# 38

                         MADE IN GERMANY

 NOTE: This 1896 letter is fluent in the speech of that time period. The writer wants to point out how important Germany has become to the world economy.

 

You will find that the material, of some of your own clothes, was probably woven in Germany.
Still more probable are German importations of all sorts.
Some of the magnificent mantles and jackets that maids wear on their Sundays out are German-made and German sold.

Toys, the dolls, and the fairy books which your children maltreat in the nursery are made in Germany.
The material of your favorite (patriotic) newspaper are prepared in Germany.

The fateful mark will greet you at every turn, from the piano in
your drawing-room to the mug on your kitchen dresser, emblazoned
though it be, with the legend: "A Present from London".
Descend to your domestic depths,  and you shall find your very
drain-pipes German made.
You pick out of the fire place grate the paper wrappings from a
book consignment, and they also are " Made in Germany."
You stuff them into the fire, and reflect that the poker in your
hand was forged in Germany.
As you rise from your hearthrug you knock over an ornament
on your mantle-piece; picking up the pieces you read, on the bit
that formed the base, " Manufactured in Germany."

And you jot your dismal reflections down with a pencil that
was made in Germany.
At midnight your wife comes home from an opera which was
made in Germany, has been here enacted by singers, conductor
and players made in Germany, with the aid of instruments and
sheets of music made in Germany.
You go to bed, and glare wrathfully at a text on the wall; it is
illuminated with an English village church, and it was
"Printed in Germany."

If you are imaginative and dyspeptic, you drop off to sleep only
to dream that St. Peter (with a duly stamped halo round his head
and a bunch of keys from the Rhineland) has refused you admission
into Paradise, because you bear not the Mark of the Beast upon your
forehead, and are not of German make.
But you console yourself with the thought that it was only a Bierhaus
Paradise any way ; and you are awakened in the morning by the
sonorous brass of a German band.

Is this picture exaggerated ?
Bear with me, while I tabulate a few figures from the Official
Returns of Her Majesty's Custom House, where, at any rate,
fancy and exaggeration have no play.

In 1895 Germany sent us linen manufactures to the value of
£91,257 ; cotton manufactures to the value of £536,471 ;
embroidery and needlework to the value of £11,309;
leather gloves to the value of £27,934 (six times the amount
imported six years earlier) ; and woolen manufactures to the
value of £1,016,694.

Despite the exceeding cheapness of toys, the value of
German-made playthings for English nurseries amounted,
in 1895, to £459,944.
In the same year Germany sent us books to the value of £37,218,
and paper to the value of £586,835. For musical instruments we
paid her as much as £563,018; for china and earthenware £216,876;
for prints, engravings, and photographs, £111,825.

This recital of the moneys which in one year have come out of
John Bull's pocket for the purchase of his German-made house-
hold goods is, I submit disproof enough of any charge of
alarmism.
For these articles, it must be remembered, are not like oranges and
guano.
They are not products which we must either import or lack :
 — they all belong to the category of English manufactures, the
most important of them, indeed, being articles in the preparation of
which Great Britain is held pre-eminent.
The total value of manufactured goods imported into the United
Kingdom by Germany rose from £16,629,987 in 1883 to £21,632,614
in 1893 : an increase of 30.08 percent.

A few figures more.
I said that a little while since Germany was a large importer of manufactures needed for her own consumption.
Take as a first example, the iron and steel industries.
In 1878 the make of pig-iron in Germany was 2,147,000 tons;
in 1895 it was 5,788,000 tons.
Germany made in 1878: 492,512 tons of steel; in 1894
3,617,000 tons.

Her import and export statistics tell the same tale.
In 1880 her iron exports only totaled 1,301,000
tons; in 1894; they stood at 2,008,000 tons. (In the same
period England's exports of iron had decreased.)
In the matter of cottons Germany exported 14,666,100 kilos in 1883.
In 1893: 33,350,800 kilos; an increase of more than
127 per cent. (England's increase in the same period was only
about 21 per cent.)
Shipping returns are a pretty sure test of commercial prosperity:
it is therefore significant that in 1893 the total tonnage of the
sea-going ships which touched at Hamburg for the first time left
Liverpool behind, and in 1894 Hamburg cut her record of the year
before.

E.E. Williams "Made in Germany." 1896

#37

The Rapid Growth of Germany, 1872-1914

The growth of pig iron output was dramatic.
Britain went from 1.3 million tons in 1840 to 6.7 million in 1870 and 10.4 in 1913.
The US started behind, but grew faster, with .32 million tons in 1870, 1,74 million in 1870, and 31.5 in 1913.
Germany went from .19 million tons in 1850 to 1.56 in 1871 and 19.3 in 1913.
France, Belgium, Austria-Hungary, and Russia, combined, went from 2.2 million tons in 1870 to 14.1 million tons in 1913, on the eve of the World War. 

Industrial Revolution

 

 

Before 1850 Germany lagged behind the leaders in industrial development, Britain, France and Belgium.

By midcentury, however, the German states were catching up, and by 1900 Germany was a world leader in industrialization, along with Britain and the United States.

In 1800, Germany's social structure was poorly suited to any kind of social or industrial development.
Domination by France during the era of the French Revolution (1790s to 1815), produced important institutional reforms, including the abolition of feudal restrictions on the sale of large landed estates, the reduction of the power of the guilds in the cities, and the introduction of a new, more efficient commercial law.

Nevertheless, traditionalism remained strong in most of Germany.
 Until midcentury, the guilds, the landed aristocracy, the churches, and the government bureaucracies had so many rules and restrictions that entrepreneurship was held in low esteem, and given little opportunity to develop.
From the 1830s and 1840s, Prussia, Saxony, and other states reorganized agriculture, introducing sugar beets, turnips, and potatoes, yielding a higher level of food production that enabled a surplus rural population to move to industrial areas.
The beginnings of the industrial revolution in Germany came in the textile industry, and was facilitated by eliminating tariff barriers through the Zollverein, starting in 1834.
The takeoff stage of economic development came with the railroad revolution in the 1840s, which opened up new markets for local products, created a pool of middle manager, increased the demand for engineers, architects and skilled machinists and stimulated investments in coal and iron.

The political decisions about the economy of Prussia (and after 1871 all Germany) were largely controlled by a coalition of "rye and iron", that is the Junker landowners of the east and the heavy industry of the west.

 

 

Regions

 

 

 

The north German states were for the most part richer in natural resources than the southern states.
They had vast agricultural tracts from Schleswig-Holstein in the west through Prussia in the east.
They also had coal and iron in the Ruhr Valley.

