Do generals matter in 1914?

[mostlyharmless]

Skippy the alien space bat is planning to test whether military historians are good judges of the ability of generals and whether their ability matters. Skippy has been reading stories on the 21st Century internet where a modern persons memories, ability and character are suddenly imprinted on a historical figure (for example, forums.spacebattles.com/threads/and-they-shall-reap-the-whirlwind-ww2-insert.547249/ has a professor replacing Bomber Harris whilst alternate-timelines.proboards.com/thread/1673/make-egypt-great-again has someone becoming Cleopatra) and has puzzled out how to do it whilst also transferring the critical memories from the person being displaced so that the new arrival knows languages as well as people's names and faces without changing the personality of the replacement.

Naturally Skippy can take anyone in history to replace anyone but he happened to have noticed that both Conrad von Hötzendorf and Erich von Manstein were born in November and indeed that both speak German. Thus he takes von Manstein's total personality from 1st August 1944, when he has had four months to contemplate how WW2 is going without him, and shifts them into the head of Conrad early on 1st August 1914. Skippy feels a little guilty about shortening von Manstein's life, and he does what he can to improve Conrad's general health so that he should last about an extra thirty years.

Of course, von Manstein had a fairly detailed knowledge of WW1 and, once he has come to terms with the abrupt and unexpected transition, can apply that knowledge. Unfortunately, he has arrived after Austria's declaration of war on Serbia and after the announcement of Austria's mobilization. Thus he does not have any obvious way of preventing the descent of Europe into war. Even if he had, he would surely have been convinced that he could win the conflict and might well have wanted to prove it. In this respect, von Manstein and Conrad have rather similar beliefs. However, many historians would feel that von Manstein had more reason for his confidence than Conrad.

What would von Manstein have done and how successful would he have been? I do not know exactly how much he had studied the Austrian Campaigns of 1914 but he was surely aware that Conrad had attempted far too much. He would have surely decided to abandon any idea of attacking Serbia and decided to stand on the defensive. He might have taken significant forces from each of the 5th and 6th Armies to send to Galicia. Even in Galicia, his objective would surely have been to hold Lemberg rather than to destroy the opposing Russian armies. Might he have ordered the construction of fortifications covering Lemberg rather than sending forces such as his 3rd Army to attack eastwards? Based on his studies of WW1, he might have noted that three of his officers, Svetozar Boroević, Kövess von Kövessháza and Eduard Freiherr von Böhm-Ermolli would be promoted to Field Marshall whilst several others were sacked after failure. He would surely be tempted to give Boroević at least a major role in commanding the defence?

Predictions? Suggestions on future developments?

After initially posting this for comments at Armchair Generals forums.armchairgeneral.com/forum/military-history-related-hobbies/alternate-timelines/xtreme-alternate-history/5205085-did-generals-matter-in-1914, I did come up with a plan to win the Battle of Galicia and everyone can fall about laughing after I suggest how Manstein might plan. I haven't yet read John R. Schindler's "The Fall of the Double Eagle" www.amazon.com/Fall-Double-Eagle-Galicia-Austria-Hungary/dp/1612347657, which is generally regarded as the best account of the Galician Campaign, so hopefully experts here can put me right.

[mostlyharmless]

Some changes are evident and it is clear that Manstein would get right some things that Conrad got very wrong. The most obvious is the 2nd Army needs to go immediately to Galicia with as much as can be safely taken from 5th and 6th Armies on the Serbian Front. However, Manstein needs to have read enough to realise that the critical step for keeping the Serbian Front safe is sacking Potiorek en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Potiorek and perhaps replacing him by Archduke Eugen en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Eugen_of_Austria, who seems one of the few cautious KuK commanders.

Conrad was not always wrong. He had pushed for using radio locating equipment and that together with an early use of aircraft actually found some Russian armies. I am not sure how much the Russians were encoding in 1914 and if the Austrians could get code breaking working within a month. However, Manstein needs to overcome the problem that the Cossacks were relatively good at preventing effective reconnaissance by the KuK cavalry.

