Historia militar

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www.milita story.org

MILITARY

HIEVES UNITED

he First Balkan War,912-1913

WAR CAMEL

The hidden secret

of the desert

Arabs

BRAVEHEART

The realWilliam Wallace

Patrick Mercer analyses

the most gruellingstruggle of the SecondWorld War in Italy

CRAC NCAS

1944: THE FIGHT FOR ROME


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3/84

The First World War marked the start of the modern era. It was

destined to sweep away half the states in Europe. Antiquated

autocracies, broken by the strain of industrialised war, would

fall like skittles in 1917 and 1918.

Yet many of t hem entered the war precisely to avoid such a

fate. Despots from another age, who found themselves under

siege from socialists and nationalists at home, hoped that foreign

war would unite their countries.For a while it worked. The flags came out in July and August

1914, and millions went to war imbued with a chocolate-box

image of what it would be like. But after years of carnage

on the battlefields and hunger at home, Europe exploded

into revolution.

We begin our series on the five Great Powers that went to war

in 1914 with one of those that would not survive: the creaking

dynastic empire of the Austrian Habsburgs.

We also anticipate the centenary with the first of two articles

by Julian Spilsbury on the savage Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913,

and our Second World War feature this time is the first of ashort series by Patrick Mercer analysing the long struggle for

Cassino between late 1943 and the end of May 1944.

With a nod towards the Scottish independence referendum

later this year, Jeffrey James assesses the military career of

William Wallace. For our final feature, we take a t hematic

look at the role of the camel in war over some two millennia

and discover the technological secret of its long supremacy

in the desert.

www.milita story.org

MILITARY

THIEVES UNITEDThe First Balkan War,1912-1913

WARCAMEL

The hidden secretof the desert

Arabs

BRAVEHEARTThe real

William Wallace

Patrick Mercer analysesthe most gruellingstruggle of the SecondWorld War in Italy

CRACKINCASSINO

1944:THE FIGHT FOR ROME

ON THE COVER: The British 8th armywith an anti-aircraf gun amid the ruins oMonte Cassino.

Photo: akg-images

Let us know what you thinkWe would love to hear your opinions on this issue o the magazine. What are youravourite bits? What should we cover in the next issue? You can give us your eedback:

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Whowe are:Military History Monthlyaims to coverconict on land, at sea, and in the airthrough all periods o history, with expertcommentary written in an intelligent andaccessible way.

Editorial Advisory Board:Martin Brown Archaeological Advisor,Deence Estates, Ministry o Deence,Mark Corby Former Army Officer, militaryhistorian, lecturer, and broadcaster, PaulCornish Curator, Imperial War Museum,

Gary Gibbs Assistant Curator, The GuardsMuseum,Angus Hay Former Army Officer,military historian, and lecturer,NickHewitt historian, Research and InormationOffice, National Museum o the RoyalNavy, Portsmouth, Nigel Jones historian,biographer, and journalist,Alastair Massie,Head o Archives, Photos, Film, andSound, National Army Museum, GabrielMoshenska Research Fellow, Institute oArchaeology, UCL, Colin Pomeroy SquadronLeader, Royal Air Force (Ret.), and historian,Michael Prestwich Emeritus Proessoro History, University o Durham, NickSaunders Senior Lecturer, University oBristol, Guy Taylor Former Army Officer,military archivist and archaeologist,Julian

Thompson Major-General, and VisitingProessor, Department o War Studies,London University, Dominic TweddleDirector-General, National Museum othe Royal Navy.

www.military-history.org

WelcomeBy Dr Neil Faulkner

www.military-history.org 3MILITARYHISTORYMONTHLY


4/84

March 20144 MILITARYHISTORYMONTHLY

Contents

FEATURED

Austria-HungaryPrison-house of nations

MHMEditor Neil Faulkner explores the inner

workings of the Habsburg Empire in the lead-upto the First World War.

William WallaceThe Great Patriot?

Jeffrey James assesses the career of anotherof Scotlands greatest leaders, William Wallace,in the context of his two greatest battles: Falkirkand Stirling Bridge.

Thieves UnitedThe First Balkan War

Continuing our Road to War series, Julian Spilsburytakes us deep into the labyrinth of early 20th-centuryBalkan politics.

War CamelSecrets of the desert

MHMlooks into the hidden weapon of the desertArabs, and its efficacy through the ages.

18

30

38

48

Cracking Cassino: Part 1The Battle for the Mignano Gap

Marking the 70th anniversary of the Battleof Monte Cassino, Patrick Mercer begins afour-part analysis of the pivotal struggle ofthe Italian Campaign.

10

ON

THE

COVER


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Military History Monthly

Issue 42, March 2014


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EVERY ISSUE

Recommended Read 66

Jules Stewart recommendsCitizenEmperor: Napoleon in power 1799-1815

by Philip Dwyer.

Books 68

Neil Faulkner leads with a review ofMapping the First World Warby Peter

Chasseaud. Plus Chris Bambery onClaudio PavonesA Civil Warand JamesMcCall on John MosiersVerdun.

Film 73

George Clode onThe Railway Man.

War on Film 26

Taylor Downing continues his explorationof denitive war lms with a second

Kubrick classic: Dr Strangelove.Thinkers at War 36

Iain King takes a hard look at how the FirstWorld War turned Hitler into a Fascist.

Your Military History 76

Alan Jamieson tells the story of gliderpilot Mike Hall, a veteran of OperationMarket Garden.

Conict Scientists 82

Kicking off a new series on great

military boffins, Patrick Boniface prolesThe Father of the British Atom Bomb,William Penney.

MilitaryHistory Monthlyhasbeencommendedby theMedia PioneerAwards. Formoreinformationvisit:

March 2014

Reviews

Regulars

PromotionsOn Manoeuvres

Welcome 3

Behind the Image 6

WMD 8

Dispatches

62

Listings 58

Military History Monthlys summary ofthe best events this March.

Museum 60

Tom Farrell explores the rst museumdevoted to the 1979-1989 Soviet clashwith Afghanistan.

War Zone 62

Julie Dunn pays a visit to Cyprus tounearth the history of the Green Linethrough Europes last divided capital.

Charities 47

We explore the work of BlindVeterans UK and the vital supportthey provide.

MHMQuiz 80

This month we have4 copies ofThe LawnRoad Flatsto giveaway. Enter theMHMQuiz for your chanceto win.

Whats onMHMEvents Guide 54

Your guide to the best tours, events,

and lectures coming up in 2014.


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RACE TO THE SEAThe 16th (The Queens) Lancers (3rd Cavalry Brigade)

advancing from the Marne to the Aisne September 1914At rst this seems a quiet, almost static photograph, dominated by

the horizontals o earth and sky. But our eyes are drawn rom lef

to right as a series o diagonals converge at a clump o trees at the

pictures right edge.

Bank, shadow, verge, track, line o horsemen, hedge all head

towards those trees. The scale o the lancers thus rapidly diminishes,

suggesting both large numbers o men and distances to be travelled.

The lances o the cavalrymen provide a minor diagonal counterpoint

to the strong lines o road, hedge, and bank, orming a series o light

v shapes arrowing towards the vanishing point, underlining the sense

o movement to the right.

Yet there seems no urgency in this movement o men. A mixed

detachment o French mounted troops wait while the Lancers pass

unhurriedly by. Perhaps the French soldiers have pulled on to the

verge to let the Lancers through, or perhaps they are taking a break.

A group o French villagers watch rom the bank to the right.

One or two o the lancers appear to look at their French allies,

maybe passing a riendly comment or two. The hindmost o the

lancers, though, has denitely seen the photographer and manages

a nice cheery grin or the camera.

However, the vertical o the young, recently planted tree creates a

note o unease. Placed roughly a third in rom the r ight, a traditionally

BEHIND THE IMAGE


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important compositional placement, it partially obscures one o the

French riders and his horse. The vertical also intereres with that

general sense o lef-to-right movement: a note o disharmony in

a picture o otherwise gentle movement.

This photograph o the Lancers and mounted French troops tells

the story o the rst couple o months o the Great War, when the

conict on the Western Front was still a war o movement.

The 16th were the British Armys second ever light-cavalry regiment,

raised in southern Englandin 1759 by the cavalry officer John Burgoyne,

whoserved as its commander or 16years.

The regiment deployed to France under the command o Hubert

Gough later to become commander o the British 5th Army as part

o 3rd Cavalry Brigade in August 1914. On 16 September, the Cavalry

Brigade became part o the newly created 2nd Cavalry Division.

This was just afer the First Battle o the Marne, 5-12 September

1914, ofen reerred to as the Miracle o the Marne. This Allied victory

effectively ended the month-long campaign that opened the war, with

the German Imperial Army having reached the outskirts o Paris.