Through the practice of primogeniture, widely followed in northern Germany, large estates and fortunes grew.
So did close relations between their owners and local as well as national governments.

The south German states were relatively poor in natural resources and those Germans therefore engaged more often in small economic enterprises.
They also had no primogeniture rule but subdivided the land among several offspring, leading those offspring to remain in their native towns but not fully able to support themselves from their small parcels of land.
The south German states, therefore, fostered cottage industries, crafts, and a more independent and self-reliant spirit less closely linked to the government.

Coal

 

 

 

Historical coalfields of Western Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and Northern France

The first important mines appeared in the 1750s, in the valleys of the rivers Ruhr, Inde and Wurm where coal seams outcropped and horizontal mining was possible.
In 1782 the Krupp family began operations near Essen.
After 1815 entrepreneurs in the Ruhr Area, which then became part of Prussia took advantage of the tariff zone (Zollverein) to open new mines and associated iron smelters.

New railroads were built by British engineers around 1850.
 Numerous small industrial centres sprang up, focused on ironworks, using local coal.
The iron and steel works typically bought mines, and erected coking ovens to supply their own requirements in coke and gas.
 These integrated coal-iron firms ("Huettenzechen") became numerous after 1854; after 1900 they became mixed firms called "Konzern.
"
The average output of a mine in 1850 was about 8,500 short tons; its employment about 64.
By 1900, the average mine's output had risen to 280,000 and the employment to about 1,400.
Total Ruhr coal output rose from 2.0 million short tons in 1850 to 22 in 1880, 60 in 1900, and 114 in 1913, on the verge of war.
In 1932 output was down to 73 million short tons, growing to 130 in 1940. Output peaked in 1957 (at 123 million), declining to 78 million short tons in 1974.
End of 2010 five coal mines were producing in Germany.

The miners in the Ruhr region were divided by ethnicity (with Germans and Poles) and religion (Protestants and Catholics).
Mobility in and out of the mining camps to nearby industrial areas was high. The miners split into several unions, with an affiliation to a political party. As a result the socialist union (affiliated with the Social Democratic Party) competed with Catholic and Communist unions until 1933, when the Nazis took over all of them.
After 1945 the socialists came to the fore.

 

 

Banks and Cartels

 

 

 

German banks played central roles in financing German industry.
Different banks formed cartels in different industries.
Cartel contracts were accepted as legal and binding by German courts although they were held to be illegal in Britain and the United States.

The process of cartelization began slowly, but the cartel movement took hold after 1873 in the economic depression that followed the post unification speculative bubble.
It began in heavy industry and spread throughout other industries.
 By 1900 there were 275 cartels in operation; by 1908, over 500.
By some estimates, different cartel arrangements may have numbered in the thousands at different times, but many German companies stayed outside the cartels because they did not welcome the restrictions that membership imposed.

The government played a powerful role in the industrialization of the German Empire founded by Otto von Bismarck in 1871 during a period known as the Second Industrial Revolution.
It supported not only heavy industry but also crafts and trades because it wanted to maintain prosperity in all parts of the empire.
Even where the national government did not act, the highly autonomous regional and local governments supported their own industries.
Each state tried to be as self-sufficient as possible.

Despite the several ups and downs of prosperity and depression that marked the first decades of the German Empire, the ultimate wealth of the empire proved immense.
German aristocrats, landowners, bankers, and producers created what might be termed the first German economic miracle, the turn-of-the-century surge in German industry and commerce during which bankers, industrialists, mercantilists, the military, and the monarchy joined forces.

Class and the Welfare State

 

 

 

 

Germany's middle class, based in the cities, grew exponentially, but it never gained the political power it had in France, Britain or the United States.

The Association of German Women's Organizations (BDF) was established in 1894 to encompass the proliferating women's organizations that had sprung up since the 1860s.
From the beginning the BDF was a bourgeois organization, its members working toward equality with men in such areas as education, financial opportunities, and political life.
Working-class women were not welcome; they were organized by the Socialists.

Bismarck built on a tradition of welfare programs in Prussia and Saxony that began as early as in the 1840s.
In the 1880s he introduced old age pensions, accident insurance, medical care and unemployment insurance that formed the basis of the modern European welfare state.
His paternalistic programs won the support of German industry because its goals were to win the support of the working classes for the Empire and reduce the outflow of immigrants to America, where wages were higher, but welfare did not exist.

Bismarck further won the support of both industry and skilled workers by his high tariff policies, which protected profits and wages from American competition, although they alienated the liberal intellectuals who wanted free trade.

 

 

 

Railways

 

Political disunity of three dozen states and a pervasive conservatism made it difficult to build railways in the 1830s.
However, by the 1840s, trunk lines did link the major cities; each German state was responsible for the lines within its own borders.

Economist Friedrich List summed up the advantages to be derived from the development of the railway system in 1841:

• as a means of national defense, it facilitates the concentration, distribution and direction of the army.
• It is a means to the improvement of the culture of the nation…. It brings talent, knowledge and skill of every kind readily to market.
• It secures the community against dearth and famine, and against excessive fluctuation in the prices of the necessaries of life.
• It promotes the spirit of the nation, as it has a tendency to destroy the Philistine spirit arising from isolation and provincial prejudice and vanity. It binds nations by ligaments, and promotes an interchange of food and of commodities, thus making it feel to be a unit. The iron rails become a nerve system, which, on the one hand, strengthens public opinion, and, on the other hand, strengthens the power of the state for police and governmental purposes.

Lacking a technological base at first, the Germans imported their engineering and hardware from Britain, but quickly learned the skills needed to operate and expand the railways.
In many cities, the new railway shops were the centres of technological awareness and training, so that by 1850, Germany was self-sufficient in meeting the demands of railroad construction, and the railways were a major impetus for the growth of the new steel industry.
Observers found that even as late as 1890, their engineering was inferior to Britain’s.

However, German unification in 1870 stimulated consolidation, nationalization into state-owned companies, and further rapid growth.

 Unlike the situation in France, the goal was support of industrialization, and so heavy lines crisscrossed the Ruhr and other industrial districts, and provided good connections to the major ports of Hamburg and Bremen.

By 1880, Germany had 9,400 locomotives pulling 43,000 passengers and 30,000 tons of freight, and pulled ahead of France.

Agriculture

Perkins (1981) argues that more important than Bismarck's new tariff on imported grain was the introduction of the sugar beet as a primary crop. Farmers quickly abandoned traditional, inefficient practices for modern new methods, including use of new fertilizers and new tools.
The knowledge and tools gained from the intensive farming of sugar and other root crops made Germany the most efficient agricultural producer in Europe by 1914.
Even so farms were small in size, and women did much of the field work. An unintended consequence was the increased dependence on migratory, especially foreign, labor.

