History Cigar Stream #91: The Dismantling of the Austro-Hungarian Empire by the Academic Agent

[Aldarion]

To sum it up, the ideas of the Habsburg monarchy as being outdated, inefficient and a prison of nations, are much later constructs which were essentially intended to paint the Empire in a bad light. None of them are true.

 

[King Arts]

To sum it up, the ideas of the Habsburg monarchy as being outdated, inefficient and a prison of nations, are much later constructs which were essentially intended to paint the Empire in a bad light. None of them are true.

I'm sorry but a quick look at history will tell you, you are wrong. The Austro Hungarian empire was backwards and inefficient, just compare their performance compared to Germany proper, it was not as advanced as Germany, England, or France. It was on the level of Russia. And Russia had strategic depth and a large population so they could throw their poorly trained conscripts into the meatgrinder to buy time, or to wear the enemy out, the Austro Hungarians could not. It was also inefficient because of it's diversity it had many languages spoken within it's borders and that meant that speedy communication that would be needed on the battle field would be hampered. That by itself proves it's inefficient.

As for it being a prison of nations the fact that Serbians and Transylvanian Romanians were happy to be free of it shows that they were there against their will. The black hand was a Serbian nationalist group that wanted their people that lived on their land(as the majority in those lands) to break off from the empire and join Serbia itself. The Austrian Empire was good for two groups the Austrians and the Hungarians, the other people's in the empire were not happy and were second to those groups.

 

[Aldarion]

I'm sorry but a quick look at history will tell you, you are wrong. The Austro Hungarian empire was backwards and inefficient, just compare their performance compared to Germany proper, it was not as advanced as Germany, England, or France. It was on the level of Russia. And Russia had strategic depth and a large population so they could throw their poorly trained conscripts into the meatgrinder to buy time, or to wear the enemy out, the Austro Hungarians could not. It was also inefficient because of it's diversity it had many languages spoken within it's borders and that meant that speedy communication that would be needed on the battle field would be hampered. That by itself proves it's inefficient.

Wrong. First, it was nowhere as backward and inefficient as usually presented. Yes, it was not as advanced as Germany, England or France - but what European country at that time was? And it was definitely far ahead of Russia. Austria-Hungary had the most extensive rail network in Europe after Germany and France, and also had significant industry (though again nothing on the level of the colonial powers).

Russia managed to overrun Galicia, thanks to being able to mobilize much earlier than anybody expected and Austria-Hungary having to fight on three different fronts, but primarily due to Brusilov's leadership - Brusilov's armies performed far better, in all aspects, than any other military force of the war, and in fact innovated many tactical procedures that were only seen on the Western front years later. In fact, Austrian army was heavily outnumbered on each front it fought on: even against Serbia, Serb army had advantage in number of troops actually deployed in combat in 1914.

Yes, multilinguilism was a massive problem which hampered efficiency and effectiveness of Austro-Hungarian army. But it does not "alone prove that it is inefficient". Let's see what Austro-Hungarian army managed to achieve in World War I.:

• stalemate Serbia despite numerical disadvantage on that front as troops were shifted to counter Russia
• stalemate Italy despite latter's massive numerical advantage in 1915. (3:1 at best of times), and very nearly knocking Italy out of the war with the Caporetto offensive in 1917. - in fact, after 1917., Italy relied on British and French reinforcements to stay in the war
• provide assistance to Germany on the Western Front (specifically, Skoda 30.5 cm mortars utilized at Liege, Antwerp and Namur)
• prevent Romanian offensive from breaching the Carpathains until German reinforcements arrived

And this is despite massive problems in the military:

• multilinguilism (as noted)
• massive early losses which essentially wiped out the pre-war cadre of trained soldiers and junior officers
• lack of finances and essential war materials
• problematic high cadre (Hotzendorf in particular was a noted bungler, as was Oskar Potiorek. Personally, I'd nominate Hotzendorf for the best Russian general of the war...)
• weak industrial base
• weak strategic position (having to fight a war at three fronts: Italy, Serbia and Russia, plus Romania for a time in 1915).

