A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire

A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire By Geoffrey Wawro New York, NY: Basic Books/Perseus Books Group, 2014 440 pages $29.99 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The present work is a long-overdue look at a neglected topic on the First World War. Author Geoffrey Wawro is a well established author with earlier monographs on the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars of 1866 and 1870 respectively. His current work blazes a new trail. A Mad Catastrophe examines the pre-war Austro-Hungarian Empire, policy makers' monumental decisions, and the disastrous operations in 1914. The acknowledgments section is a fascinating read unto itself on his ancestors and their links to the current story. He intends to demolish the myth of the quaint Austro-Hungarian Empire under grandfatherly Emperor Franz Joseph. His introduction sets the stage in no uncertain terms. Chapters 1 through 5 describe the peacetime Dual Monarchy, including war plans and the pre-military response to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. He sees an unworkable state, the more so due to Magyar duplicity; Austrian inadequacy; and unsolvable, ethnic tensions, which demanded national, self-determination. Franz Joseph, the venerable Emperor from 1848, is out of his depth in the unraveling domestic situation and the more-challenged diplomacy of the early twentieth century during its latest crisis. Domestically, his shortcomings were glaring in a structure that empowered him over a bureaucracy of ostensibly representative institutions. Wawro explains why the Hapsburg state did not posture itself for success. The long-expected showdown with Serbia, showcased by the assassinations, provided more challenges than opportunities. Diplomacy notwithstanding, nearly six weeks passed before troops invaded Serbia. Swift action by Austria would have capitalized upon international sympathy. More critically, Chief of General Staff Conrad von Hotzendorf should have understood Austria's limitations in fighting both Serbia and Russia simultaneously. A Serbian campaign had to be immediate or not at all. The text paints a similarly dismal picture of Austro-Hungarian conflict of military operations. Chapters 6 through 13 cover 1914. Austrian General Oskar Potiorek commanded no less than three disastrous invasions of Serbia in four months, between August and December. Conrad sabotaged proper weighting of effort and deployment in either theater. The fighting in Galicia ebbed and flowed, but Wawro's thrust is poor Austro-Hungarian performance against a better-prepared Russian Army, despite its own challenges. Chapter 14 outlines the devastating cost to the Empire of just five months of war with staggering casualties. He is not the first historian to state Austria-Hungary retained a sort of "militia army" due to losses in experienced officers and noncommissioned officers, besides untrained conscripts. The Epilogue reviews the rest of the war, marked by faster decline, and the unsuccessful, post-war successor states to Austria-Hungary. In essence, the political, social, and economic situation of the Habsburg state meant significantly underfunded budgets for manning and equipping with tremendous ramifications for preparedness. Scripted exercise scenarios substituted for free-thinking maneuvers. Numerous aspects of national power lacked adequate capability and capacity. Austro-Hungarian land forces did not have the strategic basis, operational finesse, and tactical articulation for the characteristics of warfare and the proposed doctrinal solutions to the dilemma of defensive firepower. The army had not seen action in nearly half a century; whereas the Serbians were battle-hardened after two Balkan wars. The Russians had learned important lessons from the war with Japan in 1905. Some Austro-Hungarian leaders understood modern warfare, but learning was far too uneven across the force. …