The Pola Naval Base of Austria-Hungary

In All Its Glory: The Austro-Hungarian Fleet at Pola

The Pola (now "Pula") Naval Base was  located in Pola, a city in the Istrian peninsula, which is now part of Croatia. [Since our focus is on the WWI period we will use "Pola" exclusively in this article.]

During the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in the mid-19th century, Pola became the Monarchy's main wartime harbour which led to the construction of the maritime arsenal of the Austro-Hungarian navy. Located on the south coast of the Pula Bay, it is surrounded by high hills and the Brijuni islands from the sea side. Its position, size, and the protection from winds and waves made it one of the most suitable natural ports. The works commenced in 1848 by the erection of three warehouses. The arsenal cornerstone was laid in 1856 by Empress Elisabeth herself. At the same time, the Navy or the Military Hospital and the Franz Joseph Barracks were also erected. The base eventually included dry docks, an arsenal, shipyard, and fuel storage facilities. The military infrastructure around Pola would grow to include 28 forts and concrete fortifications, and over 200 military buildings.

Location on the Adriatic

Polad the Great War

The base was the primary operating base for the Austro-Hungarian Navy. It was home to the main battlefleet and its headquarters, U-boat operation, aviation units, and the navy's main fueling and supply depots. Additionally, the Imperial German Navy (IGN) formed the Pola Flotilla to support the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The flotilla operated out of Pola and Cattaro to the south. Underground tunnels were erected during the war throughout the city to provide shelter for people in case of air raids. This underground tunnel system consisted of shelters, trenches, galleries and passages, as well as ammunition storages and communication passages.

Three Dreadnoughts at Pola

During the First World War, Grossadmiral Anton Haus, commander of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, consolidated the fleet at Pola and refused to send forces to operate outside the Adriatic, stating that “his first obligation was to keep the fleet intact to meet the Italian threat.” He espoused the policy that Austria-Hungary's naval position was best maintained by avoiding risk to the country's battlefleet in risky offensive naval actions. 

Repair Docks at Pola

Haus, however, would die of pneumonia in August 1917. By March 1918, he had been succeeded by Admiral Miklos Horthy who had seen great offensive success in  the May 1917 Battle of the Strait of Otranto, the largest naval engagement of the war in the Adriatic Sea. Horthy had subsequently gained the Emperor's attention by subduing a series of naval mutinies, trying 40 of the sailors and executing four.

One of the Forts That Guarded the Approaches to Pola

By June 1918, Horthy planned another attack on Otranto, and in a departure from the cautious strategy of his predecessors, he committed the empire's battleships to the mission. This would mark a great downturn in the fortunes of the empire's navy. While sailing through the night, the dreadnought SMS Szent István met Italian MAS torpedo boats and was sunk, causing Horthy to abort the mission. Szent István is the ship immortalized in the film of its sinking that often shows up in WWI documentaries and at our site HERE.  

U-Boat Docked at Pola

Disaster at Pola

By the summer of 1918, as World War One was drawing to close, the Austrian navy had suffered a series of setbacks, its most powerful ships retreating to the port of Pola. The entrance to this harbor was protected by forts and floating booms and barricades designed to ensnare and destroy enemy ships. The Italian navy made several attempts to attack the Austrian fleet at Pola but failed to breach the elaborate harbor defenses. On 31 October, with the war clearly winding down,  Horthy was ordered by Emperor Charles to surrender the fleet to the new State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs (the predecessor of Yugoslavia). Nonetheless, early the next morning, two Italian frogmen  executed a brilliant attack within the Pola harbor defenses that resulted in the mining and sinking of the Dreadnought Viribus Unitis and a nearby freighter. Viribus Unitis had by the time of the explosion been turned over to its new owners. This Italian Triumph / Austrian Humiliation was covered in depth in our earlier two-part article HERE and HERE.

Viribus Unitis Going Under

Aftermath

After Austria-Hungary collapsed in 1918, Pola became part of Italy. During World War II, the German Wehrmacht occupied Pola, and the Kreigsmarine again used it as a U-boat base. The city was repeatedly bombed by the Allies from 1942 to 1944. After the war, Istria was partitioned into occupation zones until the region became officially united with the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on 15 September 1947. Since the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991, Pula has been part of the Republic of Croatia. The city today holds many clues to its once naval character but (sadly) hosts no men-of-war.