 

 

 

Chemicals

The BASF-chemical factories in Ludwigshafen, Germany, 1881

The economy continued to industrialize and urbanize, with heavy industry (coal and steel especially) becoming important in the Ruhr, and manufacturing growing in the cities, the Ruhr, and Silesia.

Based on its leadership in chemical research in the universities and industrial laboratories, Germany became dominant in the world's chemical industry in the late 19th century.

Big businesses such as BASF and Bayer led the way in their production and distribution of artificial dyes and pharmaceuticals during the Wilhelmine era, leading to the German monopolisation of the global chemicals market at 90 percent of the entire share of international volumes of trade in chemical products by 1914.

 

Steel

 

 

Germany became Europe's leading steel-producing nations in the late 19th century, thanks in large part to the protection from American and British competition afforded by tariffs and cartels.
The leading firm was "Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp" run by the Krupp family The "German Steel Federation" was established in 1874.

 

 

20th century

The merger of four major firms into the Vereinigte Stahlwerke (United Steel Works) in 1926 was modeled on the U.S. Steel corporation in the U.S. The goal was to move beyond the limitations of the old cartel system by incorporating advances simultaneously inside a single corporation.
The new company emphasized rationalization of management structures and modernization of the technology; it employed a multi-divisional structure and used return on investment as its measure of success.

By 1913 American and German exports dominated the world steel market, as Britain slipped to third place.

In machinery, iron and steel and other industries, German firms avoided cut-throat competition and instead relied on trade associations.

Germany was a world leader because of its prevailing "corporatist mentality", its strong bureaucratic tradition, and the encouragement of the government.
These associations regulated competition and allowed small firms to function in the shadow of much larger companies.

Thanks to wiki!

#36

Algeciras Conference

 

          

To ratify European intervention in Morocco following the First Moroccan Crisis
El-Hadj el-Mokri, Moroccan Ambassador to Spain, signs the treaty at the Algeciras Conference 7 April, 1906.
Signed	7 April 1906
Location	Algeciras, Spain
Sealed	18 June 1906
Signatories	Germany  Austria-Hungary  Great Britain  France  Russian Empire  Spain  United States  Italy  Morocco  Netherlands  Sweden  Portugal  Belgium
Languages	French, English and Spanish

 

 

The Algeciras Conference of 1906 took place in Algeciras, Spain, and lasted from 16 January to 7 April.

The purpose of the conference was to find a solution to the First Moroccan Crisis of 1905 between France and the German Empire, which arose as Germany attempted to prevent France from establishing a protectorate over Morocco in what was known as the Tangier Crisis.

 

 

Background

 

 

Britain and France's Entente Cordiale of 1904 had defined diplomatic cooperation between them and recognized British authority over Egypt and French control in Morocco (with some Spanish concessions).

Germany saw this development putting an end to the rivalry between Britain and France, which would further isolate Germany in European affairs.

 

On 31 March 1905, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany visited Morocco's capital, Tangier, and delivered a sabre-rattling speech calling for an international conference to ensure Morocco's independence.

 

German diplomats believed they could convince U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt to challenge French intervention in Morocco.

Roosevelt — at that time mediating the Russo-Japanese War, and aware of the U.S. Senate's stance to avoid involvement in European affairs — was disinclined to become involved in the Moroccan crisis.

However, with the situation in June 1905 worsening to the point of war between Germany and France (and possibly Britain), in July Roosevelt persuaded the French to attend a January peace conference in Algeciras.

Germany had hoped that the Conference would isolate Great Britain.

 

Wilhelm II had thought he could form an alliance with France, if most of their demands were met.

He also thought that better relations with Russia were possible, due to the Revolution of 1905 and Russo-Japanese War putting them in a weak, ally-hungry position.

 

However, due to Germany being somewhat excluded in the initial decisions, and Britain's Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey showing Britain's support of France in the Conference via meetings with French ambassador Jules Cambon, the Entente Cordiale actually grew stronger.

 

Following their failed attempt to isolate Britain, Germany furthered the growing Anglo-German Naval Race with passage of the Third Naval Law in 1906.

 

The overall contribution towards the outbreak of the First World War can then seen to be the separation of Germany and her allies (Triple Alliance) and Britain, France and Russia, who in the following year would become the Triple Entente.

 The next major event to thicken the tension between these two would be the Bosnian Crisis.
 

 

Outcome

 

 

 

The final Act of the conference of Algeciras, signed on 7 April 1906, covered the organization of Morocco's police and customs, regulations concerning the repression of the smuggling of armaments, and concessions to the European bankers from a newly formed State Bank of Morocco, issuing banknotes backed by gold, with a 40-year term.

 

The new state bank was to act as Morocco's Central Bank, with a strict cap on the spending of the Sherifian Empire, and administrators appointed by the national banks which guaranteed the loans: the German Empire, United Kingdom, France and Spain.

Spanish coinage continued to circulate.

 

The right of Europeans to own land was established, whilst taxes were to be levied towards public works.

 

The Sultan of Morocco retained control of a police force in the six port cities, which was to be composed entirely of Moroccan Muslims (budgeted at an average salary of a mere 1000 pesetas a year) — but now to be instructed by French and Spanish officers, who would oversee the paymaster (the Amin), regulate discipline, and could be recalled and replaced by their governments.

The Inspector-General in charge would be Swiss and reside in Tangiers.

 

At the last moment, the Moroccan delegates found that they were unable to sign the final Act, but a decree of Sultan Abdelaziz of Morocco on 18 June finally ratified it.

 

 

Attendees at the Conference

 

 

 

• Germany - Joseph de Radowitz and Christian, Count of Tattenbach
• Austro-Hungary - Rudolph, Count of Welsersheimb and Leopold, Count Bolesta-Koziebrodzki
• Belgium - Maurice, Baron Joostens and Conrad, Count of Buisseret Steenbecque
• Spain - Don Juan Perez-Caballero y Ferrer
• US - Henry White and Samuel R Gummere
• France - Paul Révoil and Eugène Regnault
• Great Britain - Arthur Nicolson
• Italy - Emilio, Marquis Visconti Venosta and Giulio Malmusi
• Morocco - El Hadj Mohammed Ben-el Arbi Ettorres and El Hadj Mohammed Ben Abdesselam El Mokri
• Netherlands - Jonkheer Hannibal Testa
• Portugal - Anthony, Count of Tovar and Francis Robert, Count of Martens Ferrao
• Russia - Arthur, Count Cassini and Basile de Bacheracht
• Sweden - Robert Sager

#35

The Rise of Germany

and

the Fall of Britain

 

The next several chapters of my blog will contain several articles: some with a mixture of facts gleaned from European events prior to the start of the Great War and some with fictional interpretations that  "read between the lines". 

