All language subtitles for [English] Why Was Austria-Hungary so USELESS in World War 1 [DownSub.com]

when we think of the Central Powers in

World War I almost all of the attention

goes to Germany it's easy to forget that

another major Empire was also fighting

alongside them Austria Hungary that is

because while Germany was perhaps the

most effective participant in the war

Austria Hungary was one of the least

when acting on its own it failed to

achieve almost anything even when the

war started and its troops were fresh it

was unable to defeat Serbia which had a

much smaller military so why was Austria

Hungary so ineffective why couldn't the

large and historic Empire do more to

help its German Ally in this video I'm

going to answer all those questions but

first let's have an overview of how it

happened the story of Austria Hungary in

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in the

description in June of 1914 Europe was

at peace and War didn't seem to be on

the horizon in fact the continent was at

the height of its power the past Century

had been relatively peaceful allowing

for levels of prosperity and

technological progress never before seen

in human history there were tensions

between the Nations but had just about

been kept in check then on the 28th of

June the heir to the austr Hungarian

Empire was assassinated by a Serbian

nationalist that act of terrorism would

end up triggering an astonishing

escalation into what would become the

biggest war the world had ever seen

Germany and Austria Hungary would find

themselves fighting the combined forces

of Britain France and Russia for Austria

Hungary the war got off to a very bad

start their plan was to invade Serbia

knocking it out of the war quickly

before Russia had a chance to join the

fight however such a rapid Advance was

beyond the scope of the austr Hungarian

military their army was outdated poorly

coordinated and plagued by internal

divisions due to the many ethnicities

within the Empire even though Serbia had

a much smaller and weaker military they

were able to hold off the austr

Hungarian Invasion Serbian forces put up

stiff resistance and the austrians

suffered numerous humiliating defeats in

the opening months of the war they did

actually captur the Serbian capital in

December of 1914 but they couldn't

defend it and had to withdraw after a

few days things also went badly in the

fight against Russia in the East Russian

forces invaded the region of galsia part

of modern day Ukraine and the austr

hungarians were unable to hold them off

the Russians Advanced rapidly capturing

key austr Hungarian cities such as Lviv

by late September after just one month

of fighting the austr Hungarian forces

had suffered staggering losses perhaps

around 300,000 men while inflicting only

modest losses on the Russians with

Austria Hungary losing territory fast

German troops had to be sent to

stabilize the front line that did work

to stall the Russian advance but it

demoralized the austr Hungarian forces

demonstrating to them that they were the

junior partner in the alliance by the

end of 1914 Austria Hungary had lost not

only large territories in the East but

also significant parts of its military

strength around 1 million men had died

in the campaigns against Serbia and

Russia both of which had failed to

achieve their objectives the next year

1915 would see a mixture of setbacks and

some successes but overall the picture

remained bad in May it launched the

Gitana offensive an enormous attack with

the Germans directed at the center of

the front the galicano offensive was

meticulously planned and delivered a

decisive blow to Russia the Central

Powers achieved an astonishingly rapid

Advance into Russian territory capturing

vast sves of Eastern Europe and leading

to Russian soldiers surrendering on mass

the offensive was a great success with

Austria losing about 1 million men while

Austria Hungary lost only 200,000 that

said the success was largely due to

German military strategy and much less

to Austria Hungary another significant

Victory came in November of 195 when

Serbia was finally overrun it had taken

over a year to achieve and again it was

only possible with significant German

help still with Serbia neutralized

Austria Hungary was able to free up some

of its resources to be used elsewhere

that was extremely fortunate as in 1915

Italy entered the war against Germany

and Austria Hungary Italy had actually

been allied with the Central Powers

before the war but in 1915 it switched

SES and joined the Allies Austria

Hungary had never truly trusted Italy

and therefore it already had a plan to

confronted however despite fighting

numerous battles Austria Hungary failed

to make any decisive gains and suffered

enormous casualties against Italy

Germany wasn't willing to help so

austrial Hungary was fighting alone

luckily for them the Italian Army proved

to be equally ill-prepared and

ineffective so the Italian front became

simply a bloody stalemate while it did

drain austrial hungary's resources even

further it didn't result in any serious

loss of territory or Prestige the

victories in the East against Russia

allowed for the austr Hungarian military

to recover while preparing for the

operations of

1916 its War economy also improved and

the Army went into the third year of the

war with optimism and hope however that