The Austrians have serious problems in Galicia in September 1914. The most obvious is that they were outnumbered approximately 3 to 2 initially (Wikipedia gives 1,200,000 to 900,000 but two corps arrived late from the Serbian Front). Their right wing does rest on the Carpathians and Romania (whilst Romania remained neutral) but their left wing was completely in the air because almost all of the German Army was in the West. The map shows the Russian 9th Army marching unopposed passed the Austrian flank. There is a matching red circle marking the 9th German Army but this only existed from 19th September 1914. Conrad's initial strike north by 1st and 4th Armies actually has some logic as it tries to prevent the outflanking movement that decided the battle. However, the 3rd Army under von Brudermann also attempted to attack east from Lemberg, met a hugely superior Russian force and was decisively defeated.

As the main Russian attack is coming towards Lemberg, Manstein might be tempted to try to inflict casualties by trying to defend the road to Lemberg in the centre whilst withdrawing his right to at least the Dniester. The role of 1st and 4th Armies might be to cover his left flank. Manstein had recently had to extricate Hube's 1st Panzer Army from almost the point where the main Russian strength was concentrated in August 1914, so he should have a fairly clear idea of where defences might be established (certainly much better than Brudermann who he needs to sack). However, he will be taking care to keep his left hand strong (compared to 1943, his left flank is a complete nightmare except that these Russians don't have American trucks).

The argument over where to defend is difficult. Withdrawing from Lemberg (Lvov) would certainly be a much better option than losing a large part of his army. However, note that this is the fifth largest city in the Empire, although Vienna, Budapest and Prague are much bigger than all the others and Lemberg had only a tenth of Vienna's population. It is the major centre for rail communications in Galicia. The oil producing region is slightly further south across the Dniester, which isn't a huge obstacle so near its source. Thus even if Lemberg is lost, there might be an argument for trying to hold a San - Dniester line to keep the oil although retreat to the Carpathians would be more defensible than the Dniester.

Building a defensive line on the San and retreating to it might remind Manstein of his time on the staff of von Below and the retreat to the Hindenburg Line. One critical problem with the Austrian Army is that knowledge of defences being built behind them may not encourage desperate resistance. The difficulty of holding the San, is that it flows into Russian controlled territory. Thus only the arrival of German troops can prevent the San line being outflanked.

At minimum, Manstein must delay the Russian victory until the German 9th Army exists and joins the battle before he can benefit from having planned an attack across the San in 1939. He has fewer men, fewer and worse guns and fewer machine guns than the Russians. However, he knows how to build field fortifications and how to direct artillery. He is also an expert at scorched earth tactics and, if he retreats, he might have time to seriously disrupt communications in Eastern Galicia before retreating to the San.

[mostlyharmless]

Can Manstein manage to make Conrad's plan work? This probably shouldn't be possible but the Russians might be incompetent. Nikolai Golovin en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Golovin when writing his account of the battle (The Great Battle of Galicia (1914): A Study in Strategy, N. Golovin, The Slavonic Review, Vol. 5, No. 13 (Jun., 1926), pp. 25-47) thought that they had been taken a risk by separating 4th and 5th Armies from 3rd and 8th Armies and that this risk was greatly increased because Ruzsky, who was in charge of the strongest Army, the 3rd, was focused on moving directly to Lemberg and did not obey orders from Ivanov to send forces North. Golovin also argues that the attack by the Russian right wing was the obvious means of gaining a decisive victory but that illogically the 4th Army on that wing was the weakest.

The Austrian OOB site www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk/oobgalic.htm gives the Austrian 1st Army 9 infantry and 2 cavalry divisions whilst Golovin gives the opposing Russian 4th Army had 6 1/2 infantry and 3 1/2 cavalry divisions. A gaming related site www.avalanchepress.com/FallKrasnik1.php agrees on infantry but gives more Russian cavalry with 6 divisions and an independent brigade. The Austrian 1st Army does not include Armeegruppe Kummer's three divisions, two infantry and one of cavalry. However, those infantry divisions appear to have been very poorly equipped and had not previously trained together. Thus Kummer's force took little part in the early clashes. Golovin gives the Austrian 1st Army 10 1/2 infantry divisions, perhaps including Armeegruppe Kummer. The battle at Krasnik was a head to head clash yielding a small Austrian victory with the Russian 4th Army pushed back towards Lublin.

Moving south, the Austrian OOB site gives the Austrian 4th Army initially 8 infantry divisions and 2 cavalry with a ninth infantry division arriving on 20th August. This meets the Russian 5th Army with 10 infantry divisions and 5 cavalry in the Battle of Komarow, which was a significant Austrian victory with 20,000 prisoners taken. Again the Russian 5th Army was pushed back but by no means destroyed or crippled.

Reading about these actions, I am quite confused about the combat capabilities of the Austro-Hungarian Army. Everyone agrees that Austrian artillery was technically inferior to the Russian guns as well as outnumbered overall. There seem to be several instances of panic amongst units and there were desertions from some mostly Slavic units. However, in the initial clashes when the numbers were approximately even, the Russians were driven back.

What I am guessing is that German and Hungarian speaking soldiers were fairly enthusiastic at the start. In addition, Polish speakers seem to have been quite keen to kill Russians. The problem for Austro-Hungary may have centred on Hungarian officered units with non-Hungarian other ranks. Austrian officers were required to speak the language of their men fluently but the Hungarian units did not enforce that requirement although it existed in the regulations. Manstein needs to address this quickly but he hasn't got time before the major battles and might not see the necessity (Skippy considered using General Slim with his Indian Army background but was put off by the difficulty of making him loyal to the Central Powers). There may be another problem that the very aggressive officers tend to get killed, so that Austria units tend to become less effective after the first battles as was noted with the Japanese Army in WW2.

Starting the alternative history section, we note that there were two corps of the 2nd Army, each with two infantry divisions, that arrived late because they had been sent to the Serbian Front. If Manstein is looking for a way of making Conrad's plan successful, he might consider sending them directly by rail to Cracow (Armeegruppe Kummer on the map) and placing the very aggressive Kövess von Kövessháza in charge. This would create a force that could potentially threaten the Russian right wing. It would be difficult and dangerous to send that force from Cracow via Kielce and towards Lublin from the Northwest. If they reach Lublin, the result may well be decisive but the force is advancing between two larger Russian armies, the 4th and the 9th.
A modern road map gives that distance as 307 km via the S7 and S12 (the direct distance is 228 km or 141 miles). Sadly this road won't exist in 1914 and of course you have to cross the Vistula. This distance can be marched by regulars in 1914 although reservist might end up with damaged feet. If everything goes well, the force will arrive behind the Russian 4th Army and not be immediately attacked by the 9th Army. Could Manstein collect enough trucks from all over Austro-Hungary in 1914 to carry boats and bridging equipment from Cracow and might that get it to the Vistula quicker than anyone expects? If Manstein added two or more extra cavalry divisions, could this prevent the Cossacks from observing this hook?

Obviously, a force advancing North from Cracow would be detected but could Manstein mislead his enemies about his objective. This time round, he must remember that the Poles and Jews are generally on his side. If he used Polish cavalry as his vanguard and told them that they are advancing on Warsaw to proclaim a Polish Kingdom, it seems plausible that that would be treated as a serious threat if the information reached the Russian Command. If the Russian 9th Army sends forces to Warsaw rather than south whilst the Russian 4th Army believes that nothing significant can quickly cross the Vistula, perhaps the four regular divisions can reach Lublin and force the Russian 4th and 5th Armies into a rapid retreat.

Historically, the Russian 3rd Army took Lemberg on 3rd September after routing the Austrian 3rd Army. Then the Austrian 4th Army turned to the South assuming that Russian 5th army was defeated. However, it wasn't and Plehve pushed between Austrian 1st and 4th Armies causing both to fall back in disorder with heavy loses.

