Conrad von Hötzendorf, Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff, Vienna, 1914. By the end of that year he had lost as many as one million men, much of his country's rolling stock, and the northeastern region of Galicia. His forces had also been defeated by Serbia three times.
Generalstabschef Conrad von HötzendorfChief of the General Staff Conrad von HötzendorfCh. Skolik jun.Wien, 1914I. Wallfischg. 11Reverse:Postkartenverlad Brüder Kohn Wien I
"The ascendancy of the Central Powers on the battlefield at the beginning of 1916 was reflected in the treatment of the national minorities inside Austria-Hungary. That January the German language was declared to be the only official language in Bohemia. In the streets of Prague the police used truncheons against people they heard speaking Czech. But in the policy-making centre, Vienna, the Austrian leaders recognized the enormous problems that the war was creating, especially as the Russian army, for all its setbacks, continued to fight with tenacity. 'There can be no question of destroying the Russian war machine,' General Conrad warned Count Tisza on January 4, and he added: 'England cannot be defeated; peace must be made in not too short a space, or we shall be fatally weakened, if not destroyed.'"
By the beginning of 1916 there were demands for peace in many of the combatant nations. Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff had already lost 2.1 million men, many against Russia which, even as Conrad wrote, was waging an offensive in Galicia, Austria-Hungary's northeastern province. Russia had given up most of Polish Russia in its Great Retreat of 1915, but, in doing so, had shortened and stabilized its front. Its production of war material had begun to justify the reference to a 'war machine,' and it had consistently fought well against Austria-Hungary, forcing Conrad to rush to Berlin to plead for German assistance. Count Etienne Tisza was the Royal Hungarian Premier of the Dual Monarchy.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 224, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
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