To Arms! - The Deployment of Troops I THE GREAT WAR - Week 3

In the last two episodes we’ve seen how the mobilization for war really got going

and the usual political intrigue and today we’re going to see a little bit of fighting.

I’d like to now direct your attention to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Austria was now ready for war with Serbia, and on August 12th, 1914, the Austrian army

invaded, having already bombarded Belgrade for a couple of weeks.

A couple of things to think about, though: Austria-Hungary went to war to punish, destroy,

or annex Serbia, but it’s really funny when you think how little she seemed to realize

that she had a much larger, much more dangerous enemy at this point – Russia!

And a lot of the early Austrian maneuvers in World War I are a textbook case in how NOT to run a war.

See, one part of the problem was that war against Serbia was really popular in Vienna,

so Army Chief of Staff Conrad sent a lot more troops down to Serbia than you would expect,

and a lot fewer to fight Russia than you would expect.

And here’s something else he did, which really pissed of Austria’s ally the German Empire.

In order to send an even larger army down to Serbia, he actually arranged for troops

that were heading to Russia to sort of secretly head to Serbia instead, without telling the Germans,

so when they found out they were really angry because Russia had like a bajillion men and Serbia... did not.

Now, the Germans, understandably, asked if the troops could be re-routed back to the Russian frontier

and here is where you get an idea of some of the problems facing Austria-Hungary in this war.

Austria-Hungary was multi-multi national and had a crazy railway system that reflected this.

In different parts of the empire the railways were different gauges so trains couldn’t go through,

and in some places the train lines would just end when they got to an internal border and you'd have to get off

and carry stuff or else go the long way around because Hungary or Bosnia

didn’t want certain trade to happen with certain people. So when Germany asked Austria

if she could re-route her trains and turn the troops around, the answer was no.

They couldn’t re-route single track railways in the middle of total army mobilization,

so the troops would have to go all the way to the Balkans before they could be turned around

and then sent back to the Russian front.

On top of this was a huge fear of railroad mismanagement. Now, this was a justified fear,

I suppose, because all nations knew that a country that could move her troops around quickly would have a big

advantage over one who couldn’t. So here’s what Austria did:

to avoid railroad problems, all of the trains were required to move at the speed of

the slowest train on the slowest line for maximum coordination. And that speed was ten miles per hour.

16 kilometers per hour. That’s how fast bicycles go.

So the Austrian army invaded Serbia at the speed of a bicycle.

But eventually they got two armies into Bosnia, about 110 kilometers apart from each other,

under the command of General Oskar Potiorek, who had never actually seen any military action before.

Now, his army was poorly trained and equipped, and of course the Slavs in the army were a little hesitant

about fighting other Slavs, and Potiorek was also willfully ignorant of the modern aspects of warfare.

Serbia, by contrast, knew all about modern warfare, having been in two wars in the past two years.