Pula, Croatia, Today

Sharing a Family’s Grief with Posterity: The Personal Messages Carved on WWI British Headstones

By James Patton

Many readers of Roads to the Great War have toured the British battlefields in Europe and visited some of the hundreds of British cemeteries, perhaps to the point of ABC (“Another Bloody Cemetery”) fatigue. A visitor’s Frequently Asked Question is about personal inscriptions on headstones.  

After the war, the  Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC), now known as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), allowed the family of those with a known grave to have a short personal inscription engraved on the headstone. The following set of instructions were transmitted to the Next of Kin of record in an official letter from the IWGC’s Vice Chairman, Maj. Gen. Sir Fabian Ware  KCVO KBE CB CMG (1869-1949). 

• The headstone will have engraved upon it the naval or military inscription, the badge of the deceased’s naval or military unit, and an emblem of his religious faith. 

• The Commission would be obliged if you could kindly assist them by saying whether the above particulars, name, initials, honours, etc. are correct, in order that the naval or military inscription may be absolutely accurate.

• A space “a” is provided on the opposite page for any corrections that you may desire to make.

• If you wish the age to be engraved, will you give particulars in the space on the opposite page after the word AGE.

• In addition, a space has been reserved at the foot of the headstone, below the emblem of religious faith, to allow the engraving, at your own expense, of a short personal inscription or text of your own choice.

• It is regretted that special alphabets, such as Greek, cannot be accepted.

• The length of the inscription is limited by the space available on the headstone, and should in consequence not exceed 66 letters, the space between two words counting as one letter.

• For instance, if you choose twelve words the total number of actual letters should not exceed 55, there being 11 spaces between the words.

• If you desire to use this space, would you kindly write (clearly) the inscription or text that you select in the space “b” opposite.

• A claim for the amount due from you in respect of the engraving of the selected inscription, will be sent to you in due course. The present price is 3 ½ d per letter, but this may be subject to future fluctuations of cost.

• Unless you express a wish to the contrary in the space “c” opposite, a cross will be engraved in the centre of the stone.

• The above rules didn’t apply to headstones in the cemeteries at Salonika and Gallipoli;  those markers are substantially different in size, style and composition, and won’t be discussed here.
• 
  

According to the CWGC, there are more than 229,000 headstones with a personal inscription such as those shown above. Many families chose terse expressions of duty or loss, like “He did his Bit” or “My Darling Husband”,  KJV Bible verses, snippets from the Anglican liturgy or hymns or even famous quotations, often from Rudyard Kipling.

However stern Maj. Gen. Ware’s instructions may have seemed, in practice deviations  were allowed. For one thing, Victoria Cross holders have the image of that honour inscribed in the place of the religious emblem. In another instance, in spite of Ware’s ban on special characters, Indian Army and Chinese Labor Corps headstones have inscriptions in the native language, and there is even a stanza of music inscribed on a British one.

Furthermore, there was no cost to the family for personal inscriptions on Australian and Canadian graves as those governments picked up the bill, and New Zealand families couldn’t order personal inscriptions due to their government’s policy.  

But by far the most significant deviation was the relaxation of Ware’s ‘strict’ 66 letter limit. 

Visitors will no doubt have come across some headstones where that limit has obviously been exceeded. The following are the three longest personal inscriptions that have been found by the Western Front Association (WFA).

The record found thus far is 388 letters, for Private Edward Rust, in Hazebrouck Communal Cemetery. He is also one of only two Other Ranks found thus far to have a non-standard inscription on his headstone – at a cost annotated on the schedule in the IWGC files of £4/13s – a considerable sum at the time. A member of The Green Howards (Alexandra, Princess of Wales’s Own Yorkshire Regiment), Edward had joined the Territorials whilst still at school and volunteered for foreign service in 1914. He had been at the front for only one week before he was wounded. He died six days later, aged 19 years. His inscription is:

SERIOUSLY WOUNDED WHILE ADVANCING WITH HIS REGIMENT IN THE FIGHTING NEAR ST. JULIEN SAT. APRIL 24. 1915 HE WAS TAKEN TO THE FIELD HOSPITAL BUT WAS SO EAGER TO UPHOLD THE HONOUR OF HIS REGIMENT AND TO SERVE HIS COUNTRY THAT HE RETURNED NEXT DAY TO THE FIRING LINE AND REMAINED WITH HIS COMRADES UNTIL THEY WERE RELIEVED AND DIED ON APRIL 30TH COURAGEOUS TO THE END AND BELOVED BY ALL WHO KNEW HIM