The counter-attack o six French and one British army along the

Marne River orced the Germans to abandon their push on Paris

and retreat north-east. The Battle o the Marne was an immense

strategic victory or the Allies, wrecking Germanys bid or a swif

victory over France.

In the photograph, we see the 16th Lancers making their way to

the Front at Aisne, where the German Army had dug in along the

commanding heights north o the river. The war o movement o

the early weeks o World War I would now give way to our years o

static, attritional trench warare.

The uncomortable eeling caused by the placement o the sapling

would be born out or the Lancers during much o the rest o the war.

Indeed, the 16th Lancers would spend much o the remainder o the

conict ghting in the trenches as inantry.

By the end o the war, the traditional roles o the cavalry would be

superseded by new technologies: the cavalrys speed and their use in

scouting and reconnaissance roles were usurped by the tank, motor

transport, and the aeroplane.


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The Imperial Japanese

Navy (IJN) first became

interested in heavy

torpedoes shortly after the

end of the Russo-Japanese

War in 1905, when an experimental

61cm (24-inch) weapon was ordered

from the W hitehead torpedo factory

at Fiume. The IJ Ns first operationalheavy torpedo, the 61cm (24-inch)

Type 8 No.1, entered service in 1920

aboard destroyers and light cruisers.

While this was larger than any

contemporary torpedo except for the

British 62.2cm (24.5-inch) Mark I, it

was not considered powerful enough

to counter the US and British superiority

in capital ships.

Rear Admiral Kaneji Kishimotos

design team at Kure began work on

a weapon that would be sufficiently

powerful in 1928, and by 1933 hadproduced 61cm (24-inch) Type 93

torpedo prototypes for f leet trials. The

weapon was extremely temperamental

and potentially dangerous to its users,

largely due to the use of compressed

oxygen instead of compressed air in its

propulsion system. The oxygen was highly

explosive unless the torpedoes were

carefully handled and well maintained,

but gave the Type 93 performance well in

excess of its US and British counterparts.

During the 1930s t he IJN developed

highly sophisticated night-fighting tacticsto exploit the torpedos capabilities, which

proved extremely effective in many actions

during the first 18 months of the war

in the Pacific. Japanese destroyers and

cruisers were frequently able to launch

torpedoes from about 20km (12 miles) at

unsuspecting Allied warships attempting

to close to gun range.

Given the limited range of their own

torpedoes, Allied navies could not believe

that the IJN had the capability to launch

torpedo attacks beyond 10km (6.2 miles).

They attributed the great number of

torpedo hits suffered by Allied warships

in these actions to undetected Japanese

submarines operating in support of their

surface forces.

JAPANESE TYPE 93

LONG LANCE TORPEDO

David Portergives the lowdown on a deadly marine weapon.

y(DD-387) on 22 August 1942 by

IJN destroyerKawakaze

Aircraft carrier USSHornet(CV-8)

on 26 October 1942 by IJN destroyers

AkigumoandMakigumo

Cruiser USSAtlanta(CL-51) on

13 November 1942 by IJN destroyer

Akatsuki

Destroyer USSBarton(DD-599) on

13 November 1942 by IJN destroyers

Destroyer USSLaffey(DD-459) on


Destroyer USSWalke(DD-416) on


Destroyer USSBenham(DD-397) on

14 November 1942 by IJN destroyers;

later scuttled by USSGwin(DD-433)

Cruiser USSNorthampton(CA-26) on

30 November 1942 by IJN destroyer

Oyashio

Destroyer USSStrong(DD-467)

on 5 July 1943 by IJN destroyer

Cruiser USSHelena(CL-50) on

5 July 1943 by IJN destroyers

SuzukazeandTanikaze

Destroyer USSGwin(DD-433)on 12 July 1943 by IJN destroyer

Destroyer USSChevalier(DD-451)

on 6 October 1943 by IJN destroyer

Yugumo

Destroyer USSCooper(DD-695) on

3 December 1944, probably by IJN

destroyerTake.

The true capabilities of the Type 93

(dubbed Long Lance by the Allies)

were largely unrecognised unti l intact

examples were captured in 1943.

The list of Long Lance successes

was impressive, with 23 Allied

warships sunk following Type 93

hits: 11 cruisers, 11 destroyers, and

a fleet aircraft carrier. Of this total,13 succumbed solely to Type 93

hits, with the rest being sunk by

a combination of bombs, gunfire,

and torpedoes.

Battle of the Java Sea,27 February-1 March 1942 Dutch cruiser HNLMSJavaby

IJN cruisersHaguroandNachi

Dutch cruiser HNLMSDeRuyter

byHaguroandNachi

Dutch destroyer HNLMS Kortenaer

by IJN cruiserHaguro British cruiser HMSExeterby

IJN destroyerIkazuchi

Australian cruiser HMAS Perth(D29)

by IJN cruisersMogamiandMikuma

American cruiser USS Houston(CA-30)

by IJN cruisers Mogamiand Mikuma

Battle of Savo Island,9 August 1942 US cruisers USSQuincy(CA-39), USS

Vincennes(CA-44), and USSAstoria

(CA-34) by IJN cruisersChokai,Aoba,

Kako,Kinugasa, andFurutaka.

Battles of the Solomons/Tassafaronga/Guadalcanal/Kolombangara/Ormac Bay/Santa Cruz Islands/Vella Lavella Dutch destroyer HNLMS Piet Hein

on 19 February 1942 by IJNAsashio

WMD

Length: 8.99m (29f 6in)

Weight: 2,766kg (6,107lb)

Engine: Type 93 petrol/liquid oxygen

Maximum speed:91kmh (49kt, 56mph)

Warhead weight:498kg (1,100lb)

Range: 40,000m (43,744 yards)

@ 67kmh (36kt, 41mph)

32,000m (34,995 yards)

@ 74kmh (40kt, 46mph)

22,000m (24,059 yards)

@ 89kmh (48kt, 55mph)

SPECIFICATIONS (Type 93 Long Lance Torpedo)


9/84

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10/84


which seemed to be entirely due to him!

Despite being highly intelligent, to his

dying day he clung to the theory that his

muddy, mountain war had been decisive

in the defeat of Hitler. If only it had been.

The hard underbellyThe decision to invade mainland

Italy was a mi xture of Churchills

imperial interest in North Africa, the

Mediterranean, and the Balkans;

Americas interest in draw ing off

German forces from their future main

point of effort in France; the airmens

wish to seiz e a irf ields closer to t he

Reich; the generals wish to wrest Rome

from the Axis and garner the glory of

liberating the Eternal City; and theWestern powers grand strategic aim

of doing something in late 1943 t hat

would demonstrate their met tle to

Stalin and the Soviets.

Military icons you

cannot get away from

them. There were

hundreds of D-Days

during WWII, but

now there is only one: the start of the

Normandy invasion. So widespread,

indeed, did the perception become

that this was thegreat battle that

British troops in Italy, with typically

wry humour, referred to themselvesas D-Day Dodgers.

Yet they had thei r ow n icon: the vast,

louring monastery of Monte Cassino,

which dominated the approa ches to

the Liri Valley and thus to Rome. So

Cassino became synonymous with the

whole, grindi ng campaign, while t he

slaughter at Salerno and Anzio, let

alone the butchery on the Gothic Linein the autumn of 1944, have largely

been eclipsed.

In three articles I am going to

attempt to explain not just the

fighting immediately before the

assault on the fulcrum of the

Gustav Line Cassino but also the

much-neglected battles above and

below the great monastery. Then,

in a fourth and final article, I will

concentrate on operations around

Anzio, which, t hough almo st 70 miles

from Cassino, were an integral part ofthe Allies assault on the Gustav L ine.

Now, I must come clean. I grew up

with my fathers memories of the Italian

campaign, the successful conclusion of

Cracking CassinoPART 1:THE BATTLE FOR THE MIGNANO GAPPatrick Mercerbegins

a four-part study of the

pivotal struggle of the

WWII Italian campaign.

Allimages:

WIPL,unlessotherwisestated


11/84

the German generals differed on how

the ground should be defended. Field-

Marshal Albert Kesselring, latterly a

Luftwaffe off icer, believed that every

inch of ground should be contested as

far south as possible, while Rommel

was convinced that any defence much

below Florence and the Apennines

would preclude effective concentration

of force and be vulnerable to

amphibious outf lanking operations.


My father argued that it was nothing

so trivia l, but I fear he wa s wrong. Here

is the judgement of General von Senger

und Etterlin, the commander of X IV

Panzer Korps in the early phases of

the Italian campaign:

The classic teachings of war stipulate

that the enemy should be attacked at

his weakest points, not his strongest.

