Question on Austria-Hungary's war aims by 1917

As the title says by about 1917 what were the war aims of Austria Hungary at this point? Besides of course the Serbian question which ranged from wiping Serbia permanently from the map to just reducing it to a puppet, minus it's northern half through corrective border changes. The internet is unfortunately very vague on anything on the subject pointing to taking territory from Albania to Romania but never saying how much. So yeah I'm pretty confused :confused:
 
Austria-Hungary was rarely able to agree with itself about the exact nature of its war aims.

The General Staff (especially during Hotzendorf's leadership) pushed for annexing Serbia, Montenegro and Albania.
Meanwhile the Foreign Ministry, supported by Hungarian elites, wanted to annex the Serbian capital and a northern border strip, expel the Serbs living there and colonize it with Austrians and Hungarians. In their scenario, Montenegro would also lose a small chunk of territory. Enlarged Albania, rump Montenegro and a very rump Serbia would be made into permanent puppet states/protectorates.

In Romania, A-H wanted to annex most or all of the Wallachia region.
 
Austria-Hungary was rarely able to agree with itself about the exact nature of its war aims.

The General Staff (especially during Hotzendorf's leadership) pushed for annexing Serbia, Montenegro and Albania.
Meanwhile the Foreign Ministry, supported by Hungarian elites, wanted to annex the Serbian capital and a northern border strip, expel the Serbs living there and colonize it with Austrians and Hungarians. In their scenario, Montenegro would also lose a small chunk of territory. Enlarged Albania, rump Montenegro and a very rump Serbia would be made into permanent puppet states/protectorates.

In Romania, A-H wanted to annex most or all of the Wallachia region.

Wow it's as worst as I thought it was :( I knew their aims were mosltly contained to fully dominating the Balkans but still jeez. But hey at least their war aims still seem mild compared to Germany's :D


By 1917, they was fighting to win. Yes, they had war aims, but by then they was a mess.

Survive?...

War aims of 1917: Probably to survive until 1918. :(

Yeah I remember somewhere on a past thread someone quoted something along the lines that over 40% of the soldiers within the AH army was by the end of the war from Germany proper. Honestly their army was being bled dry in the east as the war went on. So yeah ya'lls assessment of fighting to survive is pretty spot on XD
 
Wow it's as worst as I thought it was :( I knew their aims were mosltly contained to fully dominating the Balkans but still jeez. But hey at least their war aims still seem mild compared to Germany's :D

To be fair, some of Austria-Hungary's worst ambitions might not happen even if their side wins the war...because Germany would be restraining A-H and pushing more humane peace deals.
It's funny how, despite being allies, they both had that "I should get everything and you should get nothing" mentality with each other and couldn't stop bickering over Europe's future.
 
To be fair, some of Austria-Hungary's worst ambitions might not happen even if their side wins the war...because Germany would be restraining A-H and pushing more humane peace deals.
It's funny how, despite being allies, they both had that "I should get everything and you should get nothing" mentality with each other and couldn't stop bickering over Europe's future.

It was pretty ironic in the end how AH fought this war primarily to reestablish themselves as a Great Power in the eyes of the world and dominate the Balkans only to fall more and more into Germany's sphere and getting nothing really in the end. :(
 
Austria-Hungary was rarely able to agree with itself about the exact nature of its war aims.

The General Staff (especially during Hotzendorf's leadership) pushed for annexing Serbia, Montenegro and Albania.
Meanwhile the Foreign Ministry, supported by Hungarian elites, wanted to annex the Serbian capital and a northern border strip, expel the Serbs living there and colonize it with Austrians and Hungarians. In their scenario, Montenegro would also lose a small chunk of territory. Enlarged Albania, rump Montenegro and a very rump Serbia would be made into permanent puppet states/protectorates.

In Romania, A-H wanted to annex most or all of the Wallachia region.

When did they formulate these goals?
 
Yeah I remember somewhere on a past thread someone quoted something along the lines that over 40% of the soldiers within the AH army was by the end of the war from Germany proper. Honestly their army was being bled dry in the east as the war went on. So yeah ya'lls assessment of fighting to survive is pretty spot on XD


That was probably me. It was actually 40% of NCOs and junior officers, not of the army as a whole. I got that info from Norman Stone's The Eastern Front 1914-1917.
 
When did they formulate these goals?

The annexation of Wallachia from Romania? Proposed by Conrad in January, fully agreed on by A-H's joint cabinet in March 1917.

The two conflicting agendas and visions regarding Serbia and Montenegro's future were there from the first months of the war.
 
You'd think Conrad's ouster as Chief of Staff would speak to his irrelevance in dictating the peace terms, but I've noticed that Halagaz tends to be very negative re: Austria-Hungary, and so routinely quotes Conrad first.

