The German problem was further complicated by alliance politics. In January, 1915, Conrad von Hötzendorf, still convinced of the necessity for the weaker party to maintain the initiative, proposed a grand Austro-Hungarian offensive from the Carpathians—supported, of course, by a parallel German attack further north. Ludendorff had by this time little respect for either Conrad’s strategic capacities or the Austrian army’s military potential. But he did see Austria’s proposed offensive as a way of obtaining at least the new corps, and perhaps many more, for an eastern theater that by this time he regarded as critical. Both Hindenburg and Ludendorff remained “Westerners” in their belief that the final decision must come against France and Britain. But only decisive victories in the east, victories leaving Russia completely prostrate, would free enough German strength to achieve that kind of triumph in a west stalemated partly by technology, partly by the grim determination of the combatants.
Falkenhayn remained convinced that this proposed combined offensive would achieve no more than the previously rejected prewar plans for a Grosse Ostaufmarsch. In his mind Hindenburg and Ludendorff were blinded by the same mirages that had lured Charles XII and Napoleon. Given Russia’s objective military potential, an operational victory in the east was a utopia. What was the worth of battles won, no matter how convincingly, if the ultimate goal of peace remained ephemeral? “The East,” Falkenhayn declared, “gives nothing back.” The other side of the Russian steamroller was the strategic retreat—a maneuver that set any enemy at war with the land itself. Russia was shaped like a fan. The deeper one advanced, the more scattered became one’s own forces. The more one occupied, the more there was to occupy. Germany might well conquer itself to death, or at least exhaustion. Falkenhayn’s concept of a negotiated peace depended essentially on political strategy. Hold Italy at least neutral. Bring Bulgaria and Rumania into the war on the side of the Central Powers. Eliminate Serbia once and for all. Keep applying maximum pressure on the western front, while using just enough force in the east to show the temper of Germany’s steel. Finally, offer terms to a Russian government isolated from any immediate support.
Bethmann was sufficiently conscious of Germany’s internal weaknesses to regard attrition as his country’s final option. Any possibility of evading total war demanded pursuing. But the first step in executing this grand design was to do something about Ludendorff. Since he was unlikely to be won to Falkenhayn’s vision and was too powerful politically simply to be relieved, a compromise must be found. Falkenhayn had a nice sense of irony. Since Ludendorff enthusiastically urged German support for an Austrian offensive, why not make him directly responsible for the operation? On January 8 Falkenhayn appointed Ludendorff chief of staff of the “South Army,” a mixed German-Austrian formation in the Carpathian sector. Hindenburg responded by appealing directly to the kaiser that he be allowed to retain Ludendorff as his chief of staff. The field-marshal initially even threatened to resign rather than accept separation from his advisor. Deterred from presenting this challenge officially, Hindenburg spent a long night composing a letter that declared he could no longer cooperate with Falkenhayn, and proposing instead that Moltke be recalled as chief of staff.
Ludendorff too declared the war was lost if Falkenhayn remained in his current post, but Wilhelm remained unwilling to dismiss Falkenhayn, particularly in favor of the thoroughly discredited Moltke. Instead he urged Hindenburg not to desert his post in wartime. Deeply moved, Hindenburg abandoned any talk of resigning. Falkenhayn for his part agreed both to allow Ludendorff to remain as Hindenburg’s chief of staff, and to assign the new formations to Hindenburg’s theater.42
The reasons for this change of mind were complex. Austria’s constant appeals for support by now parallelled a lack of obvious opportunities for a successful major offensive on the western front. Perhaps as much to the point, Falkenhayn decided the best way of demonstrating the ultimate sterility of Ludendorff’s strategic concepts was to give him the chance to put his ideas to the test. This attitude should not be completely dismissed as a cold-blooded sacrifice of the lives of German soldiers. Since the days of Frederick the Great Prussia’s military experience had shown the importance of a common doctrine. Now two schools of thought were contending for mastery, and in Falkenhayn’s mind this was a sure recipe for disaster. Perhaps after all Ludendorff might even be right. The only way to prove the point was to give him most of what he requested, and then await results.
The great January offensive in fact achieved no more than tactical successes under terrible weather conditions. The newly raised German units suffered heavy losses in the broken country of the Masurian Lakes. Things were worse farther south. Over three-quarters of a million Austrians were killed or wounded, or simply disappeared in the Carpathian snows. A successful Russian counterattack had the tsar’s generals dreaming of a victory parade through Budapest. Falkenhayn felt himself vindicated. The chief of staff had seen his last fresh reserves bled white. Any new maneuver force could be formed only by reducing the strength of existing divisions. He refused to consider further concentration on a sterile theater—particularly as Britain’s national mobilization brought more and more divisions of the New Army to the western front.43
At the same time, however, Hindenburg and Ludendorff could take comfort from the fact that the political matrix for a Russian peace on Falkenhayn’s model was rapidly crumbling. Since the turn of the year Falkenhayn had insisted that Germany could not spare troops to sustain Austria-Hungary should Italy and Rumania join the war against her. But even as Russian troops debouched through the Carpathians, Austria stubbornly refused concessions either to Italy or in the Balkans. German diplomatic efforts to preserve Italian neutrality were being checked and mated by entente promises. At GHO, Wild von Hohenborn fulminated about the “noodle eaters” in Rome who saw their sacred duty as blackmailing former friends for all the traffic would bear.44
In war as in bridge, an effective player leads from strength. Falkenhayn, studying his cards in late March, decided that Germany’s least-worst option now involved mounting an offensive in the east. Since the long-term balance of resources between the Central Powers and the entente did not favor the former, it became correspondingly important that in military terms, Austria-Hungary was becoming both an increasing liability for Germany as the war went on, and at the same time an increasingly indispensable ally. Just as Germany prior to August, 1914, had been unable to accept passively Austria’s decline into regional power status, so now, eight months later, Germany could not afford to have her principal ally sink into military paralysis. Italy would play a similar role during World War II. Weaker partners in a coalition always have the option of folding their cards. For over thirty years the Federal Republic of Germany’s commitment to NATO rested heavily on the success of deterrence cum forward defense. Perceptions of West German lives and West German territory being used to buy time for superpower negotiations were a recurring nightmare in Bonn, no matter the nature of the coalition in power. The FRG’s probable response to the first nuclear explosion in its territory, or the first of its cities to come under massive conventional attack, was correspondingly less predictable than the U.S. government wished their citizens to acknowledge. Nor, from the other side of the border, was Soviet rhetoric on the eternal solidarity of the Warsaw Pact reflected in Soviet troop dispositions in Eastern Europe.