Our softest spots were Sardinia and

Corsica. These were unsinkable aircraft

carriers which the Allies could have

used as bases for fighter cover for an

operation between Pisa and Elba.

Even the enemy seem to have

agreed that the whole campaign

was misconceived.

After their defeat in North A fric a

and Sicily, and once it was clear that an

assault on mainland Italy wa s intended,

LeftMapoftheItali

ancampaign,

showingthe

majordefensiveline

sconstructedbytheGermans.


12/84

MONTE CASSINO

12 MILITARYHISTORYMONTHLY March 2014

faced in November and December 1943:

incessant, sheeting rain, sleet, and low

cloud. As well as making life miserable

for the troops on the ground, it made

it very difficult for the Al lies to exploit

their air superiority.

Even in winter, though, the

massifs around the Mignano area

are magnificent. This little town lies

astride Route 6 at the narrowest part of

a flat-bottomed valley which, once the

rivers Rapido, Garigliano, and Gari

have been crossed, turns into the Liri

Valley and provides excellent going for

vehicles on the route to Rome.

Mignano, though, is overlooked by

the towering Monte Sammucro in the

north, and the solid block of Monte

Camino in the south; they stand there

like two sentries. Tantalisingly, to thenorth-west, the Monastery of Cassino

can be seen. But running along

the base of the valley like an angry

hedgehog is the spine of Monte

Rotondo and Monte Lungo, lower

than the surrounding ground but

providing a natural barrier. Indeed,

the whole place is a defenders dream,

a playground for gunners, mortar-men,

and their observers, and a hell-hole for

tanks and infantry.

When von Senger took over XIV

Panzer Korps in October just as theAllies closed with the eastern f lank

of the Winter Line, he adjusted the

deployment of his troops. In the

south, 94th Infantry Division held

the shore around the mouth of the

Garigliano and the lower defensive

positions where the Winter and

Gustav lines merged into one.

To their north was 15th Panzer

Grenadier, whose sector stretched

up to the slopes of Monte Camino,

where they fl anked 3rd Pa nzer

Grenadier, about whom von Sengerhad doubts. He correctly predicted

that the Allies would attack the centre

of his position, held by 3rd Panzer

Grenadiers, but the division contained

a large proportion of mainly Polish

Volksdeutschenwho were serving on

probation, could not be promoted,

and had performed badly at Salerno.

The more reliable 305th Infantry

Division held the northern sector.

Razorback

On 3 November, the fighting around

Pozzili prompted von Senger to say this:

I noticed the enemy was swift in the

attack and did not shun close-in

immensely strong, while others were

hasty constructions.

After Saler no (September 1943)

and the opposed crossing of the

Volturno, the Allies strategic a ims

became very clear to the Germans.

While Montgomerys smaller British

8th Army would push along theAdriatic Coast, Mark Clarks stronger

Anglo-American 5th Army would stick

to the opposite coast, with Rome as the

All ies ulti mate goal and Clark better

placed to secure it.

To stop them, Kesselring made

reinforcement of the Gustav Line,

which was anchored on Monte Cassino,

his main effort. To buy more time,

he established a delaying line to the

south-east, which the Germans called

the Bernhardt, and the Allies the

Winter Line.

The Winter Line

The Winter Line was so-named because

of the dreadful weather that all sides

Though Kesselring considered Hitler

obsequious towards Rommel, on this

occasion the f ield-marshals views

prevailed and, as Commander-in-Chief

South, he was handed the opportunity

to test his judgement.

One of many misconceptions about

the campaign is that the Germans

constructed and fought from only a

handful of deep defensive lines. In

fact, over 40 separate lines were built,

the skill of Wehrmacht engineers

being combined with the work of

forced labour battalions supplied by

the Todt organisation in a massive,

rolling operation. Some lines were

AboveItaly was supposed to be the sof

underbelly o Axis Europe. It was the opposite:

its narrow width and rugged terrain provided the

outnumbered but superbly proessional German

Wehrmacht with a series o strong deensive

lines rom which to contest the Anglo-American

advance up the peninsula. Here, British troops o

the 5th Army move orwards at Monte Camino.


13/84


if I had not found a live .303 round with

headstamp 1943, I would have doubted

my map reading.But, on 6 November, 201st Guards

Brigade launched their attack, with

3rd Battalion The Coldstream Guards

assaulting and seizing the village of

Calabritto before 6th Battalion The

Grenadier Guards passed through and

began the first of many climbs up those

dreadful slopes. The Guards dubbed the

rocky landscape Razorback, Barearse,

Twin Tits, and other picturesque names,

before struggling up the steep slopes

fighting. Evidently, the Americans

were no longer affected by the novelty

of battle in Sicily they had hardlylearnt how to adapt themselves to the

conditions and their attacks still

lacked spirit. Here they showed no

such shortcomings.

So, with his troops facing rapid advances,

he reinforced with 26th Panzer and the

famous 29th Panzer Grenadiers under

Fries, while the 15th Panzer Grenadiers

were realigned to defend the whole of

Monte Camino.

The weather worsened, but the

Allies key battle-winner, Enigma andY Force (the special signa ls unit that

had cracked the Germans VHF codes),

gave them the intelligence edge. They

decided to launch 56th (London)

Division against the Camino position,

with 36th Texas Division poised to

assault across the Mignano Gap and

up towards the village of San Pietro.

Veterans of Salerno and the Volturno,

the Londoners were destined to become

one of the hardest fighting divisions in

the whole campaign. Camino cemented

their reputation.I have stood at the south-eastern

approaches to Monte Camino and find

it hard to believe that in fantry could

attack up such rocky precipices. Indeed,

MIGNANO TODAY

Mignano and the surrounding villages are a busy community, but do not look here for beautiful Medieval

buildings or atmospheric Baroque churches Allied and German high explosive destroyed them all in the

Second World War. There are, however, monuments aplenty.

There is a balcony below the little museum in San Pietro dedicated to the 36th Texas Division, while

hidden deep in the bush above Guards Wood in the lee of Monastery Hill is one of the most remarkable

monuments I have ever seen. A simple concrete plaque remembers the British who fell here, erected by

the troops who followed on behind 56th Division and who buried their dead. Yet it is in French, as it was

erected by the Moroccan Division.

I had never heard of ordinary French troops commemorating ordinary British troops anywhere, but

they did it here, in honour of a sacrice obviously so heavy.

The winter war in the mountains. Men

of the Green Howards advance through

snow-covered hills in winter 1943/1944.

RightGerman heavy artillery in the Italian campaign.

Secure in rock-cut bunkers and emplacements,

Kesselrings outnumberedmen were ableto exact a

heavy price in Allied casualties for eachpositiongained.
http://www.military-history.org/http://www.military-history.org/


14/84

MONTE CASSINO


history stating that, Four hundred and

eighty-three Grenadiers had gone up

Camino and only 263 returned.

Just as the British had found Camino

almost impregnable, so too had US

forces been battered in the centre

and on the other shoulder of the gap.

Where the western slopes of C amino

run into the cli ffs of Monte La Difensa,

the US 7th Regiment had tried both

to outflank Camino and to conform to

the attacks on Monte Rotondo by otherunits operating in the valley bottom.

But they had failed. Clark had swallowed

the bait as the German s had hoped:

having thrown his men against their

rock-like defences and found them

unbreakable, he relapsed for the

time-being into passivity.

With little aircraft activity because of

the weather and only sporadic shelling

to harass the Germans, for about two

weeks 5th Army caught its breath while

XIV Panzer Korps dug like demons.

The Cassino position was extensively

improved, while the little v illage of

San Pietro on the southern slopes of

Sammucro was turned into a bastion

and eventually garrisoned by the

Guards, says it all. He and Guardsman

Hollis had been firing a 2-in mortar with

surprisingly ineffective results when a Scots

Guardsman asked if they could spare some

HE rounds. Beale leapt up from his sangar

yelling, Those things are no fucking use.

Im going to get the bastards w ith this.

He then lunged towards the nearest enemy

brandishing his entrenching tool. But two

mortar rounds landed either side of him

as he forged up hill and no trace of his

body was ever found.

Bloody CaminoThe 7th Ox and Bucks Light Infantry and

machine-gunners from the 6th Cheshires

were thrown into the maelstrom. It was

no good. By last light on 12 November

the Guards had been withdrawn, and

a day later 56th Division was ordered

to break off the attack.

They did so with remarkable skill,

the Germans still believing the British

held the position up until 14 November,

when Panzer Grenadiers bega n to

advance tentatively and discovered

that the bird had flown.

So ended the f irst, brave, bloody

attempt on Camino, 6th Grenadiers

towards the tiny chapel at the highest

point on Monastery Hill.