Here Manstein has almost a month to teach his 3rd Army the idea of elastic defence. If he goes to Lemberg himself and sacks anyone who refuses to learn, perhaps the Russian 3rd Army will still be fighting its way into Lemberg from the East when the Russian 4th and 5th Armies suffer a genuinely crippling defeat, losing a significant fraction of their artillery. Then forces from the Austrian 4th Army can be safely moved to assist the defence of Lemberg and the Russian attack halted.

[lordroel]

Jul 16, 2020 16:16:24 GMT mostlyharmless said:

Skippy the alien space bat is planning to test whether military historians are good judges of the ability of generals and whether their ability matters. Skippy has been reading stories on the 21st Century internet where a modern persons memories, ability and character are suddenly imprinted on a historical figure (for example, forums.spacebattles.com/threads/and-they-shall-reap-the-whirlwind-ww2-insert.547249/ has a professor replacing Bomber Harris whilst alternate-timelines.proboards.com/thread/1673/make-egypt-great-again has someone becoming Cleopatra) and has puzzled out how to do it whilst also transferring the critical memories from the person being displaced so that the new arrival knows languages as well as people's names and faces without changing the personality of the replacement.

Naturally Skippy can take anyone in history to replace anyone but he happened to have noticed that both Conrad von Hötzendorf and Erich von Manstein were born in November and indeed that both speak German. Thus he takes von Manstein's total personality from 1st August 1944, when he has had four months to contemplate how WW2 is going without him, and shifts them into the head of Conrad early on 1st August 1914. Skippy feels a little guilty about shortening von Manstein's life, and he does what he can to improve Conrad's general health so that he should last about an extra thirty years.

Of course, von Manstein had a fairly detailed knowledge of WW1 and, once he has come to terms with the abrupt and unexpected transition, can apply that knowledge. Unfortunately, he has arrived after Austria's declaration of war on Serbia and after the announcement of Austria's mobilization. Thus he does not have any obvious way of preventing the descent of Europe into war. Even if he had, he would surely have been convinced that he could win the conflict and might well have wanted to prove it. In this respect, von Manstein and Conrad have rather similar beliefs. However, many historians would feel that von Manstein had more reason for his confidence than Conrad.

What would von Manstein have done and how successful would he have been? I do not know exactly how much he had studied the Austrian Campaigns of 1914 but he was surely aware that Conrad had attempted far too much. He would have surely decided to abandon any idea of attacking Serbia and decided to stand on the defensive. He might have taken significant forces from each of the 5th and 6th Armies to send to Galicia. Even in Galicia, his objective would surely have been to hold Lemberg rather than to destroy the opposing Russian armies. Might he have ordered the construction of fortifications covering Lemberg rather than sending forces such as his 3rd Army to attack eastwards? Based on his studies of WW1, he might have noted that three of his officers, Svetozar Boroević, Kövess von Kövessháza and Eduard Freiherr von Böhm-Ermolli would be promoted to Field Marshall whilst several others were sacked after failure. He would surely be tempted to give Boroević at least a major role in commanding the defence?

Predictions? Suggestions on future developments?

After initially posting this for comments at Armchair Generals forums.armchairgeneral.com/forum/military-history-related-hobbies/alternate-timelines/xtreme-alternate-history/5205085-did-generals-matter-in-1914, I did come up with a plan to win the Battle of Galicia and everyone can fall about laughing after I suggest how Manstein might plan. I haven't yet read John R. Schindler's "The Fall of the Double Eagle" www.amazon.com/Fall-Double-Eagle-Galicia-Austria-Hungary/dp/1612347657, which is generally regarded as the best account of the Galician Campaign, so hopefully experts here can put me right.

Well would Austria-Hungary take on the challenge of building armored cars and tanks.

Also nice thread mostlyharmless.