That said, Serbia would indeed get screwed over, for obvious reasons. I don't think that was up for any debate.
 
You'd think Conrad's ouster as Chief of Staff would speak to his irrelevance in dictating the peace terms, but I've noticed that Halagaz tends to be very negative re: Austria-Hungary, and so routinely quotes Conrad first.

Maybe I did not phrase it clearly enough: although Conrad (who was the first to propose annexation of Wallachia) was ousted in February 1917, the collective A-H government embraced his Wallachia ideas in March anyway.
So for this particular issue, Conrad's irrelevance is irrelevant.

Everyone has their favorite and...less favorite historical countries. Not sure how my personal opinion of A-H is relevant, either.
 

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Banned
By early 20th century the strategic focus of A-H no doubt was on expansion in the Balkans. Not that strange considering that Italy was blocked by an independent Italy (backed by France) and Prussia definitively had won the battle over Germany and there wasn't left anything of Poland to be partioned. Left was the old domain of Europe’s sick man.

Seen from our time we often see A-H as an Empire close to death for the last 200 years of its lifetime - it was far from. By 1900 it of course wasn't the dominating power of Europe like it was around 1600, but industrialization was accelerating and a relatively stable solution had been found with Hungary - the greatest source of internal tension. This of course left the other ethnic groups as a potential source of tension, but I'll claim that until the collapse of the A-H army in October 1918 the "cracks" were minor only.

By 1917 however the main enemy Russia was out of the war, and it was within reasonable hope that the other enemies could be knocked out too. At Caporetto the Italians were delivered a smashing defeat and it was mainly the inbuilt "stiffness" of WWI warfare that prevented the battle from becoming an Italian collapse and exit from the war.

That wouldn't necessarily mean the Entente losing the war but OTOH the A-H would be capable of sending 10-20 good quality Divisions to the western front by spring 1918. You couldn’t exclude that would be enough to have the Entente crack. If so I doubt the A-H would go for major territorial gains vs. Italy, I think that was considered: Been there, done that – didn’t work. The Balkans probably wouldn’t be any easier, but nobody really knew then, and I could imagine some Austrians hoping that more Slavs in the Empire could balance the Hungarians.
 
The real difficulty here is that after the Brusilov Offensive, AH was more or less a military hostage of Germany.

Yeah it was a pretty bad time for the CP's all around. Germany had to redicrect troops no doubt bound for France. AH moved troops from Italy to the East though why they hadn't had enough there to begin with I'll place at Conrad's feet :mad:. Genius piece of work on Brusilov's part though :p

That was probably me. It was actually 40% of NCOs and junior officers, not of the army as a whole. I got that info from Norman Stone's The Eastern Front 1914-1917.

Haha my mistake thanks for the clarification :) But still jeez how is it that something like that happened was it losses in the war or was their already a shortage of capable officers?

The annexation of Wallachia from Romania? Proposed by Conrad in January, fully agreed on by A-H's joint cabinet in March 1917.

The two conflicting agendas and visions regarding Serbia and Montenegro's future were there from the first months of the war.

Whether or not to erase Serbia off the map is always bound to cause contention in AH :D Why Wallachia though? To counteract the Hungarians by incorporating Romanians or what? I'm still pretty confused on that one. :p

Maybe I did not phrase it clearly enough: although Conrad (who was the first to propose annexation of Wallachia) was ousted in February 1917, the collective A-H government embraced his Wallachia ideas in March anyway.
So for this particular issue, Conrad's irrelevance is irrelevant.

Everyone has their favorite and...less favorite historical countries. Not sure how my personal opinion of A-H is relevant, either.

I'm really on that fence on that on my opinion about Conrad many people hail him as a genius, others think he was a complete idiot. I always assumed that his tactics were good but not for where he used them. But I could be completely wrong. XD

Honestly your opinion is your opinion. AH will always will remain one of my top favorite historical countries even if it's your least :D. You've been a pretty amazing bit of help with my questions on this thread so thanks :)

By early 20th century the strategic focus of A-H no doubt was on expansion in the Balkans. Not that strange considering that Italy was blocked by an independent Italy (backed by France) and Prussia definitively had won the battle over Germany and there wasn't left anything of Poland to be partioned. Left was the old domain of Europe’s sick man.

Seen from our time we often see A-H as an Empire close to death for the last 200 years of its lifetime - it was far from. By 1900 it of course wasn't the dominating power of Europe like it was around 1600, but industrialization was accelerating and a relatively stable solution had been found with Hungary - the greatest source of internal tension. This of course left the other ethnic groups as a potential source of tension, but I'll claim that until the collapse of the A-H army in October 1918 the "cracks" were minor only.