The runner-up is Lieut. Alfred James Lawrence Evans. He was born in Quebec, the son of Lorenzo and Elizabeth Evans, and after graduation from Montreal’s McGill University, he became a mining engineer in British Columbia. Due to his education, he was rated as a Sapper in the 1st Field Company, Canadian Engineers. He left Canada in the first contingent of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) in October 1914. Promotion was swift and he was commissioned in July 1915. He died of wounds in No. 2 Casualty Clearing Station on 7 December 1915, and is buried in Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension. He has a non-standard inscription of 318 characters, which reads:

BORN AT QUEBEC DIED OF WOUNDS RECEIVED ON 23RD NOVEMBER 1915 WHILE IN COMMAND OF 1ST BDE. MINING SEC. 3RD BTN. FRONT LINE TRENCHES BELGIUM MENTIONED IN DESPATCHES FOR GALLANT AND DISTINGUISHED CONDUCT IN THE FIELD "THE BRAVE DIE NEVER BEING DEATHLESS THEY BUT CHANGE THEIR COUNTRY'S ARMS FOR MORE THEIR COUNTRY'S HEART"

Since Alfred served in the CEF and the Canadian Government would have covered the cost, the IWGC records do not show that an individual bill was issued. According to the price schedule, the cost would have worked out at just over £3. 

Lastly, there is Captain Guy Charles Boileau Willock, a great grandson of General Sir Henry Willock (1790-1858) a former chairman of The East India Company. After attending Cambridge, Guy was a barrister in London. Commissioned in the 18th London Regiment (The London Irish Rifles), he went to France in May 1915. He fell during the initial attack of the Battle of Loos, where his battalion was the one that dribbled and passed a football as they tried to cross No Man’s Land. The inscription on his headstone in Dud Corner Cemetery totals 257 characters, at a cost to relatives of £2/19s/6d. It reads:

One perhaps unforeseen consequence of putting the private inscription at the foot of the stone is that today, after a hundred years in place, some of the stones have tended to settle a bit, often making the complete inscription hard to read.

Source: Extracted from a longer article by Jill Stewart of  the Western Front Association.  Her full article can read HERE.  

Eyewitness: At the Front Line at Anzac

Private Cecil Malthus

By Private Cecil Malthus, Nelson Company, Canterbury Battalion, New Zealand Brigade

We went to Quinn's Post by a safe and easy route, round by Anzac Cove and up Shrapnel Gully. In passing up several open valleys we gained a much better knowledge of our new position. Quinn's Post was the most advanced corner of our line and the furthest from the sea - much nearer the sea on the left than on the right. 

Approaching the Line

From the beach at Anzac Cove the way lay through deep and winding communication trenches which had cost the Australians weeks of incredible work. Then came the comparatively safe stretches of Shrapnel Gully, where the track was not overlooked by the enemy, except at a few points where sentries were always posted to warn the passers-by. These places were crossed at the double, however weary or loaded a man might be. Even so, they provided good shooting for the Turkish snipers, as the movement of traffic, though spasmodic, was almost continual. 

From there another deep sap emerged in Monash Gully, which was really the head of the mile-long valley traversing our territory and forming the main avenue of traffic. Monash Gully too was badly exposed to Turkish snipers, who had almost a clear line of fire from Dead Man's Ridge, back between Pope's Hill and Quinn's. Up the hill to the left of Monash Gully was Russell's Top, straight at the head of the gully was Pope's Hill, with deep ravines on either side of it, and on the right, just clinging to the summit of a steep cliff, was Quinn's Post. . . 

An Australian "Digger" in the Sector Digging In

Quinn's Post was reached by a long straight staircase made, in the absence of timber, out of faggots of brushwood. This staircase was of course too steep for mules, and all the stores had to be carried up by hand. To men stricken with dysentery the daily water and stores fatigue was a cruel task. Quinn's Post itself was subdivided into six little garrisons or separate commands, requiring each about twenty men to hold them, with a good many more in supports. Nos. 3 and 4. 

At the head of the staircase, were perhaps the scene of the strangest and most terrible struggle in all history. The Turkish trenches were only 7 yards away, and at one point in No. 4. we had a listening post just 6 feet from their line. One could step out through a gap in the sandbags and touch the Turkish parapet (but one was much better advised not to). Nos. 1 and 2 joined up with Courtney's Post on the right. They were 20 or 30 yards distant from the enemy and had the great advantage, very rare with us on Gallipoli, of being on slightly higher ground than the opposing Turkish trenches. Nos. 5 and 6 were literally cut out of the face of the cliff, and No. 6 ended abruptly on the brim of a deep gully commanded by Turkish trenches at the head of it, on Dead Man's Ridge, 50 yards away. 

