Tactics and procurement in the Habsburg military, 1866-1918 : offensive spending

306 Pages·2017·2.783 MB·English

by  Dredger, John A

TACTICS AND
PROCUREMENT IN THE
HABSBURG MILITARY,
1866-1918
Offensive Spending
J O H N A . D R E D G E R
Tactics and Procurement in the Habsburg Military,
1866–1918
John A. Dredger
Tactics and
Procurement in the
Habsburg Military,
1866–1918
Offensive Spending
John A. Dredger
Assumption Academy
Walton, KY
USA
ISBN 978-3-319-57677-0 ISBN 978-3-319-57678-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57678-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017939559
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction
on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.
Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied,
with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published
maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover credit: Group photograph: © The Protected Art Archive/Alamy Stock Photo.
Coin: © Christoph Rueegg/Alamy Stock Photo.
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature
The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To my wife Vanessa
A
cknowledgements
Many individuals deserve my gratitude for the various ways in which
they have made this book possible. I must first thank the late Mr Mark
Chapman for funding this present work and my 4 years as a full-time
student at Kansas State University. Without his generosity through
the Chapman Fellowship, my writing may never have been completed.
I must also thank the Kansas State University History Department for
awarding me the Colonel Peter Cullen Military History Fellowship,
which supported my research trip to Vienna. I am also grateful to my
recently departed father, Oliver Dredger, who generously helped me
financially with my Viennese sojourn.
The members of my committee proved of inestimable value during
my writing. All showed unending willingness to provide answers cover-
ing the spectrum of academic queries. Professor Brent Maner constantly
offered helpful criticism, while trying to keep me on track as I wandered
off into the details. Similarly, Professor David Stone repeatedly guided
me to see the forest when I was lost in the trees. Professor Marsha Frey’s
continually positive and amazingly quick feedback encouraged me dur-
ing the arduous writing and revising process. Professor Derek Hillard
inspired me to improve my German skills, a most useful and necessary
ability as I learned in Vienna while poring over the cryptic scribblings of
Austro-Hungarian officers.
In Vienna, the staff at the Kriegsarchiv performed the impossible by
supplying me with inaccessible boxes during remodeling of the archive
holdings. I must especially thank the late Dr Jerko, who offered his help
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
when I was lost and led me to sources that I had no idea existed. In
addition, I wish to thank Miha Simac for befriending me and alleviating
the tedium of leafing through seemingly endless documents. My thanks
must also go to my brother William Dredger, my friend Patrick Maguire,
and my niece Pauline Dredger for always expressing interest in my writ-
ing while reading, discussing, and commenting on each chapter.
My gratitude would not be complete without an immense thank-
you to my wife Vanessa and our children Margaret, Kathleen, Patricia,
Cecilia, Anthony, Elizabeth, and Raymond. Vanessa endured the long
hours of loneliness and boredom that a writer’s spouse must tolerate in
addition to keeping the household in a state of relative quiet for me to
work. Supporting me with words of encouragement, while putting up
with my fits of frustration, she continued to supply me with the conso-
lation of her presence and her mouth-watering brownies. Our children
suffered through days, weeks, and months of Daddy being too busy to
spend much time with them as they often heard such words as “Not
right now” and “Just wait until I’m done with this chapter.”
Finally, I must thank others no longer here, especially Brother
Sidonius Lepsi, OCSC, for the inspiration of his immense historical
knowledge, Mr Eugene Dinet, for his friendship and linguistic skills, and
my mother, Elizabeth Dredger, who helped me more than anyone could
know.
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
2 The Problems of 1866: Tactics, Weapons, and Money 13
3 1866–1876: First Steps Toward Progress 49
4 Adapting in Bosnia-Hercegovina 99
5 From Progress to Reversion 133
6 Financial Shock: Conradian Tactics and
Wasteful Spending 175
7 The Catastrophe of the Offensive 235
8 Conclusion 281
Bibliography 289
Index 299
