Background
Alfred von Waldstatten was born in Vienna on November 9, 1872.
Alfred von Waldstatten was born in Vienna on November 9, 1872.
Waldstàtten graduated first in his class from the Theresa Military Academy in 1892, and in the same position from the War Academy five years later.
The promising young officer was skipped one grade to the rank of captain and assigned to the General Staff and subsequently to the prestigious Infantry Regiment Kaiser Nr. 1. At the turn of the century he was with the V Army Corps in Pressburg and later served as chief of staff of the Twenty-eighth Infantry Division at Laibach.
At the outbreak of the war Waldstàtten was instructor at the War Academy. In August 1914, he assumed the post of chief of staff for Army Group Dankl in time to take part in the Russian defeat at Krasnik; thereafter, Waldstàtten planned the strategic withdrawals behind the Tanev and San rivers. During the winter of 1914 Army Group Dankl generally assisted the German Ninth Army in blunting Russian offensives emanating from Warsaw and Ivangorod, finally halting the Russian "steamroller" at the line of the Nida River. When General Viktor Dankl was appointed chief of the Tyrolean Defense Command in May 1915, he assigned Colonel von Waldstàtten as chief of staff of the famous XX (Edelweiss) Corps, entrusted to Archduke Charles, the heir to the throne. The heavy Russian incursions into the Bukovina that summer brought about yet another transfer for both Archduke Charles and Waldstàtten, this time to the eastern front. In the fall of 1915 Waldstàtten was assigned to the Seventh Army of General Hermann Kôvess.
In March 1917, General Arz von Straussenburg replaced Conrad von Hbtzendorf as chief of the General Staff of the army and Waldstàtten, at the express desire of Emperor Charles, was promoted major general and assigned to Arz as deputy chief of the General Staff. At the new army headquarters at Baden, near Vienna, Waldstàtten assumed responsibility for most operational planning while the pliable Arz accompanied Charles on his numerous tours of the fronts. Waldstàtten unfortunately was not always up to this demanding task. A case in point was the planned Austro-Hungarian offensive against Italy in May and June 1918. While Conrad favored a thrust from the South Tyrolean Alps into the Venetian plain, taking the Italian army in the flank,
General Svetozar Boroevic, when pressed, came out for a frontal assault across the Piave River; Arz and Waldstatten were in a dither and finally supported strong attacks on both extreme flanks.
This inability of headquarters to settle upon a bold plan of action encompassing the keys of surprise and concentration opened the doors for Emperor Charles, who in the end gave both his field commanders equal forces and equal authority to conduct operations. The result was hardly surprising: by June 20 the Dual Monarchy's offensive had been blunted, especially by British and French forces stationed in Italy. The cohesion of the army was shattered and this moral defeat was to have far-reaching repercussions. On November 2, 1918, Waldstatten agreed to return the soldiers of Hungary to their homeland from all fronts. The war had been lost. The general died in Mauerbach, Lower Austria, on January 12, 1952.