'Aussie Rick'’s Comments (group member since Jun 12, 2009)

'Aussie Rick'’s comments from the THE WORLD WAR TWO GROUP group.

Thanks for your assistance Perato!

"Fall of the Double Eagle" - Units of the Zweier Bosniaken still fighting heroically to stop the Russian advance:

"Christened the 'Iron Corps' for its heroic performance, III Corps brought time but could do no more to save the deteriorating situation. On September 8, its Sixth Division's Second Bosnian Regiment, weakened by previous engagements and led by a major, executed an attack aimed directly at strong Russian positions near Grodek, commencing a fierce battle that raged for hours. Two battalions of Bosniaken charged at the enemy, almost two kilometers away; and managed to overwhelm the defenders, despite steep losses among officers and men. Most companies were reduced to fifty men, yet the Bosnians held out in the face of repeated Russian counterattacks. In the lead company, Sergeant Osman Alagic, seeing that all his officers had fallen, took charge and manned a machine gun, mowing down most of a Russian battalion that was bearing down on the Bosnians. The position held until the morning and Alagic received the first of forty-two Gold Medals for Bravery (the highest decoration bestowed on Austro-Hungarian enlisted men) that the Zweier Bosniaken would win in the war."

The Gold Medal for Bravery:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medal_f...

"Fall of the Double Eagle" - The Habsburg army did its best to stop the Russian advance:

"All along the Third Army's front on August 28, Habsburg units attacked into the teeth of the Russian steamroller, in desperate attempts to save the increasingly hopeless situation. Most of these efforts failed, but even the successes were brought with much blood. Typical was the mid-afternoon attack by elements of the Second Bosnian Regiment, part of III Corps' Sixth Division, with its First Battalion arrayed as if on parade, led into battle with flags and the regimental band. Few units in the k.u.k. Armee surpassed the Second Bosnians in sheer grit; the legendary Zweier Bosniaken would become the most decorated Habsburg regiment in the entire war. At 3:00 that afternoon, they charged headlong at the Russians, knives and bayonets in hand, and managed to push the foe out of his position. More than a few of the enemy broke and ran at the sight of hundreds of fez-wearing Bosnians descending upon them. But the cost of this local victory was steep, with half the battalion lost, including most of its officers dead, the battalion commander among them. Such bravery did nothing to save the overall position of the Third Army, which was dire."

Bosnian-Herzegovinian Infantry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian...

https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online...

Percy wrote: "Guten Tag! I am from Singapore and I liek history and mapping videos(AHOE especially) probably I love it too much for my young age of 12. Also I’m a Soviet fan. RED!"

Welcome to the group Percy.

This book may cover some of the topic; "Finland's War Of Choice: The Troubled German-Finnish Coalition in World War II" by Henrik O. Lunde.

Finland's War Of Choice: The Troubled German-Finnish Coalition in World War II by Henrik O. Lunde

"Fall of the Double Eagle" - The Habsburg Fifteenth Division later fell into a trap and were surrounded near the village of Pukarzow:

"Bottled up and unable to fight their way out, elements of the division made their stand around the village of Pukarzow, a savage ten-hour fight that ended with the annihilation of the defenders. The lone Habsburg artillery battalion that got into the fight was crushed; by noon on August 28, it had gone through all its ammunition, losing 17 officers, 486 men, and twenty-five cannons, almost everything it had. A battalion of the First Bosnian Regiment fighting alongside met the same fate, going from nearly a thousand men to just 2 officers and 133 men by the next morning."


Fall of the Double Eagle: The Battle for Galicia and the Demise of Austria-Hungary by John R. Schindler

"Fall of the Double Eagle" - The Austrian-Hungarian VI Corps, Eighty-fifth Regiment, attack at Komarów, again something from the Napoleonic era:

"The infantry - Ukrainians, Romanians, and Hungarians from the wooded Carpathian valleys of northeast Hungary - were hit by artillery and rifle fire as soon as they began exiting the safety of the forest, but moral was high, and the troops readied to clear the enemy from the hill. The frontal attack was undertaken without any artillery support, with two battalions abreast, bayonets fixed, with regimental colors unfurled. Although enemy fire cut down the attackers, with artillery shells taking out dozens of men a minute, the Eighty-fifth pressed on amidst shouts of hurra, and within an hour the regiment had overwhelmed the defenses and taken the hill, and with it 240 Russian prisoners plus three machine guns. Cold steel had prevailed against fire, but at a frightful cost. Six officers and 450 men lay dead, while 29 officers and eight hundred more men were wounded. The casualty rate in the lead battalion well exceeded 50 percent."

Battle of Komarów:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...

Mike wrote: "$2.99:

The Last Battle: The Classic History of the Battle for Berlin by Cornelius Ryan"

A classic book and at a great price!

"Fall of the Double Eagle" - Of interest in regard to the Battle of Kraśnik:

"By no means was Russian command at Kraśnik flawed across the board, and some generals were praised by Stavka for their performance (among them was Baron Carl Mannerheim, commander of a Guards cavalry brigade and the future Finnish leader, who was decorated for his leadership in the battle)."

Baron Carl Mannerheim in Russian service:
https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online...

"Fall of the Double Eagle" - The first major victory for the Dual Monarchy in Galicia came at the Battle of Kraśnik in August 1914:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...

