A Mad Catastrophe

March 17, 2014
Wawro (The Austro-Prussian War) aims to clarify the confusing nature of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s military collapse early in WWI. Describing the trauma of the Austrian defeat in the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, he claims it eroded “the Austrian idea,” the belief that everyone in the Empire was satisfied and unified under Austrian rule. To stem the tide of protests, the reactionary Franz Josef became both the emperor of Austria and king of Hungary, thereby establishing the joint kingdom of Austria-Hungary. Intended as a solution, his reign only served to complicate the problem and let it sit and simmer ominously until 1914. As Wawro grimly notes, “Hungary... was dragging the Hapsburg Empire over a cliff.” Hungarian attempts to undermine the Austrian monarchy, limit the size of the military, and stymie any major decision-making were largely successful. Other betrayals crippled the state further, including when high-ranking Colonel Alfred Redl was discovered to be selling crucial military secrets to Russia. With the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the outbreak of WWI, the inexperience of Austro-Hungarian troops and the incompetence of its military leadership were thrown into sharp relief. Wawro’s authoritative account is a damning analysis of an empire and a people unready for war. Maps and illus.

April 15, 2014
Wawro (history, director, Military History Ctr., Univ. of North Texas) begins by describing how Austria-Hungary found itself at the mercy of the Germans after defeat in the 1866 Austro-Prussian war. He then turns his attention to the internal struggles of the empire, especially its strained relations with Hungary. The author argues that the empire's inability either to control or mollify its minority populations led to its disintegration and that at the outbreak of war Austria-Hungary's army was poorly trained and equipped and comparatively small. The empire vacillated on whether to destroy Serbia first or husband its strength against Russia. When Conrad von Hotzendorf, Vienna's generalissimo, did finally act, his campaigns were disastrous and amounted to embarrassing defeats. Austria's role in causing World War I is well documented, but Wawro's contribution lies in his focus on how the overall decline of Austria-Hungary broke relations with the Balkan states and Russia and how its military blundering caused its ultimate destruction. VERDICT A worthwhile read for those who enjoyed Alan Sked's "Decline and Fall of the Hapsburg Empire".--Michael Farrell, Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, FL

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2014
A distinguished historian's takedown of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's spectacularly inept leadership, which helped usher in the 20th century's greatest tragedy. One hundred years ago this June, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Habsburg throne, was assassinated in Sarajevo. With its saber-rattling ally Germany discouraging any diplomatic solution to the crisis, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, triggering a series of treaty obligations that soon had the world at arms. Wawro (Military History/Univ. of North Texas, Dallas; Quicksand: America's Pursuit of Power in the Middle East, 2010, etc.) sets the stage for this rash decision with opening chapters explaining the origins of the dual monarchy and the rot eating away at the empire well before any shot was fired. Under the doddering, now-mythologized Emperor Franz Josef, the empire was plagued by salacious court intrigues, corruption, linguistic controversies, and bureaucratic infighting and paralysis so widespread that in 1913, British newspapers were already predicting dissolution. Nevertheless, seemingly oblivious to its own infirmity, the government threw itself into a war it had no chance of winning. Wawro charts the disastrous 1914-1915 campaigns against Serbia and Russia that fatally exposed the empire's weaknesses, where an army of unwilling soldiers, poorly led, inadequately trained and armed, was slaughtered by the millions. American readers with only a passing familiarity of the battles of World War I likely know it best from the perspective of the Western Front. Wawro offers a crucial insight into the Eastern Front, where the fecklessness of Germany's most important ally drained attention and resources, almost guaranteeing the bloody standoff in the Western trenches and the eventual capitulation of the Kaiser's army. On this centennial of the Great War's beginning, Wawro has composed a thoroughly researched and well-written account, mercilessly debunking any nostalgia for the old monarch and the deeply dysfunctional empire over which he presided.

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