 

Great Britain, the inventor and exporter of the Industrial Revolutions that have created the modern world, too soon fell behind competing nations. First, it lost its lead in cotton, then in steel, and finally in electrical and chemical technologies. Acccording to Eric Hobsbawm:

The saddest case was perhaps that of the iron and

steel industry, for we see it losing pre-eminence at the

very moment when its role in the British economy was

greatest, and its dominance in the world most

unquestioned. Every major innovation in the manufacture

of steel came from Great Britain or was developed in

Britain: Bessener's converter (1856), which first made the

mass-production of steel possible, the Siemens-Martin

open-hearth firnace (1867), which greatly increased

productivity, and the Gilchrist-Thomas basic process

(1877-8), which made it possible to use and enire new range

of ores for steel manufacture. Yet, with the exception of

the converter, British industry was slow to apply the

new methods -- Gilchrist-Thomas benefited the Germans

and the French far more than his countrymen -- and they

utterly failed to keep up with subsequent developments. Not

only did British production fall behind that of Germany and

the USA in the early 1890s, but also British productivity. By

1910 the USA produced almost twice as much steel alone as

the total steel production of Great Britain.

The same sad decline in leadership observed in textiles and steel repeated itself later in chemical and electrical industries.

Historians have long debated the puzzling question why Victorian Britain, the inventor and pioneer of the Industrial Revolution, so quickly fell behind other nations. As the British economic historian Hobsbawn states the problem:

It was no doubt inevitable that British pioneer industries

should lose ground relatively as the rest of the

world industrialized, and that their rate of expansion

should decline; but this purely statistical phenomenon need

not have been accompanied by a genuine loss of impetus

and efficiency. Still less was it predetermined that Britain

should fail in industries in which she started with the

arguable disadvantages neither of the older pioneer, or of

the late-comer, but substantially at the same time and point

as the rest.

Hobsbawm and others have offered several interlocking explanations, one of which involves the fundamentally anti-technological bias of British education, a bias that derives from the influence of the most socially prestigious Public Schools in England. According to this convincing explanation, the education provided by the institutions that produced the majority of Great Britain's political and governmental leaders was both anti-technological and anti-scientific. Since it set standards for state-sponsored secondary education, it did terrible damage to both the country's education and its economy.

A second related explanation for economic decline appears in the fact that, proportionate to its population, England produced so many fewer educated people than either Europe or North America. A third explanation: the pioneers who had done so well with first-generation approaches, technology, and general attitudes saw little need to change to improve until too late. Fourth, Hobsbawn claims that since the British middle class made money so easily in the first years of the Industrial Revolution, they simply did not work as hard as their rivals in other countries.

Hobsbawn's most contentious (if appealing) explanation involves England's dependence upon her colonies. According to him, British industry survived economic downturns, including several depressions, and well as economic competition by selling to the captive markets provided by its colonies. The very factor, in other words, that allowed England initially to take the lead and then prosper in hard times eventually produced noncompetitve attitudes and practices that ended up creating stagnation and unemployment.

George P. Landow, author.

Reader: What do you think Great Britain felt about Germany’s amazing economic growth?

 

 

 

 

#34

 August 2014.

 

 

Dear Book  Lovers,

 

 

OK!  Pour yourself a glass of sherry and fall into your favorite overstuffed sofa.

 

 

We are nearing the 100th anniversary of the onset of World War One and you need to be brought up to speed again. To show off your knowledge of the Great War, it’s time to renew your acquaintance with Tsar Nicholas II, King George V, Emperor Franz Josef, and Kaiser Wilhelm II. You have probably struggled through “War and Peace” by Tolstoy. My novel spans 100 years and brings readers into the 20th Century.

 

Fortunately, my book provides you with a host of sentiments from rage to tears. Sadly, our ancestors suffered terribly during the four year war. Oh, there is plenty of passion, laughter and idiocy to make your reading evenings most pleasant. As a counseling psychologist, I have used the technique of “reading between the lines.” Truth comes in many forms.

 

Be the first on your block to speak a bit of French, German, Russian, and Dutch. So clean your eye glasses and get to reading!

 

My novel is titled “In the Service of God and Evil; a Psychological Study of the Rise and Fall of Kaiser Wilhelm II.” The topic has NEVER BEEN DETAILED before in book form. It is listed with Amazon and Barnes & Noble books. Search under books: Donald Britton Conrad. You have a choice of Nook or Kindle or the two volume novel.

 

Happy reading! And watch the Sherry!

 

Who is Donald Britton Conrad? He has been a member of the Great War Society since 1994. He has a Bachelor of Science in Social Science, Master of Arts in History, Master of Science in Counseling Psychology, and is a Fellow of the British Gemmological Society (ret). He published Psychology of Wartime Photographic Propaganda, Location of American Military Monuments WWI & WWII, The Location of American Military Camps and Forts, The Battle for Corn Willy Hill 79th Division, and 16 weekly stories about Yanks in France. He is an Honorary Member of American Veterans of World War I.  He served in the Army during the Korean Conflict. He is an active member of the American Legion.

 

Born 10 years after the Armistice, Conrad knew many “Doughboys” and heard their stories. He has four paintings hung in the American Legion Post 3, Military Museum, 430 North Main Street, Greenville, S. C. 29601-2027: Generals Pershing, Foch, and Haig, and a major battle scene. He has set up several library exhibits on Americans forces in France.

 

He is on Twitter and publishes a detailed blog of WWI.

http://www.donaldbrittonconrad.com/

https://twitter.com/DonaldConrad

http://donaldbrittonconradwwi.blogspot.com/

 

 

Thank you for reading a bit of my braggadocio.

 

 

#33

 

 

History of Austria-Hungary

 

Austria-Hungary (also known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the Dual Monarchy) was a constitutional union of the Empire of Austria and the Apostolic Kingdom of Hungary that existed from 1867 to 1918, when it collapsed as a result of defeat in World War I. The union was a result of the Compromise of 1867. It was ruled by the House of Habsburg, constituting the last phase in the constitutional evolution of the Habsburg Monarchy. The Austrian and the Hungarian states were co-equal within the Empire. The Compromise required regular renewal, as did the customs union between the two halves of the Empire. Foreign affairs and the military fell under common (joint) control, but all other government faculties were divided between the respective states.

