entrance to the North Sea, from Scotland to Norway, to bottle-up the u-boat menace.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

February of 1915, however, saw the German submarines adopting the new strategy of targeting the British merchant fleet rather than the Royal Navy. Kaiser Wilhelm II declared all the waters around the British Isles to be a war zone, effectively declaring a counter-blockade to match the British blockade of the North Sea. The Germans were also able to make use of ports in Belgium for their submarine fleet. During the war the Imperial German Navy maintained five u-boat and one u-cruiser flotillas in Germany itself, two u-boat flotillas in Flanders operating from Belgian ports, two u-boat flotillas in the Mediterranean operating from Austrian ports and one half-flotilla in Turkish waters operating out of Constantinople. As the German subs embarked on their first campaign against merchant shipping they also had several new, larger and more powerful sub types to work with. In February 1915, eight merchant ships were sunk, five by U-8 alone. In March there were 29 sunk, in April 33 and in May 53 with several warships being sunk as well during that time. The Germans also began their own mine laying operations with the UC-type submarines, particularly in the waters around France.

Walther Schwieger

However, there were also problems. In May of 1915 the U-20 under Kapitanleutnant Walter Schwieger torpedoes the British passenger liner RMS Lusitania off the coast of Ireland. 1,201 passengers were killed, including 128 Americans which caused an uproar in the United States against Germany, something the British took full advantage of in their propaganda even though the ship had been carrying war materials and was thus a legitimate target. The German high command was forced by political pressure to order submarines not to attack neutral ships or passenger ships even if they were under the flag of a country at war with Germany. Nonetheless, the u-boats still proved highly effective and in the next four months 365 merchant ships were lost to submarine attacks. If u-boat successes of that scale continued they would soon be sinking ships faster than the British could replace them and Britain would be forced to sue for peace or face starvation of both her populace and her war industries. However, in due time two more passenger liners were sunk, one of which again had American passengers and another which was sunk by Walter Schwieger, making him quite a hated figure among the Allies and their sympathizers. The outcry from the United States forced the German high command to pull back and order all u-boats to operate strictly in accordance with the rules which stated that a ship had to be stopped, inspected and the crew offloaded before being sunk.

Germans sang the praises of the submarine

This, of course, deprived the submarine of the element of surprise and forced them to surface where they were most vulnerable. Even an unarmed freighter could ram and sink a u-boat and the British also began using “Q-ships” which were disguised as harmless merchant vessels but carried hidden guns. When a u-boat surfaced to stop the ship and inspect the cargo for war materials, the guns would be revealed and open fire on the vulnerable submarine. As a result, when these rules were in place, the German u-boats were forced to, effectively, fight with one hand tied behind their backs. Nonetheless, 1915 also saw the expansion of the submarine campaign into the Mediterranean where French, Austrian, Italian and British submarines also operated. Germany was to obtain some of her greatest submarine successes in this theater of the naval war. Yet, as 1915 came to a close and 1916 opened, the naval situation was becoming increasingly critical for Germany.

Erich von Falkenhayn

The British blockade of the North Sea was stopping at least three times as much shipping to Germany as the German submarine cordon was stopping from reaching Britain. The people were beginning to suffer greatly and more and more important figures in the German military high command were urging the Kaiser to throw off the shackles and resume unrestricted submarine warfare with a ‘sink on sight’ policy regardless of the objections of neutral powers (especially the United States). The German army Chief of Staff, Colonel General Erich von Falkenhayn, urged for such a campaign to coincide with his massive offensive aimed at Verdun in the hope that, together, they could crush the Allied will to continue the struggle and force them to make peace on German terms. The politicians, however, warned the Kaiser that such a move could bring the United States into the conflict and with such overwhelming might arrayed against them, Germany would surely be doomed. As a result, the Kaiser approved the Verdun offensive but refused to remove all of the restrictions for the submarine campaign. Admiral Tirpitz, the man who had once said Germany had no need of submarines, was so upset by the decision that he resigned in protest.

on the hunt

Still, the German u-boats started their 1916 campaign with some success, both with coastal boats and mine-laying subs. However, after a passenger ship was mistaken for a troop carrier and sunk on March 24, 1916 by the coastal sub UB-29 there was such an outcry, with U.S. President Wilson threatening to break off diplomatic relations with Germany (usually a precursor to war) that the Kaiser was forced to cancel even the limited leeway he had allowed his submarine commanders and order them to strictly follow the traditional prize rules. This was all the more infuriating given that the British were steadily improving their anti-submarine tactics and their “Q-ships” had already sent a number of u-boats to a watery grave. One such vessel, the Barralong, even hunted down and massacred all the surviving sailors of one such hapless u-boat on the grounds that if the Germans were allowed to live they would report the incident to their superiors and the British deception would be revealed. German losses mounted with one boat, UC-5, even being captured intact after running aground. Still, the u-boats managed to sink over 150 ships in 1916 before Admiral Scheer ordered them all to return to base on April 25.