"Fall of the Double Eagle" - The fighting in Galicia is almost Napoleonic:

"Losses among Habsburg cavalry, particularly to Russian guns, continued to mount, for minimal gains. On August 23 at Buczazc in a border region of East Galicia southeast of Lemberg, the First Cavalry Division was struck by Russian artillery while patrolling and forced into a retreat that nearly turned into a rout due to aggressive pursuit by quick-moving Cossacks. The division was saved by the sacrifice of one of its horse artillery batteries that stood its ground and brought time by raking the oncoming Cossacks with shrapnel, but at the cost of all the battery's officers plus the battalion commander, as well as thirty-five gunners. By then, the epic struggle against Russia had commenced in earnest, and cavalry actions had become an afterthought. The real fight now belonged to the infantry."

Austro-Hungarian Cavalry in 1914:
https://www.avalanchepress.com/KuKCav...

"Fall of the Double Eagle" - The Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia in 1914 did not go as planned and handed the Central Powers their first defeat of the Great War:

Battle of Cer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...

"Fall of the Double Eagle" - The multiple languages within the Dual Monarchy's regular army led to a number of friendly-fire incidents at the start of the war:

"Habsburg units marshaled on the border were cautioned to be prepared for attacks by Serbian irregulars. Nighttime gun battles were commonplace in early August, not necessarily against the enemy. Illustrating the perils of a polyglot army, on several occasions Twenty-first Division sentries mistook Croats of the neighboring Forty-second Division for the enemy and opened fire - understandably enough, as the Forty-second Division, the Croation Home Guard, used basically the same language of command as the Serbs."

"Fall of the Double Eagle" - My final quote on the Dual Monarchy's war preparations. Like many countries who had observers at the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, many didn't take the lessons to heart:

"Additionally, there were generals who expressed skepticism about nay efforts to make training more realistic. Witnessing 1913 maneuvers that made some account of enemy firepower, Karl Tersztyanszky, a cavalry general, explained his dismay: 'What you have shown me here does not interest me at all. This slow crawling around, bending, ducking ... I don't understand it and I don't care for it one bit. What I want to see is a regiment that shows briskly and dashingly how one can attack and fire quickly.' Despite his reactionary views on war, Tersztyanszky was one of Conrad's favourites, and he promoted him regularly during the war."

Fall of the Double Eagle: The Battle for Galicia and the Demise of Austria-Hungary by John R. Schindler

Some very good books there! Thanks for the notification, Mike.

Darya Silman wrote: "A September release



Hero City: Leningrad 1943–44 by Prit Buttar

Description

One of the greatest ever sieges ..."

On my wish-list! :)

Yes, I know how you feel. I felt like that when I read his book; "The Reckoning: The Final Defeat of Army Group South, 1944". A bit like David Glantz!

"Fall of the Double Eagle" - Another account on the Austro-Hungarian preparations for war:

"To prepare the troops for combat, Conrad pushed for more staff rides, more exercises, and more realistic maneuvers. The annual Kaisermanover was more a military pageant than preparation for the twentieth-century battlefield, so Conrad changed that as soon as he became chief of the General Staff. Henceforth, the annual grand maneuvers were more realistic, with enhanced free play for commanders, more critical umpiring, even night combat. The emperor and the heir to the throne disapproved of the changes; being traditionalists with scant interest in tactical innovation they felt Conrad had ruined the show. Forward-thinking officers, however, were encouraged by the alterations. No Luddite like Franz Joseph, Conrad embraced technological change, advocating for new weapons systems of all kinds, including aircraft, though Austria-Hungary's parsimonious budgets made that mostly wishful thinking. In a typical case, in 1906 a junior officer named Gunther Burstyn demonstrated his working model of the first armored car, but when it scared the emperor's horses during its first public showing, it became a nonstarter, not to mention that the budget lacked money for fundamentals, much less novel experiments."


Fall of the Double Eagle: The Battle for Galicia and the Demise of Austria-Hungary by John R. Schindler

"Fall of the Double Eagle" - Another well-known issue with the army of the Dual Monarchy:

"With the imposition of conscription in 1868 on the Prussian model, the army was a faithful representation of Austria-Hungary in all of its breathtaking diversity of tribe and tongue. For every hundred soldiers in the k.u.k. Armee, there were twenty-five Germans, twenty-three Magyars, thirteen Czechs, nine Serbs or Croats, eight Poles and Ukrainians each, seven Romanians, four Slovaks, two Slovenes, and one Italian. These were also the 'national languages' recognized by the army."

Fall of the Double Eagle: The Battle for Galicia and the Demise of Austria-Hungary by John R. Schindler

"Fall of the Double Eagle" - A bit more on how unprepared the Dual Monarchy was for war:

"Although political elites eventually found their courage, after more than a generation lost, change came too late to make the Habsburg military ready for war. Although Austria-Hungary conscripted a record 227,000 soldiers in the last year of peace - amounting to almost 167,000 for the joint army versus, 25,000 each for the Landwehr and Honvéd - leading to an active force of 414,000, this had little impact on overall strength, counting reserves. The results of years of underfunding were soon apparent. In August 1914, when Vienna mobilized all classes of reservists, it fielded a force of 2,265,000 (of which only 1.4 million were fully trained) - yet that same month France with a population ten million smaller than Austria-Hungary, was able to mobilize and army of four million. On the eve of the war, the Dual Monarchy was the third-largest European state by population, behind only Russia and Germany, but its military spending ranked as the lowest of any major power: a mere quarter of what Russia or Germany spent, a third of Britain's defense outlays, and even less than Italy.

The Austro-Hungarian military would pay a terrible price in blood in the summer of 1914 for decades of underfunding. A generation of officers had come of age knowing nothing but austerity while rivals armed."

Fall of the Double Eagle: The Battle for Galicia and the Demise of Austria-Hungary by John R. Schindler