Austria-Hungary was a multinational realm and one of the world's great powers. Austria-Hungary was geographically the second largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire, at 621,538 square kilometres (239,977 sq mi), and the third most populous (after Russia and the German Empire). The Empire built up the fourth largest machine building industry of the world, after the United States, Germany and Britain.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire consisted of two monarchies (Austria and Hungary) and one autonomous country under the Hungarian crown: Croatia–Slavonia, which negotiated its own compromise, the Nagodba, with Hungary in 1868. Bosnia and Herzegovina was under Austro-Hungarian military and civil rule between 1878 and 1908,  when it was annexed.  Parts of the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, a province of the Ottoman Empire, were also under Austro-Hungarian military occupation during that period, but after the annexation of Bosnia the Austro-Hungarians withdrew^.

Austria-Hungary was one of the Central Powers in World War I. It was de facto dissolved by the time the military authorities signed an armistice at Villa Giusti on 3 November 1918. The Hungarian Kingdom and the Austrian Republic were de jure treated as its successors, while the independence of the West Slavs and South Slavs of the Empire as the countries of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, respectively, was also recognised by the victorious powers.

 

Franz Joseph I of Austria

Franz Joseph in c. 1898
Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary
Reign	2 December 1848 – 21 November 1916
Predecessor	Ferdinand I
Successor	Charles I
King of Lombardy–Venetia
Reign	2 December 1848 – 12 October 1866 (deposed)
Predecessor	Ferdinand I
Successor	Victor Emmanuel II
Spouse	Elisabeth of Bavaria
Issue	Archduchess Sophie Archduchess Gisela Crown Prince Rudolf Archduchess Marie Valerie
House	House of Habsburg-Lorraine
Father	Archduke Franz Karl of Austria
Mother	Princess Sophie of Bavaria
Born	(1830-08-18)18 August 1830 Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna
Died	21 November 1916(1916-11-21) (aged 86) Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna
Burial	Imperial Crypt
Signature
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I (German: Franz Joseph I., Hungarian: I. Ferenc József, Slovene: Franc Jožef I., Croatian: Franjo Josip I., 18 August 1830 – 21 November 1916) was Emperor of Austria and Apostolic King of Hungary from 1848 until his death in 1916. From 1 May 1850 until 24 August 1866 he was President of the German Confederation.

In December 1848, Emperor Ferdinand abdicated the throne as part of Ministerpräsident Felix zu Schwarzenberg's plan to end the Revolutions of 1848 in Austria, which allowed Ferdinand's nephew Franz Joseph to ascend to the throne. Largely considered to be a reactionary, Franz Joseph spent his early reign resisting constitutionalism in his domains. The Austrian Empire was forced to cede most of its claim to Lombardy–Venetia to the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia following the conclusion of the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859, and the Third Italian War of Independence in 1866. Although Franz Joseph ceded no territory to the Kingdom of Prussia after the Austrian defeat in the Austro-Prussian War, the Peace of Prague (23 August 1866) settled the German question in favour of Prussia, which prevented the unification of Germany under the House of Habsburg (Großdeutsche Lösung).

Franz Joseph was troubled by nationalism during his entire reign. He concluded the Ausgleich of 1867, which granted greater autonomy to Hungary, hence transforming the Austrian Empire into the Austro-Hungarian Empire under his dual monarchy. His domains were then ruled peacefully for the next 45 years, although Franz Joseph personally suffered the tragedies of the execution of his brother, Maximilian, the suicide of his son, Crown Prince Rudolf in 1889, and the assassination of his wife, Empress Elisabeth in 1898.

After the Austro-Prussian War, Austria-Hungary turned its attention to the Balkans, which was a hotspot of international tension due to conflicting interests with the Russian Empire. The Bosnian crisis was a result of Franz Joseph's annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908, which had been occupied by his troops since the Congress of Berlin (1878). On 28 June 1914, the assassination of the heir-presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, his nephew Archduke Franz Ferdinand, at the hands of Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist, resulted in Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against the Kingdom of Serbia, which was Russia's ally. This activated a system of alliances which resulted in World War I.

Franz Joseph died on 21 November 1916, after ruling his domains for almost 68 years. He was succeeded by his grandnephew Charles.

 

Preludes: Bosnia and Herzegovina

 

Russian Pan-Slavic organizations sent aid to the Balkan rebels and so pressured the tsar's government that Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire in 1877 in the name of protecting Orthodox Christians. Unable to mediate between the Ottoman Empire and Russia over the control of Serbia, Austria-Hungary declared neutrality when the conflict between the two powers escalated into a war. With help from Romania and Greece, Russia defeated the Ottomans and by the Treaty of San Stefano created a large pro-Russian Bulgaria. This treaty sparked an international uproar that almost resulted in a general European war. Austria-Hungary and Britain feared that an enlarged Bulgaria would become a Russian satellite that would enable the tsar to dominate the Balkans. British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli moved warships into position against Russia to halt the advance of Russian influence in the eastern Mediterranean so close to Britain's route through the Suez Canal.

Bosniaks were recruited into elite units of the Austro-Hungarian Army as early as 1879 and were commended for their bravery in service of the Austrian emperor, winning more medals than any other unit. The jaunty military march Die Bosniaken Kommen was composed in their honor by Eduard Wagnes

The Congress of Berlin rolled back the Russian victory by partitioning the large Bulgarian state that Russia had carved out of Ottoman territory and denying any part of Bulgaria full independence from the Ottomans. Austria occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina as a way of gaining clout in the Balkans. Serbia and Montenegro became fully independent. Nonetheless the Balkans remained a site of political unrest with teeming ambition for independence and great power rivalries. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878 Gyula Andrássy (Minister of Foreign Affairs) managed to force Russia to retreat from further demands in the Balkans. As a result, Greater Bulgaria was broken up and Serbian independence was guaranteed^.  In that year, with Britain's support, Austria-Hungary stationed troops in Bosnia to prevent the Russians from expanding into nearby Serbia. In another measure to keep the Russians out of the Balkans Austria-Hungary formed an alliance, the Mediterranean Entente, with Britain and Italy in 1887 and concluded mutual defence pacts with Germany in 1879 and Romania in 1883 against a possible Russian attack.  Following the Congress of Berlin the European powers attempted to guarantee stability through a complex series of alliances and treaties.

