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I have been watching some stuff about WWI and when AH comes up it seems to just be one problem after another. Ill-equipped troops, generals/leaders that consistently make horrible tactical/strategic decisions, and Germany having to constantly save their butt in battle and for all intents and purposes doing the good majority of the grunt work while picking up AH slack.
Hell, they weren't even able to really take Serbia facing just some guerilla fighters.
For such a large and seemingly competent nation at least on the outside why was AH so bad/incompetent at...pretty much everything they did?
You ever heard expression - colossus on clay legs? That's what it was. Artificial empire, loose forced connections between its parts. Who wants to die for it?
Btw, careful with Serbians. There are only handful of countries in the world that have never ever been conquered. One is Afghanistan. Another one is little Monte Negro, or Czerna Gora, in Serbia's underbelly. Those are tough folks there. WW2 Germany completely failed two battles - with Russia and with Yugoslavian guerrilla.
Austria-Hungary always looked to me as a decadent country with incompetent and anachronistic leadership. The Habsburgs had inbred a few too many times, and their hangers-on (old aristocrat hold-overs) seemed to care more about living in the past and preserving a system that was no longer relevant. A lot of the bomb plantings and assassinations that occurred as far back as the 1880s were scaring the you-know-what out of the aristocrats and monarchy who adopted a siege mentality that did not help, either. It's been a loooong time since I studied that era, but one of the overall "vibes" I got from reading about it was that Vienna and a lot of the Central European cities were declining because no one in charge wanted to reform or improve because they were too afraid that the "reforms" would send Austria-Hungary down the same path of the French in their revolution. The leaders were too preoccupied with losing their power base and status and not updating their army, which left them a Paper Tiger of sorts.
To me a large part of it is Hungary and Franz Josef. Austria Hungary actually had three separate armies. The Austrian Army, the Hungarian Army, and the Imperial Army. Hungary viewed any expansion as a potential weakening of their power and thus neglected their army, defenses, and whatnot. The irony being that in any reasonable war scenario Russia would invade the empire through Hungary so while the Hungarians were trying to restrain any wars of expansion or in support of Germany they were making themselves increasingly vulnerable.
Franz Josef meanwhile had been broken in some ways by the war between Austria and Prussia and decided he would never again go against Prussia. Thus when there were times Austria likely could have made peace with the Entente as victors who had accomplished most or even all of their war aims at the start of the war, he never seized the opportunity because it would be a betrayal of Germany and thus Prussia. In addition the guy just wasn't capable of reigning in the Hungarians and helping the Empire modernize, but he lived forever. Seriously, his reign was one of if not the longest of any Hapsburg monarch. So for the better part of a century the empire lacked a capable monarch. Not to say he was all bad because he had the most moderate and peaceful rule of any of Europe's multiethnic empires at the time. Sure they had secret police and ethnic tensions, but it was nothing compared to what you'd see in Germany, Russia, or the Ottoman Empire. Plus even though Austria-Hungary drew Europe into war, it along Britain and Belguim were the only European powers that really had any moral footing to stand on in the war. Not really a bad guy altogether, but the empire would have been a lot better of if he had died earlier so Franz Ferdinand would have had a go at ruling. He may not have succeeded, and his rule would likely have been bloodier (excepting WWI). However, he had the energy and will to at least try reforming the Empire even if it took fomenting a civil war to do it.
I took an interesting trip to Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest, all once part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
In Vienna, it was all about the glory of the empire. There were so many monuments to it, and it's something about which the Austrians are very proud. But a little bit down the Danube, you get a totally different story. The Slovaks in Bratislava and the Hungarians in Budapest were very negative on the empire, looking at it as an hostile and oppressive occupation, rather than something that belonged to them. The Austrians tried to mitigate that feeling by giving some autonomy to Hungary, but it doesn't seem to have worked.
So the empire doesn't appear to have been very unified, or to have had the loyalty or high regard of those living in it.
By 1916 half the army they started the war with was killed or captured. They invaded Serbia first instead of sending every man to the frontier with Russia. To make it even worse, where they invaded was a practice range for Serbian artillery.
Austria's front almost collapsed in 1914 and they threatened to sue for peace if Germany didn't bail them out. Germany sent troops in exchange for taking overall command of the front. By 2015, it was the Russians who were almost collapsing.
They hadn't been that effective an European power since before Maria Theresa was empress. Frederick the Great took Silesia from her, then embarrassed her army in the Seven Years War. He destroyed an Austrian army twice the size of his at Leuthen. Napoleon regularly whipped them.
In the German Austrian war they were almost annihilated at Koeniggratz. What most European powers thought would be a war of attrition that Austria would win was lost in six weeks.
Austria's achievements were is culture, particularly music. The Hapsburg court hosted and supported more great composers than the rest of Europe put together. Architecturally it is surpassed only by Paris, seat of Europe's greatest empire.
Militarily Austria benefited long from playing in a weak conference, so to speak.
By 1916 half the army they started the war with was killed or captured. They invaded Serbia first instead of sending every man to the frontier with Russia. To make it even worse, where they invaded was a practice range for Serbian artillery.
Austria's front almost collapsed in 1914 and they threatened to sue for peace if Germany didn't bail them out. Germany sent troops in exchange for taking overall command of the front. By 2015, it was the Russians who were almost collapsing.
Had no idea WWI went on for over 100 years and overlapped WWII.
Austria's achievements were is culture, particularly music. The Hapsburg court hosted and supported more great composers than the rest of Europe put together. Architecturally it is surpassed only by Paris, seat of Europe's greatest empire.
Some wag commented that Austria's greatest achievements were convincing the rest of the world that Beethoven was an Austrian and Hitler was a German.
So the empire doesn't appear to have been very unified, or to have had the loyalty or high regard of those living in it.
I think that might have been because of the close proximity of the members of the empire to each other. The Czechs created a higher standard of living than the Hungarian founder state, yet were subordinate. They probably found this galling. Likewise, the faults of both founding states were visible to anyone who took a short train ride. The Austro Hungarians also conscripted each and every of their subordinate groups.
Meanwhile the signs of Russian decay was located thousands of miles away from subordinate peoples. The Russians also knew better to conscript Poles, Finns, Balts, Central Asians, Georgians etc. Rather, the only subordinate peoples conscripted were closely related fellow slavs in Ukraine and Belarus,
The French and British also benefitted from being significantly more advanced that any of their subject peoples and also from not attempting to conscript any (even Irish were exempt). Instead, they relied on traditional volunteers were from select ethnic groups.
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