In many "divine commentaries", there is a sentence that says: "World War I was an imperial shredder, and World War II was a colonial shredder"; after World War I, some empires were no longer empires, and some empires directly "collapsed", here is the Austro-Hungarian Empire, compared with the German Empire, the Ottoman Turkish Empire, austria-Hungary in the First World War can be said to be a direct "collapse", as one of the most powerful countries in Europe at that time, why is this so?
Austria-Hungary in World War I: with a total of 9 million troops, the second largest in Europe, the factory is still well known
Among the traditional powers in Europe, austria-hungary is a relatively "young" one, but its Habsburg family is the oldest royal family in Europe, before the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian empire land area reached 670,000 square kilometers, in Europe after Russia at that time, is the second largest in Europe, the national population of more than 52 million people, second only to Russia and Germany at that time, the total length of domestic railways 46,000 kilometers, coal production of 49.2 million tons, in 1913, Ranking 6th in the world for GDP is more than twice that of Italy and Japan at the time.
Before the First World War, the standing military strength of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was 500,000 people, in 1914 it rapidly expanded to 1 million people, in the First World War a total mobilization of 9 million troops, in the level of equipment is not backward, its country has until now is still very well-known "Skoda" and "Steyr", is one of the best military factories in the world at that time, even before the invention of the British tank, in 1911 has developed the prototype of the tank, then called "Motor-gun", then called "Motor-gun", However, because of the "short-sightedness" of the military top brass, it was eventually abandoned.
In the First World War, the standard infantry company of the Austro-Hungarian Army, with 5 officers, 4 infantry platoons under its jurisdiction, and the total strength of the company was 267 people, which was the "conventional" infantry company strength in the early days of the First World War, and like the armies of the countries at that time, the Austro-Hungarian army at the beginning of the First World War did not pay much attention to machine guns, and its machine gun detachment was still assigned to the infantry battalion level at this time, and each machine gun detachment had two "Schwarzros" M07 machine guns (or other models, such as M07/12, etc.).
At this time, the standard rifle of the Austro-Hungarian Army was the "Steyr-Manlicia M1895 Rifle", which was a non-automatic single-shot loading rifle using a straight-pull rotary bolt, the caliber of the gun was 8 mm, using a 5-round magazine feeder, mainly firing 8x50 mm rifle cartridges, but also 8x56 mm rifle cartridges, German 7.92 mm rifle cartridges and other rifle cartridges of the same caliber, as long as it did not exceed the maximum bore pressure requirements of the M1895 rifle.
Why did the mighty Austro-Hungarian Empire "collapse" in World War I?
On the whole, the Austro-Hungarian Empire looks very strong, but the record in the First World War is not very good, and some "collapse" in the later period, after the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire disappeared directly, mainly for the following reasons:
1. The "pseudo-powered country" is actually a backward semi-industrial country
Although it ranked 6th in the world at that time, but in fact, the economy of Austria-Hungary was not as ideal as that of other countries such as Germany, and in 1913, the industrial output value of Austria-Hungary accounted for 4.4% of the world,On the one hand, the gap between Austria-Hungary and other powers was relatively large, only one-eighth of the United States and one-third of Britain.
At the same time, it ranked fourth and fifth in Europe at that time, but compared with the international economic development of other European powers, such as Germany, France, Britain, Italy and other countries, the Austro-Hungarian Empire at that time had a very large difference in the development of domestic regions, such as bohemian one of the richest regions at that time, and a small number of regions did not even have much industrial capacity, and also relied on foreign investment, of which 50% of the investment came from Germany.
2. A "compromised" dualistic empire
The Austro-Hungarian Empire is a multi-ethnic state, the domestic composition is very complex, at that time there was no single ethnic group in the country more than 50% of the population, lack of sufficient leading capacity, cohesion capacity is relatively poor, relatively loose management, its more important affairs even need to have 12 ethnic representatives to decide, as a "dual constitutional monarchy" state, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was actually established in 1867.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire was established in February 1867, in which Empress Elizabeth of Austria also played an important role, she is better known as "Princess Sisi", the Austro-Hungarian Empire is a dualistic empire dominated by Germans and Hungarians, Hungary is the second largest nation, which guarantees the interests of the Austrian royal family and the Hungarian nobility, but the Romanians and Slavs have basically no power.
This "compromise" dualistic empire was mainly due to the fact that in the 19th century, Austria lost a large amount of land in Italy, the Austro-Prussian War was expelled from the German Confederation, and the Hungarian Revolution under the suppression of 1848 was also completed with the help of Russia, but because the national strength was greatly weakened, it could not occupy an absolutely dominant position, and had to give the Hungarian nobility more power, unify the demands of the other side, and become a dualistic empire jointly led by the two, but other peoples could not get such a thing." Preferential treatment", a relatively loose way of national management, which also buried the hidden danger of lack of sufficient cohesion, after the end of the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was successively decomposed into ten small countries, and it was still chaotic with each other for a while, which can be seen.
3. The internal composition of the army is complex, the language is not clear, and the soldiers communicate "by eye"
Although the population base of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at that time was very large, and the army personnel were relatively high, but the ethnic composition was very complex, and the total population of the country was actually 60% of the population of various Slavic origins, due to too many ethnic groups, another problem was caused by too many nationalities, that is, the communication and cohesion of the army, the language between different ethnic groups was a very direct problem, and even in the same infantry team, the soldiers and soldiers could not communicate in language, and communication could only be "by eye" or gestures. This is not only very inefficient, but also seriously affects combat effectiveness.
Although austria-Hungary used only 1 million troops to block 3 million Italian troops on the Gorizia front 12 battles of the Issunzo River, but in the battle with Serbia, Austria-Hungary did not show a real match for its national strength, and even in the 1914 Serbian Campaign, the Austro-Hungarian Casualties were as high as 203,000 and 70,000 were captured, while the Opposite Serbian Army suffered less than 113,000 casualties.
Unable to maintain a fairly high level of cohesion even in times of unfavorable or heavy casualties, as germany, which was the main German, the Austro-Hungarian army suffered a total of 5 million casualties, captures, and disappearances in World War I, and a large number of deserters appeared, especially in 1918, when the Austro-Hungarian army had 800,000 deserters, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire had been completely "collapsed" at this time.
Nonsense from Joon Hyuk-jun, the assassinated crown prince, and the character relationship between Princess Sisi
The trigger of the First World War was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, crown prince of austria-Hungary, so what was the relationship between the crown prince and Princess Sisi? Princess Sissi, whose full name was "Elisabeth Amerie Eugenie", was the wife of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I, who was the emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I, but Archduke Ferdinand, although crown prince, was not the son of Princess Sissi.
The only son of Princess Sissi and Franz Joseph I, named Rudolf, was born on August 21, 1858, as Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, but in 1889 he committed suicide by martyrdom, which not only dealt a heavy blow to Princess Sissi, who was now in her 50s, but also caused the Emperor of Austria-Hungary to lose his only direct male heir, with the death of Archduke Carl Ludwig, the younger brother of Franz Joseph I, Archduke Karl Ludwig, the eldest son of Archduke Carl Ludwig, archduke Ferdinand. Became the new Crown Prince.
In terms of relationships, Archduke Ferdinand was the son of the younger brother of Princess Sissi's husband, too
Was the nephew of Princess Sissi and Franz Joseph I
After the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, Franz Joseph I died in 1916, and Grand Duke Ferdinand's children had no right to inherit the throne because of their low maternal status, so they were succeeded by Karl I, grandson of Archduke Carl Ludwig and nephew of Archduke Ferdinand and son of Archduke Otto Franz, becoming the last Emperor of austria-Hungary.