The Two-Headed Eagle

“Well Prohaska, I have to welcome you to Fliegerkompagnie 19F. I think that you will find it, though but recently established, to be one of the more efficient air units of the Imperial and Royal Army. And I can assure you that it is my intention to make it the most efficient. Tell me, Prohaska, at what time did you arrive at Fliegerfeld Caprovizza?”

“Fifteen minutes past twelve or thereabouts, Herr Kommandant. My movement order said twelve p.m., but there was no lorry from Divacca so I had to borrow a motor cycle, and my orders instructed me to report first to Flik 19 at Haidenschaft . . .”

He pursed his lips in a curiously spinsterish expression of disapproval.

“Herr Linienschiffsleutnant,” he said quietly, as if I had just commit­ted some unspeakable solecism, “I believe that I just heard you refer on two occasions to hours of the military day as ‘fifteen minutes past twelve’ and ‘twelve p.m.’ Such a slipshod method of denoting time may be accept­able in the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine, I ca

“Herr Kommandant, by your leave . . .”

“Yes, what is it?”

“Herr Kommandant, I obediently report that I am a qualified pilot and have been for nearly four years past. Given a little training in flying modern land-based aeroplanes I am quite capable of fulfilling the duties of an officer-pilot, and before he died Oberleutnant Rieger said that I ought to get some flying hours in on my own . . .”

He had turned even paler than usual as I said this. “Herr Linien- schiffsleutnant, pray contain yourself and reserve your helpful suggestions for when I ask you for them. Your substantive post here, I understand, is to be that of an officer-observer; so as far as I am concerned, until I receive further orders that is what you will do even though you should be the last qualified pilot left alive in the entire Dual Monarchy. Quite apart from anything else, to permit otherwise would be to make absolute non­sense of the ma

I rummaged in the breast pocket of my jacket.

“I obediently report that before I departed from Fliegerkompagnie 19 this morning the Adjutant there gave me a present for you from Hauptma

“Er, was there any verbal message accompanying it, by any chance?” “I have the honour to report, Herr Kommandant, that there was; the gist of it as conveyed to me by the Adjutant was that Hauptma

“Yes, yes, Prohaska, Hauptma

“I am assigning you to fly with Feldpilot-Zugsfuhrer Toth for the time being. I shall expect you to manage the man with a firm hand. He is to­tally lacking in discipline and respect for military order: to a degree in fact where I am considering whether a posting to the trenches or even a court martial may not soon be necessary. Aerial discipline is already lamentably lax in the k.u.k. Fliegertruppe and I shall make it my principal concern while I am in command of this unit to tighten it up. As far as I am con­cerned the fewer unruly degenerates like that we have in the Flying Service the better it will be for Austria.” With that he adjusted his spectacles and set to work on his papers, apparently blind to my departure.

I learnt over the next few weeks that, before the war, Hauptma

Kraliczek had shone at this arduous work. But when the fateful day finally came, at the end of July 1914, these elaborate plans were found wanting. The Monarchy had two microscopically detailed mobilisation timetables, worked out to the last second and the last soldier’s bootlace: one for a war against Russia with a holding force to take care of the Serbs; the other for a war against Serbia with only a holding force against the Russians. What the plans had failed to take account of however was the possibility of a war on two fronts. The result was a month or more of in­describable chaos as the two plans ran foul of one another: of trains of cattle trucks rattling past empty while exhausted soldiers trudged along beside the railway tracks laden down with their entire kit and supplies; of gu