Pershing Lecture Series: Austria at War in 1914 - Richard Faulkner
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- čas přidán 5. 09. 2022
- When the Austro-Hungarian Empire went to war in the summer of 1914, both friends and foes viewed it as one of the great powers of Europe. A series of military disasters undermined this view within four months, establishing the Dual Monarchy as just a supporting actor of the Central Powers and beginning the empire's steady descent into dissolution. Dr. Richard Faulkner examines the Austro-Hungarian Army and the factors leading to its uneven performance in the opening months of the Great War. In conjunction with the exhibition Empires at War.
Featuring distinguished lecturers and authors from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Department of Military History, the Museum and Memorial is proud to host the Pershing Lecture Series, which fosters understanding of World War I and its impact on the law, international policy and culture of today.
For more information about the National WWI Museum and Memorial visit theworldwar.org
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A couple things he misses, the Emperor, Franz Josef would expand the Franchise in the Austrian lands to lessen German power as many were nationalists wanting protestant conversion and union with the German Empire. The country was polyglot but it was united by the Catholic faith, more than 3/4, as he shows, were Catholic (The protestant nobles in Hungary were a constant thorn in the Empire's side.) which acted as a glue for the for the Empire. That is missed here.
A minute and a half in, just found out the lecture is Dr. Faulkner's. Attention has been grabbed.
Same! Thus guy is great 👍
SAME LOVE HIM
As always Dr Faulkner gives an incredible presentation :) It's always a treat to hear him give a lecture. "1915 An Ecstasy of Fumbling" is still one the best WW1 lectures I've ever heard.
I will look this up because he is one of the best lecturers I have come across- his presentation on Verdun is great too!
The heavy Austro-Hungarian losses at the hands of Serb forces and guerrillas made a really powerful impression on many Austrian junior officers and was to have future effects. During WW2, many of those officers were senior officers in the Wehrmacht and the SS, who ordered and carried out bestial, vindictive atrocities against the ethnic Serbian population in Serbia and Bosnia.
Serbian here. In 1914, Austrians committed a plethora of war crimes, well documented by the Swiss forensics expert Dr. Archibald Reiss. Germans came in 1915, and they were remembered as more chivalry kind of soldiers (we even gave them a nice military graveyard and a monument?!). Bulgarians were remembered as The Worst due to atrocities caused during the Toplica Rebellion (Toplicki Ustanak). Some of the things they have done were unimaginable.
In WWII, Germans from Germany have committed retributions (Kragujevac massacre),
while the Germans from Northern Serbia (Danubian Germans) flocked to SS, and they were bloodthirsty.
Despite the disastrous beginning of their military campaigns and a rather incompetent generalship, the Austrian army also had some brilliant commanders like General Svetozar Boroević or General Raffaele Cadorna...
The phrase of Ludendorff “being chained to a corpse” did not originate from him. Rather during the early stages of the war a Jewish civilian had remarked to one of Lundendorff men that he “could not understand why such a lively and strong nation like Germany should chain itself to a corpse” referencing the Austrian/Hungarian forces. He rightly stated the different mettle of both armies from outright observations he took in. At any rate upon hearing of this conversation it was something he repeated as it became evident it was true. The Austrian forces were simply the least motivated and effective of the major powers during the war.
Who else were they going to Ally with?
The entire pre-war Austrian Army was destroyed in Serbia. Not great for morale.
@@theciakilledjfk5973 out of the major powers then no one. Italy was initially part of the central powers but viewed the commitment to be only defensive in a nature not offensive. As both Germany and the Austrians took the offensive Italy felt justified for retracting on its commitment. If Germany had won at the Marne an argument could be made Italy might have thrown in with the central powers simply due to let’s join the winners and benefit what we can. Of course both the Ottoman Turks and Bulgaria joined the central powers.
Italians had the weakest army in ww1.
Thank you! I've heard more about the west (British French German American) than about the east (Austria-Hungary Russia Turkey) so this talk was especially interesting for me.
