Hello everyone! This time around, I've taken a leap and tried something new with my video format. It's less scripted and more spontaneous, as I'm working on boosting my confidence in front of the camera. Bear with me, it's all part of the journey to improve, and I'm hopeful that each video will be better than the last!
After seeing just this one video, and seeing how criminally under subscribed your channel was, I signed up immediately. I hope to see more from you in the future!!
Love your content and historical analysis here. You're notably one of the few people who actually make a great and accurate analysis of the WW1 Austro-Hungarian army instead of just joking about it and/or studying it from memes only. You definitely deserve much more subscribers for your great und underrated content!
Thank you! This is a different format so I am a bit out of my depth, trying to improve and make the channel and the videos more personal and not a faceless channel
Austria-Hungary in ww1 is like Ferrari in F1 racing. On the first glance, you cannot comprehend how such a famous, established and glorious name could perform so poorly. But then you look at the details, inner functioning, confusion and challenges. And suddenly, you cannot comprehend how they managed to achieve the successes they achieved.
The leadership and officer corps of the Austro-Hungarians - especially on the staffer level - was infamously poor and incompetent, which got shown every time their units fought under German command and suddenly did a whole lot better. Another example is the farce of logistics and transport organization the AH staffers produced when compared with their German counterparts. While the AH divisions in the autumn and winter of 1914 would take weeks to move relatively small distances, the Germans managed to transfer 5 divisions in full combat readiness from the western front to the eastern front in preparation for Gorlice-Tarnow in just 4 days.
Thank you for watching my video! Yes you see it correctly, Hotzendorf was overly confident in his warplans and in the state of the army, he did not want to review them even when he was informed that his plans was handed over to Serbia and Russia just before the outbreak of the war. And this sealed the fate of the army. This is my video about the topic ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0sx6CnWTLYQ.html
Very interesting. Thank You. Austria also developed one of the worlds first submachine guns but they never produced it. (I cannot remember the model name/number)
The Hellriegel. Not sure if it was one of the first but it resembled more a squad support weapon / light machine gun with a bipod and a ammo carrier. However, Austria had a very early semi automatic rifle concept ( by Ferdinand Mannlicher presented in 1885 as well as earlier smokeless powder production ( that was cancelled after a disastrous explosion in the Arsenal )).
Thank you for your series of videos on the Austro-Hungarian empire. I have been enjoying them very much and it has helped me understand my family's history a little more. One of my relatives was an officer in the k.u.k. Gebirgs-Artillerie regiments Nr. 2. In your research, have you found any information on this regiment? This relative was an amateur photographer and I have an album full of his photos without any labels.
Thank you! No i did not came across yet to this unit (or more likely dont remember if i did) however i put a sticky note on my whiteboard so if i see it in any of my books, i shall note it down! You definitely should share those images with the world!
Austria and Hungary had a number of very good infantry units, Austria jager, strum, and alpine units were elite as was the super heavy artillery. AH pilots in general were well trained
Agree, however the air-force was always underfunded, the well trained infantry units got had high losses and were used up and replaced with quick-trained conscripts after the initial failures at Serbia and during the Brusilov offensive, and after these they could never recover to the same strength as before.
This is what I dont get: By Jan 2018, all the AH empire enemies had been pretty much defeated! Romania, Serbia, Russia and Italy was on the ropes being held above water by French and British units and bribes. France was also pretty much done as an offensive force. SO why with all their enemies defeated did the empire collapse???????
For Austria and Germany the biggest factor at the end was food. Their populations needed a lot more food than they could produce, this is why when they made peace with Russia they tried to force Ukraine to supply bread to Austria and Germany. Additionally, for Austria, the bonds of the Empire were breaking, the different ethnic groups no longer wanted to be ruled by the Austrians, especially the Hungarians who had been wanting to create a independent Kingdom of Hungary for decades. Finally, the internal economies and social structures were collapsing which led to the rise of socialists as soon as the monarchies did not have troops to prop them up. As for Austria defeating those armies, well, except for Serbia it was mostly German units that defeated those enemies. The Austrian offensive potential was destroyed in the Brusilov offensive and overall attrition over the following years sustaining so many fronts. If Austria and Germany had kept fighting past 1918 they would have just been more soundly defeated by the British, French, and now Americans.
@@Spurkadurka Still it was small polotical opposition elites, like the Czech diaspora, who decided the fate of the empire. As an Austro-Hungarian imperial mongrel I dare postulating, that plebiscites still would have turned out majority pro Austria in 1918 with the notable exceptions of maybe majority Serbian, Polish and Romanian regions, and a close run for Ukrainian. The Italians of Trento would NOT have chosen Italy, maybe those of Triest. Even most Czechs (maybe close to 60%) would have preferred to stay within the empire. Even the Hungarians, excluding their aristocracy, would have preferred the common state, too, as it ensured the unity of Hungary. Croatioans and Slovenes decpiced the Serbs and would just have liked more autonomy and their own, unified crown land, same goes for Slovaks.
@@SpurkadurkaI would compare the collapse of the Austro Hungarian Empire with the collapse of Yugoslavia. As long as it existed, the nations did not like it (also because of the arrogance of the dominating nations) What followed after the collapse, was not so impressing and after some time nostalgic feelings developed. Anyway, the small nations of East-central Europe need some kind of unity, and if they don't achieve, they will be always bullied by bigger powers.
