Recipe for disaster: preparations for the First World War on the eastern side of Europe

Kawaleria Legionowa during World War I - photo: Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe Poland

Unless one is engaged in meticulous study of the First World War in various aspects, it is quite likely that your imagination will be influenced by recent productions such as the impressive 1917, or the brilliant German film All Quiet on the Western Front. Both depict this war accurately, portraying the very important moment of attrition during the western battles of the war. This aspect of the war is exemplified by the period of February 1916, with the epic Battle of Verdun.

Habsburg woes

In our previous story about the activities of the female scouts in the Polish volunteer troops, who fought against the Russian Empire in 1914 (published in the last issue of New Eastern Europe), we tried to portray the story’s events and personal drama without focusing too much on the general aspects of the war’s beginning on this side of the continent. Back at the beginning of the 20th century, the future Eastern Front consisted of land belonging to three empires. This involved the northerly bounds of the Habsburg monarchy, the western province of the Russian Empire, and the eastern side of the German Reich. The whole area is known in German military jargon as Ost Kriegsschauplatz. This generally flat land is characterised by natural obstacles such as the Baltic Sea and great lakes districts in the north, which are open and uncultivated in the industrial sense. There are also a few rather poorly developed towns, scarce railways and a few rivers flowing from south to north. At the same time, the meandering Vistula cuts across the region, distinctly dividing it between east and west. The river was also a natural border between the Habsburg’s province of West Galicia and the tsarist domain, which meant that both empires could avoid the prospect of a sudden attack.

Kraków was the main pivot point in the western part of Galicia, and the main field army camp. The city was permanently covered with field works as early as late 1849, when it was incorporated into the lands of the Austrian crown after the Hungarian uprising of 1848. That uprising was pacified with the utmost difficulty and only with the helping hand of the Russian Empire, whose troops paraded solemnly on the Błonia meadows in Kraków, soon returning home after the special operation. The northern parts of the Habsburg empire, which were guarded by men from among the ranks of the highland populace (around Zakopane and Nowy Targ), were difficult to maintain from a military point of view. This is because the Carpathian Mountains were difficult to cross and all transportation by land had to traverse these slopes. As a result, a close and cordial relationship with Russia regarding transport was needed.

Nevertheless, the military engineering section of the Habsburg army, given a traditional and realistic pessimism, treated Russia with limited trust. Military investments slightly changed the local economy, which was based still on small manufacturing, with no big industry. The development of Kraków continued well into the 20th century, with three main periods connected to major changes in the fields of military technique and weapons development. Meanwhile, the social changes in the region also began to speed up. The 1848 unrest backed discreetly by the Austrian administration caused a tragic peasant uprising, which left deep wounds in Polish society. This society at the time was still founded on feudal principles.

The divided society inhabiting the land was easier to manage and the cost fell on the romantic and patriotic gentry, which instead of conspiring against the foreign administration, had to ask for protection from hostile military contingents. The peasants showed their ability to revolt and then praised the central administration in Vienna and the emperor as their saviours from their own oppression by the local elites. A bloody shambles therefore marked the beginning of modern society in this part of Poland, as the price of the uprising was high and the consequences far reaching and tragic.

Twisted history

On the other side of the border in the Russian Empire, an autocratic grip was closely married to the Russian dream of gathering all the Slavs under the Romanov crown. The elites were afflicted by repressions after the November 1830 uprising. There was also a sudden end to the idyllic cooperation with Alexander I – an admirer of social liberalism and cofounder of the Polish state under the governing hand of Great Duke Constantin, who dreamed of becoming the Polish king. This abrupt and dramatic change in 1831 brought about another great social exodus from Poland. Autonomy was revoked, no reforms were introduced, and the local system of administration stagnated. This caused a second, even more tragic attempt to fight off the Russians. Learning quickly from experience, they prepared a decisive response regarding this uprising not only in the field of military matters.

The January uprising of 1863 promoted modernity in the empire, when the tsar introduced the cancellation of serfdom first in the western province. Thus, like 20 years earlier in Austria, peasants were freed from total dependence on the upper class. The grace shown by the tsar made him popular among the peasantry in the so-called Russian Poland. This popularity would create a major issue for fighters in the independence movement when the war finally broke out.