wasn't to last in June the Russians

launched the most successful offensive

of the whole War the brist of offensive

that proved to be the worst crisis of

the war for austral Hungary and it would

never truly recover it began on June the

4th 1916 with a massive surprise attack

against the austr hungan forces on the

Eastern Front the Russian strategy

involved well-coordinated attacks using

artillery barrages to support waves of

infantry within weeks the Russian army

had made significant gains recapturing

some of the territory loss the year

before the austro Hungarian Army

suffered huge casualties perhaps as many

as half a million men the bristle of

offensive was a turning point from then

on Austria Hungary ceased to function as

an independent military and all

operations were led by Germany in

November of 19 16 the emperor France

Joseph died which was a huge blow to

morale he had reigned for almost half a

century and helped unite the many

different ethnicities within the Empire

his successor Charles didn't Inspire the

same confidence and proved to be

unpopular with the troops by 1917

austral Hungary was on the verge of

collapse with its military in chaos its

economy in Ruins and its people starving

then in November the Communist

Bolsheviks took power in Russia

promising to pull it out of the war that

was a glimmer of hope for the Central

Powers as it meant that they could

concentrate all their forces on the

western and southern fronts however

Austria Hungary continued to struggle

against Italy they fought numerous

battles along the aono river but took

heavy casualties and gained little they

did actually have a big victory in

November at the Battle of capara

allowing them to advance 150 km into

Italian territory however they couldn't

hold on to their Gates and had to

retreat soon afterwards 1918 proved to

be the Final Chapter for the austr

Hungarian Empire by that point years of

conflicts had decimated the military

leading to a severe Manpower shortage

and a crisis of morale the political

landscape was equally dire with growing

calls for independence from various

ethnic groups the Italian front remained

stagnant and the austr Hungarian forces

continued to suffer from inadequate

supplies the spring and summer of 1918

saw the Central Powers launching several

offensives in a desperate bid to break

the stalemate

in June Austria Hungary fought in the

battle of the P River where they aimed

to seize the initiative against the

Italians however the offensive failed

miserably with heavy casualties on both

sides at that point Germany was also

facing extreme difficulties including

food shortages and rebellions inside the

country the Final Act of the war for

Austria Hungary was its defeat by the

Italians at the Battle of Victoria vetta

in November 300,000 men were captured

forcing it to give up the important

cities of trento and triest the war

finally ended with an Armistice on the

3rd of November with that the Empire

collapsed so that is what happened the

defeat of Austria Hungary and the total

collapse of the Empire now I'd like to

persuade you that Austria Hungary really

did perform badly far worse than anyone

was expecting one of the best examples

of austr hungary's poor performance was

their first encounter with Serbia right

at the start of the war on paper it

shouldn't have been too difficult for

them to Def F Serbia they had four times

as many infantry divisions 48 to

Serbia's 11 however when the two sides

met it went disastrously for Austria

Hungary they lost onethird of their

infantry and half of their artillery

after only 8 days they were forced to

abandoned The Invasion and chaotically

retreated back across the border in

total they lost 28,000 men almost twice

as many as Serbia Austria Hungary did

actually try another Invasion 2 months

later but again they failed and had to

with draw humiliated while that failure

was humiliating the defeat in galsia was

a catastrophe it was there that the

Empire had the bulk of its Army 1.2

million troops most of its Cavalry and

about 2,000 guns the Army was up against

Russian forces that were a third larger

and buckled under the pressure after

just one month the austr Hungarian

leadership ordered a general retreat in

theory they were to regroup and form a

new defensive line but the Russians

pursued aggressively and pushed them

back much much further than they had

intended that failed opening campaign

nearly annihilated the austr Hungarian

Army which lost more than a third of its

strength around 400,000 troops the chaos

of the retreat was further exacerbated

by a colera epidemic and large numbers

of men ended up dying in ditches along

the roadside total collapse was only

avoided thanks to the intervention of

the Germans even towards the end of the

war Austria Hungary was still far less

effective than it should have been for

example in 1918 Russia had pulled out of

the war so they could focus entirely on

the front against Italy Italy was also

one of the weakest participants in the

war but still Austria Hungary struggled

to secure a decisive Victory it wasn't

until 1917 and only with German

assistance that they managed to break

through and Advance into Italy even then

the commanders failed to take advantage

and Italy had time to regroup and launch

a counter offensive those are just some

of the examples where austral Hungary

performed far worse than it should have