Chaim Weizmann and the Balfour Declaration. The Zionists agreed to use their influence to drag the US into the war on the side of the allies in exchange for the allies kicking the Ottoman Turks out of Palestine to create their new national homeland for the Jews. Chaim Weizmann was a leading Zionist and the former first ever President of Israel. Weizmann would make a similar deal to help drag the US into WWII only this time in exchange for the fortifications (the provisions for their own military, police, etc) for their new settlement. Germany actually worked with the Zionists in many ways leading up to WWII, one of them being the transfer agreement AKA Haavara Agreement which would allow German Jews to migrate to Palestine WITH THEIR WEALTH INTACT, despite the communist lies and post war propaganda you hear claiming the Germans “fleeced the wealth of the Jews who left the country”.
@@andreastiefenthaler3811 and @schurlbirkenbach1995 I agree, most folks actually were okay with the monarchy and even staying within Austro-Hungary but the intellectuals that 'represented' these people to the degree that was allowed were not for that in the slightest. I'm sure the Hungarians would have thought the same once they saw that the post-war size of their country would not include Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia, Transylvania and so on. This is a major factor that was against any Habsburg restoration in Hungary (as well as Horthy's work against such a thing) as when Karl had tried in earnest there were already threats of war from Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania if a Habsburg were to sit on the throne in Budapest as the post-war economic disaster destroyed most folks confidence in a new and different future. However, it doesn't change the factor that in 1917 and 1918 the KuK armies were shells that could only maintain a defensive war. Once the Macedonian front broke the war was militarily lost as Germany couldn't stabilize the Western Front after the failure the Spring offensive, as well as have to essentially defend the entire Southern border of Austro-Hungary as the Allies went through the Balkans. This together with starvation at home created the conditions for revolution and defeat.
Germans of that time believed to be superior to all other European nations and even to catholic Germans. But a second reason could have been, that the ruling classes from the emperor downwards, the bureaucracy and the generals were usually hostile to new ideas.
well the austro hungarian skoda works made just as good artillery as the german some were even better than the germans.where the austrians lacked in artillery was in field guns in heavy artillery and mountain artillery they were every bit as good and even better than the german guns.in fact the skoda 30.5 cm mortar was the insperation for germany to build the big birthas.
I agree with you about the 305mm Skoda artillery was an outstanding howitzer (actually my video about this topic coming out tomorrow) but was not that many built to turn the tide. I was lucky enough to see one of the remaining one in the Bucharest Military Museum few years ago and its just shocking its size. absolutely my favourite howitzer from WW1. During the war the Austro-Hungarian empire built 7900 artillery pieces but only 79 was the 305mm Skoda, so there was not that common sight tbh. Interestingly 8 of these guns were loaned to the German Imperial Army and they were first fired in action on the Western Front at the start of World War I. They were used together with the Krupp 42 cm howitzer called “Big Bertha” to destroy the rings of Belgian fortresses around Liege, Namur and Antwerp which confirms your statement that they were just as good or even better then the German heavy artillery
@@HistoricalHavocHub Hello thanks for your video of the skoda 30.5cm gun. however the austrians only had out dated guns for a short time.according to m christian ortner by the end of the war austria hungary produced nearly 12,000 artillery pieces which was equil to most other countries except for germany which had much more artillery as they had the industrial might that austria hungary did not have. check out m christian ortners book austro hungarian artillery 1868-1918 its a massive book nearly 3 inches thick i think you would like it alot.Richard Krotec
A very interesting subject, worthy of study and carefully presented. My only regret is that I was unable to follow much of the narrator's English (I am British and English is my native language). Thank you, though
Thank you. Yes indeed when I don't do fully pre-scripted video I tend to lose track and start muttering. I aim to improve this and with practice I will improve. Also for the same reason I spend time to make and add the subtitles to RU-vid so don't have to rely on my spoken English only :)
@@HistoricalHavocHub I'm French and appreciate the clarity of your English... Very interesting video, the Austro-Hungarian army is not frequently presented ! :-)
Hey. Thank you for watching my video and for the feedback. I indeed I had the tracking on during the record, will pay more attention to this in the future
@@HistoricalHavocHub Thanks for considering the change! You don't move around too much so I don't think there's any reason to have it track you, it did more bad than good. Besides this the intro audio is much louder than your voice the rest of the video so maybe cnsider changing some volume levels as well :v
They're German speaking, but they certainly wouldn't identify themselves as Germans. For example, you don't have any German identify themselves as BEING Austrian.
@@wolfgangholba6365 William 11 became German Emperor in June 1888 and had his 25th Jubilee in June 1913. At that time, former American Presidents Taft and Roosevelt wrote a joint letter to the New York Times praising him for keeping the Peace in Europe for 25 years. At that time, Germany was the only friend Austria had. I stand by my statement I have met Austrians, who do agree with me, so do not be a bully.
@@gammelgun9272 If Germany was the only friend Austria had and Austria was the only friend Germany had, that was so because they were and are both Germans. Do not be a bully in your response..