Excerpt from a 1913 Austro-Hungarian order, that banned numerous social-democratic and ethnic Serb cultural societies in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Anxious about Balkan instability and Russian aggression, and to counter French interests in Europe, Austria-Hungary forged a defensive alliance with Germany in October 1879 and in May 1882. In October 1882 Italy joined this partnership in the Triple Alliance largely because of Italy's imperial rivalries with France. Tensions between Russia and Austria-Hungary remained high so Bismarck replaced the League of the Three Emperors with the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia to keep the Habsburgs from recklessly starting a war over Pan-Slavism. Sandžak- Raška region was under Austro-Hungarian occupation between 1878 and 1909, when it was ceded to the Ottoman Empire, before being ultimately divided between kingdoms of Montenegro and Serbia.

On the heels of the Great Balkan Crisis, Austro-Hungarian forces occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina in August 1878 and the monarchy eventually annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in October 1908 as a common holding of Cis- and Transleithania under the control of the Imperial & Royal finance ministry rather than attaching it to either territorial government. This occupation was a response to Russia's advances into Bessarabia. The annexation in 1908 led some in Vienna to contemplate combining Bosnia and Herzegovina with Croatia to form a third Slavic component of the Empire. The deaths of Franz Joseph's brother, Maximilian (1867), and his only son, Rudolf made the Emperor's nephew, Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne. The Archduke was rumoured to have been an advocate for this trialism as a means to limit the power of the Hungarian aristocracy.

The Status of Bosnia-Herzegovina

 

A proclamation issued on the occasion of its annexation to the Habsburg Monarchy in 1908 promised these lands constitutional institutions, which should secure to their inhabitants full civil rights and a share in the management of their own affairs by means of a local representative assembly. In performance of this promise a constitution was promulgated in 1910. This included a Territorial Statute (Landesstatut) with the setting up of a Territorial Diet, regulations for the election and procedure of the Diet, a law of associations, a law of public meetings, and a law dealing with the district councils. According to this statute Bosnia-Herzegovina formed a single administrative territory under the responsible direction and supervision of the Ministry of Finance of the Dual Monarchy in Vienna. The administration of the country, together with the carrying out of the laws, devolved upon the Territorial Government in Sarajevo, which was subordinate and responsible to the Common Ministry of Finance. The existing judicial and administrative authorities of the Territory retained their previous organization and functions. That statute introduced the modern rights and laws in Bosnia – Herzegovina, and it guaranteed generally the civil rights of the inhabitants of the Territory, namely citizenship, personal liberty, protection by the competent judicial authorities, liberty of creed and conscience, preservation of the national individuality and language, freedom of speech, freedom of learning and education, inviolability of the domicile, secrecy of posts and telegraphs, inviolability of property, the right of petition, and finally the right of holding meetings. The Bosnian Diet (Sabor) set up consisted of a single Chamber, elected on the principle of the representation of interests. It numbered 92 members. Of these 20 consisted of representatives of all the religious confessions, the president of the Supreme Court, the president of the Chamber of Advocates, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, and the mayor of Sarajevo. In addition to these were 72 deputies, elected by three curiae or electoral groups. The first curia included the large landowners, the highest taxpayers, and people who had reached a certain standard of education without regard to the amount they paid in taxes. To the second curia belonged inhabitants of the towns not qualified to vote in the first; to the third, country dwellers disqualified in the same way. With this curial system was combined the grouping of the mandates and of the electors according to the three dominant creeds (Catholic, Serbian Orthodox, Muslim). To the adherents of other creeds the right was conceded of voting with one or other of the religious electoral bodies within the curia to which they belonged.

This picture is usually associated with the arrest of Gavrilo Princip, although some believe it depicts Ferdinand Behr, a bystander.

Sarajevo assassination

On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand visited the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. A group of six assassins (Cvjetko Popović, Gavrilo Princip, Muhamed Mehmedbašić, Nedeljko Čabrinović, Trifko Grabež, Vaso Čubrilović) from the nationalist group Mlada Bosna, supplied by the Black Hand, had gathered on the street where the Archduke's motorcade would pass. Čabrinović threw a grenade at the car, but missed. It injured some people nearby, and Franz Ferdinand's convoy could carry on. The other assassins failed to act as the cars drove past them quickly. About an hour later, when Franz Ferdinand was returning from a visit at the Sarajevo Hospital, the convoy took a wrong turn into a street where Gavrilo Princip by coincidence stood. With a pistol, Princip shot and killed Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. The reaction among the Austrian people was mild, almost indifferent. As historian Z.A.B. Zeman later wrote, "the event almost failed to make any impression whatsoever. On Sunday and Monday [June 28 and 29], the crowds in Vienna listened to music and drank wine, as if nothing had happened.”

 

Crowds on the streets in the aftermath of the Anti-Serb riots in Sarajevo, 29 June 1914.

Escalation of violence in Bosnia

The assassination excessively intensified the existing traditional religion-based ethnic hostilities in Bosnia. However, in Sarajevo itself, Austrian authorities encouraged violence against the Serb residents, which resulted in the Anti-Serb riots of Sarajevo, in which Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims killed two and damaged numerous Serb-owned buildings. Writer Ivo Andrić referred to the violence as the "Sarajevo frenzy of hate.” Violent actions against ethnic Serbs were organized not only in Sarajevo but also in many other larger Austro-Hungarian cities in modern-day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Austro-Hungarian authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina imprisoned and extradited approximately 5,500 prominent Serbs, 700 to 2,200 of whom died in prison. 460 Serbs were sentenced to death and a predominantly Muslim special militia known as the Schutzkorps was established and carried out the persecution of Serbs.

Decision for War

 

While the empire's military spending had not even doubled since the 1878 Congress of Berlin, Germany's spending had risen fivefold, and the British, Russian, and French expenditures threefold. The empire had lost ethnic Italian areas to Piedmont because of nationalist movements that had swept through Italy, and many Austro-Hungarians perceived as imminent the threat of losing to Serbia the southern territories inhabited by Slavs. Serbia had recently gained considerable territory in the Second Balkan War of 1913, causing much distress in government circles in Vienna and Budapest. Former ambassador and foreign minister Count Alois Aehrenthal had assumed that any future war would be in the Balkan region.

Hungarian prime minister and political scientist István Tisza opposed the expansion of the empire on the Balkan (see Bosnian crisis in 1908), because "the Dual Monarchy already had too many Slavs", which would further threaten the integrity of the Dual Monarchy.

In March 1914, Tisza wrote a memorandum to Emperor Francis Joseph. His letter had strongly apocalyptic predictive and embittered tone. He used exactly the hitherto unknown "Weltkrieg" (means World War) phrase in his letter. "It is my firm conviction that Germany's two neighbors [Russia and France] are carefully proceeding with military preparations, but will not start the war so long as they have not attained a grouping of the Balkan states against us that confronts the monarchy with an attack from three sides and pins down the majority of our forces on our eastern and southern front.”