in the words of one German Envoy the

austr Hungarian military was rotten and

decayed so the question then is why why

was Austria Hungary so ineffective in

the war well one of the biggest reasons

was that their empire was incredibly

ethnically diverse here is a map of all

the ethnicities in the Empire as you can

see there were a lot of them that was a

problem because many of those ethnic

groups weren't very committed to the

Empire some of them actually wanted it

to collapse

more than any other Nation Austria

Hungary lacked a sense of being one

nation of one people committed to the

war effort the Austrian leadership knew

that that was a problem in fact in 1895

the Austrian Prime Minister acknowledged

the Empire situation stating to the

German ambassador any war is an

impossibility for Austria if we are

attacked we must accept the situation

with God's hell a multinational State

cannot fight a war without damage the

multi-ethnic nature of the empire was

reflected in its military of every 100

soldiers in the Army there were 25

Germans 23 hungarians 13 Czechs nine

serbs or croats eight poles and a

handful of ruines Romanians slovaks

slovin and one Italian as you can

imagine that was very counterproductive

to the Austrian war effort and one of

the biggest problems that it caused was

that all those ethnic groups spoke

different languages during the war the

austr Hungarian military was actually

trying to operate in 10 different

languages as you can imagine that did

not work very well in theory the general

command language was German and the

units were to operate in whatever

languages were spoken by their men in

many cases a single unit would have to

operate in multiple languages if at

least 20% of a unit spoke a particular

language it became officially recognized

within the regiment that made it

extremely difficult for soldiers to

become officers when they didn't know at

least two languages and it proved

catastrophic when there was an urgent

need for new commanders those new

officers had very little time to learn

the languages which as you can imagine

resulted in utter chaos having to

operate in multiple languages was far

from the only issue with having such a

multiethnic Empire another was the fact

that many of those ethnic groups weren't

really committed to Austria Hungary some

of them even wanted the Empire to be

defeated so that they would be able to

get independence nationalist sentiment

had been a problem in the austr

Hungarian military for decades for

example Czech nationalists had long been

encouraging soldiers to respond with the

Czech Z during the register instead of

the German hire Austrian generals had

long suspected that their troops

wouldn't be loyal particularly if they

were made to fight other slaves such as

Russians or serbs when the war did

finally break out they were proven

correct the Czech regiments were

particularly disobedient and had a high

rate of desertion for example at the

first battle with Serbia they were the

first to be routed by the Serbian

Advance later in 1915 many regiments

surrendered to the Russians without even

fighting perhaps the best example was

when some disaffected Czech regiments

left the front wearing the Czech

national colors in their caps and waving

flags which said we are Marching against

the Russians and we do not know why

another major problem with being so

multiethnic was that the different parts

of the Empire had very different degrees

of development and education while parts

of Austria and Hungary were as advanced

as any region in Europe vast areas

particular particularly in Rural galsia

and Dalmatia remained entrenched in near

medieval conditions that meant that many

recruits arrived for basic training

illiterate and lacking basic skills

necessary for military life they were in

the words of one historian utterly alien

to the world of discipline timetable and

hygiene there was actually a joke that

Galician peasants made the world's best

troops but first needed three years of

training to become human and another

five to become

soldiers so the multiethnic nature of

the army was a big problem for Austria

Hungary but it was far from the only

issue in fact the ethnic divisions might

have been less of a problem if it

weren't for the poor leadership at all

levels of the military at the top the

Army's command structure was uniquely

dysfunctional because it essentially

served two separate governments Austria

and Hungary functioned as distinct

states with their Capitals in Vienna and

Budapest but under one Monarch in Vienna

that Arrangement led to something of a

power struggle with the hungarians

always pushing for more influence the

military became a Battleground for that

struggle while there was one joint Army

there was also two much smaller armies

Austria's territory Army and hungary's

Home Defense guard while the austrians

saw the smaller forces as supplementary

to the common army the hungarians viewed

their defense guard as independent

existing only to defend Hungary Budapest

was therefore suspicious of any

enlargement or strengthening of the main

Army always pushing for more money to be

spent on their hom guard that made

coordinating resources and deployments

nearly impossible with catastrophic

results once the War Began those

structural weaknesses were worsened by

the incompetence of the leadership a

good example is a disastrous decision

made by field Marshall France Conrad

right at the beginning of the war in a

slightly crazy plan he deployed his best

unit the second Army to the Serbian

front but with the intention to withdraw

it after 3 weeks and send it to the east

to face the Russians Conrad believed

that that would be enough time to defeat

Serbia and that Russia's vast Army would

be slow to mobilize however he was wrong

on both counts the Serbian Army resisted

fiercely and Russia mobilized much

faster than anticipated in the end the

maneuver cost a huge number of men and

achieved nothing to quote Winston

Churchill the second Army left P before

it could win him a victory it returned

to Conrad to participate in his defeat

as you can see the commanders were

struggling with how to manage a

two-front war another good example was

during the Brussel offensive 2 years

later Conrad thought that the front

against Russia was Secure so he

redirected crucial resources to the

front against Italy however he

completely misjudged the situation in

the East the front wasn't secure and

Russia launched a huge offensive and

took a lot of territory one of the

reasons that austal hungary's leadership

was so bad was actually because of the

interference of Germany for example

Austria Hungary went on the offensive

against Russia in 1914 because Germany

told it to in truth it would have been

better to adopt a defensive strategy

that gamble was beyond the scope of

Austria Hungary and led to enormous

losses even though Austria Hungary had

done what Germany told them to they were

treated with contempt and sidelined in

key strategic decisions for example

during the Galan of offensive in 1915

the Germans launched the operation

without consulting the austrians despite

the fact that much of the fighting was

going to take place on austr hungar Ian

soil another great example was at the

end of the war when Germany demanded

that Austria Hungary attack Italy even

though it knew that it wouldn't be

successful Germany was effectively

sacrificing Austria Hungary to give

itself a slightly better chance of

winning the war with Austria Hungary

drained and demoralized it reluctantly

complied by that point it was

essentially just following German orders

with no ability to function

independently while leadership at the

highest level was extremely poor the

lower levels were no better a good

example comes from the fight against

Serbia at the beginning of the war the

invading Austrian Army had to March

through rough mountainous terrain that

hindered Logistics and favored The

Defenders the Austrian officers were

seemingly oblivious to that and kept

launching Reckless attacks without

adequate planning or reconnaissance most

of the soldiers sent barely had any

training and were entering combat with

insufficient ammunition or artillery

support when the soldiers performed

badly the officers actually blamed them

particular particularly those of ethnic

minority groups such as the Czechs for

example after the initial defeat against

the serbs the officers accused the Czech

troops of cowardice and disloyalty

further demoralizing them one of the

reasons that the officers were so bad is

that many of them were totally

unqualified to have their positions that

was because Austria Hungary lost an

astonishing 80% of its offices in the

first year of the war and so they had to

be quickly replaced by unsuitable men in

the words of one German Commander many

of Austra hungary's officers were not

suitable for a military career overall

Austrian command was extremely poor

throughout the war from top to bottom

they were overconfident indecisive and

slow to learn another major problem for

the austr Hungarian military was that it

faced a severe shortage of money

Manpower and Equipment they spent far

less on defense than any other major

European power less than a third of what

other European powers are spending even

Italy spent more that underfunding

reduced conscription which left the

Empire lagging behind other nations in

terms of Manpower each year only around

130,000 new recruits joined the military

despite the Empire's population of 52

million even then many conscripts had to

be discharged a year early due to

financial constraints that meant that

although Austria hungary's population

grew by over 20% from 1890 to 1910 the

number of troops remained the same the

austr Hungarian Army also faced severe

shortages in b basic equipment for its

Soldiers by 1918 the Army could barely

Supply each soldier with more than a

single pair of shoes on the freezing

Alpine front many soldiers had to fight

in inadequate or worn out Footwear Food

Supplies were similarly dire with some

Frontline soldiers weighing as little as

55 kg the men had to survive on Mega

rations of cornbread boiled vegetables

and just 200 g of meat per week clothing

and Equipment were equally scarce with

soldiers often able to replace their

tattered uniforms essential items like

decent boots or underwear became

luxuries the situation was equally bad

when it came to Weaponry particularly

artillery many of Austria hungary's guns

were extremely outdated and vastly inor

to Russian Artillery they did have one

modern artillery piece but only had 24

of them because of budget limitations an

even bigger problem was the lack of

ammunition in the words of Conrad the

chief of staff the present condition of

our army already has an appearance of

permanent limitation of armament for

example in December of 1914 they

produced only 116,000 shells about 10%

of the 1 million that they needed per

month divisions had to rush their

musicians to avoid being left with

nothing things did get better as the war

went on but they still lagged far behind

the other powers in 1916 artillery shell

production reached just under 1 million

per month while Germany was producing 7

million and Russia was producing

formally Austria Hungary also lagged

behind in producing heavy guns mortars

and even basic supplies like barbed wire

rifle production plummeted from 100,000

units per month in early 1917 to fewer

than 10,000 by February of 19180 the

army became increasingly reliant on

Germany for essential Resources by mid

1916 half the helmets used by austrial

Hungary came from Germany as did much of

the cloth for new uniforms the situation

was also very bad when it came to

another key technological innovation of

the war aeroplanes Austria Hungary did

have an Air Force but like the rest of

its military it suffered from a lack of

resources here is a chart showing

aircraft production by the major powers

during the war as you can see Austria

Hungary was the second worst only

slightly better than Russia perhaps the

most glaring example of Austria

hungary's lack of equipment was that

they never produced a single tank

instead they continued to use Cavalry

even though machine guns and artillery

had rendered it nearly obsolete when

they faced tanks themselves while

fighting in Italy they struggled to find

a way to combat them they produced very

few anti-tank weapons and had to resort

to passive measures like digging tank

traps and ditches overall austrial

Hungary didn't produce anywhere near

enough equipment during the war one of

the biggest reasons for that is that

they had a severe shortage of raw

materials a good example is copper

before the war the Empire produced only

around 10% of the copper that it needed

the rest was imported however once the

War Began supply lines were disrupted

and imports collapsed by 1917 austrial

hungry was getting only a third of the

copper that it needed in desperation the

authorities seized Copper from breweries

electrical supplies and even melted down

Church belts copper wasn't the only

material and sort Supply there was also

a lack of Steel that was in large part

because Steel Workers weren't exempt

from conscription they were sent to the

front in 1914 about a third thir of

Steel Workers were drafted into the army

leading to a 70% drop in production

while output did recover somewhat in

1915 the damage had been done and many

factories had closed by 1917 austrial

Hungary was relying heavily on steel

imports from Germany and Sweden a big

part of the reason that production was

so bad was because the railway system

was overwhelmed again that was in part

because a lot of the Railway workers had

been sent to the front it was also

because thousands of freight cars had

been lost in early battles and the lack

of steel made it impossible to replace

them even for the trains that were

functional there wasn't enough coal to

run them by 1918 the rail system was

near and collapse it was just one of

many examples of the Empire's total

disintegration one final reason for

austrial hungary's poor performance in

the war was the social unrest in the

population civilian unrests grew as

shortages made life unlivable and people

lost the will to fight the war in

January of 1918 anti-war strike strikes

broke out driven by hunger and poor

living conditions in cities like Vienna

and Prague workers protested for better

rations and pay and those strikes began

to expose deep cracks between the ruling

Elite and the people eventually that

civilian unrest spread to the military

on February the 1st 1918 a mutiny broke

out at the kataro naval base in modern

day Montenegro desertions soon followed

with a 100,000 soldiers abandoning their

posts by the summer many of those

deserters formed armed bands known as

green ceris that roamed the forests and

exacerbated the Empire's internal

collapse the reason that there was so

much social unrest was because life of

the civilian population was unbearable

by mid 1918 the entire Empire was in

profound economic crisis with barely

enough food to feed the population

before the war austrial Hungary had been

largely self-sufficient in food but by

196 even wealthy austrians were relying

on German food Aid that was due to the

Russian invasion of the the east in 1914

which had devastated key agricultural

regions those regions had once supplied

a third of Austria's meat and nearly

half of its wheat and potatoes by the

end of the war Vienna's War kitchens fed

over 150,000 people daily about 1/5th of

the City's population the social unrest

was pivotal in the eventual

disintegration of the Empire and its

military nationalist movements search

and the different ethnic groups saw

their chance for independence by October

of 1918 several National councils had

declared independence and the Imperial

government was powerless to stop them

the collapse of the Empire is best

summed up by a quote from the chief of

staff of the military the empress Zeta

of borbon Palmer asked him how many

troops could protect the emperor he

replied simply not a single Battalion

your

majesty for