How the Movie 1917 (And World War I Began): A Crazy Love Affair

Franz-Stefan Gady

History,

A history lesson that seemed forgotten--until now. 

Key Point: What your history teacher in high school or college forgot to mention. 

After the first five months of World War I, the Austro-Hungarian forces, under the leadership, if that is the right word, of General Conrad von Hoetzendorf, suffered stupefying losses--189,000 dead, 490,000 wounded, and 278,000 missing and prisoners of war. Among those who fell was Hoetzendorf’s favorite son, Herbert, who was killed near Lviv in modern-day Ukraine in a botched battle planned by his father. A year later, in a letter to Virginia von Reininghaus, Conrad is still overcome by grief: “Erwin (his other son) and I can still not talk about Herbert because our words are suffocating in tears!” At the end of the letter, however, he reverts to his dearest subject—his longing for Virginia: “Could I just be with you! I am not well, our separation . . . farewell for today, be hotly and intimately kissed! Yours, Franz.” A few weeks later in 1915, in a conversation with a fellow officer, Conrad exclaimed in complete despair: “If this woman is not finally making a decision whether to become my wife, I am not sure what will become of me!”

The Chief of Staff of the Austro-Hungarian Army, the highest ranking soldier of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, responsible for the lives of millions of soldiers and the survival of one of the oldest European powers at that time, appeared to have an unusual priority--winning the heart of a woman, a married Italian aristocrat named Virginia (“Gina”) von Reininghaus, while the old world around him was plunging into the abyss. In the midst of the slaughter in Central Europe, a love-crazed and heartbroken Conrad, branded the ‘architect of the apocalypse’ by one biographer, still managed to compose one letter a day, often two or three, to his inamorata; between 1907 and 1915 he would end up composing more than 3,000 letters to her—some more than sixty pages in length. This tumultuous relationship played the most important role in Conrad’s life and may have vicariously contributed to his prewar obsession with launching a preventive war against Italy and Serbia. Indeed, it may have contributed to the outbreak of the First World War, given Austria’s pivotal role in the conflict.

In his book, The Sleepwalkers, Christopher Clark states: