#10: The Russian steamroller
June 15th 1859 Krakow, Austrian Kingdom of Galicia (recognized), Russian Kingdom of Poland (proclaimed)
Dmitry Milyutin cursed the timing of the war for the thousandth time. Five years, only five years with authority to reform the military and he might just have had an army worthy of the name. Instead, he commanded a shambolic horde which had taken a week more and twice as many casualties as necessary to overrun a largely abandoned Galicia. But then again, the troops stationed in congress Poland and White Russia had not seen combat since the Polish rebellion a generation ago. They had not benefited from either experience or winnowing of incompetent officers that the veteran units of the Crimean and Caucasian wars had enjoyed. The Western Army group was not, after all, intended to win a decisive engagement with the Austrian army- only to make an impressive show, secure Galicia and especially the transcarpathian portion of the Warsaw-Krakow-Vienna railway (1) and force as many of the thinly stretched Austrian forces as possible to shift to the Western Carpathian passes and the Moravian approaches to Vienna.
Not that he had any intention of moving the Western Army group in a serious invasion of Moravia. For one thing, he was not sure they were capable of facing the Austrians, even in the sorry and stretched condition they were in. For another, advancing through the narrow strip of territory separating the main Carpathian ranges from Prussian Silesia would be an invitation for encirclement and anhliation if Prussia entered the war- and might just be the step to provoke it.
No, this foray, as grand as the proclamation of the restoration of the "autonomous" Kingdom of Poland was made out to be, was nothing more than a feint, and, if he was very lucky, the Anvil for the Eastern hammer which would strike the main blow. The Army of the Caucaus had started marching a month before the war was proclaimed and was now in position to storm the thinned out defenses of the Bukovinan-Hungarian passes. The Austrians had no uncommitted reserves prepared for the push- and he personally would make sure that the push would be very ruthless indeed.
Topography, Transportation and the advantages and disadvantages of the defender, Colonel Philippe Petain 1890 :
The situation of the opposing Russian and Austrian Armies on the Carpathian front during the war of Austrian dissolution (2) is a classic example of where the natural tactical advantages of a defending force may be turned into a strategic liability. The invading Russian forces outnumbered the Defending Austrian forces considerably, perhaps as many as 3:1 when the army of the caucaus arrived in Bukovina. However, as the Austrians had relinquished control of Galicia with no significant contest of arms they were perched on some of the most magnificent defensive terrain in Europe- the steep ridges and narrow passes of the Carpathian mountains. Limited but Furious skirmishes starting in early June seemed to confirm the Austrian high command belief that in spite of the neglect of Carpathian fortifications a determined smaller force could successfully hold off an attacking force lacking a truly overwhelming local superiority.
The problem facing the Austrian high command was therefore parsed down into maintaining a series of reserve mobile forces along the lateral transportation routes south of the Carpathian passes and sufficient information regarding Russian troop movements in Galicia to direct their reserves to the Russian points of main effort (3).
A number of factors rendered the Austrian attempt to exclude the Russians from Hungary futile. The first were the draconic means Milyutin applied in occupied Galicia to prevent knowledge of troop movements from reaching Austria, accompanied by the strategic "surprise" of the arrival of the army of the Caucaus. It should be stressed that total suprise was never achieved, mythology to the contrary. However, the warning Austrian high command was able to receive of Russian troop concentration was sufficiently short that it stressed the ability of Austrian mobile reserves to respond. It did not however stress beyond their limits.
That limit was breached by three additional factors.
First was the colossal casulties of Franz Josef at Solefino. This meant that the central reserve protecting the Moravian approach to Vienna was bled dry of troops- which it had to replenish by denuding the mobile reserves of the Carpathian front.
Second was the unwelcome expertise of the Caucasian army, and particularly it's Circassian and Chechen Auxiliaries in mountain warfare. Perhaps superior to the best Alpinist units the Austrians could muster on the neglected Carpathian front, their ability to infiltrate approaches deemed impassable to European units meant the Austrians had to spread their stationary forces ever thinner.
Third of course was the Hungarian unrest. It tied down scarce military personnel both in suppressing the uprising and keeping vital transportation arteries open. But more importantly it forced the mobile reserves of the Carpathian forces to move more slowly and cautiously. It was no more than an hour's worth lost from every day's march. But given the distances involved it proved too much.