Between dawn on the 7 and on the

11 November, an epic as grand and awful

as anything that has ever happened in the

Guards history took place. Grenadiers

were reinforced by the Scots and followedby the Coldstreams as 201st Guards

Brigade first threw itself against the

German high-points, and then stubbornly

refused to give an inch of ground as the

Panzer Grenadiers counter-attacked.

Just as Sandbag Battery at Inkermann

became synonymous w ith Guardsmens

grit, so a scrubby patch between and below

the heights won the soubriquet Guards

Wood. Stand there today and you can

still see the rings of rock sangars that the

soldiers built, find scraps of barbed wire

and litters of spent cartridges, and almost

hear the bangs of grenades and the howls

of the wounded.

The charge of Guardsman Beale,

3 Company, 6th Battalion, Grenadier

AbovePlan of the Mignano campaign, Nov-Dec

1943. The Germans improvised defensive lines

so as to slow the Allied advance and provide

them with the time they needed to perfect the

Gustav Line anchored on Cassino.


15/84


AboveBritish and Canadian soldiers in action

during the struggle to break through to the

Gustav Line in late 1943.

Calabritto on the far left of the Allies

assault, shielding 56th London Division,which, led by 169th Queens Brigade, was

to attack Camino again.

As the two flanking moves developed,

on 2 December it was planned that the

newly arrived 1st Special Service Force

would scale Monte La Difensa. They were

allowed three days for this before the

(untested) Italian 1st Motorised Brigade

was scheduled to attack Monte Lungo in

the centre of the gap.

One of the most glamorous units in

the Italian campaign, 1st Special Service

Force were a mixture of US and Canadian

men who, their recruiting pitch said,

should come from an outdoor, woodsman,

explorer, or hunting background, and

who were carefully trained for mountain

the Sangro positions on 20 November.

Clearly, a combined effort by both

Montys 8th and Clarks 5th Armies

should over-stretch the Germans. But

while hundreds of pencils were being

blunted in the preparation of complexorders, offensive operations all but

ceased. The combat troops and airmen

were only too pleased, but t hey had no

knowledge of the difficulties they were

storing up for themselves.

The Second Battle of Camino

Operation Raincoat was launched after

two days of clear weather in which the

Allied air-forces hammered all known

enemy positions and a feint was carried

out by VI Corps. On 1 December, the

36th Texas Division moved against Monte

Sammucro above San Pietro, which, if

heavily defended, would be attacked

in due course. Simultaneously, 46th

North Midland Division moved against

crack 2nd Battalion of the 15th Panzer

Grenadiers, reinforced with plenty of

artillery, sappers, and armour.

The village was destined to be fought

over three times, and has been left as

a monument to this day. Standingamong the ruins and thinking about

the number of lives lost in taking San

Pietro and cracking the much-improved

Gustav Line as a whole, one wonders

about Clarks inactivity.

In his autobiographyCalculated

Risk, Clark makes little of this lack

of momentum, but it must rank as

one of the worst mistakes of his time in

command, a fearful piece of brass-hats

disease. The dust-devil of maps and

air-photos, planning data, ammunition

and logistics calculations, meetings and

conferences can only be imagined.

Clark was soon under mounting

pressure to act, as Montgomery

announced his intention of attacking


16/84

MONTE CASSINO


equivalent of British brigades) were the first

to attempt San Pietro. Recce patrols were

sent out on 8 December and over the

next few days, trying to assess the strength

of 2nd Battalion, 15th Panzer Grenadier

Regiment (the Germans likewise had

regiments equivalent to British brigades).

This was the 143rds old enemy from theSalerno battles.

On 8 December, 1st Battalion 143rd

made some progress on Monte Sammucro,

but 2nd and 3rd Battalions failed to

penetrate the wire and mines as t hey

approached from the south-east.

A second assault was tried the next day,

led by 2nd Battalion, and Corporal

Gallagher, who had been at Salerno and

would fight at Anzio, said it was the most

terrible concentration of f ire he had

ever seen: it was const ant, never ending.By 10 December, this attack had also

stalled. General Walker, the divisional

commander, was horrified by the 61%

casualties that his battalions had suffered.

Clark, though, when Walker went to see

him and explained the situation, had little

sympathy. He found Walker low in mind,

remarking, I dont see why, as his division

hadnt been in action long.

On 14/15 December, 36th Division

tried again. As the Italians were

launched once more against Monte

Lungo in the val ley and 1st Battalion143rd against the slopes of Sammucro,

16 tanks were sent at San Pietro from

the east. T he advance failed hopelessly,

as much from the unsuitability of the

ground as from enemy action, but this

did not stop the two battalions from

throwing themselves time and again

at the village.

It would be satisfying to report that the

143rd Regiment finally took San Pietro,

but when they entered it on 17 December

it was in fact because the enemy had

withdrawn rather than be outflankedfrom north and south.

A much-depleted division pushed on

to the next objective, San Vittore. But on

30 December the T-Patchers were relieved

in the line by 34th Division, the Red

Bulls. After one of their hardest fights

of the campaign, the Texans were down

to 33% of effective strength, the 143rd

needing 1,100 replacements.

But at last the way was open for

5th Army to close with Cassino and

the Gustav Line.

have been wholly impossible without

precise artillery support.

Too often, the guns and the Gunners

are taken for granted in accounts like this,

but the Allied terror crashes caused von

Senger to remark, what I saw astonished

and dismayed me. The Camino Massif

was under a bombardment of an intensityI had not witnessed since the big battles

of the First World War.

Finally, by dint of crawling and

dodging, by sharp dashes covered by

Bren and Vickers fire, with grenade

and bayonet but above all magnificent

leadership and guts, the Queens drove

the enemy out. By the night of 6/7

December, the whole of the Camino and

Difensa position was in Allied hands.

The Queens, though, had paid as heavy

a price as 1st Special Ser vice Force had:

2/5th Queens, for instance, lost 26 killed,

53 wounded, and 19 missing some of

whom were crushed to death when the

roof of the chapel was blown in on them

in the final dash.

Sam Huston and the TexansThe fortunes of the Texans, or T

Patchers, over the same few days areequally chilling. Not only do the ruins

still stand, but Sam Huston made the

eponymousBattle for San Pietrofilm while

the dead were still being cleared from the

village and sobering stuff it is.

Designed as propaganda, Major Huston,

as he then was, chose to take close-up film

not only of the smashed bodies of Germans,

but also of dead GIs being laced into blood-

stained, white body bags. The commentary

is remarkably restrained, and if some of

the more mawkish footage of smiling,

skipping Italian children is ignored, it givesa much clearer account of the fighting than

anything I can write. But I will try.

The three battalions of 36th Divisions

143rd Regiment (US regiments were the

and cold-weather operations. Consisting

of two battalions, their only combat

experience had been in the Aleutian

Islands, which they had taken with hardly

a shot fired before being sent to Italy and

then attached to 36th Division.

The story of the assault on La Difensa

is a book in itself, and it must rate as oneof the most daring and successful special

forces attacks of the whole war. All the

Forcemens training was put to use, as

ropes had to be rigged for many of the

ascents, while first-class scouting and

recce work kept the enemy at bay.

A forward patrol base was established

in a scrubby pine wood after the first days

climb, but as 1st Special Ser vice Force

approached the summit, German artillery

found them and the fighting soon became

general. La Difensa and the neighbouringpeak, Remanata, had to be taken if the

Queens Brigade assault on Camino was

not to be shot to pieces.

Eventually, after a stream of gallant

acts, both peaks were taken and on

8/9 December, 1st Special Service Force

was relieved. But at what a cost: they had

lost 511, almost 50% of their strength, with

73 dead, 9 missing, and 313 wounded or

injured, many with pneumonia and trench

foot. Their sacrifice had more than paid

off, however, for without their daring the

Camino Massif could not have been taken.

Squirrel NutkinSo it was that, during the second attack

on Camino proper, one of the most

gifted commanders of the campaign

emerged. Lieutenant-Colonel J Y Whitfield

had assumed command of 169th

Queens Brigade when its commander

was wounded, and in the succeeding

attack he lived up to his nickname of

Squirrel Nutkin, being everywhere at

once, building confidence and morale,

leading from the front, and burnishinga fast-growing reputation that was to

see him leading his division against

the Gothic Line.

Like the Difensa action, the Queens

Brigades daring is an odyssey in its own

right which can only be appreciated by

standing on the ground and gasping at

its boldness. Slightly higher than the little

chapel, the Germans had built a concrete

emplacement known as The Watchtower

that commanded all the approaches to the

peak. Its foundations are still there, as are

the machine-gun emplacements that wereblown out of the solid rock. The whole

complex is remarkably strong, and covers

ground that is desperately difficult for

infantry to assault something that would

Patrick Merceris a former soldier turned

military historian.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Two mortar roundslanded either sideof GuardsmanBeale as he forgedup hill and notrace of his bodywas ever found.