ix
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
In 1866, Habsburg staff officer Lieutenant-Colonel Eduard Bartels com-
mented in his book, Österreich und sein Heer, on the dismal results suf-
fered by the Austrian military whenever it confronted a major power:
“The history of the Austrian army is a history of defeats. Every time it
fights alone against another European great power, it loses. This per-
manent misfortune must have its reasons.”1 This comment came in the
wake of the disastrous defeat of the Habsburg army against the Prussians
at Königgrätz in the Austro-Prussian War, also called the Seven Weeks’
War, denoting how quickly the Austrian army collapsed in the face of an
aggressive enemy.
In 1914, the Austro-Hungarian army embarked on its final failure,
World War I. Although this time Habsburg forces held out for over 4
years, the result resembled previous losses except for the finality of 1918
for the monarchy and the Habsburg Empire. As in 1866, poorly trained
troops led by incompetent commanders, who refused to adapt to the
effects of new technology on the battlefield, met disaster. Surely, a state
as large and populated as the Austro-Hungarian Empire could have pro-
vided the means of military victory more successfully than history relates.
The causes for these failures stemmed primarily from flawed offen-
sive strategies and tactics, as well as imprudent spending decisions that
resulted from the desire to maintain great power status and restore the
prestige of the Habsburg Empire. During both the Austro-Prussian
War and the First World War Habsburg troops charged headlong into
enemies bearing superior weaponry, the Dreyse breech-loading needle
© The Author(s) 2017 1
J.A. Dredger, Tactics and Procurement in the Habsburg Military,
1866–1918, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57678-7_1
2 J.A. DREDGER
gun in 1866 and modern Russian and Serbian artillery in 1914. Austro-
Hungarian forces did not suffer from numerical inferiority in the
Bohemian campaign of 1866, but attacked the far larger Russian army in
Galicia in 1914 while simultaneously assaulting equal numbers of Serbian
troops in the Balkans. During the 48 years between the Austro-Prussian
War and the Great War, the Habsburg high command had seemingly
learned nothing. Repeating the same mistakes, using the same offensive
tactics, Austro-Hungarian armies garnered the same debilitating results.
Scholars have voiced various reasons for Habsburg defeat. American
historian Gunther E. Rothenberg in The Army of Francis Joseph dis-
cusses backwardness and conservative rejection of technology, as well as
nationalistic problems within the empire, that led to parliamentary del-
egates refusing to fund military budget requests adequately. Rothenberg
also points to the linguistic difficulties of an army that recruited speak-
ers of ten major languages into its ranks as an essential reason for poor
performance on the battlefield.2 In The Habsburg Empire 1790–1918,
British historian C.A. Macartney speaks of parliamentary stinginess as
a primary cause of Austro-Hungarian defeats.3 The Austrian historians
Walter Wagner and Johann Christoph Allmayer-Beck in their contribu-
tions to Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, Vol. 5 Die Bewaffnete
Macht emphasize the paucity of funds available to the Habsburg mili-
tary during the mid to late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.4
Apologists for the Austro-Hungarian army, especially former Habsburg
officers such as Hugo Kerchnawe in Die Vorgeschichte von 1866 und
19?? and Oskar Regele in Feldzeugmeister Benedek und der Weg nach
Königgrätz and Feldmarschall Conrad, as well as the official history of
1866, Österreichs Kämpfe im Jahre 1866, and the official history of the
Great War, Österreich-Ungarns letzter Krieg 1914–1918 (ÖULK), also
prefer to blame members of the Reichsrat for failing to provide sufficient
money to enlarge the Dual Monarchy’s military and procure modern
weaponry.5 Other historians focus more on the general backwardness of
Austria-Hungary as the main cause for military failure. Jonathan E. Gumz
in The Resurrection and Collapse of Empire in Habsburg Serbia sees the
Habsburg army as a backward-looking preserver of the old order.6 A.J.P.
Taylor in The Habsburg Monarchy 1809–1918 also portrays the Austro-
Hungarian Empire as politically, economically, and socially anachronistic,
falling behind the other powers in every way throughout the nineteenth
century.7 More recently, American historian John R. Schindler validly
makes the point that ethnic differences, especially Slavic sympathy for