The Hapsburg Monarchy Self-Destructs

If ever there was a manual on 1) how not to conduct foreign diplomacy; 2) how not to staff, equip, and train an army for modern warfare; 3) how not to liaise with a foreign ally; 4) how not to strategize for an upcoming war; and 5) how not to initiate and conduct a war, this would be the book. Dr. Wawro, the author of The Franco-Prussian War and many other excellent works, begins iterating the problems of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as early as the 1790s, but concentrates on the period after 1859, when Franz Joseph lost his first war, to France, then his second to Prussia, in 1866.

One of the basic and probably insurmountable problems of the empire was the variety of nationalities and languages it encompassed. German speaking officers had to contend with troops whose native languages included Czech, Polish, Slovenian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Magyar (for the Hungarians) and eight others, using several different alphabets.

Perhaps the worst pre-war event was when Hungary basically rejected any decisions made by the empire after 1867. From then on, Hungary refused to accept Austrian decisions and legislation about military spending or anything else. Thus the empire did not have enough machine guns, artillery, shells, ammunition, uniforms, or anything else with which to wage war. When confronted by Serbian peasants in 1914, whom they sought to “punish” for the murder of Archduke Ferdinand, Austrian leadership lost 300,000 men in three invasions between August 12 and by December 15, 1914.

Much of the disaster was due to the non-leadership of Army General Chief of Staff Franz Conrad von Hotzendorf. General Conrad had no conception of modern warfare, monopolized planning, and failed to coordinate with Germany. When the army got into serious trouble with the Serbs and then Russia, he would plead with Germany for troops and assistance. Before the war’s end, Austria had become a vassal to Germany.

Russia was a great ally of Serbia and fought the Austrians and Germans tenaciously. As a third of Russian troops did not have rifles, the results were mutually devastating. With far more replacements than its enemies, Russia would swarm its opponents, though its troops would die by the thousands

Read this book to learn about Austria’s hatred of Serbs and Serbia’s inbred hatred of Austria. This mutual hatred contributed to bad Austrian diplomatic and military decisions and explains why the impoverished Serbs could rout the supposedly better equipped Austro-Hungarians. Much of the beginning of the War is explained here, which is what I appreciated, and this is recommended as the first book to read to understand how the Great War began. It is also a vivid and painful description of the horrors of the Eastern Front due to weather, bad leadership, disintegrating morale, and miserable logistics which are not frequently discussed, compared to the Western Front. Be prepared for an uninterrupted series of agonies.

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Note: A Mad Catastrophe is also available in paperback and e-editions.

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