Austria Hungary and the Arms Race

Manfred Reinschedl. Die AufrÖ¼stung der Habsburgermonarchie von 1880 bis 1914 im internationalen Vergleich. Der Anteil Ö?sterreich-Ungarns am WettrÖ¼sten vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2001. 202 pp. EUR 33.00, paper, ISBN 978-3-631-36924-1. Reviewed by Gunther E. Rothenberg Published on HABSBURG (September, 2002) Austria Hungary and the Arms Race oped the weapon prototypes and the production The title of this clearly written monograph de‐ facilities needed to enable the Monarchy to keep scribes its content accurately. Since about 1880 fighting through the four and a half years of the the European states were engaged in an arms First World War. race which not only saw constant efforts to raise The problems of Dualism and its impact on troop strength and speed of mobilization, but also the armed forces of the Habsburg Monarchy the introduction and improvement of new quick which in turn reflected its foreign relations and firing breech-loading artillery, machine guns and security problems, have been discussed many repeating rifles. Developments on land were ac‐ times and often in greater detail and depth. From companied by a naval race, which in the case of the closing decades of the nineteenth century to the Dual Monarchy mainly concerned domination the outbreak of war in 1914, the Dual Monarchy of the Adriatic. found it increasingly difficult to keep up in the Eu‐ Austria-Hungary participated in this race, ropean arms race. Unable to exploit fully its man‐ though given the relatively backward industrial power potential, only slowly developing an indus‐ position of the Dual Monarchy and above all the trial capacity, divided by national rivalries, and political and fnancial constraints imposed by the hampered by a cumbersome political structure, Compromise of 1867, it lagged behind with the the empire was falling behind in relative military rearmament of the other great powers. Even so, strength. These developments are discussed in the author shows that despite these handicaps this work but form only the outer framework. there had been progress. By 1914 the Habsburg The core of the book analyzes Austria-Hun‐ Monarchy went to war with fewer divisions and gary's attempts to keep pace in the armament with less artillery than was desirable, with faulty race. The frst part describes the armament efforts strategic dispositions, outdated troop training and of successive military leaders, especially Beck- much obsolete materiel. Nonetheless, it had devel‐ Rzikowsky and Conrad von Hötzendorf, to intensi‐ H-Net Reviews fy the rearmament, expand land forces and speed They rapidly became obsolescent and it was a sign up mobilization, naval developments, and fortifi‐ of the Dual Monarchy's lag in armaments that the cations. This is followed by a brief analysis of the Model 1880 pieces formed the mainstay of her obstacles facing the leadership: the tripartite divi‐ heavy and medium artillery for the frst two years sion of the army into the common army, the of World War I. Landwehr and the Honvédség, the lack of support Field artillery presented serious problems. from politicians and the public, resulting in the The increased range of infantry fre demanded di‐ long struggle for a basic reform of the military es‐ rect fre support and in 1875 a new, breech-load‐ tablishment. Finally the author looks at the mili‐ ing model with steel-bronze barrels was intro‐ tary budget throughout this period. duced. Adequate for its time, they soon became Reinschedl's overall and important conclu‐ obsolete. Modifications included a tail spur to re‐ sion is that no one type of weapon gave any of the duce recoil and the ability to handle heavier powers a decisive advantage, but that the number charges. Designated as the Model 1875/96 they re‐ of weapons and troop strength made a substantial mained in use into the frst period of World War I. difference and in both, he argues, the Dual In 1897, however, the French introduced the Monarchy fell short compared to the armies of its 75 mm. feld gun, the frst of the modern rapid-fir‐ adversaries. Few would quarrel with this conclu‐ ing feld pieces with a perfected hydraulic recoil sion. mechanism, a fre rate upwards of 20 rounds per The second part of the book is technical and minute and a steel protective shield. And while discusses the development and adoption of in‐ the new design was immediately adopted in Rus‐ fantry weapons, including machine guns, and the sia, Austria-Hungary's new feld pieces introduced more difficult and expensive changes in artillery. in 1899 were 10 and 15 cm. howitzers with short Weaponry was now in a period of transition. ranges, no recoil mechanism and no protective Breech-loading weapons and the repeating small shields. Only in 1904 there was improvement. The caliber rifle, the machine gun, and the quick-fir‐ Skoda Works in Bohemia designed and produced ing feld gun were being tested. By 1885 all major a modern feld gun, the 7.65 cm. M5/8, though powers had introduced or were in the process of even these still had outdated and heavy steel- adopting bolt-action repeating rifles. Austria-Hun‐ bronze tubes. Skoda now became the leading de‐ gary, too, tested various models. In 1888 the signer, producing a number of good designs, feld Mannlicher repeater, modified in 1895, its caliber guns and feld howitzers, several light mountain reduced from 11 to 8 mm., was introduced as the guns as well as heavy mobile siege pieces such as standard weapon, though older models of various the 24 cm mortar M 98 and the famous 305 mm M types continued to serve second line formations. 1911 Mortar. But at the outbreak of war the army Finally, and somewhat belated, in 1905 Austria- was short of frepower in its feld formations, Hungary adopted the German designed heavy though the designs and tools for rapid mass pro‐ Schwarzlose machine gun. duction of new artillery models were available. Artillery received new heavy and medium The concluding part concerns the growth of field and siege pieces, Model 1880, in 12, 15-, and Austria-Hungary's military industrial capacity. 18-cm. calibers. For their day these were good The basic requirement for the armament industry guns, but since Austria-Hungary did not produce was the production of iron and steel and while adequate heavy steel barrels until after the turn progress was made, by 1913 the Dual Monarchy of the century and also for reasons of economy, remained well behind its competitors with only they still were equipped with steel bronze barrels. Italy having a lower production. In general, the 2 H-Net Reviews importance of the Vienna Arsenal declined as new industrial centers developed such as the mass production of repeaters by the Mannlicher works in Steyr and artillery developments at the Skoda gun factories around Pilsen in Bohemia. But there also was industrial development near Budapest and a rapid increase in shipbuilding ca‐ pability along the Dalmatian coast. These matters are summarized and demonstrated with tables in the third part of the book. In summary this volume, a revised disserta‐ tion, is solidly based on archival material in the Kriegsarchiv Wien though perhaps unfortunately, the annotations are derived from only two fonds, albeit important ones, the War Ministry series (KM Präs) and the Imperial Military Chancery (MKSM). The author would have been well ad‐ vised to widen his research base. He also has used a vast array of printed literature, though he has not used the substantial body of material existing in English. But these are minor reservations; the volume does make a genuine contribution to our understanding of the critical decades before the First World War. Copyright (c) 2002 by H-Net, all rights re‐ served. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originat‐ ing list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For other uses contact the Reviews editori‐ al staff: [email protected]. If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/habsburg Citation: Gunther E. Rothenberg. Review of Reinschedl, Manfred. Die AufrÖ¼stung der Habsburgermonarchie von 1880 bis 1914 im internationalen Vergleich. Der Anteil Ö?sterreich-Ungarns am WettrÖ¼sten vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg. HABSBURG, H-Net Reviews. September, 2002. URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=6716 3 H-Net Reviews This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 4.

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