UB-148

The following month a new plan was approved that would see the u-boats return to taking on their original enemy; British warships. The idea was for a portion of the German High Seas Fleet to lure out their British counterparts into a death trap of mines and waiting submarines. It seemed like a good plan but delays and mechanical trouble foiled the first attempt to put the plan into effect and the second attempt, in August, likewise did not go as planned and resulted in the Battle of Jutland, the only major clash of the British and German main fleets during the war. The only contribution by the German submarines was the sinking of two light cruisers. These frustrations, combined with the increasing privation of the German people caused by the British blockade put pressure on the Kaiser to authorize a return to unrestricted submarine warfare for a renewed campaign against British merchant shipping in an effort to starve them into submission.

However, the threat of American intervention proved too great so that, while another submarine campaign against merchant shipping was authorized, it would have to be done under the restrictions of the traditional prize rules. It was a disappointment but still, there were victories to be had as within four months 290 merchant ships were lost to u-boat attacks. The Germans also had an increasingly diverse arsenal of boats at their disposal with small, coastal submarines to hunt in waters closer to home (such as the Channel), medium-sized boats that could prowl all around the British Isles and even larger submarines that could hunt as far away as the U.S. coast. U-41, for example, sent five ships to the bottom off the American coast during this campaign. The type-UBIII proved the most successful and would be the forerunner of the type-VII that would be the backbone of the German u-boat fleet in World War II.

Lothar von Arnauld

Along with the Atlantic and British coastal waters, the Mediterranean also proved to be a fertile hunting ground. It was there that the most successful submarine commander of all time, Kapitanleutnant Lothar von Arnauld de la Periere, achieved his greatest victories. In one cruise, lasting three weeks, he sank more than fifty ships, mostly with his deck gun (he expended only four torpedoes during the voyage) as he very gallantly followed all the prize rules even when he was not obliged to. Before the war ended, Kptlt. Lothar von Arnauld de la Periere would sink almost half a million tons of Allied shipping. They also had an impact on the land war as, in 1915, Kptlt. Otto Hersing in U-21 sank two British battleships, under extremely difficult conditions, which were shelling Turkish positions during the Gallipoli campaign. This stunning loss forced the Royal Navy to withdraw most warships from the area, robbing the Allied troops of valuable fire support in their offensive. Ten German subs were lost during the 1916 campaign but they managed to sink 768 ships with a further 178 being badly damaged. This, along with the worsening situation on the home front and the rejection by the Allies of an offer to talk peace, added urgency to calls for resuming unrestricted submarine warfare. After all, if they could accomplish this with the restrictions on their boats, surely without them they could swiftly force Britain to capitulate.

Max Valentiner

With the war situation becoming more and more critical, Kaiser Wilhelm II finally felt he had no other choice but to re-authorize unrestricted submarine warfare in February of 1917. Everyone knew it would likely provoke the United States to enter the war but with Germany rapidly running out of manpower and the public approaching widespread death by starvation, that was a risk that would simply have to be taken. Once the “grey wolves” were unleashed, the results were dramatic and immediate. Before the month of February 1917 was out German submarines had sunk over 250 ships, in March over 300 were sunk and April saw 413 ships sent to the bottom. British imports had been reduced by 75% of what they had been in 1916, shipyards were swamped and many neutrals refused to risk entering British waters. British ports were likewise clogged with merchant ships that refused to put back out to sea for fear of being sunk by German u-boats. The Kaiser’s naval experts had predicted that their campaign would bring Britain to her knees within six months, by the halfway mark, it looked like they were well on their way to doing just that. German u-boat production was also increasing so that they were more than able to make up their own losses. However, as feared, this campaign had consequences and April of 1917 also saw the United States declare war on Germany after an ill-advised German effort was uncovered to induce Mexico to make war on America.

Walther Forstmann

It would be some time, of course, before American strength would be felt on the battlefield but the British were getting better at anti-submarine warfare against the Germans, with ever more effective minefields, increased use of naval aviation and, most importantly, moving merchant ships in convoys protected by destroyers that forced u-boats to attack on the surface at night. Still, the number of Germans subs lost to enemy action remained well within the capacity of Germany to replace them. Nonetheless, British countermeasures were improving. The Germans also had a slight disadvantage just in terms of bad timing. They had developed large, long-range “u-cruisers” that carried heavy deck guns for surface combat and these became available just when unrestricted submarine warfare was revived and thus there was no great need for resorting to surface action or for the extra personnel these boats carried as prize crews for captured ships. The German submariners were also only improving with time, becoming masters of their craft and from May to July of 1917 some 795 merchant ships were lost to them compared to only minor losses of their own. For comparison, the Germans sank about 50 ships for every one of their u-boats lost to enemy action.

