The so-called freezing three feet is not a day's cold, the so-called thousand-mile embankment collapsed in the anthill, on the surface, Austria-Hungary is also a large European country with 650,000 square kilometers of land and a population of more than 50 million before the war! How can it really fight like a broiler? So much so that Austria-Hungary canceled some honorary troop titles during the war. The reason is simple, it's too humiliating to fight!

As the so-called success and victory do not happen overnight, there is a reason why such a good-looking weak chicken can become a weak chicken! The sorrow of Austria-Hungary was not caused by a single factor, because there is no other factor in the world that has such a powerful effect!

When it comes to the tragedy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, anyone who knows a little bit about history will talk about the tragic national question in Austria-Hungary. At the outbreak of World War 1914, for example, there were 11 ethnic groups with a population of more than 3% of the total population, of which the two most important ethnic groups, Germans and Hungarians, accounted for 23% and 21% respectively! These two so-called Juche nations account for less than half of the total population even in their own countries!

Then the Czechs 12%, the Poles 11%. The Czechs were better, they were old subjects of the Habsburg royal family, and the Poles joined the Austro-Hungarian Empire as a product of the three divisions of Poland! Serbs and Slovenes together make up 9% of the population, these people are the same people as the Russians, coupled with Serbian agitation, separatist tendencies are becoming more and more serious, where did Archduke Ferdinand go and do in history? And then what happened, everyone understands! Therefore, the whole Austro-Hungarian Empire is a plate of scattered sand in terms of national character!

And the question of the nation naturally affects the question of the army. After all, the army is also made of people! No nation can be trusted as a dominant nation in the military. How to strengthen the internal control role of the army while ensuring the size of the army became a problem that Emperor Fritz had to face.

So Austria-Hungary divided its forces into two types, one was the Imperial Wehrmacht and the other was local forces, the former being the elite and mobile forces of Austria-Hungary as the backbone of external operations and internal repression. Their commanders were mostly chosen from the nobility, guaranteeing allegiance to the royal family from the command level. This unit is the most trusted unit of the Austrian Emperor.

And this army, which was regarded as an elite, trustworthy and vigorously cultivated by the Austrian Emperor, was still a mess by the national question, and according to the regulations, this army was divided into two kinds according to the common language, namely the Austrian regiment and the Hungarian regiment.

But don't forget, neither of these nationalities is half as much in number! The Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, Slavs, Magyars, you have recruited from all over the world, they all have their own languages! Coupled with the rampant dialects of all sides. As a result, even if a certain language is used as the standard language, it is still impossible to command the troops efficiently, and the level of education at that time is very limited, especially after the start of the war, after the expansion of the army, the temporary signs of the army, can you expect to give the peasants who have just put down their hoes and do not understand how high the combat effectiveness is?

On the contrary, the local troops are at least much better on the issue of language and ethnicity, at least everyone is from the same place, the language is the same, and they don't even look up and look down before enlistment. The relationship is very good, the so-called father-son soldiers, the performance is better.

In addition to the most basic command problems, as the scale of the war continues to erupt, various national currents of thought and other issues are stimulated and amplified by the brutal war! The Imperial Defense Force, which had high hopes, suffered from various serious problems as the war progressed. The previous settings and precautions have proven to be useless!

Noble officers are still reliable, but with the continuous sacrifice of experienced noble officers in the war, it is difficult to say whether the new officers are reliable, and it is difficult to say how much affection they can have for the empire. Why was the Brushinov offensive successful? It has a great deal to do with the fact that many national soldiers have a weak will to resist and surrender without a fight! It's not that the Russians are too fierce, it's that Austria-Hungary is too watery!

Similarly, when the Imperial Defence did not perform well in the Imperial Defence Force, the local garrisons guarding the homeland did well in defensive operations, such as the Tyrolean Marksmans, which were awarded the title of Royal Marksmen by the Austro-Hungarian government when the Italians suddenly declared war, which held back the Italian attack with an almost immeasurable disparity. However, while defending their own homeland, this unit is also indifferent to the situation in other battlefields, and if it is not for the commander's foolishness, they are not even willing to support friendly forces in the adjacent theater!

So Austria-Hungary, which had such a force, dared to fight a world war, and the traverser had to say admiration for the confidence and arrogance of the old Fritz! It is no wonder that it is not easy for a unit that has no national cohesion, no common belief, all kinds of separatism, and rampant national ideological trends to hold out for four years!

In addition to the problem of people, the problem of equipment in Austria-Hungary was no less acute. At wartime, for example, if you look at the ratio of the number of troops to the number of artillery in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, you will know what level the Austro-Hungarian troops were! Let's not talk about the Western Front, the elite troops of Britain, France and Germany are gathered, and to use these troops to compare the Austro-Hungarian troops is to bully it! Purely on the Eastern Front, the Austro-Hungarian troops were not even as good as Russia!

At the beginning of the Eastern Front, the German Eighth Army, commanded by Plitwitz, had a total of 4 corps and several independent divisional units, with a total strength of 16 divisions, 200,000 men and 1,044 artillery pieces. (The number of heavy guns is smaller, only 156 in total.) A division averaged 65 guns of various kinds.

The Russians concentrated 6 army groups, with a total of 52 infantry divisions and 21 cavalry divisions, with a total of 3,203 artillery pieces, an average of 43 artillery pieces per division. Among them, the second army, which was the most powerful, had 14 divisions and 702 artillery pieces.

Alright, let's start looking at the Austro-Hungarian Legion now! Austria-Hungary is also a big country on the surface, and the posture it puts on is quite scary! There were 4 group armies, 35.5 divisions of infantry and 11 divisions of cavalry, with a total strength of 850,000! However, but the artillery, which was the most important supporting firepower, had only 1728 guns! On average, there are only 37 guns in a division! And just like that, a lot of old artillery was also in one army.

Then the two sides collided for the first time in the Galician region, on a line of 320 to 400 kilometers, the forces of 5 Russian armies and one detachment against the forces of 4 Austro-Hungarian armies and 1 reserve, and in more than a month-long engagement, the Austro-Hungarian troops lost 400,000 troops, of which 100,000 were captured! And Russia lost 230,000, and in the eyes of Germany, France and Britain, Russia was not well equipped and the quality of its troops was not good, and Russia finally found self-confidence in Austria-Hungary! You know, these troops were the most elite troops in Austria-Hungary at the time! (This information is from Maozi's data, but after comparing it with other data, it feels similar.) ）

I was so cowardly at first, and then I was even more cowardly! THE STOCK OF ARTILLERY WAS PITIFUL, AND WHEN ITALY ENTERED THE WAR, AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EVEN HAD TO USE A 65MM BRONZE CANNON THAT WAS MADE AT AN UNKNOWN TIME. Because of this, the traverser believed that the arms market in Austria-Hungary was still promising.

The second is more ~~~, ask for collection~~~, ask for click~~~, ask for recommendation ~~~~~~.