Looking Toward Pope's Hill from Quinn's Post

The gully caused a break in our line, but over at Pope's Hill an oblique spur, strongly entrenched, partly enfiladed it. No. 6 could only be reinforced by men passing right along the trench from No. 5 and was thus a perilously weak position. If the Turks could have captured it and built up protection from enfilading fire, they would have dominated the whole valley and all our communications. They had only to gain a few yards and hurl our men into the gully.

For more information on the fighting at Quinn's Post, see our 2020 article HERE.

Sources: Gallipoli Association; C. Malthus, Anzac: A Retrospect (Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd, 1965), 68-71.

"[You're Dead] Joseph Arthur Brown"

Our Poet: Edward Adolphe Sinauer de Stein (1887–1965) was born in London and educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. He was commissioned into the King’s Royal Rifle Corps and served in France during the First World War. He wrote several war-themed poems that were published in the Times newspaper and Punch and The Bystander magazines and earned De Stein the nickname "The Trench Bard." He was promoted to the rank of major and survived the war.  His wartime poetry collection, The Poets in Picardy, was published in 1919. He later became a merchant banker and was knighted in 1946.

Joseph Arthur Brown

By  E. De Stein

The name of Joseph Arthur Brown

By some profound mischance

Was sent right through to G.H.Q.

As “Killed in action, France”.

So when poor Joseph went to draw

His bully beef and bread,

“You’re not upon the strength, my son”,

The Quartermaster said.

To Sergeant Baird then Joseph went

And told his fortune harsh,

But Sergeant Baird on Joseph glared

And pulled his great moustache.

“Have I not taught you discipline

For three long years?” said he,

“If you are down as dead, young Brown,

Why, dead you’ll have to be”.

In vain the journal of his town

Was brought by friends to please,

That he might see his eulogy

In local Journalese;

For to the Captain Joseph went

With teardrops in his eye,

And said, “I know I’m dead, but oh!

I am so young to die!”

 

And at the Captain’s feet he knelt

And clasped him by the knee.

But on his face no sign of grace

Poor Joseph Brown could see.

“Then to John Bull I’ll write”, he cried,

“Since supplication fails”.

“But you are dead”, the Captain said,

“And dead men tell no tales”.

So reckless passion seized upon

The luckless Private Brown,

And with two blows upon the nose

He knocked the Captain down.

’Mid cries of horror and surprise

They led the lad away.

Before the Colonel grim and stern

They brought him up next day.

But when the Colonel sentenced Brown

With thund’rous voice and language choice

To thirty days F.P. [field punishment],

Across the trembling prisoner’s face

A smile was seen to spread,

As he replied, with conscious pride,

“You can’t, ’cos I am dead”.

Sources: The Poets in Picardy, 1919; Forgotten Poets of the First World War.

Lonesome Memorial #10: Belgium's Appreciation of Herbert Hoover

I am that which was and is and
Will ever be, and no mortal has yet
Lifted the veil which covers me

This bronze, seven and a half foot tall statue Isis, Goddess of Life is the work of Belgian sculptor Auguste Puttemans. It was a gift from the people of Belgium in gratitude for Herbert Hoover's famine relief efforts on their behalf during the First World War. Isis wears a veil, a symbol of the mysteries of life. Her right hand carries the torch of life-its three flames represent the past, present, and future. Her left hand holds the key of life. 

An ancient Egyptian goddess and an American President are an unlikely pairing. But it provides a powerful visual link between Hoover's work in the First World War and his life's dedication to the welfare of others. It is now located at the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site near the former president's birth site in West Branch, Iowa.

After the war, Herbert Hoover was sent many gifts expressing the gratitude of the Belgian people for his humanitarian efforts. Many Belgian children, refugees, and soldiers contributed to a fund to create this work of art.

When the Belgians shipped the finished statue to California's Stanford University in 1922. It remained on campus until President and Mrs. Hoover brought it to West Branch in 1939. They wanted it to be placed in a position where it was contemplating the house, which is why Isis sits in her throne-like chair facing the Birthplace Cottage. The National Historic Site annually has about 100,000 visitors.

View of Hoover's Birth Cottage from Isis

Getting to the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site:

Take exit 254 on Interstate 80 to West Branch, Iowa. The Visitor Center is 0.3 mile north of I-80 at  110 Parkside Drive, West Branch, Iowa 52358; GPS coordinates: 637614, Y: 4614507.