Otto Weddigen

The u-boats were tantalizingly close to their goal and yet that goal was slipping away from them, particularly as the industrial output of the United States was thrown into the balance against them with all of the ships of the American merchant marine and their immense capacity for building more. In desperation, the Germans drastically increased the construction of new submarines, funneling as much of their dwindling resources as possible into the project with 95 new boats on order. Hunting also shifted from the Atlantic to coastal waters but this also coincided with increasing losses as the British massively increased their use of naval mines and were making better mines than ever before. These weapons took the heaviest toll of all on the German u-boat fleet. As 1917 gave way to 1918 these trends continued and soon submarine construction was barely able to keep up with the rate of attrition. The Allies had managed to gain the upper hand and were to keep it until the end of the war came in November. From January to November of 1918 shipping losses to German u-boats fell from 123 to 15.

running on top

In spite of this downward trend, German successes had cemented the submarine as the most feared weapon in the minds of the Allies and when the Germans first approached the Americans about ending hostilities (the terms proposed by America being much more lenient compared to those of the British or French) the first condition the Americans imposed was that submarine attacks must cease immediately before any talks could be held. As a result, on October 20, 1918 the German high command ordered all u-boats to return to port. The German navy planned, instead, on a final battle with their surface ships, planning to go down in a blaze of glory rather than surrender their ships to the Allies. However, this never happened as the German sailors, some of them infected by communist propaganda from Russia, mutinied, the first act of what would grow to be the German Revolution that brought down the Second Reich and all its subsidiary monarchies. It is worth noting, however, that the German u-boat crews remained loyal to their Kaiser to the bitter end and were even ordered to fire on any German ship flying the revolutionary flag, such was their reliability.

U-35

When World War I finally came to an end, Germany still possessed quite a large number of submarines. They had, after all, never been defeated outright on their own and over 170 u-boats remained ready for action when hostilities ended. Which is not to say they did not suffer losses of course. Of the 350 submarines Imperial Germany produced during the war, about 180 were lost in action and of the 13,000 sailors who served on the u-boats 5,354 were killed in action. Nonetheless, they had given incredible service and deserve to be recognized for it even as their World War II counterparts tend to receive more attention. In fact, of the top ten German submarine commanders of all time, six were sub captains of the Imperial Navy in World War I including the top three most successful sub commanders in the entire history of naval warfare; Kptlt. Lothar von Arnauld de la Periere, Kptlt. Walther Forstmann and Kptlt. Max Valentiner. Overall, the Kaiser’s submarines had destroyed more than 11 million tons of Allied shipping during the war and damaged a further 7.5 million tons, an incredible achievement if ever there was one.

cheering U-Boat crew in 1916

Yet, even given that the Imperial German u-boats had done so much damage, even though the Imperial German submarine commanders outperformed all others (in the world), many still do not know just how close they came to winning the war for Germany. While historians tend to focus on things like the First Battle of the Marne or Operation Michel (and the Second Battle of the Marne) and so on, the German u-boats were the key element that came closer to winning the war than any of them. To understand this, one need only look at the situation in April of 1917, just after America entered the war when the German unrestricted u-boat campaign was at its height. Admiral William S. Sims of the U.S. Navy traveled to London to meet with First Lord of the Admiralty Sir John Jellicoe to begin working out the Anglo-American naval relationship and he was shocked to learn just how bad things were for the British. Sims was informed that, at that point, the British had only enough food stocks on hand to last another six weeks!

UB-4, coastal submarine

When German submarine strategists predicted that they could crush Britain with an unrestricted u-boat campaign within six months, that is how close they came to success with Britain a mere six weeks from ruin. Now, keeping that in mind, also consider that for long periods during the war the German submarines were restricted by the prize rules and at times were not hunting merchant ships at all but were focused on engaging the Royal Navy and one can clearly see how the German submarine clearly held the potential to have won the war for the Central Powers practically single-handed. With a total of more than 11 million tons of Allied ships destroyed, think what they could have accomplished if they had focused entirely on merchant shipping from day one and if they had waged unrestricted submarine warfare from the very beginning. The only conclusion is that they would almost certainly have won a swift and stunning victory. Clearly, of all the innovative weapons that emerged from the First World War, none of them came so close to truly changing the course of world history as did the submarine.