[stevep]

   mostlyharmless ,

  There are possibilities here but how much power does Conrad/Manstein actually have.  You have him making both political and military decisions some of which are going to be deeply controversal.  Those include:

a)  Having declared war on Serbia simply sitting on the defensive on that front while moving forces to largely sit on the defensive against Russia.  This is militarily a good choice as Manstein knows but will it be something he can sell to assorted political and military leaders, possibly most especially Emperor Franz Joseph?  Especially since it totally contradicts all his pre-war plans.

b)  Yes there are a hell of a lot of incompetent commanders in all the armies, but of the initial combatants probably especially the Russians and Austrians.  However can he get away with dismissing large numbers of senior generals without clear evidence and especially when many will have political connections.

c)  Similarly there seemed to be special problems with the Hungarian side of the army but again attempts to interfere here will put a large number of backs up in Budapest as the Hungarians very fiercely defended their position and priviledges.  Ditto if later on he tries to prevent Hungary hogging resources, especially food as it did OTL.

  I'm not saying its impossible but I think there are going to be a lot of problems here that will greatly restrict what Manstein can actually do.  Especially since there are numerous problems at lower levels as well in terms of poorly trained officers, massive language and cultural problems and once the initial units were largely destroyed, which is still likely to occur, large numbers of demotivated largely Slavic conscripts.

  You might be better off actually using a German commander from the tail end of WWI rather than one from WWII.  Their going to be more aware of the social and political interactions and what is also technologically possible and military limitations.

  Or for the general point in terms of WWI possibly a better option might be replacing a Russian or French figure with someone with greater knowledge.  That could make a huge difference very quickly.

  Steve

[mostlyharmless]

Conrad did have a great deal of freedom at the beginning of WW1 because he had convinced many people that he was a brilliant officer. He can probably get away with sacking Potiorek because he could blame him as being in charge of security at Sarajevo. He will also get plus points for replacing him with Archduke Eugen because Eugen was an archduke and because only Franz Ferdinand might have been opposed but wasn't around to object.

He will probably need to go to Lemberg and micromanage the 3rd Army because nobody there would initially understand how to conduct a fighting retreat using field fortifications. Conrad actually appointed Brudermann en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Brudermann to command the 3rd Army in August 1914. Manstein would surely avoid that error but I agree that there is a problem in that Brudermann was very senior and expected an appointment. I cannot think of any role where he might be useful. There remains a difficulty that he needs to find a commander for the 3rd Army. Svetozar Boroević would be the obvious choice with the only objection being that he was partially responsible for the victory at Komarów. Manstein might decide to act in August as Conrad had in September by appointing one of the divisional commanders of Boroević's VI Corps as a replacement en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Arz_von_Strau%C3%9Fenburg.

The attraction for me of using Manstein include that he had fought a major battle just east of the 1914 Galicia battlefields in early 1944 www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=109&art_id=1088, that he had some experience of scorched earth retreats such as the one to the Dnieper ww2today.com/15th-september-1943-wehrmacht-scorched-earth-retreat-in-russia and to the Hindenburg Line en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Alberich, that he had attacked across the San river in September 1939 and that he had been severely wounded in November 1914 during the German Ninth Army's retreat after an offensive from Silesia towards Warsaw (prompting his colonel to say, “That'll teach you", suggesting that the young Manstein may have taken risks). He was also generally considered OK at Operativ which was the skill that Conrad believed that he possessed.

I think that getting a much better performance from the Austro-Hungarian Army in early WW1 will give fairly rapid changes. For example, Italy will not enter the war if it thinks that Russia is losing. If forces do not need to be diverted to the Italian Front and if they have suffered smaller loses, the Austro-Hungarian Army will play a larger role in any 1915 offensive in the East analogous to Gorlice-Tarnow en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorlice%E2%80%93Tarn%C3%B3w_Offensive although it might be harder to persuade von Falkenhayn to send the critical German reinforcements, especially the artillery. The Austrian artillery will also improve because several new designs were entering production in 1914 (e.g. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_cm_M._14_Feldhaubitze and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_cm_schwere_Feldhaubitze_M_14). If these guns are not needed on the Isonzo, they will help in Galicia.