On the day of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Tisza immediately traveled to Vienna where he met Minister of Foreign Affairs Count Berchtold and Army Commander Conrad von Hötzendorf. They proposed to solve the dispute with arms, attacking Serbia. Tisza proposed to give the government of Serbia time to take a stand as to whether it was involved in the organisation of the murder and proposed a peaceful resolution, arguing that the international situation would settle soon. Returning to Budapest, he wrote to Franz Joseph saying he would not take any responsibility for the armed conflict because there was no proof that Serbia had plotted the assassination. Tisza opposed a war with Serbia, stating (correctly, as it turned out) that any war with the Serbs was bound to trigger a war with Russia and hence a general European war. He did not trust in the Italian alliance, due to the political aftermath of the Second Italian War of Independence. He thought that even a successful Austro-Hungarian war would be disastrous for the integrity of Kingdom of Hungary, where Hungary would be the next victim of Austrian politics. After a successful war against Serbia, Tisza adumbrated a possible Austrian military attack against Kingdom Hungary, where the Austrians want to break up the territory of Hungary^.

Some members of the government, such as Count Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, had wanted to confront the resurgent Serbian nation for some years in a preventive war, but the Emperor, 84 years old and an enemy of all adventures, disapproved.

The foreign ministry of Austro-Hungarian Empire sent ambassador László Szőgyény to Potsdam, where he inquired about the standpoint of the German Emperor on July 5. Szőgyény described what happened in a secret report to Vienna later that day:

"I presented His Majesty [Wilhelm] with [Franz Joseph’s] letter and the attached memorandum. The Kaiser read both papers quite carefully in my presence. First, His Majesty assured me that he had expected us to take firm action against Serbia, but he had to concede that, as a result of the conflicts facing [Franz Joseph], he needed to take into account a serious complication in Europe, which is why he did not wish to give any definite answer prior to consultations with the chancellor....

When, after our déjeuner, I once again emphasized the gravity of the situation, His Majesty authorized me to report to [Franz Joseph] that in this case, too, we could count on Germany’s full support. As mentioned, he first had to consult with the chancellor, but he did not have the slightest doubt that Herr von Bethmann Hollweg would fully agree with him, particularly with regard to action on our part against Serbia. In his [Wilhelm’s] opinion, though, there was no need to wait patiently before taking action. The Kaiser said that Russia’s stance would always be a hostile one, but he had been prepared for this for many years, and even if war broke out between Austria-Hungary and Russia, we could rest assured that Germany would take our side, in line with its customary loyalty. According to the Kaiser, as things stood now, Russia was not at all ready for war. It would certainly have to think hard before making a call to arms."

But now the leaders of Austria-Hungary, especially General Count Leopold von Berchtold, backed by its ally Germany, decided to confront Serbia militarily before it could incite a revolt; using the assassination as an excuse, they presented a list of ten demands called the July Ultimatum expecting Serbia would never accept. When Serbia accepted nine of the ten demands but only partially accepted the remaining one, Austria-Hungary declared war. Franz Joseph I finally followed the urgent counsel of his top advisers.

Over the course of July and August 1914, these events caused the start of World War I, as Russia mobilized in support of Serbia, setting off a series of counter-mobilizations. Italy initially remained neutral, although it had an alliance with Austria-Hungary. In 1915, it switched to the side of the Entente powers, hoping to gain territory from its former ally.

Main events

General von Hötzendorf was the Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff. Franz Joseph I, who was much too old to command the army, appointed Archduke Friedrich von Österreich-Teschen as Supreme Army Commander (Armeeoberkommandant), but asked him to give Von Hötzendorf freedom to take any decisions. The latter remained in effective command of the military forces until Emperor Karl I took the supreme command himself in late 1916 and dismissed Conrad von Hötzendorf in 1917.

 

Serbian Front

At the start of the war, the army was divided in two: the smaller part attacked Serbia while the larger part fought against the formidable Russian army. The invasion of Serbia in 1914 was a disaster: by the end of the year, the Austro-Hungarian Army had taken no territory but had lost 227,000 out of a total force of 450,000 men (see Serbian Campaign (World War I)). However in autumn 1915, the Serbian Army was defeated by the Central Powers, which led to the occupation of Serbia. Near the end of 1915, in a massive rescue operation involving more than 1,000 trips made by Italian, French and British steamers, 260,000 Serb soldiers were transported to Corfu, where they waited for the chance of the victory of Allied Powers to reclaim their country. Corfu hosted the Serbian government in exile after the collapse of Serbia, and served as a supply base to the Greek front. In April 1916 a large number of Serbian troops were transported in British and French naval vessels from Corfu to mainland Greece. The contingent numbering over 120,000 relieved a much smaller army at the Thessaloniki front and fought alongside British and French troops.

Russian Front

On the Eastern front, the war started out equally poorly. The Austro-Hungarian Army was defeated at the Battle of Lemberg and the great fortress city of Przemyśl was besieged and fell in March 1915. The Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive started as a minor German offensive to relieve the pressure of the Russian numerical superiority on the Austro-Hungarians, but the cooperation of the Central Powers resulted in huge Russian losses and the total collapse of the Russian lines, and their 100 km (62 mi) long retreat into Russia. The Russian Third Army perished. In summer 1915, the Austro-Hungarian Army, under a unified command with the Germans, participated in the successful Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive. From June 1916, the Russians focused their attacks on the Austro-Hungarian army in the Brusilov Offensive, recognizing the numerical inferiority of the Austro-Hungarian army. By the end of September 1916, Austria-Hungary mobilized and concentrated new divisions, and the successful Russian advance was halted and slowly repelled; but the Austrian armies took heavy losses (about 1 million men) and never recovered. The Battle of Zborov (1917) was the first significant action of the Czechoslovak Legions, who fought for the independence of Czechoslovakia against the Austro-Hungarian army. However the huge losses in men and material inflicted on the Russians during the offensive contributed greatly to their two revolutions of 1917, and it caused an economic crash in the Russian Empire.

Italian Front

The military cemetery of Redipuglia (Italy), the resting place of approximately 100,000 Italian soldiers dead in battles of the First World War.

