varsovie wrote: Fri Aug 11, 2023 10:43 pm
His two major defect was poor relationships with the Germans high command, partly because he didn't see the AH as a Ger minor partner and partly because of his character. And he thought the war would be short (he wasn't the only one to make that mistake), which led to his over aggressive strategy in Galicia which if it "worked" in the sense they stopped Russia, but that decimated his Manpower.
I am not going to enter into an argument on pre-war training as most of the armies had a very poor view of the war with 2 somewhat major exceptions -
1. British changed most of their doctrine post Boer Wars, adopted howitzers and machine guns and better logistics and better communications like wireless, telegraphs, telephones. (though British army pre Autumn 1915 was rather small in size)
2. Germans under Karl von Einem and Moltke stopped Cavalry charges and adopted Howitzers and machine guns and even mortars but didn't adopt communications, they still used riders, runners and even pigeons at the start of the great war, this caused a disaster at Marne where Moltke was fighting totally blind.
In terms of pre-war training (i won't get into internal Austrian politics as that was the job of the Kaiser and the defense ministry not Conrad) - Conrad or Cadorna or Foch or Sukhomlinov all advocated importance of Cavalry and Morale than artillery and machine guns to disastrous effects, absolutely no difference in the set of nincompoops. Only difference is Joffre being an engineer was brilliant at logistics and totally unperturbed, he saved France (despite his own epic folly of adopting the Foch-Castelnau Plan XVII which almost killed the French).
Conrad on the other hand, despite knowing Col. Redl sold his plans to Russia in 1912, didn't change his plans much and insisted on an attack despite knowing the Germans were moving west (this was explicitly told to him, he chose to believe his own myths and lies).
Then Conrad kept attacking again and again and again-
1. Galicia with disaster, moreover his disastrous mobilisation plans meant the 2nd Army arrived peacemeal and got cut down to nothing.
2. The hilly terrain Carpathians with even more disaster (this in winter with an army that lacked proper winter clothing, sometimes even shoes)
3. Bukovina
4. The whole Serbian botched attempts and total disaster (though Potiorek should share blame)
No other general except Cadorna (11 disasters at Isonzo for 2 minor victories of a few km each) kept these insane offensives up when they understood their armies were getting blown up badly. The Russians stopped all offensives against Germany after losing badly in East Prussia, despite odds of 3:1, General Evert and Kuropatkin refused to attack (and rightly so), they instead rightly pushed against the much weaker Austrians.
Austria without these offensives, had it properly planned a defensive positioning using the fortresses of Prezsmyl and others could have held out alone in 1914 in Galicia and taken on Serbia properly. As Moltke Sr. wrote, mistakes in Mobilisation can be rectified only in the next war, that epic blunder was solely on Conrad, no one else.
Conrad himself admitted in his private correspondence, the Archduke if alive, would have shot me.
