Blood on the Snow

by Graydon A Tunstall

  As the events of the Carpathian Winter War unfolded, a tragic fact became strikingly clear. Conrad’s dogged assertion, or gamble, that a Carpathian campaign would be short and swift proved wrong, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. From the moment the first Habsburg soldier disembarked from his train en route to the front, numerous signs challenged Conrad’s claim. On the eve of battle, a fierce snowstorm struck the Carpathian Mountain theater. The attack order was given even though poor weather and terrain conditions had delayed the arrival of all the intended troops. Consequently, too few soldiers were deployed on too broad a front. Many attack units were ordered to provide flank security, thus fielding more troops than necessary for that purpose, and thereby weakening the main offensive thrust.

  The Carpathian Mountain range measures 120 kilometers at its greatest width and 100 kilometers at its most narrow. Its median elevation of 1,100 meters stretches in a 1,500-kilometer arc encompassing 190,000 square kilometers. At the outbreak of war, only a few mountain passes provided road and rail access through the mountains to the Hungarian Plains or, in the opposite direction, onto the Galician plateau. During the 1915 Carpathian winter campaign, transporting supplies was limited to the five major Carpathian Mountain passes: the Wyszkov, Lupkov, Beskid, Uzsok, and Dukla. Owing to its accessibility and proximity to the Hungarian Plains, the Dukla Pass was of primary interest to the Russian military, and thus it became the site of particularly fierce fighting. (Of the five major mountain passes, the Uzsok, Dukla, and Lupkov were the most strategically important.)

  The major Carpathian Mountain passes remained covered in snow from November 1914 through April 1915. A sudden rise in temperatures turned snow to rain, resulting in widespread flooding in the valleys. The forested mountain terrain forced the separation of advancing battle formations, producing uncoordinated and sporadic small-unit combat. Units frequently became lost and were unable to rejoin their formations.

  The Uzsok Pass, some forty-five kilometers southeast of the Lupkov Pass, featured steep roads and cavernous mountain ravines that provided access to the Dniester and Stryj valleys, which were strategically important to the Habsburg Carpathian offensive. The Uzsok Pass, at a higher elevation than the Lupkov, possessed numerous bridges spanning its deep canyons. A railroad had recently been constructed in the area as an alternative to the difficult terrain and had a mile-long tunnel. Dense forests covered the mountainside in and around Uzsok Pass. In a major setback on 1 January 1915, Habsburg armies lost control of the pass to the Russians. Regaining possession of the area was crucial for Habsburg troops to seize the main Russian railroad centers, particularly those at Ustrzyki Dolne, Sanok, and Lisko. These remained primary objectives for Habsburg arms throughout the Carpathian campaign. With the Uzsok Pass under Habsburg control, the Russians would be forced to flee the mountain ridges south of the Ustrzyki Dolne railroad junction.

  The two San River towns of Sanok and Lisko, strategically located to defend the river valley, became the objectives of the first two Carpathian offensives. Sanok, situated high on the mountainside overlooking the San River, was the region’s major cultural, industrial, and transportation center. Steep slopes in the Altstadt section of the city swept down to the San River. Lisko, situated in the rolling hillside of the Carpathians, overlooked the San River. Their railroads made Sanok and Lisko key military objectives.

  The Dukla Pass, forty kilometers wide and sixty kilometers long, provided the Russian armies the most advantageous attack route for an invasion of Hungary. The pass was relatively broad and not much higher than the adjacent countryside. Straight roads in good condition and with easy grades connecting Hungary and Galicia traversed the pass. However, the Dukla was the most difficult of all the Carpathian passes on which to establish defensive positions, and furthermore, there was no railroad access. Early in the Carpathian winter campaign, the Russians had seized the two minor passes on either side of the Dukla and designated the pass a major jumping-off point for counterattacks once the Habsburg offensive commenced. Behind the Dukla depression, a railroad line led to Mezölaborcz, a major communication center possessing the only double-track railroad into that key area. Thus, Mezölaborcz became the brass ring both sides fought fiercely to possess, particularly when Russian general Ivanov launched a counterattack three days after the start of the first Habsburg offensive.