17/84

Guided Battlefield ToursWe are an established company and specialisein tours to World War 1 and World War 2sites. We know that every tour memberhas a personal reason to travel with us.We limit the numbers on each tour; thisallows you to travel in comfort and allowsus to ensure that your reasons for travellingwith us are met.

www.guidedbattlefieldtours.co.uk

Telephone: 01633 258207

email:


18/84

March 2014

AT POWERS

Franz Ferdinands death had erased the

stain of il legitimacy from the Habsburg

succession caused by his morganatic

marriage to Sophie Chotek, and in this

restoration of order his uncle detected

the hand of God: such, at first, was the

chief significance given by the ruler of

the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the

assassination at Sarajevo.

Franz Josef had come to the throne

as the 1848 revolutions were smashed bythe cannon and gallows of reactionary

Europe. He lived in and ruled Austria-

Hungary for the next 68 years, but he

remained always in the shadow of the

events of his accession, acutely and

eternally aware of the fragility of the state.

It was a relic of a distant age, a time

when states were mere amalgams of bits,

assembled by t he chances of dynastic

inheritance and intrigue. It had begun

in 1526, when Ferdinand Habsburg,

Archduke of Austr ia, had become

King of Bohemia and King of Hungary,though it was to be 300 years before

the German, Czech, and Magyar subjects

of the Habsburgs were to be united in

a single polity.

Perhaps it was for this reason the fact

that the empire he ruled was a creaking

anachronism in a n age of nation-states

that Franz Josef never evolved into

an archetypal tyrant. Instead, though

convinced of his divine right to r ule,

of the greatness of the dynasty, and

of his paternalistic duties as emperor,

he was less a dictator than a feudalbureaucrat a dim, unimaginative,

desk-bound official, devoted to his work.

Cocooned in palaces, official functions,

and court pomp, he looked out with

uncomprehending bitterness at the

threatening world beyond.

TheSerbian viper

Austria-Hungary, centrally placed in

Europe and a multinational empire

strapped together by nothing more

than a dynasty and an army, was beset

by enemies, both within and without.

It was a brightly coloured glass bauble

liable to shatter into fragments at a single

blow. It was this that made Franz Josef

an arch-conservative, Europes foremost

The Emperor closed his

eyes for several minutes

and was lost in thought,

before exclaiming,

Horrible! The Almighty

permits no challenge A Higher Power

has restored the order that I wa s

unhappily unable to maintain.

It was a bizarre response to the news

that his nephew, Franz Ferdinand,

heir to the Habsburg throne, had

been assassinated by a Bosnian Serb

nationalist student on 28 June 1914,

and one that reveals much about the

anachronistic character of the dynastic

regime of Franz Josef.

18 MILITARYHISTORYMONTHLY

Austria-

HungaryPRISONHOUSEOF NATIONS

In anticipation of the

centenary of the First World

War, we begin a five-part

series on the Great Powers

of 1914, and the July crisis

that led to war. MHMEditorNeil Faulkner analyses the

internal workings of the

Habsburg Empire. Allimages:

WIPL,u

nlessotherwisestated

LeftFranz Josef, Emperor of Austria and

King of Hungary (1848-1916).


19/84

COUNTDOWNTO

WARThe fact that the Magyars were a bare

majority in the Kingdom of Hungary

10 million as against 8 million others

had the further consequence of dividing

the peasantry on ethnic lines and

encouraging Magyar peasants to identify

with their own nobles and officials as

security against dispossession in a race

war. The Magyars were transformed

from potential rebels into the hussars

of Habsburg repression. The Ausgleich

locked up about 15 million Central

European peasants in a bureaucratic,

sectarian, semi-feudal state.

The Polish liteFrom 1867 onwards, two large iron

trusses, and a third of medium size,

propped up the rotting hulk of Habsburg

power. The first w as the German-

speaking ruling class of landowners,

bourgeois, and state functionaries in

the Austrian half of the Dual Monarchy.

The second was the Magyar nobility in

the Hungarian half. The third was the

Polish nobility of Galicia.

The mountains and marshy plainson the northern side of the Carpathians

were, like the Hungarian Plain to the

south, little developed: Galicia was

a landscape of estates, farms, and

tradition. The landowners and officials

were Polish, and the Aust rians ruled

here with a light touch.

Like the Magyars, the Poles faced

an enemy within, in this case some

3 million Little Russians; and the effect,

as in Hungar y, was to afford the Polish

nobility a mechanism for dividing the

peasantry on ethnic lines. Moreover,as they looked across the border at the

other two fragments of their long-since-

dismembered national state to the

German- and Russian-occupied parts of

the former Kingdom

of Poland the

(Ukrainians), 3.2 million Croats,

2.9 million Romanians, 2 million Slovaks,

2 million Serbs, 1.3 million Slovenes, and

0.7 million Italians. Their solution was

to incorporate the 10 million Magyars of

Hungary as a second ruling nation.

The Ausgleich (Compromise) of 1867

created a Dual Monarchy, in which Franz

Josef served as both Emperor of Austria

and King of Hungary, while each state

had its own government, assembly, and

courts. There were common ministers

of foreign affairs, war, and finance, but

other ministries were paralleled in thetwo states. Two prime ministers for

Austria and Hungary respectively, and

the three common ministers, together

formed the joint council of ministers

accountable to the emperor.

TheHungarian liteThe Ausgleich was a g ilded cage. Roughly

one in ten of the Magyars were nobles:

feudalists who paid no land-tax, sat in

county assemblies, and voted in national

elections to the Hungarian Diet. They

ranged from great magnates to decayedgentry with holdings smaller than the

better-off peasants. Only a third of

this class was viable able to live on

the income from private estates so

that incorporation into the Austro-

Hungarian state came as salvation

to the lesser Magyar gentry, many of

whom were now tra nsfor med into

government functionaries.

By the early 20th century, the

expanding bureaucratic apparatus had

found employment for a quarter of a

million of them. Local government, thepolice force, state railways, the post office,

education and health services, al l offered

a subsidy to Magyar feudalism, making

the descendants of those who had fought

for Hungarian independence in 1848 into

dependants of the Habsburg dynasty.

defender of the status quo, a ruler who

prized international peace and order

above all else. So at first he missed the

significance of his nephews assassination;

he thought it a private matter between the

family and their god.

His military chief-of-staff had other

ideas. We must crush this viper, Serbia,

announced Count Franz Conrad von

Htzendorf, who is recorded pressing

for war against Serbia in the councils

of the Austrian state no less than 25

times between his appointment as head

of the army in 1906 and the outbreakof war in 1914.

Conrad, like many of Europes political

and military elite, was a Social Darwinist,

who believed that history comprised an

elemental struggle for existence between

nations, and that recognition of this

was the only real and rational basis for

policy-making. For Conrad, there was no

idealism in international affairs, simply

force. National strength rested on military

power, nothing else, and the army

should be used to defend the monarchy,

the empire, and its ruling Austrianand Magyar lites against the threat of

insurgent nationalism.

Serbia was Slav nationalisms centre

of gravity, as well as Russias Trojan

Horse in the Balkans. A victory for

Teutonic blood and iron, followed by

dismemberment of Serbia, would cow

Slav nationalism in Central and South-

Eastern Europe for a generation. Or so

Conrad professed to believe.

TheDual Monarchy

The Emperor Franz Josef cautious,conservative, of limited vision, above all

deeply fearful had consistently resisted

Conrads calls to arms. For him, the

essence of statecraft was to avoid any

sudden move that might destabilise the

delicate framework of Habsburg power.

For 66 years, this policy had kept the

genie of 1848 bottled up.

Excluded from the rest of Germany

by their defeat in the six-week Austro-

Prussian War of 1866, Austr ias

12 million Teutons could not have hoped,

in an epoch of nationalism, to dominate

indefinitely the empires 39 million or so

others 10 million Magyars (Hungarians),

6.6 million Czechs, 5 million Poles,

4 million Little Russians/Ruthenians


We must crush thisviper, Serbia.

Count Conrad von HtzendorfAustro-Hungarian Chief-of-Staff


20/84


AT POWERS

of industry and proletarian power. With

2 million inhabitants, it was the fourth

largest city in Europe, and though, by

Austrian standards at least, ethnically

homogeneous about 80% of the

residents were German in other ways

Vienna was deeply divided.

Belle poqueViennaThe Ringstrasse defined official Vienna.

A wide, curving boulevard constructed

around the old town in 1857, it was lined

with grand neo-classical buildings, and

enclosed the palaces and churches of theMedieval core of the city. Here was the

Vienna of the Habsburgs, the imperial

aristocracy, and government bureaucracy.

