Schlieffens Nightmare - the Eastern Theratre

[Cfant]

Dear all,

I like to open with Schlieffen. It's historical, more fun in the West from the start, and prevents the British and French from having too many free troops to get any silly ideas about the Balkans or the Ottomans.

But of course, that leaves few defenders for the East and quite a few Russians who are underemployed and want to take a holiday in East Prussia or Galicia. In short: a lot of trouble. My standard setup looks like the one below. It's enough against weaker opponents, but good players are less forgiving. What should a stable defence look like?

Hannaj showed the Serbia Blitz, where the Austrian cavalry is also missing in the east. One is bearable (red circle), I use it more as a reserve. But it all seems very patchy to me already.

[shri]

You seem to be trying to defend everything, that is not possible. You need to give up some things to save the rest.

[Cfant]

With Austria I don't expect to hold much. It's my position on turn 1 to buy one turn time for the corps in Lemberg to dig and wait for an HQ. So Lemberg can resist a few turns. No problem, if Austria has to retreat into the Carpathians. But still it need troops to cover the front.
With the Germans I think you have to spread out to prevent a decisive Russian push. Russias cav is quite dangerous in the beginning and there are many NM-cities around.