John R. Schindler - Fall of the Double Eagle: The Battle for Galicia and the Demise of Austria-Hungary

There were three great battles fought at the beginning of the Great War: the Marne near Paris; Tannenberg in what would today be northeast Poland; and Galicia, waged five hundred kilometers south of that, in the border region of present-day Poland and Ukraine. The first two battles have inspired voluminous literature practically since their conclusion, including recent quality monographs in English on both the Marne and Tannenberg. The significance of Germanys defeat at the Marne was evident from the moment it happened, because it ensured that Berlins hope of a quick, decisive victory over France evaporated; the result was the conflict became protracted, leading to four more years of the bloodiest war the world had ever seen. The compensatory German victory at Tannenberg, which broke Russias invasion of East Prussia into pieces, was less significant militarily, but it was a much-needed boost to German propaganda as well as a painful humiliation for the defeated. Both battles became the stuff of nationalist mythmaking, which would take historians decades to unravel.

By contrast the epic defeat of Austria-Hungary in Galicia has been consistently ignored by scholars and popular writers alike. This book is the first work in English to focus solely on the campaign, which despite its historical significance has been nearly forgotten. Yet its import was immense. For the Russians, this victory offset their debacle at Tannenberg and ensured that, despite whatever the Germans had won in East Prussia, they now had to contend with an ally that was militarily on the cusp of dissolution, needing major assistance. For Austria-Hungary, the defeat brought not just human catastrophe, including a hundred thousand soldiers killed in just three weeks but also the shattering of its standing army, the ultimate bulwark of the Habsburg monarchy. Military unpreparedness and deeply flawed generalship had engendered a defeat of unprecedented proportions. In the aftermath of its Galician debacle, Vienna had to raise a new army, one that survived until the end of the Great War, almost miraculously; but in the war against Russia this new army was only a ward of the Prussians and eventually their satellite. The outcome of the battle waged in Galicia in the late summer of 1914 thereby determined not only the course of the war on the Eastern Front, but also the ultimate demise of Austria-Hungary in the autumn of 1918.

How such an important battle has been all but forgotten seems to be an enigma, but upon closer examination the causes of this historical amnesia come into focus. In the first place, histories of the Great War in the English-speaking world focus overwhelmingly on the Western Front. In popular accounts, other fronts, where millions fought and died, customarily make an appearance only if they feature interesting English-speaking characters. The Eastern Front in particular has been underserved by historians, both popular and academic, and despite some progress in recent years it remains too much the unknown war that Winston Churchill famously termed it back in 1931. To be fair, the vast war waged in Eastern Europe from 1914 to 1918 is difficult for most English-language historians to unravel: the languages are obscure, the places are unfamiliar (and have often changed names several times since the war), and the characters seem unpronounceable and usually unheard-of to boot. However, with the centenary of the Great War, it is hoped that this persistent inattention to the Eastern Front will change permanently. If this book assists that effort, it will have served its purpose.