It's kind of surprising how Austria stayed in the war almost as long as the Germans after their lackluster performances... even from the beginning they suffered huge losses in the Galicia region and the Carpathian mountains and their attempts to relieve Przemsyl or however its spelled. At least the KuK army didn't do so bad against Italy, for what that's worth...
Przemysl. Didn't pay your dictionary bill this month? Or your New Tab tab? If the Austro-Hungarians were this lazy they'd have folded in 1916.
Yes he is an excellent lecturer- entertaining and packed full of information and insights- he is able to rattle of a great story like a spy drama! And without notes too!
One of the best military history lecturers ever. Dr. Faulkner never disappoints.
Thank you for the brief introduction.. You gave all the necessary information without any waffle.
Indy Nidell: *Shakes fist as Conrad Von Hortzendorf*
And in a very minor side note, this area used to be called Galicia because in 1498, the king and queen of Spain celebrated Columbus’ discovery of America by expelling all the Jews of Spain. So many Jews from northeastern Spain which today is still the province of Galicia moved to this part of the AH Monarchy that the corner where Poland, Ukraine and Belorussia meet it became known as Galitzia
That would explain a lot...
@@aceofswords1725 sounds nice but not true. Ask any Ashkenaz.
Nope. The name of Galicia comes from town of Halicz and Duchy of Halicz en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Galicia%E2%80%93Volhynia. This land was annexed by Poland in 14th century, but Hungary had a claim. When Austria annexed Polish lands in 1772, they used old Hungarian claim and applied it even to lands further West.
And I ate so many fun-size 3 musketeers as a student in the Northeast, my mouth became known as “nougat.”
Alas, you’re mistaken my friend. It is a coincidence that the names of those two regions sound alike; they emerged from two, distinct language families. I think it’s cool that you’re into Jewish history tho. Fascinating stuff.
When did the spanish golden age start?
Many thanks to Richard Faulkner for delivering this lecture and the National WW1 Museum for facilitating it. I wonder if it would be interesting to your audience and visitors to balance the traditional narrative of Austria-Hungary as the anachronistic 'prison of nations' in a time of nationalism with the work over the past twenty years or so (e.g. by Pieter Judson) that challenges that characterisation.
I'm reading Judson right now and had the same thought a few minutes into the video!
This dude is my new favorite dude.
One answer in the Q&A session is problematic and might merit closer examination. Wilhelm I basically forced the already seriously ill Franz Josef to accept German overall command in the summer of 1916, after the Austrian setbacks on the eastern front throughout that year. After Franz Josef`s death in November of 1916, his successor Karl I attempted to have joint overall command restored, but the Germans rejected the notion.
This in turn led to Karl attempting to secretly negotiate a separate Austrian peace with the Entente starting in 1917, in what is known as the Sixtus Affair (his brother in law was Prince Sixtus of Bourbon-Parma). Karl did not inform the Germans, or even his own foreign minister Count Ottokar Czernin, of his intentions. Czernin was later publicly humiliated (and resigned in April of 1918) when the French Prime Minister Clemenceau had parts of the Austrian correspondence suing for peace made public, after Czernin claimed France was interested in peace negotiations, due to the near deadlock on the western front. All of this led to a further deterioration of German-Austrian relations, with the Germans thinking Karl was not only a weak leader, but one they could not trust.
Hence at least at a command level, there was a lot of resentment and distrust between Austria-Hungary and Germany. On the ground things were very probably such a mess that the average K.u.K. soldier barely knew where his orders were coming from.
This talk is so good that his epic pointing stick is well-earned.
Thank you for these!!! One day I'm gonna get to see them live! Stay safe and keep the knowledge going!
А сейчас ты видишь их в гробу, в надежде, что в скором времени они оживут.
You gonna see the Austrians live?
Well, you can even come round for tea, no plomblom. But don't expect us to know much about WWI when WWII (for good reasons) takes up most of our history lessons in school.
Excellent lecture, subject I find very interesting and Dr. Faulkner is an entertaining speaker, will definitely go hunting more of his work.