The Great War in German Africa

World War I was a truly global conflict. Although the western front dominates the popular imagination with its frustrating, static trench warfare, the conflict raged from Finland to Greece, from the Caucasus to Arabia and from Turkey to the coast of China. It is not often given much attention but the Great War also raged across the entire continent of Africa as well, north to south and east to west. The Turks launched attacks on Egypt and Turkish forces supported guerilla attacks against the Allies there and in Libya as well as in Somalia where local rebels and  Ethiopians joined with Turkish support against the Italian presence on the Horn of Africa (previously covered here). The French also did battle with rebel forces in Morocco and Algeria that were supported by the Central Powers. South of the Sahara, however, it was the Germans who were on the defensive and the Allies who were on the attack as the German colonies of Togoland (Togo), Kamerun (Cameroon), German Southwest Africa (Namibia) and German East Africa (Tanzania) were early targets for the Allies, Great Britain in particular. In fact, unknown to most, the first British shot of the war was fired, not by a Tommy of the BEF in Belgium but by an unknown African soldier in the British colonial army in Togoland.

Whereas the fighting on the western front in Europe involved hundreds of thousands of men struggling over mere yards of devastated terrain, in Africa relatively small armies fought for control of vast territories. It was also fought with all of the latest technological advancements seen elsewhere. Alongside native African scouts armed with spears and shields of animal hide were employed modern rifles, machine guns, airplanes and artillery. The conflict in Africa was also just as deadly. When considering the much smaller size of the armies involved and taking into account the immense number of deaths due to disease, the African front was just as deadly as that in Europe. Also, like the fighting in Europe and the Middle East, the war in Africa would have very far-reaching consequences. Territory would change hands, new governments and new policies, the rekindling of old hatreds and the emergence of a new African nationalism and confidence all had their roots in the Great War. A number of important figures emerged from the war or gained a new type of notoriety from it. For the British, Jan Smuts, once a Boer enemy of the British Empire, would be cast in a new light as one of its greatest heroes. On the German side, none would match the rise to fame of Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, a relatively unknown Prussian colonial officer who would make his name as arguably the greatest master of irregular warfare in history, sometimes referred to (a few decades later) as the “Rommel of World War One”. The clash of Rommel and Montgomery in the deserts of Libya and Egypt in the Second World War may be more famous but it was certainly not the first time that German and British armies did battle on the continent of Africa.

For the German Empire, Africa was not to be a priority. Any war would be fought and won in Europe and regardless of what happened in Africa, the map could be redrawn afterwards accordingly, and the Germans did hope to make extensive gains in Africa. They would leave North Africa to their Turkish allies while Germany would dominate most of the rest, linking their 1914 colonies together to create a massive “German Central Africa” sprawling across the continent. This was to be done after Germany won the war in Europe at the negotiating table. As such, the German colonies in Africa were not heavily defended at all. Togoland possessed only a military-police force and Kamerun had only a small garrison. German Southwest Africa had earlier seen a native rebellion and was the one colony where native Africans were not trusted to bear arms so that the garrison was entirely German, very professional but quite small. The most important colony, German East Africa, had a colonial military force made up mostly of Africans under German command and was the most substantial but still far from being considered a significant force. The German colonies were all separated from each other by vast distances and surrounded by enemy territory. Once war began no help was to be expected to reach Africa from Germany due to the dominance of the British Royal Navy and both sides expected the German colonies to be picked off one by one with relative ease.

Togoland police troops

Of course, this was not to be the case. As soon as war was declared the Allies began moving in on German Africa, starting with the colony of Togoland. British colonial troops invaded from the Gold Coast and a French colonial force invaded from Dahomey (Benin). Togoland was the only west African colony with no army to defend it. The only force on hand was the military-police force which consisted of two German army officers, six German policemen and 560 African personnel. The German governor, Duke Adolf Friedrich zu Mecklenberg, tried to make peace with the Allies, saying that not to do so would only cause needless deaths among the Africans and be an unseemly spectacle of Europeans fighting against each other in a continent where they were vastly outnumbered. This was not an uncommon sentiment. The Belgians had hoped to keep the war away from their massive colony but German attacks on Belgian shipping on Lake Tanganyika put a stop to that. Also in German East Africa the governor, Heinrich Schnee, also hoped to avoid fighting but his own local military commander, Lt. Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was having none of that and determined to fight (the two never got on well). But, even before the war, the British decided that keeping Africa out of it would not be in their best interests. There was too much to gain by going in and there was, throughout the conflict, quite a competition among the Allies to see who could gain the most territory since, correctly as it turned out, what an army held they were most likely to keep when it was over.