Sources:  National Archives; National Park Service

Kaiser Wilhelm's Left Arm and the Fate of the World

The Hetman of Ukraine with Kaiser Wilhelm II

Kaisers Wilhelm II's physical deficiency has often been identified as the key to his lust for military and imperial power, and it is interesting to speculate on the course European and World history might have taken had he not had such a traumatic entry into the world. Here's an excellent article on the causes and impact of the the disability on the Kaiser. The above photo is a rare one that clearly reveals his disfigurement. Some sources I've found state that publishing such revealing images during his reign was illegal in Germany. MH

By Julia Armfield

On 27 January 1859 in the Kronprinzenpalais in Berlin, Prince Friedrich Victor Wilhelm Albert Hohenzollern—Queen Victoria’s first grandchild—was born with his left arm around his neck. It took three days for anyone to notice the arm had been damaged, but it was a problem which the future Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia would spend the rest of his life trying to conceal.

Prince Wilhelm was left with Erb’s Palsy after a protracted breech birth during which the two attending doctors were hamstrung by royal etiquette forcing them to work beneath the mother’s skirts, and the message summoning Berlin’s foremost obstetrician got lost.  Permanent withering of the arm was probably caused by damage done to the nerves in his arm and neck by the forceps that dragged him out. Born blue, he was initially presumed dead and only brought round by vigorous rubbing that probably only made the nerve damage worse. It has often been speculated that oxygen deprivation at birth also left him with minor brain damage, a theory which certainly would explain the unstable personality for which he would become infamous.

In early infancy, it became clear that the young prince’s left arm was not growing properly.  His left hand was a claw and the arm a shrunken dead weight. Physical prowess was prized amongst the Prussian royals, so from the age of six months the prince began to undergo arcane but undeniably imaginative treatments intended to fix his damaged arm. Some treatments were inoffensively useless—the arm was sprayed with seawater, massaged, and wrapped in cold compresses—but others were more macabre. The practice of weekly “animal baths,” which essentially required the arm to be shoved inside the carcass of a freshly killed animal so that the heat might galvanise the shrivelled tissue, was thought by Queen Victoria to be revolting and idiotic. The method of binding the young prince’s good arm to his body so that his left arm would “have to work” did little except compromise his balance, whilst drastic electric shock therapy was administered when he was barely a year old. At the age of four, he was placed in a body-stretching machine akin to a medieval rack to correct the various muscular problems that had developed in his neck and shoulders.

As an adult, the Kaiser was semi-successful in hiding the withered arm. In formal pictures, he typically posed with his left hand resting on his sword with the right on top, and with gloves to provide distraction. His clothes were tailored with higher pockets to disguise the length of his left arm, and he grew adept at shooting and riding with his right arm. Historical videos show passable movement in his left arm and a 1915 edition of the Toronto World even claimed that  “a series of string and cords, acting like muscles…connected with the good muscles of the shoulder most adroitly, enable him to impart to it movements that are almost life-like.” 

"Treating the Kaiser’s Withered Arm", British Library Blog, 28 February 2014

The Secret Battle, A Tragedy of the First World War

By A. P. Herbert

Frontline Books, 2009

Originally, Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1919

Reviewed by Bruce Sloan

The Secret Battle is a novel, but it is based upon what the author saw as a soldier of the Great War. Alan Patrick Herbert (1890–1971) enlisted in the summer of 1914 as an ordinary seaman. Shortly afterwards, He was commissioned as a sublieutenant of the Royal Navy, and promptly turned infantryman in the Royal Naval Division. He fought at Gallipoli and the Western Front, where he took part in most of the major battles from 1916 onward. Herbert later served in Parliament and in WW II as a petty officer in the Royal Naval (Thames) Patrol, and he was knighted in 1945. He died on 11 November 1971, Armistice Day.

The introduction, by Malcolm Brown, is nearly as engrossing as the story, as it sketches Mr. Herbert's life and the political and social environment which kept this work from becoming popular right after the war. In the 1928 foreword, Winston Churchill wrote: "This story of a valiant heart tested to destruction took rank when it was first published a few months after the Armistice, as one of the most moving of the novels produced by the war. It was at that time a little swept aside by the revulsion of the public mind from anything to do with the awful period just ended." Bernard Montgomery considered it the best account ever written of frontline combat.

Click HERE to Order

The story is of Harry Penrose, a young officer whose wartime experiences parallel those of the author. Penrose is unsure of his courage, and in trying to sort himself out, his actions prove his valor. At Gallipoli, he assumes the role of scout, lying between the lines, night after night, and continues with incredible bravery when he is on the Western Front. 