By 1917 however the main enemy Russia was out of the war, and it was within reasonable hope that the other enemies could be knocked out too. At Caporetto the Italians were delivered a smashing defeat and it was mainly the inbuilt "stiffness" of WWI warfare that prevented the battle from becoming an Italian collapse and exit from the war.

That wouldn't necessarily mean the Entente losing the war but OTOH the A-H would be capable of sending 10-20 good quality Divisions to the western front by spring 1918. You couldn’t exclude that would be enough to have the Entente crack. If so I doubt the A-H would go for major territorial gains vs. Italy, I think that was considered: Been there, done that – didn’t work. The Balkans probably wouldn’t be any easier, but nobody really knew then, and I could imagine some Austrians hoping that more Slavs in the Empire could balance the Hungarians.

Yeah I never really bought into the picture that the empire was on its last legs just waiting to be torn apart by the various ethnic groups that made it up :rolleyes:. And I could easily understand the idea of counteracting the Hungarians by incorporating more Slavs and dominating the Balkans was really the last avenue the Habsburgs had left to flex their muscles. I mean given enough time AH would probably have rebounded with industrialization and some decent reorganization of the empires current structure would have solved most of the problems the empire faced ethnically. It would have just been a lot of work but doable.
 
snip

I'm really on that fence on that on my opinion about Conrad many people hail him as a genius, others think he was a complete idiot. I always assumed that his tactics were good but not for where he used them. But I could be completely wrong. XD

Honestly your opinion is your opinion. AH will always will remain one of my top favorite historical countries even if it's your least :D. You've been a pretty amazing bit of help with my questions on this thread so thanks :)

Yeah I never really bought into the picture that the empire was on its last legs just waiting to be torn apart by the various ethnic groups that made it up :rolleyes:. And I could easily understand the idea of counteracting the Hungarians by incorporating more Slavs and dominating the Balkans was really the last avenue the Habsburgs had left to flex their muscles. I mean given enough time AH would probably have rebounded with industrialization and some decent reorganization of the empires current structure would have solved most of the problems the empire faced ethnically. It would have just been a lot of work but doable.

I think the A-H empire was in fairly bad straits, but I too doubt that it was basically a walking corpse as some believe. In The Sleepwalkers, Clark points out some ways in which A-H was still demonstrating some vitality, and pursuing some policies that might have made significant (though not miraculous) improvement. That is, if Serbia could be compelled to stop her instigation of violence and unrest, which she couldn't be since France and Russia were backing her.

As for Conrad, I recall a quote I've read somewhere about him:
"To ask of mediocrity more than it can give, is itself mediocre."
I think this is spot on. Conrad acted as if he had the German Army under his command, not the Austrian. He demonstrated a lack of realistic judgement about what his army could plausibly achieve. At least, so it seems to me.

Edit: the problem with incorporating more Slavs is that this only results in more internal instigation and external pressure from Slavic neighbors who are pursuing their own ambitions in the region. Besides, as Germany's only fairly-reliable ally, A-H was going to be targeted by Russia, since Russia and France wanted a war with Germany and had concluded that a crisis in the Balkans gave them the best chance for beating Germany.
 
Yeah it was a pretty bad time for the CP's all around. Germany had to redicrect troops no doubt bound for France. AH moved troops from Italy to the East though why they hadn't had enough there to begin with I'll place at Conrad's feet :mad:. Genius piece of work on Brusilov's part though :p

Probably the most underrated battle/offensive in WWI, or even modern history; it was certainly the bloodiest of the war (and the bloodiest ever outside of WWII).
 
Whether or not to erase Serbia off the map is always bound to cause contention in AH :D Why Wallachia though? To counteract the Hungarians by incorporating Romanians or what? I'm still pretty confused on that one. :p

Strangely, the Hungarians in the government also pushed for annexing Wallachia. Hungarian Prime Minister Tisza said that even though he doesn't want any more Romanians, he thinks it's necessary to keep up prestige.
I'm really on that fence on that on my opinion about Conrad many people hail him as a genius, others think he was a complete idiot. I always assumed that his tactics were good but not for where he used them. But I could be completely wrong. XD

I remember reading somewhere on this site that Franz Ferdinand wanted to fire Conrad by 1915. FF died before we could see if it would have really happened, but when Conrad's best friend who got him the job is seriously considering replacing him, that means something is seriously wrong.
Honestly your opinion is your opinion. AH will always will remain one of my top favorite historical countries even if it's your least :D. You've been a pretty amazing bit of help with my questions on this thread so thanks :)

Fair enough, I can respect your opinion even if I disagree.
You're welcome.
 
Some wanted large scale annexations, while others just wanted some smaller border adjustments, because they didn't want even more Slavs within their borders.
 
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