In Togoland, despite being vastly outmatched, the small German police force put up a spirited resistance. They carried out what was basically a slow, fighting-retreat until finally surrendering to the Allies on August 26, 1914. Togoland was subsequently divided up between Britain and France. The only non-territorial goal that could be pointed to in these opening campaigns were the wireless stations in Togoland and Kamerun. In Kamerun there was a small German colonial army expanded to about 6,000 men but which was totally outmatched by the tens of thousands of Allied troops surrounding them and they were soon beset by a joint Anglo-French-Belgian invasion force. After an initial victory the Allied attack stalled at German forts in Mora and Garua. At one point the Germans even went on the offensive and launched a raid into Nigeria but this was unsuccessful. Many fled into the unexplored interior and continued to be a distraction for the Allies for more than a year before the last German forces surrendered in 1916. Again, the territory was divided between the French and the British in the aftermath.

German Southwest cavalry patrol

German Southwest Africa proved a tough nut to crack but not only because of the German colonial troops defending it. The initial British offensive, launched in September of 1914 from South Africa, was defeated by the Germans under General Joachim von Heydebreck at the battle of Sandfontein even though the Germans were considerably outnumbered. The following month saw South Africa distracted by the outbreak or at least the attempted outbreak of a rebellion by pro-German Boers who still considered the British their enemies. This uprising was led by General Manie Maritz, a veteran of the Second Boer War. However, the old guard Boer leadership, particularly Louis Botha and Jan Smuts, decided to stick with the British and despite German assistance to the rebels the insurrection was put down with relatively little difficulty by the South Africans themselves. A German counter-offensive into South Africa was defeated and British imperial troops drove into German Southwest Africa in great strength. The Germans fought hard but were outmatched and finally defeated or forced to surrender by the summer of 1915. In fact, they had tried to surrender earlier but were refused by Botha. The war would really be a defining moment for South Africa and in the end German Southwest Africa became a “colony” of South Africa.

Lettow-Vorbeck

The biggest struggle, however, would be for the Allied conquest of German East Africa, the most important German colony in Africa. Governor Schnee may not have wanted a fight but the local commander of the German colonial army, Lt. Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck did. He decided that the best thing he could do would be to wage a campaign that would draw inordinate amounts of Allied troops, supplies and attention to East Africa and away from fronts that were more vital to the German war effort. In that goal, Lettow-Vorbeck was to be an absolute success. Before the war was over he would be promoted to Major General, earn the Pour le Merite (“Blue Max”) and establish himself as one of the greatest military commanders Germany, or the Kingdom of Prussia, has ever produced. He never commanded much more than 10,000 men at one time, indeed his force would at times shrink to a mere 1,500 but he managed to tie down, defeat or generally bedevil hundreds of thousands of Allied troops for the duration of the war. Truly, no other military commander was ever able to do so much with so little for so long as General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. And, just as incredible as his battles and maneuvers were his logistical accomplishments. That he and his army were able to survive and sustain themselves and their war effort in such a wilderness for so long, existing ultimately from foraging, their own inventiveness and captured enemy stores alone, is a feat that would merit his inclusion in the history books. It also doesn’t hurt that he was a staunch monarchist.

German troops at Tanga

The British struck first out of British East Africa but their forces were utterly defeated at the battle of Kilimanjaro in early November. The main push, however, came simultaneously with an attack on the port of Tanga by a largely Indian British imperial force. Lettow-Vorbeck was in command himself with a mere 1,000 troops (mostly Africans) to combat 8,000 British and Indian troops under General Arthur Aitken. It was a stunning victory for the Germans who lost only 71 men killed and 76 wounded compared to British losses of 360 killed, 487 wounded and 148 missing. The Germans also captured enough weapons and ammunition to outfit several additional companies of colonial troops. This episode taught the British that German East Africa would be no easy conquest and more strength was organized for a combined offensive from several directions. Lettow-Vorbeck knew he could not defend static positions indefinitely, so he took his little colonial army into the interior of Africa to fight a war of movement and maneuver, raiding Allied outposts, fighting small battles when the odds were favorable and disappearing into the wilderness when confronted with overwhelming strength. A big part of his success was the quality of his troops. The rank and file were almost entirely African, as were many non-commissioned officers with German NCO’s and commissioned officers to lead them. This provided the perfect combination of German mastery of leadership, discipline and tactics as well as the African expertise at survival, knowledge of the terrain and remarkable endurance. The German colonial army also had a much higher ratio of Europeans integrated within the African units than the other more segregated armies and this proved to be a marked advantage.