If the Austro-Hungarian Army performs respectably as an ally, the Germany General staff will be slightly more inclined to listen to Conrad. Manstein will be saying almost exactly what Conrad said, that is that Russia can be driven to collapse. However, unlike Conrad, he also knows that it is important not to provoke America. Even if the German leadership does not listen to him, the victory in Galicia still makes provoking America less likely. If Italy does not enter the war, the blockade will loser and more goods from the USA will end up reaching the Central Powers, which will make unrestricted submarine warfare less attractive to Germany.

However, the real fun is the development of Austro-Hungary during and after WW1. Austro-Hungary had a larger population than metropolitan France but had a much smaller army in 1914 because fewer men were called up and military spending was much lower. If more of the small professional army survives 1914 and if the army acquires a tradition of victory so that national groups do not start to blame each other for setbacks, having a large reserve of manpower and becoming better armed with modern artillery and a reasonable machine gun en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzlose_machine_gun gives some chance of an effective force developing. It is plausible that the late 1915 destruction of Serbia will not require German help and will be more complete if retreat through Italian influenced Albania is not possible. Competent instructions from the very top can introduce ideas ranging from elastic defence to rolling barrages to storm trooper tactics. Officer training might start to teach Auftragstaktik and force officers to learn the languages and cultures of all of the peoples of the Empire.

Italy is sometimes said to have become a nation in the forge of WW1. If the Austro-Hungarian Army wins significant victories against a weakening Russia over 1916-7 by its own efforts, could most of the Empire's population come to identify with a state showing competent military leadership and benefiting from the productivity of Bohemian industry (almost of the guns were made by Skoda)?

[stevep]

Jul 18, 2020 22:23:08 GMT mostlyharmless said:

Conrad did have a great deal of freedom at the beginning of WW1 because he had convinced many people that he was a brilliant officer. He can probably get away with sacking Potiorek because he could blame him as being in charge of security at Sarajevo. He will also get plus points for replacing him with Archduke Eugen because Eugen was an archduke and because only Franz Ferdinand might have been opposed but wasn't around to object.

He will probably need to go to Lemberg and micromanage the 3rd Army because nobody there would initially understand how to conduct a fighting retreat using field fortifications. Conrad actually appointed Brudermann en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Brudermann to command the 3rd Army in August 1914. Manstein would surely avoid that error but I agree that there is a problem in that Brudermann was very senior and expected an appointment. I cannot think of any role where he might be useful. There remains a difficulty that he needs to find a commander for the 3rd Army. Svetozar Boroević would be the obvious choice with the only objection being that he was partially responsible for the victory at Komarów. Manstein might decide to act in August as Conrad had in September by appointing one of the divisional commanders of Boroević's VI Corps as a replacement en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Arz_von_Strau%C3%9Fenburg.

The attraction for me of using Manstein include that he had fought a major battle just east of the 1914 Galicia battlefields in early 1944 www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=109&art_id=1088, that he had some experience of scorched earth retreats such as the one to the Dnieper ww2today.com/15th-september-1943-wehrmacht-scorched-earth-retreat-in-russia and to the Hindenburg Line en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Alberich, that he had attacked across the San river in September 1939 and that he had been severely wounded in November 1914 during the German Ninth Army's retreat after an offensive from Silesia towards Warsaw (prompting his colonel to say, “That'll teach you", suggesting that the young Manstein may have taken risks). He was also generally considered OK at Operativ which was the skill that Conrad believed that he possessed.

I think that getting a much better performance from the Austro-Hungarian Army in early WW1 will give fairly rapid changes. For example, Italy will not enter the war if it thinks that Russia is losing. If forces do not need to be diverted to the Italian Front and if they have suffered smaller loses, the Austro-Hungarian Army will play a larger role in any 1915 offensive in the East analogous to Gorlice-Tarnow en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorlice%E2%80%93Tarn%C3%B3w_Offensive although it might be harder to persuade von Falkenhayn to send the critical German reinforcements, especially the artillery. The Austrian artillery will also improve because several new designs were entering production in 1914 (e.g. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_cm_M._14_Feldhaubitze and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_cm_schwere_Feldhaubitze_M_14). If these guns are not needed on the Isonzo, they will help in Galicia.