  The Lupkov was the highest and largest of the five main Carpathian Mountain passes. Located some twenty kilometers southeast of the Dukla Pass, its access to both Fortress Przemyśl and Hungary made the route strategically important. The Lupkov had a good road that crossed the crest three or four miles to the northwest, but zigzagged as a result of the steep slopes and ridges on both sides. The thinly forested pass featured no dominating heights. In early November 1914, Fortress Przemyśl was besieged by Russian troops for the second time in as many months. They used the area as a staging ground for an invasion of Hungary. After wrenching the Uzsok Pass from Habsburg troops on 1 January 1915, the Russians began their advance, first toward the Dukla and then the easier-to-navigate Lupkov Pass. At the approaches to the Lupkov Pass, attacking army units would have to defile for several miles along its single road, making them vulnerable to defending troop gunfire. The railroad traversing the pass lacked long bridges and thus could not be disrupted for long periods of time; however, it had sharp, narrow curves and a steep grade.

  In the final days of 1914, General Conrad faced two serious challenges. A Russian invasion of Hungary must be prevented at all costs and the besieged 120,000-man garrison at Fortress Przemyśl rescued. Under mounting military and political pressure, liberating the fortress became a major objective. Indeed, Emperor Franz Joseph made personal appeals for the garrison’s rescue and wept openly upon its final surrender on 22 March 1915.8 The tense situation at Fortress Przemyśl worsened as food stores declined and the Russian noose tightened. At the beginning of the New Year, estimates had food provisions lasting only until mid-March 1915.9 The Russians sought to take Fortress Przemyśl, but not by the brute force of the September–October 1914 siege. Instead, with the Przemyśl front now a secondary theater, the Russians sought to starve the garrison into submission.

  General Conrad’s September 1914 through March 1915 operational planning placed the liberation of Fortress Przemyśl as its primary military objective. By the end of the Carpathian winter campaign in mid-April 1915, two-thirds of the Habsburg army, several German corps, and four Russian armies participated in the bloody contest. Significantly, each of the three campaigns in winter 1915 used similar tactics and targeted the same objectives as the fall 1914 endeavor. However, Conrad’s latest endeavor differed in one very important aspect: weather in the Carpathian Mountains had worsened significantly. Considering the extraordinary challenges the Austro-Hungarian armies encountered in the fall battles, how could Habsburg Supreme Command possibly ignore the obvious risks involved in a winter campaign?

  Nonetheless, for seven months, beginning in October 1914 and ending in April 1915, the Habsburg chief of the General Staff remained fixated on liberating Fortress Przemyśl. Ironically, Conrad had opposed the construction of additional fortresses during the prewar era. He argued that too many field army soldiers would have to occupy the citadels and they cost too much to build. Fortress Przemyśl had itself suffered from decades of neglect, and most of its armaments were considered antiquated. In the immediate prewar period, small sums appropriated to fortresses went to construction at the Italian frontier.10 During the alarm period, defensive positions were hurriedly constructed around Fortress Przemyśl’s perimeter over a forty-two-day period.11 The San River bastion remained susceptible to heavy artillery fire; thus, its defensive capabilities were underrated. However, the fortress was strategically located near the gap between the marshes of the San–Dniester River line, a major travel route between central and southeastern Europe. More importantly, Fortress Przemyśl stood as the bulwark against a Russian invasion onto the Hungarian Plains, where the Dukla Pass and the l
ower San River basin granted the easiest access. The fortification would halt, or at least detain, invading czarist troops in their quest to invade Hungary, a key Russian objective in the defeat of Austria-Hungary.

  Fortress Przemyśl came to symbolize Austro-Hungarian military prestige and in time excessively influenced Habsburg Eastern front strategy, particularly after the monarchy’s embarrassing Balkan defeat to Serbia in early December 1914. Conrad, intent on breaking the Russians’ stranglehold on the fortress, placed his armies in grave danger, ordering attacks along the shortest route to liberate the garrison. In each of the winter campaigns, Habsburg troops were ordered to launch uphill frontal assaults. Disregarding the fact that Habsburg troops had yet to recover from the severe bloodletting of the summer and fall 1914 campaigns, Conrad now ordered his badly shaken armies to undertake what amounted to a suicide mission.