Worthy content. Thanks for posting. Liked and shared.
Great lecture. What region in America is he from? His accent and manner of speaking are very engaging
Well done. And very informative
that’s why every second austrian and hungarian have serbian, croat or czech surenames! very sad but also very interesting topic thank you!
another great lecture ! Your great at keeping a person engaged in listening in compared to your colleagues they can be a real snooze fest despite discussing interesting topics. Hope to see more of your lectures soon.
good work
I love this stuff.
Fascinating run through of events on the eastern front in 1914. Austrian Sclamoerei indeed!
Schlamperei
if Mr. Faulkner paid attention to modern historiography he would know that in 2018 new reasearch by Sergei Nelipovich was published on casualties of both sides on Eastern front in 1914. Peremysl was besieged by russian 11th or, how it was named in the documents, blockade army. Its losses in period 03.10.1914 -06.11.194 were: 10 428 (1029 KIA, 2992 MIA, 7048 WIA).
Nice
As a kid I met a man mr tajonic who served in the Carpathian winter war in the A-H 3rd army.what horror stories he had.but I have very little info on that campaign.does anyone have suggestions where I could such information?
Is there a literature for the Eastern Front in WW1 you would recommand...?
Great talk, thank you.
Read The First World War by John Keegan. All of this and more is in it.
Austrians pushed the Italians back in The Battle of Caporetto (also known as the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, the Battle of Kobarid or Karfreit).
Austrains did alright in the Italian Alps and the Carpathian terrain, but, elsewhere they disintegrated from within due to low morale and things explained by the professor.
1:01:58 Conquerors do this quite often. "Angloization", for eample, in the US and Canada, Probably the UK, too, in Ireland.
Habeas Grabus. I love it.
Great presentation on the Eastern Front. Would love to hear your opinion on the lead-up to the SMO.
Problem with comparing the Serbian situation with the various ethnic conflicts of Austria-Hungary is that the Czechs and Slovaks, Bosnians, etc. Did not have established independent nation states. The Serbs had an inviolable base of operations from which to train arm and equip terrorists to assassinate Austrian personnel and do other destabilizing things to the Empire. Even if the Czechs were encouraged by the assassination to start agitating for independence it much easier to police your own territory than to have to declare war and worry about the international situation. The Austrians could easily repress any of thier own restive minoritys to any degree they wanted without starting a world war. Since the Serbs did have a state, the kind and severity of the Austrians retribution is and international concern. I don't think the same things would have happened had a Slovak or Czech or Ruthenian separatist shot the Arch Duke and his wife. Had that happened and Austria leveled some city in Bohemia or Croatia, none of the other Powers would have done a thing. Let alone go to war. So my point is that had Austria not declared war on Serbia and gave it a lesser punishment, I don't believe a cascading series of nationalist uprisings would automatically break out to dissolve the Empire. They could have just dealt a serious public humiliation to Serbia and not lose all that much prestige.
Terrorists? Huh... Big words... There is a lot of history, at least 50 years before Ferdinand. It was a long process.
The sin of Austria was that it was sabotaging small Christian nations of the Balkans (especially Slavs) for decades, because in some strange geo-politics, we were somehow worse than Turks.
Outstanding lecture, comprehensive and fascinating. One question: The ethnic population graphs omit the Jewish population of the A-H Empire. How come?
Reading in german Wiki Lemberg Galizien history
about
Bezirk Lemberg ==Lwiw, 1910
160000 inh. 1300km²
61% polish
9% jewish
.....supposedly the kuk Austrian census asked for language but Not including yiddish, so jews in Lemberg City May have ticked german
See german Wiki
Kronland Galizien
Bevölkerungsstatistik census langguage Table and Religion Table
1890 1900 1910
Ca. 800000 =Eleven-% israelitisch = jewish religion
They (A-H) counted Yiddish speaking Jews as Germans/Austrains
My ancestors got out in the nick of time. They left what is now Slovenia in 1894.