In May 1915, Italy attacked Austria-Hungary. Italy was the only military opponent of the Empire which had a similar degree of industrialization and economic level; moreover, her army was numerous (~1,000,000 men were immediately fielded), but suffered poor leadership, training and organization. Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna marched his army towards the Isonzo river, hoping to seize Ljubljana, and to eventually threaten Vienna. However, the Italians were halted on the river, where four battles took place over five months (23 June - 2 December 1915). The fight was extremly bloody and exhausting for both the contenders. On 15 May 1916, the Austrian Chief of Staff Conrad von Hötzendorf launched the Strafexpedition ("punitive expedition"): the Austrians broke through the opposing front and occupied the Asiago plateau. The Italians managed to resist and in a counteroffensive, seized Gorizia on 9 August. Nonetheless, they had to stop on the Carso, a few kilometres away from the border. At this point, several months of indecisive trench warfare (analogous to the Western front one) ensued. As the Russian Empire collapsed as a result of the Bolshevik Revolution and Russians ended their involvement in the war, Germans and Austrians were able to move on the Western and Southern fronts much manpower from the erstwhile Eastern fighting. On 24 October 1917, Austrians (now enjoying decisive German support) attacked at Caporetto using new infiltration tactics; although they advanced more than 100 km (62.14 mi) in the direction of Venice and gained considerable supplies, they were halted and could not cross the Piave river. Italy, although suffering massive casualties, recovered from the blow: a coalition government under Vittorio Emanuele Orlando was formed. Italy also enjoyed support by the Entente powers: by 1918, large amounts of war materials and a few auxiliary American, British, and French divisions arrived in the Italian battle zone. Cadorna was replaced by General Armando Diaz; under his command, the Italians retook the initiative and won the decisive Battle of the Piave river (15–23 June 1918), in which some 60,000 Austrian and 43,000 Italian soldiers were killed. The multiethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire started to disintegrate, leaving its army alone on the battlefields. The final battle was at Vittorio Veneto; after 4 days of stiff resistance, Italian troops crossed the Piave River, and after losing 90,000 men the defeated Austrian troops retreated in disarray pursued by the Italians. The Regio Esercito captured 428,000 Austrian-Hungarian soldiers  24 of which were generals, 5,600 cannons and mortars, 4,000 machine guns. The military breakdown also marked the start of the rebellion for the numerous ethnicities who made up the multiethnic Empire, as they refused to keep on fighting for a cause which now appeared senseless. These events marked the end of Austria-Hungary, which collapsed on 31 October 1918. The armistice was signed at Villa Giusti on 3 November.

Romanian Front

On 27 August 1916, Romania proclaimed war against Austria-Hungary. The Romanian army crossed the borders of Eastern Hungary (Transylvania). By November 1916, the Central Powers had defeated the Romanian army and occupied the southern and eastern parts of Romania. On 6 December the Central Powers captured Bucharest, the Romanian capital city.

Role of Hungary

War memorial in Păuleni-Ciuc, Romania.

Austria-Hungary held on for years, as the Hungarian half provided sufficient supplies for the military to continue to wage war^. This was shown in a transition of power after which the Hungarian prime minister, Count István Tisza, and foreign minister, Count István Burián, had decisive influence over the internal and external affairs of the monarchy.By late 1916, food supply from Hungary became intermittent and the government sought an armistice with the Entente powers. However, this failed as Britain and France no longer had any regard for the integrity of the empire because of Austro-Hungarian support for Germany.

Analysis of Defeat

 

The setbacks that the Austrian army suffered in 1914 and 1915 can be attributed to a large extent to Austria-Hungary becoming a military satellite of Imperial Germany from the first day of the war. They were made worse by the incompetence of the Austrian high command. After attacking Serbia, its forces soon had to be withdrawn to protect its eastern frontier against Russia's invasion, while German units were engaged in fighting on the Western Front. This resulted in a greater than expected loss of men in the invasion of Serbia. Furthermore it became evident that the Austrian high command had had no plans for a possible continental war and that the army and navy were also ill-equipped to handle such a conflict.

From 1916, the Austro-Hungarian war effort became more and more subordinated to the direction of German planners. The Austrians viewed the German army favorably, on the other hand by 1916 the general belief in Germany was that it was "shackled to a corpse". The operational capability of the Austro-Hungarian army was seriously affected by supply shortages, low morale and a high casualty rate, and by the army's composition of multiple ethnicities with different languages and customs.

The last two successes for the Austrians, the Romanian Offensive and the Caporetto Offensive, were German-assisted operations. As the Dual Monarchy became more politically unstable, it became more and more dependent on German assistance. The majority of its people, other than Hungarians and German Austrians, became increasingly restless.

In 1917, the Eastern front of the Allied (Entente) Powers completely collapsed. The Austro-Hungarian Empire then withdrew from all defeated countries. Despite great eastern successes, Germany suffered complete defeat in the more decisive western front. By 1918, the economic situation had deteriorated. Leftist and pacifist political movements organized strikes in factories, and uprisings in the army had become commonplace. During the Italian battles, the Czechoslovaks and Southern Slavs declared their independence. On 31 October Hungary ended the personal union officially dissolving the Austro-Hungarian state. At the last Italian offensive Austro-Hungarian Army took to the field without any food and munition supply, and fought without any political supports for a de facto non-existent empire. On the end of the decisive joint Italian, British and French offensive at Vittorio Veneto, the disintegrated Austria-Hungary signed a general armistice in Padua on 3 November 1918.

Dissolution

The Communists ruled multiethnic Budapest from 21 March 1919 to 1 August 1919. The statues of the Heroes Square of Budapest are covered with Communist symbols for May Day. At the basement of the original obelisk a new statue was erected: Marx with a worker and a peasant. The statues of historic heroes were toppled, Hungarian national symbols were banned in the name of internationalism.

In the autumn of 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy collapsed. In the capital cities of Vienna and Budapest, the leftist and liberal movements and politicians (the opposition parties) strengthened and supported the separatism of ethnic minorities. These leftist or left-liberal pro-Entente maverick parties opposed the monarchy as a form of government and considered themselves internationalist rather than patriotic. Eventually, the German defeat and the minor revolutions in Vienna and Budapest gave political power to the left/liberal political parties. As it became apparent that the Allied powers of the British Empire, France, Italy and the United States would win World War I, nationalist movements, which had previously been calling for a greater degree of autonomy for various areas, started pressing for full independence.

As one of his Fourteen Points, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson demanded that the nationalities of the empire have the "freest opportunity to autonomous development". In response, Emperor-King, Charles (Charles I in Austria and Károly IV in Hungary), who had succeeded Francis Joseph in 1916, agreed to reconvene the imperial parliament in 1917 and allow the creation of a confederation with each national group exercising self-governance. However the leaders of these national groups no longer trusted Vienna and were now determined to get independence.

 

THANKS TO WIKI