  Not surprisingly, the Austro-Hungarian army incurred horrendous casualties and reduced the Habsburg army of 1914 to a militia (Miliz) or skeleton army. The severe loss of professional officers and soldiers in the early campaigns led to its designation as a Landsturm army. The astounding casualties early in the war necessitated the reorganization of the Austro-Hungarian army in October 1914 and again before the Carpathian Winter War. By fall 1914, the k.u.k. army deployed when war was declared had largely been destroyed. The destruction of the Dual Monarchy’s professional officer corps forced the need for retired and replacement officers to return to duty. These reserves and older soldiers were physically incapable of withstanding the rigors of mountain warfare, were unfamiliar with modern military techniques, and lacked the professional officer corps’ leadership and language skills, critical for maintaining cohesiveness in a multinational army. Such deficiencies significantly influenced the monarchy’s Eastern front military operations. During the 1915 Carpathian campaign, the replacement of professional soldiers with inexperienced officers along with poor strategic planning led to ongoing battlefield defeat.

  The Carpathian Winter War proved significant for many reasons. It would be the final campaign for the once revered k.u.k. army. In the chaos of the opening battles, the Habsburg army sacrificed 40 percent (420,000 men) of its mobilized combat troops (100,000 dead, 220,000 wounded, 100,000 prisoners of war). Only 404,000 professional officers, noncommissioned officers, and soldiers of the million-man army fought in the initial August–September campaigns. Thus, well over half of the Habsburg army was now made up of reservists or Landsturm troops (comparable to the

  U.S. pre–Iraq War national guard). Tons of war matériel, weaponry, food, 216 artillery pieces, and 15,000 railroad rolling stock and hundreds of kilometers of railroad tracks and locomotives were also forfeited in battle and subsequent retreat.12 Furthermore, in sacrificing Galicia, grain warehouses and important manpower were also lost. How could these be replaced?

  From a tactical standpoint, the Habsburg military leaders failed to incorporate the lessons of modern warfare and instead continued launching sacrificial uncoordinated infantry attacks without sufficient artillery support. Officer corps training was inconsistent, and candidates were not appropriately trained for the 1914 war conditions. Many were unable to meet the demands of modern war and lacked the necessary strong will. By the time the Habsburg military used more modern warfare tactics and updated its arsenal of weaponry at the behest of its German ally, it was almost too late. Waning confidence in Austro-Hungarian military leadership incited the Germans to increasingly impose their command influence on Habsburg Eastern front operations. Major squabbles over command issues first arose during the Carpathian winter campaign, not the Brusilov offensive, as many have suggested.

  In retrospect, Austria-Hungary’s calamitous defeat in the Carpathian Winter War can justifiably be attributed to the missteps of the Habsburg Supreme Command. Not once during the entire campaign did Conrad (or any member of his Operations Bureau, for that matter) visit the front to assess the true situation. Instead, Habsburg military leaders remained oblivious to the harsh battlefield realities, frequently basing their plans on faulty or incorrect assumptions. In Conrad’s mind, pushpins on his battle maps represented divisions, when they actually had been reduced to brigadeor regiment-size units. As the Habsburg military situation steadily deteriorated, scores of field commanders ignored or delayed following orders, waiting for neighboring units to act. Those that launched an attack often found themselves in an untenable position when nearby units balked. The men soon lost confidence in their commanders and in the success of their mission.

