Europe , were forced to recognize the state of affairs as favorable to the English . Aside from skirmishes over the next centuries , for all practical purposes , this was the conclusion of large-scale Scottish invasions , and within two hundred years , Scotland became an official part of Great Britain . Col . Thomas S . Bundt , PhD , U . S . Army , Fort Detrick , Maryland
FALL OF THE DOUBLE EAGLE The Battle for Galicia and the Demise of Austria-Hungary John R . Schindler , Potomac Books , Lincoln , Nebraska , 2015 , 360 pages
The recent World War I centennial has resulted in a flood of new histories . Though most of this scholarship has focused on the Western Front , several new works have brought a new focus to the Eastern Front and the Austro- Hungarian Empire . Published in just the last two years , Geoffrey Wawro ’ s A Mad Catastrophe , David Stone ’ s The Russian Army in the Great War , Laurence Cole ’ s Military Culture and Popular Patriotism in Late Imperial Austria , and Richard Bassett ’ s For God and Kaiser represent a welcome renaissance of Austro-Hungarian military history . John Schindler ’ s Fall of the Double Eagle is a worthy addition to the field — a fascinating history of a battle that gutted the Austro-Hungarian army in under three weeks and sealed the fate of the Habsburg dynasty .
Context is essential to understand the bewilderingly complicated Austro-Hungarian Empire , and Schindler does an excellent job of introducing the multinational state and army , and the lead-up to war . Such context is essential to understand 1914 since virtually everything in Austria-Hungary ’ s armament , training , tactics , and strategy was flawed throughout the war . Schindler devotes several chapters to the problems Austria-Hungary had with funding and training its army — the main problem being the
cumbersome and complicated political arrangement of Austria-Hungary . This allowed intractable Hungarian politicians to make it very difficult to increase the military budget . Lower budgets meant fewer troops with shorter enlistments , a poorly trained reserve , and insufficient and outdated artillery . By the time the Austrians went to battle in Galicia — today ’ s southern Poland and western Ukraine — they were already fighting with a severe material disadvantage against the Russian army .
The central figure in The Fall of the Double Eagle is Conrad von Hötzendorf , chief of staff of the Austro- Hungarian army from 1908 until 1917 . His tactical doctrines , strategic concerns , training policies , and budgetary priorities defined the army by World War I . Unfortunately , even by the standards of his time , von Hötzendorf failed to understand the realities of the modern battlefield , and was obsessed with infantry attacks as a panacea for tactical and strategic problems . Schindler does an excellent job of tracing how von Hötzendorf ’ s botched initial deployment ( he mistakenly sent an army to the Balkans , reversing his decision in time to ensure that two corps were unavailable to fight against either Serbia or Russia ), cascaded into suicidal bayonet attacks against superior Russian artillery . When Austrian infantry fought Russian infantry on equal terms , they usually proved victorious , but the institutional failings of commanders ensured that Austro- Hungarian soldiers rarely fought on equal terms . Overall , the Austro- Hungarian army lost over four hundred thousand soldiers in three weeks — around half of all forces committed to the Eastern Front .
Schindler correctly emphasizes that one of the best-known elements of the Austro-Hungarian army — its multinational makeup — was not a fatal flaw in 1914 . Austrian officers feared that Austria ’ s Slavic soldiers were disloyal and unreliable . This was simply untrue in 1914 . Moreover , heavy casualties , poor leadership , and tactical blunders can easily explain the instances of Slavic units later cracking under the strains of war . In general , all units in Austria-Hungary ’ s army followed deeply flawed
144 July-August 2016
MILITARY REVIEW