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Austria HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The Habsburg Military
From the time the Habsburgs established hereditary rule over
Austrian lands in the thirteenth century until the fall of the
Habsburgs, at the end of World War I, their armies were among the
largest and most significant in Europe. For 200 years, Habsburg
forces formed a bastion defending the continent against repeated
Ottoman campaigns to overrun Europe. In 1529 and again in 1683,
the Turks were turned back only after reaching the gates of
Vienna. Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg, who commanded the
imperial troops in the city, broke the siege in 1683 with the aid
of German and Polish forces under the Polish king, Jan Sobieski,
then drove the Turks back into the Balkans, finally ending the
Ottoman threat.
One of Austria's greatest military commanders, Prince Eugene
of Savoy, in concerted operations with Britian's Duke of
Marlborough, won a series of victories over the France of Louis
XIV in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14). Wars fought
with the Prussia of Frederick the Great over Silesia in 1740-48
(the War of the Austrian Succession) and 1756-63 were less
successful. The monarchy's military potential during the
eighteenth century was limited by the emperor's dependence on
provincial diets for recruits and tax receipts. The nobles of the
imperial lands who controlled the enserfed peasantry had no fixed
obligation to provide soldiers to the Habsburgs.
Austria was prominent in the coalitions that tried to check
Napoleon Bonaparte's ambitions but was forced to accept
humiliating peace conditions after being decisively defeated in
1800, again in 1805 when Napoleon occupied Vienna after the
Battle of Austerlitz, and finally after the Battle of Wagram in
1809. Yet Austria joined with the other great powers in the final
campaign resulting in Napoleon's downfall in 1814.
Habsburg armies displayed their loyalty to the monarchy in
1848 and 1849, suppressing the revolutionary regimes that had
swept into power in Vienna, Budapest, Milan, and Prague. In 1859
Austria was provoked into war with Piedmont and its supporter,
the France of Napoleon III. The Austro-Piedmontese War lasted
only three months, but both sides mobilized large armies. The
Austrians were defeated after bitter fighting at Magenta and
Solferino, the young emperor Franz Joseph assuming personal
command during the battle at Solferino.
Prussia established its domination over other German states
by its victory over Austria in the Seven Weeks' War in 1866. The
critical battle was waged at Königgrätz (Hradec Králové in the
present-day Czech Republic). The Austrians, armed with muzzleloading rifles, suffered 20,000 casualties and 20,000 prisoners.
The battle overshadowed Austria's victories over Prussia's
Italian allies at Custozza and in the naval Battle of Lissa (Vis)
off the Dalmatian coast in which a smaller Austrian fleet of
ironclads overcame the Italians by bold use of ramming tactics.
Following the end of the Seven Weeks' War, Austria experienced
fifty years of peace until World War I broke out in 1914.
In spite of their size and distinction in individual
engagements, Habsburg armies of the nineteenth century had known
little but defeat in encounters with other major powers of
Europe. The armed forces were often handicapped by uninspired or
timid battlefield leaders. The principal cause of their failure,
however, was the fact that, among the five great powers, which
also included Britain, France, Prussia, and Russia, Austria
allocated the lowest proportion of its revenue to its military
establishment. Various political groups blocked adequate
expenditures on the army. For example, the Prussian infantry,
using breech-loading rifles in 1866, had four to five times the
effective firepower of the Austrian infantry. The constant
economizing was also reflected in the poor training of conscripts
and in the quality of the notoriously underpaid company-grade
officers. Tactics, based on frontal assault with fixed bayonets,
were outdated. The quartermaster corps had a reputation for
inefficiency and corruption.
The standing army of twelve corps had 240,000 men as of 1854.
At its mobilized strength of 800,000, it was the largest in
Europe, but the speed of mobilization and the capacity to move
troops to the scene of battle was much inferior to that of the
Prussians, who made full use of their growing rail system. As a
matter of policy, conscripts were assigned to regiments far from
their homes. A call-up involved slow train journeys for
reservists; mobilization required eight weeks, nearly twice as
long as mobilization of the Prussian army, which was organized by
region.
The creation of Austria-Hungary (also seen as the AustroHungarian Empire) under the Compromise (Ausgleich) of 1867
separated the Hapsburg Empire into independent Austrian and
Hungarian governments. Only the army, foreign affairs, and
related budgetary matters remained joined under the emperor, who
held supreme command of all forces in time of war. A new army law
decreed universal three-year conscription followed by a ten-year
reserve obligation. In practice, only about one in five of those
liable to service were called up, and many were sent on leave
after two years. The army of Austria-Hungary has been described
as a state within a state. In an empire of ten nationalities and
five religions, marked by ethnic conflict and sharp political and
economic divisions, the army formed the only real bond among the
emperor's subjects and the sole instrument through which loyalty
to him could find expression.
Nevertheless, Austria-Hungary gave the impression of being a
highly militarized nation. British historian Edward Crankshaw
noted that not only the emperor but most males in high society
never wore civilian clothes except when hunting. Select regiments
of the army were splendidly outfitted, but, with a few dedicated
exceptions, the officers, so magnificent on the parade ground,
"shrank . . . from the arbitrament of arms as from an unholy
abyss."
Regiments were organized along linguistic lines, although
German was the language of command. Ethnic factors did not
prevent recruitment of non-German speakers to the officer corps
or their regular promotion. Hungarians, Croats, Serbs, Poles,
Italians, Czechs, Slovenes, and Romanians could be found in
senior positions. In the more prestigious units, most field-grade
officers owed their ranks to birth or wealth. As of 1900, a
majority of the officer corps in the Austro-Hungarian army were
native German speakers, although only one-fourth of the empire's
total population was German speaking.
Data as of December 1993
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