By July 12th The Russian Caucasian army had broken through to the Headwaters of the Tisza river and had started on it's march westward, forcing the fixed detachments of the Carpathians to flee, leaving their artillery behind, or face encirclement. A miracle of Logistics and misinformation allowed the Austrian high command to drain the Moravian reserves and concentrate sufficient forces at Mohacs to meet the Caucasian army on terms of near numerical parity on August 4th. While the battle was a stalemate, Milyutin was able to turn the Ponderous Galician forces south through the now abandoned Carpathian passes, forcing the Austrian forces to withdraw to Bratislava. By mid August the Austrians had largely abandoned Hungary proper though Isolated Habsburg forces continued to hold critical forts as well as play an incendiary role in the rising ethnic warfare in Transylvania, the Banat and parts of upper Hungary/Slovakia. Russian forces from the Baltic, Moscow and Volga military zones had replaced the Polish-Lithuanian based Russian forces now in Hungary and were facing off the now mobilizing Prussian force.
The Mobilization of Prussia had led the Austrian High command to abandon the defence of the Moravian approach to Vienna, trusting Prussia to prevent exploitation of that gap, and to concentrate all remaining reserves (with the exception of Croatian based forces whose obedience to commands from Vienna had become increasingly selective) on the Danubian approaches to Vienna. From the combined Russian-Hungarian force. The Russian-Hungarian force outnumbered The Austrian by nearly 2:1. However, it was far from its line of supplies, had taken heavy casualties in forcing the Carpathians, was malnourished thanks to Austrian scorched earth policies and was arguably qualitatively inferior in training and equipment to the Austrian forces. On the other hand the Austrian order of battle was disrupted by desertion and even defection of many of it's Hungarian, Polish and Ruthenian soldiers. Scattered unrest had begun in Bohemia and Moravia as well, further increasing ethnic tension in the Austrian army, in particular with volunteer units from the German confederation.
What is clear, given events, is that Austria would have been better off had it abandoned the Carpathian line, and all of Hungary proper, as soon as war was declared and either concentrated it's forces for a counter attack from Galicia towards Warsaw, channeled more forces to Italy for an attempt at a decision in the West, or simply made a stand on the Axis between Moravia and the knee of the Danube. As it was the force facing the Russians was heavily attrited from desertions (as it is much easier to desert on the march), lost much of it's artillery, and was thoroughly demoralized. Truely, a demonstaration of the maxim of Fredrick the great: "he who defends everything defends nothing"
It is a matter of debate to this day on whether the Russians might have taken Vienna, or at least Bratislava, before Prussia had completed its mobilization. Had they done so it would almost certainly had been the End of the Austrian empire as Bohemia and Croatia-Slovenia would have gone the way of Hungary and Saxony, Bavaria and Prussia would have gobbled up the remaining pieces of the shattered empire. Perhaps to the fortune of the house of Habsburg, the outcome of the war was rendered elsewhere, aborting the third siege of Vienna before it could commence.
(1) Aside from the St Petersburg-Moscow railway this is the only significant railway in the Russian empire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw–Vienna_railway . Yes, it's realy that bad.
(2) The French Name for the initial phase (if the Crimean war is discounted) of the Second Napoleonic wars
(3) Just to make clear- 1859 is nothing like WWI. OTL WWI saw over ten times as many troops supported by a dense railway network enabling very rapid lateral transport. This essentially meant sustained breakthroughs were essentially impossible, Gorlice Tarnow was the exception proving the rule and was enabled thanks to a massive qualitative advantage, Artillary concentration and the Russian shell crisis. In 1859 however, and especially in Eastern Europe, Armies are still a spearpoint thrusting into enemy territory rather than a "front" moving across the entire border. The aim of army maneuvers is to gain control of communication hubs, strategic territory, and symbolic objectives so as to force the opposing armies to abandon their positions or accept battle under unfavorable terms. Think American civil war, and Mississippi front Civil war at that, rather than WWI- but with even less railways.
- Somehow I thought AJP Taylor started publishing a decade earlier. So I've edited the 1922 edition of "The second Napoleonic wars" to 1934 (which is when he published his frist work OTL- focusing on Italy in European diplomacy)