and in times of great stress the theory which all nations held in common.
The observer of the battles in the Russo-Austrian campaigns will see that the Russian cavalry was inadequate, because its horses were too small, of inferior strain, and lacking the stamina needed in modern warfare. They were valuable, however, because of their large numbers, and the fact that during the winter months, being acclimated and to the country born, they were able to pick up a living in the snow when other horses would starve.
As regards field batteries, near the western Russian frontier and in Asia, nearly all of them had, when war was declared, eight guns. In most of the batteries in Asia the number of men maintained in peace was the same as in war.
Russian Invasion of Galicia.
The Russian army moved forward with adequate aerial corps. The keenest interest in military aviation had been taken in Russia during two years before the war. Grand Duke Alexander was one of the founders of the aviation school at Sebastopol, where two-thirds of the Russian aviation officers obtained their training. In the spring of 1914 the air fleet consisted of 16 dirigibles and 360 aeroplanes, while orders for 1,000 aircraft of different descriptions had been placed with various firms in Russia.
The army of Austria-Hungary which faced the Russians was composed of men from a country where universal military service prevailed. In theory only the physically unfit were exempt from service, and the liability extended from the beginning of the nineteenth year to the close of the forty-second. Actual service in the ranks and with the reserve was twelve years. After the men had served ten years with the army and in its reserve they were included in the Landwehr for another two years. It is likely that Austria had at the outbreak of war from 1,200,000 to 1,300,000 men at her disposal. During the three years preceding she had greatly strengthened her equipment.
The infantry of the joint Austrian army, which had to fight the campaigns against the Russians on the east, and against the Serbians on the south, comprised 102 regiments of infantry, 27 battalions of Jaegers, 4 regiments of Tyrolese Jaegers, and 4 regiments of Bosnia-Herzegovina infantry. Every infantry regiment had four field battalions and a depot battalion. The duty of the latter was to fill up the ranks of the others. Each infantry regiment had at least two machine-gun detachments of two guns each, and in many there were two guns per battalion. In Bosnia and Herzegovina every battalion had four, and this also was true of every Jaeger battalion.
The Austrian infantrymen, as they met their Russian antagonists, carried a small-bore magazine rifle, in use in the army since 1895, and known after its inventor as the Männlicher. It had a caliber of .315 inch and fired a pointed bullet. It was loaded by means of a charger which contained five cartridges, and it was equipped with a bayonet. The cavalry carbine was shorter but took the same bullet. One hundred and twenty rounds were carried by the infantry soldier, and there were forty rounds in the company ammunition wagon, and 160 in the infantry ammunition columns, in addition. The machine gun in use was of the same caliber and took the same ammunition as the infantry rifle. It was composed of few parts, and was a simple and highly effective instrument.
On these first days of August, 1914, the cavalry of Austria—the hussars, uhlans, and dragoons, but really all of one type—light cavalry—was equipped uniformly with saber and carbine. The noncommissioned officers and others who did not carry a carbine rode forth equipped with an automatic pistol. There were forty-two cavalry regiments in the entire Austrian army, consisting of six squadrons, each of which had a fighting strength of 150 sabers, not counting the pioneer troops. Every cavalry regiment had four machine guns with 40,000 rounds of ammunition. The pioneer troops of the cavalry, which first were introduced in Austria, were composed of an officer and twenty-five men, equipped with tools and explosives needed by an advance force to clear obstacles, destroy railways, etc. Besides the pioneer troops, eight men in each squadron were equipped with similar tools. The telegraph section, consisting of eight men, carried about seven miles of light wire.
The artillery of Austria-Hungary had been greatly modified in recent years. The gun used for horse and field batteries was known as M5—that is, the pattern of 1905. It was of 3-inch caliber, a quick firer, throwing a shrapnel shell which weighed 14.7 pounds. High-explosive shells also were carried in the proportion of two to five of shrapnel. The gun had a long recoil on its carriage, which absorbed the shock and the gun returned to its place. This made rapid fire possible.
Like the other powers, Austria-Hungary had adopted a howitzer for its heavy batteries. It fired a shell of 38.132 pounds. There was also a heavy gun in use, a 10.5 centimeter, corresponding to a 4.1-inch gun. The ammunition was like that of a howitzer—a shell weighing 38.132 pounds, which contained a high-explosive bursting charge and shrapnel with 700 bullets, fifty to the pound. On the march the carriage was separated from the gun, and each was drawn by six horses.
The mountain regions on all the frontiers of the Dual Monarchy resounded on these August days of 1914 with the mountain artillery. The 10.5-centimeter guns and 4.1-inch howitzer quick firers threw a shell of thirty-two pounds. This howitzer had a range of more than 6,000 yards, and was a powerful weapon. The 30.5-centimeter mortars fired a shell of 858 pounds with a bursting charge of 56 pounds of ecrasite. The extreme range of this mortar was about six miles. Ten rounds could be fired each hour. Two guns and their ammunition lorries were drawn by three large tractors. An hour was required to get one of these guns ready for action.
Let us enter the headquarters of the Austrian army at the beginning of the Russian campaign. There we meet the engineer staff, which built and besieged fortresses, and a military works department, which built and maintained buildings that were not immediately connected with fortifications. Austria-Hungary had only a few fortresses of modern construction. The intrenched camps in Galicia, Cracow, and Przemysl were soon to be besieged, and between them was a fortress known as Jaroslav, of insignificant value, like that of Huy between Liege and Namur in Belgium.
The Austrian army had not made as much progress in aeronautics as those of other nations. There was a depot for dirigibles at Fischamend, about eleven miles southeast of Vienna, but only a few dirigibles were ready for service. These were of the Parsefal type. There were a number of captive balloons. The number of aeroplanes available was very small. A school for teaching aviation had been established at Vienna-Neustadt.
The faces of the soldiers of the Austria-Hungarian army on the Russian frontier denoted many races, but it possessed considerable solidarity. Officers and soldiers recognized alike that they were all under a single head—the emperor. The officers were drawn from all classes of society, and this was also a unifying influence. They were on more intimate relations with their men than the Prussian leaders, and "led" instead of "drove" them. Commands for the whole army were given in German, but otherwise the language varied according to the composition of the various regiments as regarded races. The use of the German language for commands undoubtedly aided in unifying the army.
CHAPTER LXII
GENERAL STRATEGY OF THE CAMPAIGN
The Austrian army faced the Russians on August 11, 1914, with a well-organized strategical plan. Austria, realizing the importance of unity, cohesion, and harmony in her own forces, proposed at the outset of the war to dissipate the strength of her enemy, Russia, by causing an uprising in Poland. The vanguard of Austria's advance along the Vistula consisted of the Galician army corps, made up of Polish soldiers. Along the border, arms and ammunition had been collected for the anticipated insurrection. A proclamation was sent by the Polish associations of Galicia and Posen to their "brethren of Russian Poland." In this, the Poles of Russia were urged to prepare for a rising, but not to attempt