After much wartime introspection and courage, due to politics and the intransigence of the British officers above him, Penrose is court-martialed over an inaccurately reported incident during a shelling and shot for cowardice.

The opening lines of The Secret Battle: "I am going to write down some of the history of Harry Penrose, because I do not think full justice has been done to him. . ." The reader will certainly agree, and it may be partly due to his reading of this novel many years before, that the death penalty was not reintroduced, by decision of Winston Churchill, in 1942.

The Secret Battle is alive with experiences of the trenches and the men who fought through the war. Although a novel, it reads like a firsthand account. After all, the author was there. 

Bruce Sloan

[Editor's Comments: This book was one of my first introductions (c. 1968) to some of the finest fiction of the war.  I had picked it out as a change of pace after reading the entire Lord of the Rings trillogy during a term break at college. Please read The Secret Battle if you haven't discovered it yet. Also, readers might be interested in our earlier article on the service and subsequent careers of author A.P. Herbert, HERE. MH]

Fact Sheet: The Austro-Hungarian Empire at War

General facts

• Population: 48.5 million (1914)
• Capital: Vienna (1914 population 2 million)

Head of State:

• Emperor Franz Joseph I (2 December 1848–21 November 1916)
• Emperor Karl I (21 November 1916–1921)

Head of Government:

• Prime Minister Count Karl von Stürgkh (3 November 1911–21 October 1916)
• Prime Minister Ernst von Koerber (29 October–20 December 1916)
• Prime Minister Count Heinrich von Clam-Martinic (20 December 1916–23 June 1917)
• Prime Minister Ernst Seidler von Feuchtenegg (23 June 1917–27 July 1918)
• Prime Minister Baron Max Hussarek von Heinlein (27 July–27 October 1918)
• Prime Minister Heinrich Lammasch (27 October–11 November 1918)

Participation in the War

• Entered the war: 28 July 1914 (Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia)
• Ceased hostilities: 4 November 1918 (armistice with the Allies)
• Ended belligerent status: 10 September 1919 (Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye signed between the Allies and the newly formed Republic of Austria); 4 June 1920 (Treaty of Trianon signed between the Allies and the newly formed Republic of Hungary)
• The republics of Austria and Hungary were the "rump" states left after the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire saw the rest of its territory divided amongst Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Italy, and Romania. The two republics inherited the obligations of and responsibility for the empire's role as a belligerent in the war for the purposes of the Paris Peace Conference at Versailles.

War Costs

• Based on the estimates by Winkler and Teleszky, Austria’s war costs come to 65.1 billion crowns in current prices (15.4 billion crowns in 1913 prices), while Hungary’s amount to 32.7 billion crowns in current prices (7.8 billion crowns in 1913 prices). Overall, the war costs of Austria-Hungary are estimated at 97.8 billion crowns in current prices, or 23.2 billion crowns in 1913 prices. In other words, the war consumed more than three times Austria-Hungary’s GDP of the year 1913.

Click on Map to Enlarge

Army

• Peacetime strength 1914: 415,000
• Reserves 1914: 1.4 million
• Full mobilisation 1914: 1.8 million
• Total mobilised during the war: 8 million

Navy

• Peacetime strength 1914: 20,000
• Fleet (1914)
• Battleships (Dreadnoughts): 4
• Battleships (pre-Dreadnoughts): 12
• Cruisers: 3
• Light cruisers: 4
• Destroyers: 18
• Submarines: 14

Austrian, Hungarian, Albanian, and Bosnian
Soldiers of the Empire

Significant Military Operations (Not Comprehensive)

• Serbian Campaign (1914):

The initial offensive against Serbia, which was the immediate trigger for the war, resulted in heavy losses for Austria-Hungary despite their initial success. 

• Galician Campaign (1914–1915):

A series of battles fought in the region of Galicia against the Russian forces, with mixed results for Austria-Hungary. 

• Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive (1915):

A major offensive alongside Germany against the Russians, achieving significant territorial gains in Galicia. 

• Battles of the Isonzo (1915-1917):

A series of protracted and bloody battles against Italy on the Isonzo River front, with Austria-Hungary largely holding the line despite heavy casualties.  

• Defense and Counterattack of the Brusilov Offensive (1916):

The largest and most successful Russian assault of the war. Despite eventually being contained by the Central Powers, it proved quite damaging to Austria-Hungary's forces.

• Battle of Caporetto (1917):

A decisive Austro-Hungarian and German victory against Italy, marking their most significant success on the Italian front. 

• Romanian Campaign (1916–1917):

Austria-Hungary, with German support, successfully occupied large parts of Romania. 