German colonial forces attack

1915 opened with a German raid on the Uganda Railway and later an attack on Saisi in the summer. Also that summer the German cruiser Koenigsberg was cornered and destroyed in the Rufiji Delta. Never one to let anything go to waste, Lettow-Vorbeck absorbed the sailors into his army under their commander, Captain Max Looff. They stripped the naval guns from their ship and turned them into field artillery for the German army. The opening months of 1916 saw the British gain control of Lake Tanganyika, defeating the German flotilla there and finally opening a new offensive in the Spring. At the same time, Belgian forces began attacking east from the Congo and more British troops struck north from Rhodesia. The Portuguese tried to launch an attack from the south but were defeated at the Rufiji delta. The Germans resisted where possible but took care to retreat when the odds were hopeless, fighting rear-guard actions and making the Allies, under the overall command of Smuts, pay heavily for every bit of ground gained. In July, British forces under General Jacob van Deventer captured Dodoma and in August General Smuts took Morogoro. In September the capitol of Dar-es-Salaam surrendered and about two weeks later Belgian colonial forces under General Charles Tambeur captured the outer-capitol of Tabora. The Portuguese launched another attack that did better than before but before November was out they were driven back across the border.

German colonial company on the march

By 1917, to look at a map, it seemed that German East Africa was conquered and Smuts relinquished his command after a successful offensive. However, the German colonial army remained at large and while the major towns were in Allied hands, Lettow-Vorbeck was still very much a threat and had not been defeated. From March through September he invaded Portuguese East Africa, capturing large amounts of supplies to sustain his little army while the Allies chased after other, smaller, German forces; the British from Kilwa and the Belgians toward Mahenge. In October the Germans fought a major engagement at Kilwa against the British which was yet another German victory, though a costly one they could ill-afford. Still, it set the British back and forced them to call in the Belgians from their recently seized prize of Mahenge to reinforce them. The following month, Lettow-Vorbeck doubled back and crossed into Portuguese East Africa again, defeating the Portuguese at the battle of Negomano. There seemed to be no end in sight and the British landed additional troops toward the end of the year. Lettow-Vorbeck was sometimes called “the Bush Ghost” and it is no wonder as he and his army seemed to be invisible until they appeared where least expected, attacked and then vanished again before overwhelming force could be brought against them.

aiding a wounded comrade

For much of 1918 the Germans remained elusive, to the consternation of the Allies. However, one should not get the impression that their forces were incompetent, far from it. Their troops, South African, British or the natives of the King’s African Rifles were disciplined and courageous, it was only that their commanders were outclassed. There were many colorful figures and units involved on the Allied side such as an eccentric British officer named Spicer-Simpson who wore a skirt, there was a unit of British fusiliers made up of an odd assortment of elderly men who actually proved to have more endurance in Africa than the youngsters. The Belgian colonial army also gained a great reputation in the campaign though the native troops of the other Allied armies refused to camp too close to the Belgians for fear that the Congolese natives of the Force Publique would eat them, such was their fearsome reputation. The Portuguese fared the worst probably and they were the only power to transfer large numbers of European troops from Portugal for service in Africa. At times they fought very well but the natives were not very reliable and the troops from Portugal were not adapted to the climate and conditions and it is no wonder they were often outfought by the veteran Germans.

Generalmajor Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck

In July, Lettow-Vorbeck defeated a combined Anglo-Portuguese force at the battle of Namacurra but by the autumn an effort to aid them from Germany was underway. The Germans finally decided to send a zeppelin loaded with supplies from Turkey all the way to their forces in East Africa. Unfortunately for them, the Allies sent out a false report that the German army in Africa had surrendered and so the zeppelin turned back somewhere over the Sudan. It was not true of course and Lettow-Vorbeck continued his campaign of hit-and-run raids that kept the Allies in constant pursuit but never catching him. In September he crossed back into German East Africa, just long enough to make his presence known and then daringly turned south to invade Rhodesia. He was there, still going strong, when the war came to an end. The British informed him of Germany’s downfall, which he asked to have confirmed and which was done; the war in Africa being fought with considerable chivalry on both sides. The German colonial army marched to the nearest British outpost at Abercorn and surrendered, though Lettow-Vorbeck was furious when he found out that van Deventer had deceived him, saying that the armistice terms required his “unconditional surrender” when, in fact, it stated only that the German forces in Africa must be “evacuated”, however, despite his protests nothing came of the matter. He and his German personnel were shipped home where, quite rightly, there were given a hero’s welcome with a triumphal parade through the Brandenburg Gate. They had ended the war still undefeated.