Beyond the Ringstrasse were the

theatres, art-dealers, cake-shops, and

ample apartments of the minor nobility

and the bourgeoisie. This was a city of

burgeoning modernity and culture,

of trams and telephones, of opera and

cabaret, of Brahms, Mahler, and Strauss.

It was the Vienna that professed to

be scandalised when Isadora Duncan

danced barefoot, and Sigmund Freudexplained the sexual complexes of

children; yet also the Vienna that

sheltered and applauded them.

Beyond the bourgeois districts, in

narrow streets of terraces and tenements,

was yet a nother V ienna: that of t he

workers , t he poor, a nd t he decayed

petty-bourgeoisie. Among the residents

was a self- obsessed loner, drifter, a nd

failed artist, who, having dropped from

the lowest ledge of the middle-class into

a doss-house, was fast morphing into a

visceral racist: Adolf Hitler.Well before the outbreak of war, the

25-year-old Hitler had found his enemy:

Wherever I went, I began to see Jews,

and the more I saw, the more sharply they

became distinguished in my eyes from the

rest of humanity. In Hitlers mind the

mind of a little man driven mad by failure

the ubiquitous Jew was both a capitalist

profiteer and a labour agitator propagating

the Jewish doctrine of Marxism.

The red spectreIf embryonic Fascism was one symbol

of the empires decay, the spectre of

proletarian revolt was another. When the

Socialist Party announced that it would

march down the Prater on 1 May down

of it, hurling paving stones at dragoons

charging with drawn sabres, then

clambering over garden walls to escape.The drop-outs and radicals of the

Prague cafs were merely the most

flamboyant expression of a deep social

malaise. The coalminers and textile-

workers of northern Bohemia were a new

working-class. Torn from the traditional

life-ways of peasant villages and thrust

into the squalor of primitive capitalism,

the workers elemental protests found

voice in anarcho-syndicalist doctrines that

stressed direct action and spontaneous

struggle. Czech nationalism was energised

by social protest.

An industrial revolutionAustria-Hungarys industrialisation was

late-starting and uneven, but substantial

nonetheless. Between 1890 and 1914,

Austrian railway construction matched

that of G ermany, creating a network

one-third as dense as that of the industrial

colossus to the north. Austrias merchant

marine tonnage was doubling every ten

years, and her fleet had surpassed that

of Russia by 1914. The urban population

had grown during the 19th century from5% to 20% of the total, and in the first

decade of the new century the proportion

of the workforce employed in agriculture

dropped below 60%.

True, one in three of the industrial

workforce was employed in domestic

or sweated industries typically

women (and children) doing miserable

underpaid piece-work in cottages,

tenements, and backyards but there

were also the mines, the railways, the

textile-mills, the arms-works, and other

big factory complexes.

Vienna encapsulated the dynamic

mix of old and new. SparklingbellepoqueVienna was at once the ancientseat of the Habsburgs and a new centre

Poles observed forms of Prussian and

Tsarist oppression that contrasted

notably with the ramshackle andrelatively accommodating rule of the

Austrian Habsburgs.

So the Polish landlords of Galicia had

little taste for nationalist revolution. In its

final decades, therefore, the Habsburg

dynasty, with its traditional entourage of

Teuton notables, was able to confront the

challenges of modernity in alliance with

the relics of Magyar and Polish feudalism.

TheCzechcankerThe 6.6 million Czechs of Bohemia,

Moravia, and Silesia were another matter.Though trialism had been much mooted

the idea that the dualism enjoyed by

German and Magyar might be extended

to the Czechs the concept had been

still-born. The dynastys efforts at reform

had foundered on the rocks of German

and Magyar opposition to dilution of

national privilege.

For sure, watered-down autonomy

had won the endorsement of a layer of

conservative Czechs, who formed a loyalist

establishment in alliance with the leaders

of the 3 million German-speakers in thethree provinces. But the collaborationist

Old Czechs were firmly opposed by

a Young Czech movement agitating

for real independence and g aining

in strength by t he year.

Jaroslav Haek, the dis solute

bohemian anarchist who created

The Good Soldier vejk, was born inPrague in 1883. The repressive political

atmosphere of a c ity dominated by an

alliance of dynasty, church, bullying

German officials, and smug Czech

bourgeois radicalised the teenage

Haek. When clashes between Czechs

and Germans escalated, and Prague

was flooded with police and troops,

Haek and his gang were in the midst

Dictatorship andforce are justified.

Count Czernin

Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister


21/84


COUNTDOWNTO

WARthat lacked direction and resolve. Because

of this, in the days following the news, thehardliners insistence that it was necessary

to act, and act decisively, gained ground.

Domestic weakness engendered a bullish

response to the Bosnian crisis.

Conrads vision was of a world remade

by war. The contradictions of the Austro-

Hungarian Empires existence were to

be resolved by the military destruction of

Serbia and the remodelling of the Balkans

under Habsburg hegemony. The Dual

Monarchy would be replaced by a Triple

Monarchy of Austria-Bohemia, Hungary,

and South Slavia.

Only an aggressive policy with

positive goals can save this state from

destruction, he announced. Others

agreed. If the moment passes w ithout

action, men told each other, Austria-

Hungarys weakness will doom her to

dismemberment by riva l states and

national revolts. Serbia must learn

to fear us again, wired the Austrian

representative in Belgrade. Otherwise,

our old border regions, and not just the

annexed provinces, will be in danger.

TheRussian BearBut what would Russia do? Austrians

and Russians had clashed before in the

Balkans, and the Tsar, posing as protector

of the Slavs, was patron to the Serbs. It

would be as damaging to Russian prestige

to do nothing if Serbia were attacked, as it

would be for the Austrians to refrain from

attacking. And Austria could not risk a

war against both Serbia and Russia.

The extension of the franchise an

attempt to suffocate popular resistancein a blanket of liberal constitutionalism

failed; instead, politicians divided on

class and ethnic lines into intractable

blocs that paralysed the assemblies.

In 1909, parliamentary government in

the Austro-Hungarian Empire broke

down completely.

The duty laid upon the ruler by God,

announced Count Czernin, the Foreign

Minister, is to lead his people, and if the

people as in our monarchy are not

ripe to behave with reason, then they

must be compelled. Dictatorship and

force are justified The monarchys

way to healt h l ies along the path of

Caesarian absolutism!

Government by decreeThe now-discredited Austrian Prime

Minister who had introduced universal

suffrage was sacked, and the empire

was henceforward ruled by emergency

decree. Five years later, in March

1914, with parliamentary debates as

rancorous and inconclusive as ever,the Austrian Reichstag was suspended.

But if the hardliners were in control

of the government, their authority was

challenged in the streets by a wave of

protests that summer. It was, therefore,

a weak, unpopular, embattled regime

that received the news on 28 June 1914

that the heir to the throne had been

assassinated in Sarajevo.

Pervading the upper ranks of the

imperial state was a sense of drift, of

being buffeted by events, of a government

a tree-lined boulevard where usually

only the carriages of the rich were to beseen there was panic in official Vienna.

Merchants put up iron shutters. Parents

locked children indoors. Not a carriage

appeared on the streets. The entire city

police force was deployed in the Prater,

and troops stood ready in reserve.

In the event, the workers came with

their families, the men and women

marching four abreast in closed ranks,

wear ing the red car nations of t heir

party and singing the Internationale,

while their children gambolled around

them in the green and open spaces of

downtown Vienna. No one was insulted

or threatened; no windows were smashed

or shops looted. And the workers and

their families soon marched back to their

districts. For now.

Leading members of the Habsburg lite

sensed the rising tension. The growth of

Austro-Hungarian capitalism had created

new class forces, new discontents, new

fracture-lines; and these modern conflicts

had reconfigured and recharged the old

antagonisms between the dominant andoppressed nationalities of the empire.

When Bohemian miners took on the

coal-bosses, they faced Habsburg police.

In back-street Vienna, socialist workers

confronted German nationalists. The

Czech radical Haek, for whom the spirit

of alien authority pervaded the local

police station, was both nationalist street-

fighter and labour agitator.

An unstable regimeThe Habsburg regime responded with

faltering reform, gradually extendingthe right to vote, finally introducing full

universal suffrage in 1907, and granting

enhanced powers of self-government

where, as in Polish Galicia, it seemed safe

to do so. But still the tension rose.

The 1905 Russian Revolution triggered

major clashes in Vienna and Prague that

year, a nd in 1912 rioting broke out i n

Budapest: all three major cities of the

empire were cauldrons of discontent.