 

Crowd Waiting for the Local Coal Merchant,
Hütteldorf (Vienna), 1917

Casualties (Military)

• Dead (all causes): 1.2 million
• Wounded: 1,943,000
• Prisoners of War: 2.1 million

Casualties (Civilian)

• Losses for Austria-Hungary can be estimated at 460,000 caused by famine, cold, and epidemics (the Spanish flu additionally caused 250,000 victims).

Sources: 1914-1918 Online; New Zealand History; Various Wikipedia sites

The Great Machine Gun War—It Wasn't Like Any Other

 

Russian Machine Gun, c. 1905

By John Beatty

Prelude: Mukden 1905

From 20 February to 10 March, 2,005 Russian and Japanese machine gunners blazed away at each other, sometimes at point-blank ranges. Among the 270,000 Japanese soldiers engaged were some 200 machine guns, firing 20.11 million rounds during the battle, which was more than the entire German Army fired in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71). The Russians, with some 292,000 men in the battle, had just 54 machine guns. The decisive Japanese victory, observed by British, American (including John. J. Pershing), French, and German officers embedded on both sides, demonstrated the power of the machine gun in both the offense and the defense. It is worth noting, however, that most of Japan’s MGs were light and somewhat less than reliable.

French Machine Gunners, 1914

Opening Shots in Europe

There were a meager 12,000 machine guns in Europe by the time World War One broke out in 1914. The level of machine gun issue in the armies of the major powers in 1914 was roughly equivalent, but the most effective user of machine guns in the first year of the war was the German Army. In 1914, each German infantry division comprised two brigades, each of two infantry regiments. A single infantry regiment comprised three battalions plus a machine gun company of six heavy (P08 Maxim) machine guns. The machine guns formed the thirteenth, separate company of each three-battalion regiment. This meant that instead of being distributed piecemeal to the three battalions of the regiment, the machine guns remained under the direct control of the regimental commander, grouped together in action. Besides the machine gun companies of infantry and cavalry regiments, eleven independent machine gun detachments originally meant for conjunction with the cavalry were available to corps commanders. Because of this organization, Allied observers credited the Germans with more machine guns than they possessed. The Germans’ effective use of the guns was in stark contrast to the general prewar tendency for everyone else to underestimate the potential effect of machine gun firepower.

One of the earliest lessons learned was that concentrating machine gun fire at crucial points enhanced their effectiveness. At Tannenberg, the concentrated fire of just six machine guns shattered a Russian counterattack. At Le Cateau, 84 closely massed German machine guns in offensive roles dislodged a larger British force.

Thus, 1914 solidified the role of the machine gun as not merely a defensive weapon to supplement the infantry but as a lighter-weight version of the light artillery that had accompanied the foot soldiers since Napoleon’s day. The changes they would work on ground combat would be so profound that warfare would become irrevocably deadlier than ever before.

German Machine Gunners, 1918

The Marriage Made in Hell

In 1916, when the Western Front had solidified into a siege with barbed wire entanglements spreading for acre after acre, British and their Commonwealth allies developed barrage (indirect) fire that allowed troops to fire over the heads of their own soldiers. Even though pioneered by the Germans, this technique opened up the way for both planned and unexpected attacks and responses to SOS (emergency) calls from the infantry that were quicker than calling for artillery support. Ultimately, machine guns were more effective than artillery because a single machine gun could deliver 200–400 rounds a minute into their killing zone as long as they had ammunition. Some barrages reached into enemy reserve trenches for hours at a time, restricting troop movement. Others pounded obstacles during attacks, and still others formed the marriage made in Hell of machine guns combined with barbed wire to form impenetrable infantry killing zones. The machine gun came to be known as “essence of infantry,” and “the machine tool of death.”

While most guns had an effective range of about 3,000 yards with new barrels (changeable during combat), the French 8 mm Hotchkiss could reach 4,000 yards consistently from the beginning of the war. Late model .303 Vickers guns could reach 4,700 yards under ideal conditions but usually engaged at 3,500-4,000. A single machine gun might have a beaten zone (area of impact) of 5 x 5 yards from 2,000 yards away, putting a bullet in every square foot about every ten seconds. A platoon of eight guns might have a beaten zone of 50 x 50, a company of 16 guns might cover 100 x 100, and a battalion of 36 guns could cover two football fields with bullets every ten seconds and do it for hours on end. Though the last was rare (but the first three were common), it happened toward the end of the war.