The third empire, the newly born German Reich under the Hohenzollern crown, emerged on the political scene of Europe after France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. Prussia appeared as the successor to the eastern Germanic states and the German church state of the Teutonic Order, which after decades of war with its neighbours, finally paid homage to the Polish king in Kraków in 1525. The state would emerge in the 17th century as a deeply militarised society ruled by the descendants of the last Great Master of the Teutonic Order Albrecht Hohenzollern. The aggressive king of Prussia, known as Frederic the Great, was one of the most active players in the disintegration of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This was done in cooperation with Russia and, to a lesser extent, Austria.

The German (Prussian) border in the second half of the 19th century lay quite near Kraków – almost the whole Silesian industrial region neighbouring western Galicia was taken by force during the long rivalry between the three powers in the 18th century. A part of the Silesian coal basin named Zagłębie was under Russian rule, alongside one of the most important Catholic spiritual centres – the city of Częstochowa.

The history of the region tends to be difficult to understand for novice observers. In the years preceding the events of 1914, Prussia usually behaved much more hostile towards the Habsburgs than the tsarist regime. During the war of 1866, the two powers fought a fierce, even if partly forgotten, battle at Oświęcim, where cavalry units were mainly used. According to the battle plan of 1914, the Germans prioritised quick decisions in the West, considering France more dangerous than Russia, which was recently humiliated by the Japanese in their 1904-05 war. For the Austrians, the war was a major gamble, in which the military management hoped most of all to pacify Serbia at all costs, quickly and decisively.

For Austria, the clash with Russia appeared to have added value, and was a risk worth taking. Analytical offices gave the staff planners hope of success due to the commonly believed inability of the Russian army to mobilise forces on time, before France and Serbia were completely crushed. The Eastern Front was officially viewed as a sideshow and after several weeks of fierce battles would have left Russian engagement pointless, after France was finished and Belgrade occupied. The Russians – with their vital strategic points completely secure, pretended to act very cautiously. Prior to 1914, they had decided to openly withdraw their troops eastward, risking the creation of a political vacuum in the traditional Polish lands with a long tradition of armed conspiracy, revolutions and uprisings.

The time to strike

This newly created vacuum provided an opportunity for Józef Piłsudski and his followers within his revolutionary movement. If the core of the national instinct could be awoken in line with previous uprisings, then the lower classes exploited by the Russian regime would join the movement. This time, they would be supported openly by the local Polish patriotic manor houses. For the first time, external political affairs were aligned to make such a situation happen. Nevertheless, what Piłsudski did not know, and what was covered up by the main figures in their war planning, was that as a whole all the European military alliances were conceived as a means of fooling each state’s closest ally.

The most consistent were probably the French, who needed assistance in the inevitable German invasion and thus gave the Russians resources, war bonds and industrial investments. The French believed that the Russian army – a so-called “steam roller” – was ready to squash any obstacles, crush the enemy through sheer weight of numbers, and punish the dominant German Reich, relieving the grip on France and ending the war through the occupation of Berlin. This simply meant getting the “roller” started as soon as possible when hostilities commenced, while the French army would try to stand firmly against another German invasion.

However, the steam roller was not designed to work in that direction. Another great war (following the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, which almost finished the Romanov regime in a single blow) during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II was too much of a burden for the regime. Ultimately, it would prove difficult to get the Russians to obey the “decadent” democratic republic in the “rotten West”. Instead, Russia’s eyes were set on the Bosporus Straits. And in fact, there was hardly anyone among the Russians who believed that France would last long faced with the full might of the attacking Germans.

Thus, military planners emptied the western provinces of Russian Poland. This fact came to be warmly noted by Emperor Wilhelm II himself, who wrote a letter of thanks to his Romanov cousin personally. The Austrians had to choose between what was real and where their dreams lay, since simultaneous attacks in the north and south (against Russia and Serbia) were enormously risky. Despite this, the risk did not prevent the clever Austrian general, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, from gambling. Believing the Serbians to be “uncivilised shepherds”, he decided to direct almost 40 per cent of the manpower under his command there. As a man of modernity, all the plans of movement were based on using seven railway lines connecting south and north. Through effective timetabling the soldiers would be concentrated right on time to crush and defeat the “shepherds”, allowing them to raise the imperial flag over the Belgrade citadel. After a victory parade, they would quickly send the troops back at full speed north, ready for a second attack, this time from the Russians. It appeared that Russia would be unable to mobilise within two weeks. However, their military planners refused to play the tune Franz Conrad had written for them.

The story will be continued in the next edition of New Eastern Europe, available in June 2023.

Andrzej Zaręba is the illustrator for New Eastern Europe.

Austria, history, Poland, Russia, World War I