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.
The Serbs were also going to be fighting on their home territory, in the mountains,
and managed to mobilize half a million people out of a population of only around 4 million. Pretty impressive.
Of course, a lot of these people didn’t have any rifles or any ammunition,
but they certainly had confidence. Which is odd, really, considering that there were four million of them
and 45 million of the opposition, but Serbia really believed they were going to win.
So the Austrians began crossing the Drina River to engage the Serbs,
and we’ll see how that went next week.
In the west, the French mounted their first offensive of the war, occupying Mulhouse in Alsace
on August the 8th. The German army counter attacked on August the 9th at Cernay and forced
the French out of Mulhouse on the 10th. The French retreated to Belfort and then,
on August the 12th mounted a new offensive under General Paul Pau. Once again, we’ll see how that went
next week when France and Germany clash for real.
Here’s what was happening this week in Britain. On August 7th, Lord Kitchener called for 100,000 volunteers,
Kitchener being one of the few who thought that this was going to be a long war, although, by the 10th,
the Kaiser himself admitted some worries about it being a long war once Britain was involved.
Now, Britain had no troops at all in mainland Europe, but she was the only country that had a purely
professional army. It was small but it was very highly trained and totaled six divisions.
Four divisions were to be sent to France, and on August 12th the first troops of the British Expeditionary Force
crossed the English Channel. In ten days they moved 120,000 men without a single loss.
Also on August 12th, France and Britain declare war on Austria-Hungary. It’s interesting, actually,
that England and Austria had been on very friendly terms earlier, and Britain
certainly had no commitment to Serbia or anything, but if you look ahead through the August weeks,
Britain became the vocal defender of the rights of the Slavic minorities in
the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Especially the Czechs.
On August the 10th in the south, two German warships managed to elude the British and enter the Dardanelles.
The Turkish Minster of War, the pro-German Enver Pasha, let them enter and said that
if the British followed they would be fired upon. But the Ottoman Empire was still neutral,
so the ships were “sold” to the Turks, given new Turkish names, and raised Turkish flags.
On August 12th two naval blockades were established; one to prevent cargo from reaching German ports
on the North Sea, and the other was a French blockade to cut off the Austrian ports on the Adriatic.
In the North Sea, submarine U-15 was rammed and sunk by the British, the first of nearly
200 U-boat losses Germany would suffer in the war, and in central Africa, on Lake Nyasa,
a British gunboat captured a German gunboat.
The German captain was not aware that he was at war with the British. True story.
And just because there had been no right time to mention this before, I’m going to mention it now:
back on July 25th, the Kiel canal was finally opened so that Germany could
safely and quickly send ships between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.
Now, let’s think about something here, now that we have a full European war starting,
though not yet a world war – okay, yeah, we did have gunboats in central Africa, but still...
We actually have a bunch of totally different wars at this moment, caused by different forces
that make one big general war.
Now, we’ve talked about this in earlier episodes, but let’s briefly go over it again.
Austria wants to go to war against the little guy Serbia because of guys like Chief of Staff Conrad,
who have big imperialistic dreams. The Russians don’t think that it’s necessary for
an entire Slav state to be destroyed because of an assassin, or the Black Hand, or whoever,
especially when it’s their only ally in a sensitive region. The British didn’t much
care about Serbia’s fate; they were concerned with Belgium and German hegemony in Europe.
The Germans want to take on Russia now because they fear that in a few years Russia will be
too powerful, but to do that they also have to deal with Russia’s ally France, who wants
revenge on Germany for the last war.
See, these are all different wars, happening at the same time, but for different reasons.
Just thought I’d point that out. This is where I’m going to leave you today, with
German forces 80 kilometers from Warsaw, but come back next week when the carnage really begins.
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