By late 1917, the Germans created elite sharpshooter machine gun attachments in their specialized attack (storm) units specifically tasked with destroying enemy machine guns. In that same year, the Germans reported that 90 percent of their small arms ammunition was going into the chambers of their machine guns; it would be no stretch of the imagination to say the French and British could report the same. Machine gunnery became a specialized skill handled by those who developed new firing methods that revolutionized land warfare and infantry tactics.

American Machine Gunners, Marne River, 1918

The Gunner’s Laments

The machine gunner, however, didn’t just mount his gun and pull the trigger. Gunners relied on an assistant gunner and an ammo bearer, at minimum, just to carry the weapons—most weighed over 150 pounds with tripods. Ammunition was heavy; a wooden box of 200 8 mm rounds weighed nearly 70 pounds. But, because machine guns had ranges like light artillery, range and height estimates weren’t good enough—they needed precision, requiring range and height finders. And because the guns broke down and barrels needed changing, each gun needed a tool kit and spare parts. Altogether, each man in a three-man crew might carry a minimum of 100 pounds each, besides his personal equipment and rations.

But that was just the beginning. In quiet periods, a machine gun might have to move every three hours to keep enemy snipers and artillery observers, not to mention their machine gunners, from locating and targeting the guns. During an operation, a gun might move every ten minutes for the same reasons. Gunners had to recalculate their target areas each time. Gun crews had to be both strong and smart. Typically, a machine gunner on the Western Front had a life expectancy of about ten hours’ firing time before he became a casualty. One in five did not survive the war. At the Second Battle of the Marne in 1918, a lone U.S. machine gun battalion halted German attacks for three days practically unassisted, losing half their 730 men and ten of their 18 machine guns in the doing.

Coming Soon:  John Beatty's Steele’s Battalion: The Great War Diaries

John Beatty's Steele’s Battalion, due out next April, is a story of how one American soldier learns how different this machine gun war was, and how to use those deadly machine tools to win. Roads to the Great War will review the volume when it is available for purchase and provide information on ordering it.

The Exciting Lives of Balloon Observers

 

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An American Balloon Squad Training Stateside

Of the AEF's 35 balloon companies then in France, with 446 officers and 6,365 men, there were 23 companies with 265 balloons serving with the armies at the front. U.S. Air Service depots to supply the squadrons and balloon companies at the front were in full operation and supported by a production plant, where some 10,000 men were employed in assembling airplanes and in repairing airplanes, engines, and balloons which had seen service at the front.

Those balloons at the front made 1,642 ascents and were in the air a total of 3,111 hours. They made 316 artillery adjustments, and reported  thousands of shell bursts, sightings of enemy airplanes, balloon ascents, battery positions, and road and rail traffic. All of this was accomplished by air observers who were frequently (sometimes chronically) beset by air sickness.

Vanquished by the Boche Plane
George Harding Matthews

Used primarily for artillery spotting by the AEF, the hydrogen-filled balloons were prime targets for enemy attack aircraft.  Despite being protected both by Allied fighters and anti-aircraft guns the balloons were in constant danger of igniting from enemy (and sometimes friendly) fire, especially incendiary bullets. When the bag was hit, the observer—who had to be alerted to any imminent danger  by ground crew—needed to evacuate immediately by parachute. World War I observation crews were the first to use parachutes, long before they were adopted by fixed wing aircrews. A Western Front Association article describes the process:

These parachutes were a primitive type, where the main part was in a bag suspended from the balloon, with the pilot only wearing a simple body harness around his waist, with lines from the harness attached to the main parachute in the bag. When the balloonist jumped, the main part of the parachute was pulled from the bag, with the shroud lines first, followed by the main canopy.

American operated balloons were attacked by enemy airplanes on 89 occasions; 35 of them were burned during such attacks, 12 others were destroyed by shell fire, and one blown over enemy lines [48 total losses]. Observers were forced to jump from the baskets 116 times; in no case did the parachute fail to open properly. One observer lost his life because pieces of the burning balloon fell on his descending parachute. On the opening day of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, 26 September 1918, Lt. Cleo Ross of Titusville, PA, and the 8th Balloon Company,  would become  the only balloon observer killed in the war. Later, the Titusville American Legion Post was named in his honor. [Reader Brian Culross has pointed out that very quickly after his death, Lt. Ross also had an airfield named after him in Arcadia, California, that the Army operated until 1926.]

Also see our article on the adventures of balloon observer Lt. Jimmy Higgs of the 7th Balloon Company, who was forced to make four balloon jumps.

Sources:  "Observation Balloons on the Western Front". The Western Front Association. 29 June 2008; National World War I Museum.