  Aside from the nebulous goals to free Fortress Przemyśl and prevent an invasion of Hungary, Habsburg Supreme Command drew criticism from the rank and file for its failure to set clearly defined objectives. It became increasingly difficult for the k.u.k. army to achieve a decisive victory once the initial Carpathian campaign was launched without the requisite troop strength. During the first Carpathian offensive launched in late January 1915, the Habsburg 175,000-man attack force (Third and South Army), with 1,000 artillery pieces, clearly lacked the troop numbers to fulfill its challenging multiple missions. So why did Conrad insist on undertaking a grandiose military operation without the necessary troop mass? Had additional units been deployed for the initial offensive, as they would be later on, perhaps the campaign could have succeeded. This is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 2. In the second Carpathian offensive Conrad’s armies did in fact outnumber Russian troops, at least initially. However, this advantage was soon negated as Chapter 3 will explain.

  The Winter War campaigns had two primary objectives: to encircle the extreme left flank enemy positions to end the enemy pressure on this front, and to free the besieged Fortress Przemyśl. The question arose of determining a military strategy that was based on a fixed defensive position: Fortress Przemyśl. In Conrad’s defense, he was not alone in underestimating the effects of winter weather and mountain terrain on his troops. General Nikolai Yudovich Ivanov (1851–1919), commander of the Russian Southwest front, pushed his armies until they became so deeply entrenched in the Carpathian Mountain theater that they were barely able to extricate themselves. They did so at great human cost, when the Germans launched their relieving Gorlice–Tarnov offensive in early May 1915. Ivanov was determined to push through the Carpathian Mountains and invade Hungary, despite his seeming acceptance of the Stavka’s decision to make Germany the main enemy that must be eliminated first. His successes extended into April 1915, when czarist troops reached the last ridges protecting Hungary. This forced the Germans to launch the May Gorlice–Tarnov offensive to prevent the collapse and annihilation of their Austro-Hungarian allies. Meanwhile, the majority of Russian troops remained motionless on the German front.

  The Carpathian campaign produced an unprecedented loss of men and material. Austria-Hungary lost 800,000 troops, six times the number of the garrison troops in Fortress Przemyśl that they had set out to free. Russia sustained well over 1,000,000 casualties. Losses to the Austro-Hungarian officer corps far exceeded those of any other major combatant. During the first five months of the war, the army suffered 3,200 officers dead and 7,000 wounded—at least one-third of the entire officer corps.

  By the end of 1914, the Habsburg army had sacrificed 1.25 million troops. Pressing problems faced the army, among them widening gaps in the front lines and persistent shell shortages. Ersatz (replacement) troops could not replace the enormous losses, nor were they useful in major offensives. Valuable Habsburg manpower was unbelievably squandered. On average, a soldier fighting in the Carpathian Winter War lasted from between five to six weeks before he was killed, wounded, or captured. Suicides became a common occurrence.

  In fairness to the two commanders, engaging in winter mountain warfare on such a scale had no precedent in the annals of military history. In addition, no suitable means existed to gather accurate and timely situation reports. In the first offensive, launched 23 January 1915, the attack front proved too wide for the troop numbers, and in the second, on 27 February, too narrow. The
chronic shortage of reserve formations also proved a major deterrent to success.

  During mobilization, all excess manpower lacking training and equipment were ordered into Ersatz units. The original role of these basically third-line troops was to provide tactical reinforcements for the front. Because of the multiple battlefield defeats, massive casualties, and lack of reserve units, already during September 1914, such Ersatz units often found themselves hurled into the front lines as self-sufficient combat units, in defiance of Habsburg Supreme Command orders.13 The enormous influx of new, inexperienced recruits in August 1914 comprised the first monthly allotment of March Brigades, as well as Ersatz units. Later they consisted of wounded officers and men returning to duty, as well as Landsturm troops.

  Often, Ersatz soldiers did not receive rifles until they arrived at the front lines, and therefore, they had little if any marksman training. Both Austro-Hungarian and Russian wounded troops abandoned their weapons on the battlefield, leading to significant shortages. At the beginning of the war, Habsburg units received eight weeks of basic training, but the unanticipated scale of casualties and the widening gaps in the front lines curtailed future unit training time to four weeks, and later two weeks, as replacements had to be rapidly deployed to the front lines. In addition, the shortage of rifles slowed down the formation of the March units. In fact, the war minister lamented, if rifles were available, he could ship an additional 200,000 soldiers to the front.