Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 52. (2007)
FRIED, Marvin Benjamin: Feldmarschall Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf: A Memoir Analysis
Marvin Fried reasonable doubt that these papers are a testament to his defense, rather than a personal and objective record of his life. Conrad on Austria-Hungary’s Internal Troubles (i) Conrad’s papers show a contradiction, stating on the one hand that he had seen the encirclement approaching, while on the other hand making clear several times that masses, not individuals, guide history. This inability to accept responsibility was part of Conrad’s personality, so much so that the “Austro-Hungarian peoples paid heavily for Conrad’s inability to confess error.”22 Conrad stated that he “saw it all coming, and had suggested initiative action, as long as the ring around Austria- Hungary was not yet closed [...].”23 This, however, stands in stark opposition to his later statement that he was “not entrusted with the flow of things,” until he was “suddenly summoned to a meeting, at which the most profound decisions were to be reached.”24 His defense rests on his conviction that only a military leader who is also unequivocal leader of the state could have taken the proper action to save the empire. Apparently, having a “completely free hand”25 during the war years as Kurt Peball, the editor of Conrad’s memoirs notes, was not enough for him to take responsibility for the results. Conrad’s obsession with power and the accusations he received are clear when he refers to his critics as “spineless creatures” who had “no idea what it means to be in the responsible position at a profound and critical moment.”26 Simultaneously, however, he argued that the “World War was an unavoidable result of the workings of thousands of factors,”27 wherein the “will of an individual carries only moderate weight.”28 In defense of his shortcomings, he argued that “The success in a war is never due to the merit, the failure never due to the fault of an individual.”29 It is time, he philosophically felt, that “leads to the all occurrences,”30 and thus it would be with “much mendacity or a blatant lack of understanding” to hold an “individual31 responsible for the great catastrophes.”32 He felt he had done his duty to his fatherland, but his fatalism, that everything in “historical development pushed for a dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian 22 S tone, Norman: The Eastern Front, Pg. 114. 23 Conrad von Hötzendorf, Franz. Private Aufzeichnungen, Pg. 126. 24 Ibid, Pg. 214. 25 Conrad von Hötzendorf, Franz: Private Aufzeichnungen, Pg. 11. 26 Ibid, Pg. 167. 27 Ibid.Pg. 78. 28 Ibid, Pg. 200. 29 Ibid, Pg. 117. 30 I b i d, Pg. 64. 31 All italics, unless otherwise stated, are Conrad’s own. 32 Conrad von Hötzendorf, Franz: Private Aufzeichnungen, Pg. 208. 230