Monarchist Profile: Generaloberst Viktor Graf Dankl von Krasnik

The man who would become one of the most prominent generals in the last war and last years of life of the Dual-Empire of Austria-Hungary was born Viktor Dankl in Udine, Italy on September 18, 1854. Udine, near Venice, was at that time still being held by the Austrian Empire, as it had been ever since the Hapsburgs made a deal with the revolutionary First French Republic to divide what had been the Republic of Venice between them (after a successful campaign by an up and coming young general named Bonaparte). His father was from Venice and a captain in the Austrian Imperial Army so there was little doubt that young Viktor would one day carry on the tradition of military service to the Emperor of Austria. He attended German-language schools in Gorizia and Trieste as a boy before going off to a cadet school in Lower Austria. By that time, Prussia had surpassed Austria as leader of the German-speaking countries and the new Kingdom of Italy had regained Venice. Never before, it must have seemed, were talented military officers more needed. Young Viktor Dankl graduated and went on to study at the prestigious Theresian Military Academy (where Austrian officers are still trained today). After finishing he was posted to a dragoon regiment with the rank of sub-lieutenant.

After going back for further education in Vienna, Dankl joined the General Staff and by 1899 was head of the central office, having shown a notable dedication to duty and grasp of administrative affairs. He earned the respect of his superiors and in 1903 was given a field command, the 66th Infantry Brigade at Trieste (in what is now Italy, not far from where Dankl grew up) with a promotion to major general. After another brigade command in Trieste, Dankl was promoted to lieutenant field marshal and given command of a division in Croatia until in 1912 when he was transferred to a corps command with the rank of General of Cavalry. He had proven himself to be a dutiful officer, had performed well in command of combat units and in administrative posts but, of course, these had all been peacetime assignments. He lacked actual combat experience and would have to wait to show if his education and mastery of theory would be matched by accomplishments in battle. That opportunity was to come soon enough with the outbreak of the First World War in August of 1914. Dankl was as anxious of any of his fellow officers to see the long-standing tensions with Serbia settled and certainly there was no more loyal or ardent defender of Austria-Hungary and the Hapsburg monarchy than Dankl.

The studious, bespectacled general was given command of the Imperial & Royal First Army, made up largely of Slovak and Polish troops; a prestigious assignment. He would be on the flank of a massive offensive planned by the then-renowned strategist and chief of staff Graf Conrad von Hotzendorf to punch through the Russian frontier and cut off the so-called Polish salient. It was an ambitious plan but if successful it would have been a stunning blow to the Russians and the end of the Russian presence in Poland. At first, everything went as planned. Dankl and his troops pushed forward to the Galician frontier and met the Russians at the town of Krasnik (in what is now Poland but which was then Austria-Hungary). The Russians fought fiercely but the Austro-Hungarian troops were relentless and after three days of hard fighting the Russians retreated. Dankl had just won the first major victory for Austria-Hungary in the war and he was almost immediately catapulted to the status of a celebrity and war hero across the empire. With other victories by forces farther down the line, the Imperial & Royal Armies advanced as planned and Dankl was in the lead, pursuing the retreating Russians.

However, while things were going well enough on his own front, other sectors were less fortunate and soon Dankl had to stop and even fall back for fear of opening a gap in the Austrian lines. The Russians also rallied their forces and began to launch hard-hitting counter-attacks which took a heavy toll on the armies of Austria-Hungary. Ultimately, the offensive into Poland was stopped with very heavy losses and bitter fighting in Galicia would go on for some time to come. In the autumn, Austria-Hungary launched another offensive in cooperation with the Germans but the Russians soon took back the ground they gained at the start and a stalemate, which was all too familiar in the First World War, ensued. Attacks were followed by counter-attacks, taking and re-taking the same ground with few lasting changes. The focus of the fighting shifted to the Carpathians and Dankl and his First Army were left with little to do for the rest of the year.

The next major action came in the spring of 1915 with the launching of the Gorlice-Tarnow offensive, again in cooperation with the Germans. Hotzendorf came up with the plan which was initially rejected by the German chief of staff, Erich von Falkenhayn but later Germany agreed to go along with it with the German General August von Mackensen in overall command. It proved to be a major success with the Russians suffering much higher losses and only ending due to a combination of bad weather and logistical strain. Dankl, once again, led his First Army forward with much success but this initial success was later halted by stiff Russian resistance in his sector of the front and Dankl was sidelined for the rest of the offensive. It was more frustration for Dankl who had been so celebrated for his victory at Krasnik and from whom everyone always expected better. Because Krasnik had been the first great victory of the war, Dankl had been celebrated to an extent that many were expecting things from him that were almost impossible. He was a competent commander but, of course, could not work miracles. In any event, after the Gorlice-Tarnow offensive he was transferred away from the Galician front and assigned to defend the Tyrol.