If the Austro-Hungarian Army performs respectably as an ally, the Germany General staff will be slightly more inclined to listen to Conrad. Manstein will be saying almost exactly what Conrad said, that is that Russia can be driven to collapse. However, unlike Conrad, he also knows that it is important not to provoke America. Even if the German leadership does not listen to him, the victory in Galicia still makes provoking America less likely. If Italy does not enter the war, the blockade will loser and more goods from the USA will end up reaching the Central Powers, which will make unrestricted submarine warfare less attractive to Germany.

However, the real fun is the development of Austro-Hungary during and after WW1. Austro-Hungary had a larger population than metropolitan France but had a much smaller army in 1914 because fewer men were called up and military spending was much lower. If more of the small professional army survives 1914 and if the army acquires a tradition of victory so that national groups do not start to blame each other for setbacks, having a large reserve of manpower and becoming better armed with modern artillery and a reasonable machine gun en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzlose_machine_gun gives some chance of an effective force developing. It is plausible that the late 1915 destruction of Serbia will not require German help and will be more complete if retreat through Italian influenced Albania is not possible. Competent instructions from the very top can introduce ideas ranging from elastic defence to rolling barrages to storm trooper tactics. Officer training might start to teach Auftragstaktik and force officers to learn the languages and cultures of all of the peoples of the Empire.

Italy is sometimes said to have become a nation in the forge of WW1. If the Austro-Hungarian Army wins significant victories against a weakening Russia over 1916-7 by its own efforts, could most of the Empire's population come to identify with a state showing competent military leadership and benefiting from the productivity of Bohemian industry (almost of the guns were made by Skoda)?

  mostlyharmless,

  Some good points but there are some possible negatives I think I have to mention.

a)  Doing a burnt earth retreat through imperial territory is going to have a political cost, especially since its implicitly assuming from the start that the empire is going to lose ground.  Plus when the CPs do take the offensive this is going to make it more difficult in that region.

b)  As you say if Austria is doing better in 1914 then Germany is probably less likely to support it as much in 1915/16.  Falkenhayn, who replaced Molke the Younger after the failure of the western offensive very much saw the west as the crucial theatre and if Austria is holding its own he will be even more unwilling to send more forces eastwards. 

c)  If forces are sent and a more powerful offensive launched against the Russian along with the Austrian army being significantly more successful in the early months there is the possibility that the Russians will rely on trading space for time, which would greatly strain CP logistics and could eventually lead to their defeat there.

d)  Serbia is likely to fall, especially once Bulgaria is persuaded to enter the conflict on the CP side but don't expect it to be easy, especially if the initial attacks, which while they won cost them heavily don't occur.  Of course with Italy neutral and Serbia having more forces its possible they might go on the offensive themselves although that could ultimately backfire on them.

e)  If the CPs win then the empire might last longer, especially once Franz Joseph dies and Karl becomes emperor.  However its still going to have huge social and political problems due to its conservative social structure, the fact much of the population of the empire would prefer to be independent - and further annexations are only likely to make that worse - its malfunctioning bureaucracy and the multitude of languages, religions and cultures it sought to control.  Unless its willing to become very decentralised, which would mean the German and Hungarian elites losing most of their power, its still a ticking time bomb.  A unified and federated state might survive but its going to have to make a lot of difficult changes.

  Steve

[mostlyharmless]

Normally, it is considered a good idea to do some reading before posting but perhaps better late than never, I have started Schindler and he has very strong views. He dismisses the idea that the KuK Army suffered severely from the nationalities issue and notes that they kept fighting up to late October 1918 without anything like the French Army's mutiny. He argues that the problems were that the army was small and poorly equipped, especially in artillery, and had very bad leadership at the top.

