Nagy-L István szerk.: Pápai Múzeumi Értesítő 11. (Pápa, 2006)

Haderő és hadviselés 1809-ben - DAVID HOLLINS: Ausztria vezérleti rendszere - a modern szervezet eredete

conspired with the deputy chief, de Best, to undermine Zach. These two would prevent an early march on Genoa in February 1800, six weeks before it actually started. In the end a mixture of the heavy workload and the in-fighting led to Zach having a nervous breakdown on the eve of Marengo. Distance and sometimes military success did however reduce this control and in 1796, Archduke Charles was able to insert his own advisers. Oberst (Colonel) Heinrich Schmitt and Major Anton Mayer, to lead his staff and direct operations. The Archduke accurately described the primary duty of the staff to be working out operational plans for a lengthy period ahead and for the Chief of Staff in particular: "he is duty bound to consider all possibilities related to operations and not view himself as merely carrying out those instructions". In Schmitt and Mayer, he had the ideal team for the difficult task of coordinating four separate army groups in southern Germany. 1796 is often viewed as Charles' greatest operational campaign, but his role was not as it is often seen: In retreat and a depressed state of mind, Charles wrote in despair at the course of recent operations to Vienna on 1 l

lh July. He had however already discussed the means of recovering the situation a few days earlier with his senior staff officers, Schmitt and Mayer. The very next day, these two men produced the plan, which led to Charles' comprehensive victory at Wurzburg on 3

rd September and the removal of two French armies from Germany Changes under Archduke Charles 1801-9 With Lacy'

s death in 1801, Archduke Charles could start his reform programme in his new position as Minister of War. His first appointment was to make the staff headed up by one of its own officers - the world's first peacetime Chief of Staff, Feldmarschalleutnant Duka. However, it was already clear that many of the defeats of the 1790s arose from the burden of work laid on the Chief of Staff and that in order to face the genius of Bonaparte, an Austrian Chief of Staff would need to focus much more on planning and operations to provide maximum assistance to the Commander. The Archduke understood the key workload problem, but he also knew the problems faced by the Commander-in-chief when Vienna's Chief of Staff held so much power and he was proved correct in 1805, when the all-powerful Mack led the army in Germany to disaster. As the Emperor's Chief of Staff, he had been able to remove Mayer as army chief of staff and effectively take over, while officially only adviser to Archduke Ferdinand d'Este. Like Zach, he was widely distrusted across the army and was too keen to believe the claims of Napoleon's spy, Schulmeister - he hoped this spy's information would bring victory not only over Napoleon but also over his opponents within the Austrian army. Napoleon it seems understood the internal problems of the Austrian army too as he planted false information through Schulmeister, which enabled the French Emperor to capture much of the army at Ulm.