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A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak Of World War I And The Collapse Of The Habsburg EmpireStock informationGeneral Fields
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DescriptionThe Austro-Hungarian army that marched east and south to confront the Russians and Serbs in the opening campaigns of World War I had a glorious past but a pitiful present. Speaking a mystifying array of languages and lugging outdated weapons, the Austrian troops were hopelessly unprepared for the industrialized warfare that would shortly consume Europe. As prizewinning historian Geoffrey Wawro explains in A Mad Catastrophe, the doomed Austrian conscripts were an unfortunate microcosm of the Austro-Hungarian Empire itself--both equally ripe for destruction. After the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914, Germany goaded the Empire into a war with Russia and Serbia. With the Germans massing their forces in the west to engage the French and the British, everything--the course of the war and the fate of empires and alliances from Constantinople to London--hinged on the Habsburgs' ability to crush Serbia and keep the Russians at bay. However, Austria-Hungary had been rotting from within for years, hollowed out by repression, cynicism, and corruption at the highest levels. Author descriptionGeoffrey Wawro studied at Brown and Yale and is Professor of History and Director of the Military History Center at the University of North Texas. The author of five books, including Quicksand and The Franco-Prussian War, Wawro lives in Dallas, Texas. Table of contentsIntroduction 1. The Sick Man of Europe 2. Between Blunder and Stupidity 3. The Balkan Wars 4. Murder in Sarajevo 5. The Steamroller 6. Misfits 7. Krasnik 8. Komarow 9. Lemberg and Rawa-Ruska 10. Death on the Drina 11. Warsaw 12. The Thin Gray Line 13. Serbian Jubilee 14. Snowmen Epilogue |