The army was relatively small. Over 1907-10, France conscripted on average 0.63% of its population per year, Germany 0.46%, Italy 0.41%, Russia 0.40% and Austro-Hungary 0.29%. However, the numbers were even worse because 30% of the Austro-Hungarian conscripts were allocated to the Ersatzreserve and given very little training. The result was that when Austro-Hungary mobilized everyone including the Ersatzreserve in 1914, they had 2,265,000 soldiers compared to France's 4 million despite having a total population of 50 million to France's 40 million.

However, the shortage of money was even greater than of men. If we go back to 1911, the Austro-Hungarian defence budget was 420 million Kronen. Converting currencies, the equivalent spending for Germany was 1790 million Kronen, for Russia 1650 million and even 528 million for Italy. There is an amusing calculation done for 1903 showing that Austro-Hungary spent three times as much on beer, wine and tobacco as on defence.

Finally, in 1912 the approaching crisis caused the Hungarian Parliament to approve an increase in funding. However, it was too late. In 1914, the KuK Army was equipped with small numbers of obsolete artillery and did not even have enough modern bolt action rifles to equip all its soldiers. New artillery was being put into production and, absent war, the Army's equipment would have reached a modern standard by 1916. The increase in conscription allowed by the 1912 laws would also have more slowly increased numbers of trained soldiers.

In this situation, with modern artillery in production and with the possibility of greatly increasing the Army's numbers, Austro-Hungary should have made every effort to avoid war in 1914 and, if war could not be avoided, should have maintained a cautious defence on every front. Launching offensives in Galicia and Serbia showed that Conrad had very poor strategic judgement.

Unfortunately, Conrad had promised the Germans an offensive in the East to prevent a quick Russian attack on Silesia. One possibility for Manstein is to try to make Conrad's Galicia Plan work. This is not the optimal course of action. It is high risk and, even is successful, will remove some of the limited number of trained officers who will be needed for the much larger army that Austro-Hungary can recruit by 1916.

As this is Alternate History and as Manstein may want to show the German General Staff that he can be trusted, might he try my hook towards Lublin? Unlike most officers in 1914, he will know that the distance is well within the marching capacity of regulars but that reservist will suffered damaged feet as happened to German units on marching to the Marne. He will obviously consider moving boats and bridging equipment to the Vistula by truck, but are there enough trucks in the Empire to do the job? He will also notice that an advance north from Cracow suggests an attack on Warsaw, just as crossing the Meuse at Sedan pointed to Paris and threatened to roll up the Maginot Line from the north. He will also have almost a month to insist that infantry attacks must use open order and to try to suggest that artillery support by indirect fire.

Win or lose, Manstein will surely go over to defence after the initial clash. Can he explain the German idea of a lightly held front line with rapid counter attacks launched without orders from above to try to regain the forward position? Can he build defences behind his front and maintain enough reserves to ensure that retreats, if necessary, are controlled steps back and do not yield the Russians too many prisoners?

He must try to avoid the huge loss of officers over 1914-5 that crippled the Army of 1916. Coming from WW2 Germany, he may try to find extra officers by promoting non-commissioned officers, which will meet very strong opposition. In fact he also needs to train non-commissioned officers as these were also in short supply. Can he protect and retrain his army over 1914-5, to create something that can win battles in 1916?

Schindler is slightly misleading in stressing that the Army kept on fighting despite very heavy casualties.. They kept fighting but they never made decisive breakthroughs such as at Gorlice-Tarnow or Caporetto without German help. Manstein had lectured between the wars on how to avoid "friendly fire", the main problem for the creeping barrage, he surely knew about storm trooper tactics and he invented the assault gun en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmgesch%C3%BCtz. Thus he may be able to train and equip something slightly more successful as attackers.

Wikipedia gives the details of the new guns which are coming into production in 1914 including en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_cm_M._14_Feldhaubitze, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_cm_schwere_Feldhaubitze_M_14 and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skoda_75_mm_Model_15. The last is amusing as its delayed introduction was yet another unhelpful contribution from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Potiorek. At least the KuK Army had a decent machine gun en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzlose_machine_gun.