Yet the space for further compromise

was shrinking, as Teuton and especially

Magyar chauvinism gained traction fromthe crisis, and as Habsburg hardliners

grew fearful that reform under pressure

would communicate weakness especially

when reform did not work.

A strangelight began tofall and growupon the map

of Europe.Winston ChurchillFirst Lord of the

Admiralty


22/84

22 MILITARYHISTORYMONTHLY

AT POWERS

The Austro-

HungarianEmpire in 1914

HEAD OF STATE

Emperor and KingFranz Joseph I

CHIEF OF THE

GENERAL STAFF

(de factoArmy C-in-C)Count Franz Conradvon Htzendorf

POPULATION

51,000,000

ETHNIC COMPOSITION

Austrians 24%

Hungarians 20%

Czechs 13%

Poles 10%

Ukrainians 8%

Croats 6%

Romanians 6%

Slovaks 4%

Serbs 4%

Slovenes 3%

Italians 1%

Bosnians 1%

WAR INDUSTRIES

SKODAWORKS Pilsen, Bohemia

the Empires major source o artillery

and ammunition.

STEYR MANNLICHERSteyr, Upper Austria

manuacturer o ries and pistols or the

Austro-Hungarian armed orces.

AUSTRODAIMLERWiener Neustadt, Lower Austria

a major manuacturer o military and civilian

motor vehicles.

GANZWORKS Budapest the largest engineering

consortium in Hungary, producing motor vehicles

and aircraf.

NATIONAL RAILWAYSWORKSHOPPilsen, Bohemia the largest rail-repair shop in the Empire.

STABILIMENTO TECNICO TRIESTINOTrieste, Istria

the Empires largest ship-building company, producing

naval and merchant vessels.

MILITARY

EFFECTIVENESSThe sheer number o nationalities within

the army posed considerable problems

basic commands were given in German,

but each regiment had at least one

officially recognised regimental language

or day-to-day use (some had as many

as three!). Friction between the various

nationalities was commonplace, and

did nothing or overall efficiency.

Soon afer the war began, it was

ound that units with a high proportion

o certain Slavnationalities (primarily

Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats, andSlovenes) were prone to desert, or at

least readily surrender to the Russians,

withwhomthey sympathised as ellow

Slavs. However, almost all the peoples o

the Empire unitedto ght ercely against

Italian orcesollowing Italys declaration

o war in1915.

Economic problems bedevilled the

army throughout the decade beore

the war its limited budget restricted

the numbers o conscriptswho could

be ully trained. The lack o unding

also imposed serious delays on the

programme to modernise the Empiresartillery, which, apart rom the ormidable

305mm super-heavy howitzers, was

largely obsoleteby 1914.

By 1914 the Empires railwaynetwork had a total o

45,850km(over 90,600 miles)o track

March 2014


23/84

FIELDARTILLERY

100mm Feldhaubitze M14

100mm Feldhaubitze M9980mm Feldkanone M05

HEAVY ARTILLERY

Skoda 305mm Mrser M11 Skoda 240mm Mrser M98


COUNTDOWNTO

WAR

ARMY STRENGTH:

440,000 RISING TO

1,800,000ON MOBILISATION

ARMY ETHNIC MIXAustrians 29%

Hungarians 19%

Czechs 15%

Poles 9%

Ukrainians 8%

Croats 5%

Romanians 5%

Slovaks 4.5%

Serbs 1%

Slovenes 2.5%

Italians 1%

Bosnians 1%

NAVAL STRENGTH

MEDIUM ARTILLERY

150mm schwere

Feldhaubitze M94

MOUNTAINARTILLERY

100mm Gebirgshaubitze M8

70mm Gebirgsgeschtz M99

MACHINE GUN

8mmSchwarzlose MG

M07/12

RIFLE8mm Steyr-MannlicherM1895

6 older pre-dreadnought battleships58torpedo boats

10

observationballoons

39operational aircraf

3 dreadnought battleships,plus 1 under construction

6 operational pre-dreadnought battleships

9 light cruisers

8 river monitors(the Danube Flotilla)

15destroyers

6 submarines


24/84


AT POWERS

Magyar wobblesWhen a C ouncil of M ini sters was

convened in Vienna on 7 July, Count

Istvn Tisza, the Hungarian Prime

Minister, argued that a strike against

Serbia would provoke Russian

intervention and the dreadful calamity

of a European war.

The crisis was revealing cracks in the

empires ruling coalition of Habsburg

dynasty, German bourgeoisie, and

Magyar gentry. The latter, a class

of decayed landowners propped upby government salaries, lived in fear

that their national privileges might be

diluted by the fur ther incorporation

of Slavs into t he Habsburg polity.

Tisza horse-breeder, Bible-basher,

Habsburg loyalist, implacable enemy

of the empires subject peoples was

their f itting representative.

Tisza viewed with part icular suspicion

plans for the dismemberment of

Serbia, the annexation of territory, and

moves towards a Triple Monarchy of

Germans, Magyars, and South Slavs.Conrads vision of a south-eastern

Europe remodelled by war seemed to

threaten Magyar national eclipse.

But what was the choice? Serbian

nationalism rampant was as much a

threat to the Hungarian lite as to the

Austrian; and the fate of both groups

hinged on the survival of the dynasty.

Tisza was eventually won over by

agreement that Austria-Hungary would

not seize any Serbian territory for itself.

Magyar opposition to war was not

the only reason for delay. Most of the

empires soldiers were busy gathering

the annual har vest: they would not be

available for service until late in the

month. And the French President and

stand against the nationalist tide that

threatened to engulf it.

The German EagleNow or never!, the Kaiser had exclaimed

on 4 July. The Serbs must be disposed

of, and that right soon! When the

Aust rian appea l w as presented the

following day, he offered, after only

the briefest hesitation, Germanys

unconditional support for action

against Serbia. This blank cheque was

endorsed by Wilhelms senior advisorsthe same afternoon. Both the Chancellor

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg and

Army Chief-of-Staff Helmuth von Moltke

supported the K aisers decision.

They knew the risks. An action

against Serbia can lead to world war,

announced Bethmann-Hollweg two days

later; the Central Powers were making

a leap into the dark. But Germanys

leaders half-hoped that swift action

by Austria would present Europe with

afait accompli, and that Russia and

France, eager to avoid war, would seeka diplomatic resolution of the crisis.

Austria must beat the Serbs and then

make peace quickly, demanding an

Austro -Serbian alliance as the sole

condition, proclaimed Moltke.

The decision made, Gemanys leaders

left for their summer vacations. Europe

was still run by wealthy gentlemen, and

July wa s holiday time.

Except for the Austrians. They stayed

at their desks that summer: they had a

blank cheque to process. Even so, they

moved slowly: there were other hurdles

to surmount. The backing of the

German government for action against

Serbia had been secured, but not that

of the Hungarian government.

The Serbs could put 350,000 men

into the field, and their army was

ethnically homogeneous, highly

motivated, and battle-hardened from

experience in the Balkan Wars. Serbia

was not expected to be a push-over.

The Austrian high command was in no

doubt that it could not defeat Serbia in

the south and at the same time block

a Russian invasion in the east. But did

Aust ria sta nd a lone?

On 5 July, the Austrian ambassador to

Berlin delivered a letter from Emperor

Franz Josef to Kaiser Wilhelm II, alongwith a memorandum setti ng out h is

governments case for military action

against Serbia. In the light of this,

he needed to k now, would G ermany

support Austria against Russia in the

present crisis? Could Au stria seek the

final and fundamental reckoning with

Serbia that she desired, secure in the

knowledge that Russian intervention

would be checked by her ally?

Germanys leaders had little choice.

Austria-Hungary was now their sole

steadfast ally in an otherwise hostileor lukewarm Europe. Germany in

1914 faced a hostile coalition of

Russia, France, and perhaps Britain,

confronting her with the daunting

prospect of a war on two fronts against

superior numbers, and quite possibly

a crippling naval blockade.

In raw numbers, some 70 million

Germans faced 160 million Russians in

the East, and, in the West, 40 million

French, 45 million British, plus the vast

manpower reserves of the French and

British colonial empires. The effect of theAustro-German alliance was to place the

51 million people of the Habsburg Empire

in the service of Prussian militarism.

The 39 million non-Germans whom

the dynasty had strapped around a kernel

of 12 million Germans historical

manure for the field of German culture

in Russian revolutionary Leon Trotskys

phrase constituted a Central European

manpower reserve th at had become

a vital German national interest. So

much so that it was Imperial Germany,

the empire of blood and iron, now

the greatest industrial and military

powerhouse in Europe, that proved

more resolute, steeling the decaying,

creaking empire of Franz Josef for a firm

Now or never!The Serbs must bedisposed of, andthat right soon!