In 1915 the Kingdom of Italy had entered the war and the Tyrol was a huge salient, plunging into Italian territory. As Austria-Hungary was fighting on so many other fronts, the Italians also had a significant numerical advantage over the Austrians. However, the Austrians did have a great advantage in the terrain. The high mountains served as natural fortifications superior to any that could be built by the hand of man. Dankl showed his talent in a string of battles as his outnumbered and poorly supplied but well placed forces repelled fierce and repeated attacks by the Italians. They had the advantage of the high ground but little else and yet Dankl was able to successfully defend his position until further reinforcements could arrive to strengthen the Austro-Hungarian lines. For most of the year his forces were on the defensive, making counter-attacks when possible but, for the most part, fending off Italian attacks and making them pay heavily for every foot of ground gained. In 1916, however, Austria-Hungary was finally prepared to go on the offensive. Dankl himself had also been given a new command, the 11th Army and a promotion to Colonel General.

Hotzendorf planned an offensive in Trentino on the Asiago plateau. The goal was to punch through to the Po River plain and cut off three Italian armies in the process, crippling their war effort. This time the Italians would be outnumbered, almost 3-to-1 in manpower and much more outmatched in artillery. German support was requested but refused, still, it seemed Austria-Hungary had sufficient forces for the attack to be a success. Dankl and his army were assigned the crucial responsibility of making the initial breakthrough after which more troops could be poured in to exploit the breach and split the Italian armies. On May 15 the offensive commenced and despite stiff resistance, Dankl and his troops succeeded in breaking through the Italian center. Once again, everything seemed to go as planned, but once again problems soon arose. The artillery could not be moved forward fast enough to support the continued attack and so the Austrian forces had to halt. By the time the guns were brought up the opportunity had passed. The Italians had reformed and strengthened their lines plus a new Russian offensive was wreaking havoc on the Eastern Front and forced the transfer of Austro-Hungarian units to head off a potential disaster there.

Many of the gains Austria-Hungary had made had to be abandoned as the troops were pulled back to more defensible positions. It was a crushing blow for Dankl and he was, perhaps unfairly, singled out for blame as to the failure of the offensive. Most of this was due to the fact that Archduke Eugen of Austria, the army group commander in the area, had ordered him to press on regardless of the lack of artillery support. Conrad von Hotzendorf took the side of the Archduke that the risk of heavy losses was acceptable if it could have meant a decisive victory over Italy. They may have been correct but rushing forward was not in the nature of an officer like Dankl. He was meticulous and methodical, perhaps a result of his experience as a staff officer and given his witnessing first hand of the horrendous losses Austria-Hungary had suffered at the beginning of the war on the Eastern Front, he may have been more careful of the lives of his men than others. Of course, sometimes a general must accept such losses to achieve victory but it is easy to sympathize with Dankl given that Austria-Hungary had already suffered losses that could not be made good and, fairly early on, was forced to work in conjunction with Germany for almost any major offensive operations for this very reason.

In any event, the unpleasant episode of the Asiago offensive, combined with poor health, prompted Dankl to hand in his resignation. He was relieved of his command and after undergoing medical treatment was posted to the Imperial Guard, eventually becoming the commander until being replaced by his former superior Hotzendorf. He remained with the Life Guard until the end of the war and the collapse of Austria-Hungary when he retired to Innsbruck. In the last years of the war his service was, thankfully, rewarded with his elevation to the aristocracy, first as Baron von Dankl and then as Count Dankl of Krasnik in recognition of his most famous victory. He was also awarded the Maria Theresia Order and, long after the war in 1925, became its chancellor. Other honors he received included the Order of Leopold, Marianer Cross of the Teutonic Order and the Prussian Iron Cross from Germany. After the war, Dankl showed what a man of great character he was.

Never losing his care and concern for the average fighting men he led into battle, Dankl worked for a number of causes to benefit veterans and took great pleasure in being given the task of decorating them for actions during the war. He defended them whenever they were criticized and rather than devote himself to justifying his own actions or trying to explain away mistakes on his part, he defended his soldiers, the army as a whole and the honor of Austria-Hungary. Despite the political changes, he remained steadfast in his loyalty to the monarchy, refused to cooperate in any way with the rising Nazi Party or the communists and never ceased to advocate for the restoration of the House of Hapsburg. He detested anti-Semitism and opposed the union with Germany, instead urging as he always did for a return to monarchy. Sadly, many came to view him as being a sort of quirky old man, out of step with the times but they were times one should have been out of step with and it is to his credit that Dankl never forgot his loyalty to his Emperor and his country. He died on January 8, 1941 (3 days after his beloved wife) at the age of 86. As he was well known for his opposition to the Nazi Party, he was denied military honors at his funeral. It is doubtful he would have wanted them from such a regime anyway.