Austro-Hungarian army kept on fighting even after the Empire itself collapsed all around it. How many other military formations did something like that (discounting the "government-in-exile" thing)? In fact, the Austrian army outlived all of its adversaries with the exception of the Italians (and Italians were not, in fact, in a much better position by 1918., being wholly reliant on British and French support to stay in the war).

Hungarian artillery was also arguably the best in the war, and Germans actually modified the organization and tactics of their own assault troops (Sturmtruppen) based on the Austro-Hungarian model (which itself was a combination of German Sturmtruppen model with Austrian indigenous Jagdcommando model, resulting in the Sturmbattalionen). Austro-Hungarian mountain (Alpine) troops were likewise the best in the world. And thanks to massive reorganizations during the war, the outdated 1914. force had essentially disappeared - by early 1918., Austro-Hungarian army was likely more tactically powerful than it had been at the war's outset, thanks to massive reorganization and tactical and technical innovation.

As for it being a prison of nations the fact that Serbians and Transylvanian Romanians were happy to be free of it shows that they were there against their will. The black hand was a Serbian nationalist group that wanted their people that lived on their land(as the majority in those lands) to break off from the empire and join Serbia itself. The Austrian Empire was good for two groups the Austrians and the Hungarians, the other people's in the empire were not happy and were second to those groups.

And again wrong. Croats definitely did not want to leave Austria-Hungary in 1914., and many did not want it even in 1918. This was especially true among Bosnian Croats (and Muslims), whose condition significantly improved following the KuK's annexation of Bosnia. The only reason Kingdom SHS was preferred to any other alternative was that joining Serbia meant that Italy would not be able to occupy Croatian coast. But if Austria-Hungary could have survived in its 1914. borders, it is hard to see Croatia trying to leave it. Croatians were in fact so "unhappy" with Austria that assassination of Franz Ferdinand caused widespread anti-Serbian demonstrations, and even outright violence. Granted, that was also in large part because Franz Ferdinand promised long-needed reforms of the Monarchy; but the point is, Croats predominantly wanted a reformation of the Monarchy, not its destruction. And for people who were allegedly unhappy with the Monarchy, its various ethnicities performed remarkably well in combat. In fact, no single battlefield defeat could be attributed to nationalist causes, and IIRC only Serb and Ruthene soldiers experienced abnormally high rates of desertion when fighting Russians - and even with them, there were no such problems when fighting Italians.

Serbians and Romanians may have been happy to leave it, but the reason for that was that Europe at the time was highly nationalistic, so joining home countries (Serbia and Romania, respectively) was naturally preferred. But there was no such sentiment in Croatia, Slovakia, Czechia, Slovenia... what they wanted was a federalist Monarchy. Poles in particular were fiercely loyal to the Monarchy, as its treatment of its Poles (five million of them) was far better than what Russia (and presumably Germany) offered to their own Polish populations. As for the Black Hand, they were not merely nationalistic. The organization was in fact an imperialistic one, with the ultimate goal of conquest of all South Slavic lands* and incorporation of those lands into the Serbian empire, as outlined in Načertanije by Ilija Garašanin.

*Where Serbs were by no means a majority - and that is even if we forget that most of the "Serbs" only accepted Serbian identity during Yugoslavia itself. During that time it was considered that "Orthodox" equals "Serb", but that was not a case earlier. Svetozar Boroević was an Orthodox Croat, and most of the Orthodox inhabitants of Croatia and Bosnia were in fact Wlachs, who only accepted Serbian ethnic identity during Yugoslavia. To repeat: 90% of Serbs west of Drina only became Serbs in the 1918. - 1941. period.

 

[ATP]

i am reading of memories of Hipolit Korwin - Milewski,polish rich aristocrat with contacts in both Russia and France.
After dismanting A-H,he asked french diplomats of opinion - it was crime against France.Becouse existing A-H would be France ally in next war against Germany.
He thought the same,only that was crime against Poland.
He belived,that Germany would start WW2 before 1950,and that A-H would help,if still existed.