WI: English as command language for Austro-Hungarian Army
- Thread starter Fehérvári
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Was command language that of a problem IOTL in imperial armies? I tought the common army was fairly limited in importance IOTL, in favour of sub-imperial forces?
It would effect the army negative, there's likely more more L2 Swedish speakers today in Hungary than there English speakers in 19th century Austria-Hungary. English was a widespread Lingua Franca even then, but Austria-Hungary was outside its sphere and fully inside the sphere of another Lingua Franca. If you want one command language for the Austrian-Hungarian army only German makes any sense.
Why A-H would adopt some language which almost anyone doesn't speak in the empire? English was already international language and probably one of most spoken ones but not way that anyone would begin speak totally foreign language. Imperial army was already dominated by German speakers. If AH government ever tries that it would be immediate military coup.
The lingua franca of the world was French up tp 1946 or so, when people started to switch over to English since the hugely influential US diplomatic corps did not speak French (as opposed to their British counterparts). The Swedish foreign minister Östen Unden held his speech in French at the introduction of Sweden into the UN 1946 and was utterly surprised that 95% of the audience did not understand him.
English repaced German and French as the most important secondary language after ww2. You will find plenty of people that speak German as a secondary language all over central Europe in this era, and even more that has skills enough to take orders in it, but you will hardly find a single English speaker.
German is the only viable unified command language for the K.u.K. army, with French as a second, as most if not all of the officers speak it, as it was an integral part of higher education at the time (along with latin, greek and old greek).
Introducing English would lead to confusion, lost unit cihesion and severely reduced effectiveness in combat as all conscripts would need to learn a language they have never encountered before. Remember that the K.u.K. army rebuilt itself from scratch three times during the war and lost 80% of the men they deployed before collapsing. The need to teach all the new recruits a new language will severely hamper the command, control and communication of the K.u.K. army.
English repaced German and French as the most important secondary language after ww2. You will find plenty of people that speak German as a secondary language all over central Europe in this era, and even more that has skills enough to take orders in it, but you will hardly find a single English speaker.
German is the only viable unified command language for the K.u.K. army, with French as a second, as most if not all of the officers speak it, as it was an integral part of higher education at the time (along with latin, greek and old greek).
Introducing English would lead to confusion, lost unit cihesion and severely reduced effectiveness in combat as all conscripts would need to learn a language they have never encountered before. Remember that the K.u.K. army rebuilt itself from scratch three times during the war and lost 80% of the men they deployed before collapsing. The need to teach all the new recruits a new language will severely hamper the command, control and communication of the K.u.K. army.
No. It wa no problem at all, the regional regimentql system took care of that.
The myth of it may come from the fact, that the official command langue in the common army was german, and the common soldiers simply broke it - somewhere i seen a german-common army german-hungarian dictionary, its hillarious.
But, since both the officera and the suboffucers tended to spoke both german and regimental, again, it was not the issue.
Noe, whe things got thick and the men first started to forget german, after that hungarian, then latin, then pretty much every language.... Thats a different issue.
Koprulu Mustafa Pasha
Gone Fishin'
I don't understand why Austria-Hungary would do this? When it is German, only a part will understand it. When it is English, none will understand.
It seems to me like a common trope with Americans. They push US cultural and military hegemony backwards in time and expect the dominance of anglo-saxon military, culture and language to be similar to today 50, 100 or 150 years ago.
You can see it with people who think Europe had alot to learn from the US Civil War.
In general, all nationalities focus on their own and their own sphere, which is why Tours 732 is much more well-known than Constantinople 717-718 as what broke the Arab wave of conquests - because Anglo-French historu writing dominated during the 19th century.
While I have seen a similar, but much weaker, tendency from British peope, the US seem unique in pushing their hegemony backwards in time.
Well, I'm definitely not American. I'm actually Hungarian, and this was just a wild idea, which I came up with. English is a fairly easy language, which the general population was rather indifferent to. I know, that it wasn't one of my brightest ideas, but I thought, that it might worth a thread atleast.
This idea had absolutly no sense because english is not the lingua franca it is today and is from 1945.
It will be easier to reform austro-hungarian system of education and give even the lower classes some education in german.
I knew that both my great-mother and my great aunt spoke a good level of german, and probably most of their family, even if they were polish from Eastern Galicia, but they were from the middle class, or the upper middle class. So they have a good education.
There WERE proposals to make Latin a neutral Imperial language to get around the German/Hungarian/other splits in the Empire.
My vague recollection is that was for administration, not the military, but even so it could have been extended to the military.
Latin is politically possible, since almost all of the empire is RC, and, more to the point, it's the Holy ROMAN Empire. Well, in name.
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But, yeah, failing Latin, French is at least theoretically possible. English really isn't.
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Heck, even if Henry VIII (a very dark horse candidate in 1519) were elected to lead the HRE he'd probably rule in Latin or French, not English.
Doubly so for Richard (king John s second son) in that earlier election.
My vague recollection is that was for administration, not the military, but even so it could have been extended to the military.
Latin is politically possible, since almost all of the empire is RC, and, more to the point, it's the Holy ROMAN Empire. Well, in name.
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But, yeah, failing Latin, French is at least theoretically possible. English really isn't.
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Heck, even if Henry VIII (a very dark horse candidate in 1519) were elected to lead the HRE he'd probably rule in Latin or French, not English.
Doubly so for Richard (king John s second son) in that earlier election.
Putting aside your specific example as not quite realistic, an idea of introducing a foreign language in an army is not crazy or fantastic: to a great degree this happened in the Russian army and navy in the early XVIII. Of course, army terminology was German/French-based but the naval terminology was heavily English with some "adaptations" sounding quite funny. For example, Russian version of "Ring a bell!" (Рынду бей!") literally means "Hit Tsar's bodyguard!" with a verb ("Ring") ending as a term for the ship's bell ("Рында") and "a bell" turning into a verb.
But a pre-requisite should be introduction of something brand new (like a new military structure) which comes with its own terminology.
Not only Europe: did you see "The last Samurai"?
Don't forget the war of 1812 (and try to figure why "Overture of 1812" is being played on July 4th
).It's a regular thing of 4th of July concerts here in the States. Why, I don't know!!!
I keep hearing it every July 4th being played by the Boston Pops.
You can watch its 2016 July 4th performance in Boston at:Or here is The 1812 Overture performed by the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jack Everly with the U.S. Army Presidential Salute Battery and the Choral Arts Society of Washington at the Nations Capitol Fourth of July concert 2014:
History:
"Boston Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler was no doubt inspired by the overture's exhilarating musical structure when he decided to include it as part of his 1974 Independence Day performance. In addition, Fiedler choreographed fireworks, cannons, and a steeple bell choir to the overture. Since then, orchestras all over the U.S. quickly followed suit, and it is now a tradition to perform the overture during Independence Day celebrations. As a result, many American’s have come to believe that the piece represents the victory of the United States against the British Empire during the War of 1812, never mind that the overture includes "La Marsillaise" and "God Save the Tsar." https://www.thoughtco.com/tchaikovskys-1812-overture-724401
Well, I think both were important. My criticism is that the single battle of Tours/Poitiers gets too much attention when it was part of a 40-year campaign (719-759).
Deleted member 114175
If Austria-Hungary did adopt English, would British state and British investors be more favorable to them?
Fearless Leader
Donor
Interestingly enough, the Austrian Army did consider forming English language units at the end of WW1 in otl.