Kaiser Wilhelm II


25/84


COUNTDOWNTO

WARand restructured by diktat had, since the

Council of Ministers on 19 July, hardened

into a determined will to war. They were

not now to be restrained.

The face of Austria was transformed

in an instant. The streets filled with

flags, ribbons, and bands playing martial

music, with columns of marching soldiers

in blue-grey uniforms, with crowds of

patriots urging them on with shouts of

Death to the Serbian dogs!

This country, noted the British

ambassador, has gone wild with joy at

the prospect of war with Serbia, andits postponement or prevention would

undoubtedly be a great disappointment.

Many felt a sense of relief, as if society

was at last climbing out of a dark vale of

ennui to a bright upland of clear purpose.

Things couldnt have gone on like this,

wrote Alexander Freud from Vienna to

his brother Sigmund, who, like much of

middle-class Europe, was on vacation. The

great psychoanalyst shared his brothers

enthusiasm for the Habsburg cause:

Perhaps for the first time in 30 years, he

declared, I feel myself an Austrian.The nationalist mood was widespread,

extending across class and national lines

that had of late become increasingly

embittered. The writer Stefan Zweig

was struck by the popular unit y and

enthusiasm on display when he returned

to Vienna a few days after the declaration

of war. All differences of class, rank,

and language were flooded over at

that moment by the rushing feeling of

fraternity. All the little people seemed

to have lifted themselves up to meet this

moment of world history, as if each onewas called upon to cast his infinitesimal

self into the glowing mass, there to be

purified of all selfishness.

From 28 July, Vienna and Budapest wore

the festive colours of dynastic and imperial

power. Discord and disunity had been

cauterised by the red heat of militarism.

This much of Conrads project had been

accomplished in a trice. But at what

price, and for how long? Everything now

depended on what Russia would do. And

news of Austrias mobilisation had been

met in St Petersburg with deep unease.

The Serbian replyThe Serbian reply was due the following

day, and until then Belgrade not

Vienna, Berlin, St Petersburg, Paris, or

London was Europes centre of gravity.

How would the Serbs respond?

The Serbian Prime Minister Nikola

Paic had no desire for war, but he found

minimal room for manoeuvre between

the hawkish belligerence of Vienna

and the red-blooded nationalism of the

Serbian press, the officer corps, and an

electorate that, as chance would have it,

was about to go to the polls.Perhaps Russia would come to

Serbias aid? But the Tsar offered only

moral support and advised against war.

So it seemed that Serbia, in the event,

would be on her own; and in that case,

she would surely be crushed.

Paic had no choice except, at great

political risk, to concede all that

he possibly could. This was a lmost

everything, but not quite, and the modest

reservations included the demand

that Austrian officials participate in a

government enquiry on Serbian soil; hepresumably figured that he could not

have survived the domestic political storm

that such a g ross violation of national

sovereignty would have unleashed.

It hardly mattered. When Paic arrived

in person to deliver his governments

reply, the Austrian ambassador had

destroyed his papers, packed his bags,

and had his official car waiting to take

him to the station. Vienna had already

made its decision.

Austro-Hungarian mobilisationOn 28 July, the Austro-Hungarian Empire

ordered partial mobilisation of its armed

forces, declared war on the Kingdom

of Serbia, and opened fire on Belgrade

across the Danube. The Third Balkan

War had begun.

It was a panic reaction to the moderate

mood that the conciliatory tone of

the Serbian reply had engendered in

European capitals not least in Berlin.

A great moral success for Vienna,

the Kaiser declared on the very day

the first shots were fired, but w ith

it all reason for war is gone. The

growing sense among Austria-Hungarys

leaders that the hostile forces ranged

against it had to be shattered by violence

Prime Minister were on a state v isit to

St Petersburg: better to wait until they

wereen routeback to Paris, lest the crisis

break with the two allies fortuitously

placed to concert action. So time passed.

The Austrian ultimatumMost Europeans, enjoying the fine

weather, went about t heir daily affairs

without any sense of crisis. There was a

crisis, but few yet knew it, for the drama

was played out at f irst among tiny groups

of statesmen and generals meeting in

secret conclaves.One such took place in Vienna on

19 July, a reconvened Council of

Ministers, and it was here that a critical

decision was taken: an ultimatum

would be delivered to the Serbian

government on 23 July, one so contrived

that it would be impossible for the

Serbian government to accede to it.

In general terms, it demanded of the

Serbian authorities that they condemn

anti-Austrian propaganda, suppress

anti-Austrian agitation, and withdraw

recent anti-Austrian statements bygovernment officials. More importantly,

it demanded a full enquiry into Serbian

involvement in the assassination at

Sarajevo, and insisted that Austrian

officials be a llowed to participate in

this. The Serbian government was given

48 hours to respond.

The ultimatum was a diplomatic

time-bomb. Few European leaders can

have doubted its significance when they

read it. The British Cabinet had been

debating Ireland on Friday 24 July, when,

as Winston Churchill, then First Lord ofthe Admiralty, recalls,

The quiet grave tones of Sir Edward Greys

voice were heard reading a document which

had just been brought to him from the Foreign

Office. It was the Austrian note to Serbia

This note was clearly an ultimatum; but it

was an ultimatum such as had never been

penned in modern times. As the reading

proceeded, it seemed absolutely impossible

that any state in the world could accept it,

or that any acceptance, however abject,

would satisfy the aggressor. The parishes

of Fermanagh and Tyrone faded back into

the mists and squalls of Ireland, and a

strange light began to fall and grow

upon the map of Europe.

NEXT MONTHRUSSIA:gendarmeof Europe


26/84


WAR ON FILM

Cold War symbol, the Berlin Wall, wasbuilt. Behind this growing tension was

the macabre shadow of the thousandsof nuclear weapons accumulated bythe Soviets and the Americans, and thepossibility that they would one day be

used, possibly by accident, resulting innuclear Armageddon.

By the early 1960s, the Americanswere keeping a dozen B-52 bombers, fully

armed with nuclear weapons, constantlyairborne on patrol ready to strike attargets within the Soviet Union, an

operation known as Chrome Dome.Kubrick read avidly about the mechanicsof the nuclear threat, and subscribed tojournals and magazines about military

weapons. Then he read a novel bya British writer, Peter George, whohad been a flight lieutenant in theRAF, but who had become thoroughly

disillusioned with the whole conceptof nuclear deterrence and mutuallyassured destruction.

The novelTwo Hours to Doom(Red Alert

in the US) imagined a scenario in which

a commander of an American air-basebecame depressed after being diagnosedwith a fatal illness, and ordered his B-52

bombers to attack targets inside the SovietUnion. The commander sealed his base,knowing that an attacking force wouldsoon arrive to try to discover the recall

code that only he knew.In the War Room under the Pentagon,

the American President and his chiefs

of staff eventually decided to help theRussians shoot down the B-52 bombers,but agreed with the Soviets that if a

Russian city was bombed, Strategic AirCommand would itself bomb AtlanticCity. In the end, the only bomb that gotthrough the Russian defences landed inopen country and there was no need to

nuke Atlantic City. The book ended onan optimistic note, with the Americanand Russian leaders agreeing they mustavoid such risks in the future.

Preparing to lmKubrick purchased the film rights to the

book for the laughably low sum of $3,500.Peter George flew to New York, where hestarted to work with Kubrick on writinga screenplay based on his scenario. The

script remained totally serious, but Kubrickbegan to think that maybe a subject as

Taylor Downing delves into the weird world of Stanley Kubricks

Cold War black comedy.

DR STRANGELOVEOR HOW I LEARNED TO

STOP WORRYING AND LOVETHE BOMB

In the spring of 1960, the Russiansshot down an American U2 spy plane,capturing its pilot and all his cameras.In the presidential election of that

year, the Cold War loomed large, as theAmericans (wrongly) feared a missilegap, believing that the Soviets hadmore nuclear missiles than they did.

In 1961, a CIA-supported invasionof Cuba backfired, and the ultimate

After making his FirstWorld War epicPathsof Glory(seeMHM40),Stanley Kubrick directed

two movies,Spartacus(1960), again with Kirk Douglas, andLolita(finished in 1961), with PeterSellers in a supporting role. Then, during

the early 1960s, he became fascinated bythe escalating tension of the Cold War.

LeftColumbia Pictures insisted that Peter

Sellers appear in the movie due to the success

of the previous Kubrick lm he had appeared in:

Lolita. Sellers ended up playing three characters

in total, including the bizarre title role.


27/84

the gung-ho Texan pilot of a B-52. In the

end, Sellers found the multiple roles too

demanding, and could not or would not

master the Texan accent, so an American

rodeo cowboy named Slim Pickens was

cast as the B-52 captain.

There are three principal sets for the

film: the air-base, the B-52 interior

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