Austria-Hungary's Ww1 Goals: Expansion, Influence, And Security

Austria-Hungary was one of the Central Powers in World War I, alongside the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire. The war began when Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia in July 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip.

The Austro-Hungarian forces fought the Allies in Serbia, on the Eastern Front, in Italy, and in Romania. With heavy aid and support from its allies, the empire managed to occupy Serbia in 1915 and force Romania out of the war in 1917. However, on the other fronts, it suffered severe casualties, culminating in the collapse of the Italian front, which led the Austrians to accept the Armistice of Villa Giusti on 3 November 1918.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire played a relatively passive diplomatic role in the war, as it was increasingly dominated and controlled by Germany. The only goal was to punish Serbia and try to stop the ethnic breakup of the Empire, and it completely failed. The setbacks that the Austrian army suffered in 1914 and 1915 can be attributed to a large extent to the incompetence of the Austrian high command. By 1918, the economic situation had deteriorated, and governmental failure on the home front ended popular support for the war. The Austro-Hungarian monarchy collapsed with dramatic speed in the autumn of 1918.

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The assassination was carried out by a group of six assassins from the nationalist group Mlada Bosna, supplied by the Black Hand. Gavrilo Princip, a 19-year-old Bosnian Serb and member of the Young Bosnia revolutionary group, fired the fatal shots at close range while the royal couple were being driven through the city. The assassination was one of the key events that led to World War I.

The day of the assassination was also the feast of St. Vitus, known as Vidovdan in Serbia, which commemorates the 1389 Battle of Kosovo against the Ottomans. Princip and other members of the Young Bosnia group were inspired by the heroism of Miloš Obilić, reenacting the Kosovo Myth.

The assassination team was aided by the Black Hand, a Serbian secret nationalist group with close ties to the Serbian army. Major Vojislav Tankosić, of the Black Hand, provided the assassins with bombs, pistols, and training in their use. The assassins were also given access to a clandestine network of safe houses and agents that could be used for the infiltration of weapons and operatives into Austria-Hungary.

The political objective of the assassination was to free Bosnia and Herzegovina of Austria-Hungarian rule and establish a common South Slav ("Yugoslav") state. Following the assassination, anti-Serb riots broke out in Sarajevo and other Austro-Hungarian cities, resulting in violence and the destruction of Serb-owned buildings. Austro-Hungarian authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina imprisoned and extradited approximately 5,500 prominent Serbs, many of whom died in prison.

The assassination precipitated the July Crisis, which ultimately led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia and the start of World War I.

The invasion of Serbia

The second campaign was launched, under German command, almost a year later, on 6 October 1915, when Bulgarian, Austro-Hungarian, and German forces, led by Field Marshal August von Mackensen, successfully invaded Serbia from three sides, pre-empting an Allied advance from Salonica to help Serbia. This resulted in the Great Retreat through Montenegro and Albania, the evacuation to Greece, and the establishment of the Macedonian front. The defeat of Serbia gave the Central Powers temporary mastery over the Balkans, opening up a land route from Berlin to Constantinople, allowing the Germans to re-supply the Ottoman Empire for the rest of the war. Mackensen declared an end to the campaign on 24 November 1915. Serbia was then occupied and divided between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Bulgaria.

The Eastern Front

Austria-Hungary's role on the Eastern Front was significant. The Austro-Hungarian Army was divided into two at the start of the war: the smaller part attacked Serbia, while the larger part fought against the formidable Imperial Russian Army. The invasion of Serbia in 1914 was a disaster, with the Austro-Hungarian Army losing 227,000 out of 450,000 men. However, with heavy aid from its allies, the Central Powers managed to occupy Serbia in 1915.

On the Eastern Front, the Austro-Hungarian Army was defeated at the Battle of Lemberg, and the great fortress city of Przemyśl fell in March 1915. The Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive, initially a minor German offensive to relieve pressure on the Austro-Hungarians, resulted in huge Russian losses and a total collapse of the Russian lines. The Austro-Hungarian Army, under unified command with the Germans, participated in this offensive.

The Brusilov Offensive in 1916 saw the Russians focus their attacks on the Austro-Hungarian Army, recognising its numerical inferiority. The Austro-Hungarian Army suffered heavy losses (about 1 million men) and never recovered. Nevertheless, the huge losses inflicted on the Russians contributed greatly to the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The Italian Front

The Italian commander, General Luigi Cadorna, decided to concentrate his efforts on an offensive eastward from the province of Venetia. The Italians' initial advance was soon halted, largely due to flooding of the Isonzo River, and trench warfare ensued. The Italians launched five separate assaults against Austrian positions in the Isonzo region between June 1915 and March 1916, but despite being heavily outnumbered, the Austrian defenders had the advantage of elevated positions. By the end of 1915, more than 60,000 Italians had been killed.

In May 1916, the Austrians launched a counter-offensive, breaking through the Italian front and occupying the Asiago plateau. The Italians managed to resist and launched a counter-offensive, seizing Gorizia. However, they were forced to stop at the Carso, just a few kilometres from the border. Trench warfare ensued for several months, similar to the fighting on the Western Front.

In October 1917, the Austrians, now enjoying decisive German support, attacked at Caporetto, using new infiltration tactics. They advanced more than 100km towards Venice and gained considerable supplies, but were unable to cross the Piave River. Italy suffered massive casualties, but recovered from the blow and formed a coalition government under Vittorio Emanuele Orlando. The Italians also enjoyed the support of the Entente powers, receiving large amounts of war materials and several auxiliary American, British and French divisions.

Under the command of General Armando Diaz, the Italians retook the initiative and won the decisive Second Battle of the Piave River in June 1918, in which around 60,000 Austrians and 43,000 Italians were killed. The final battle at Vittorio Veneto was lost by the Austrians in October 1918, and the armistice was signed at Villa Giusti on 3 November.

The Balkan Front

In 1916, the Allies landed in neutral Greece and formed the Macedonian front. In 1917, Greece joined the war on the Allies' side, and the multinational Allied Army of the Orient, stationed in northern Greece, launched an offensive. The offensive resulted in Bulgaria seeking a peace treaty, the recapture of Serbia, and a halt only at the border of Hungary in November 1918. The same year, the Allies, under French General Franchet d'Esperey, led a combined French, Serbian, Greek and British army attack out of Greece. The Bulgarians were thrown back and sued for peace, and the Allies continued north, pushing back the Germans and Austro-Hungarians until Serbia was liberated in October 1918. The Allies were preparing to invade Hungary when the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918.

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