There is considerable evidence that Conrad deliberately facilitated the assassination of the grand duke. Even the Emperor himself may have been implicated.. Not that they did anything themselves to kmurder him, but they knew that the" Serbian :militants,: with some support from elements of the Serbian military. They arranged for the there to be no police or militarypresencealomg thr grsnduke's route, and they published s very detailed itinerary of the route that the grand duke's motorcade weeks in advance, making it very easy for the assassins to station along the motorcade's route and get close to the ducal couple. The motive: The Austrians needed a cassus belli for going to war with Serbia. In addition, the Emperor had made it clear that he did not want the drand duke to succeed him. He considered the grand duke unfit to the rule the empire, and he despised his wife as a lower class woman with no right to be married to a member of the royal family.
There's a fantastic counter attack happening right now so u can still build up a operational reserve and hit back at overstretched Russian lines even in a war dominated by artillery
The "A Military Tower of Babel" slide has some math issues.
The Austrian-Hungarian empire was not ready for a modern war at that point.
In the book "The Resurection and Collapse of Empire in Habsburg Serbia 1914-1918 John G Cuma The Austrians were shocked that some of the Komitinjis (Guerillas) included Women and children. They were also shocked that the Serbs mutilated Austrian wounded and behaved badly when they were on Austrian soil. Also note the Austrian High command gave orders for the troops to behave . Also note the Germans killed a lot more people in Belgium than the Austrians did in Serbia. The Austrians also wanted to intigrate Serbia into their empire so they did not behave like Nazi German and the USSR in WW II. As for the Russians the book "Nationalizing the Russian Empire" Eric Lohr is on the how the Russians deportations ect
Women and Children - true (google Milunka Savic and Momcilo Gavric)
mutilated Austrian wounded - proves, or it never happened. They were running away too quickly. The opposite happened, goodle Archibald Reiss.
behaved badly when they were on Austrian soil - when it happened? Montenegro army was in Bosnia for a few months and Serbian Army was in Vojvodina for about a month, without being in a single meaningful town. Thus, never happened.
The Austrians also wanted to intigrate Serbia into their empire so they did not behave like Nazi German - not true. They even had concentration camps, yes, in WWI (Google Nezhider)
He sounds like John Goodman
Considering Britain’s capacity for mischief, I’m wondering if Britain may have incited ethnic chaos in the Dual Monarchy?
Živela SRBIJA
thank you for making the connection between Tsar Nicholas II and
tsar vlad the intriguer/invader.
I hope tsar vlad shares the same fate
the demise of the Austrian Empire was not predetermined. it was caused by the decision of a few people in Budapest and Vienna to resist reform and change.
No. It was broken up by the Trianon Peace treaty after WW1. Some sort of reorganisation was on the table until 1918, but then they changed their minds, because the Big Four decided that it was in their interest to break it up.
Those jokes are some zingers! 😆
Oil and gas, oil and gas, oil and gas, oil and gas, oil and gas, oil and gas.
4:00 Napoleon did _not_ disband the Holy Roman Empire.
He brought about the conditions that lead to it being disbanded. The Austrian emperor (then holy Roman emperor) Franz 2nd disbanded it in 1806 following Austria’s defeat at Austerlitz, also Napoleon created the confederation of the Rhine which bought many German states under French influence. So yeah Napoleon didn’t disband it himself but he caused it to happen
Im fairly sure Walt Disney could have told this tale in a more accurate fashion. Im convinced now that the old saying is correct. Americans believe they are the whole world, when in fact they are an old fashioned, small part of it.. of yesteryear. I must add that I am referring to the American Authorities and not the lovely American people.
No, you're not.
Why do so many people pronounce Putin as Pewtin, like he smells bad?
But hey, he spoke 7 languages!
First!
All I have to say about this topic is: Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser
Its a little disappointing that this lecture is repeating the “Prison of Nations” narrative of Austria-Hungary, perhaps a scholar from Central Europe or a Habsburg expert like Pieter Judson could have given a more balanced perspective.
Precursor of the EU!
Typical yank he has at Putin but forgets the term manifest destiny hubris is ridiculous