Franz Josef’s Armies
Part Five: Komarów Day Three/Alpine Corps
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
February 2022

There’s not a whole lot written in English about the Austro-Hungarian campaign in Galicia in 1914, though with the centennial of the Great War some more works started to appear. That was a big incentive when I first decided to make the game/book combination that became Infantry Attacks: Fall of Empires and Infantry Attacks: Franz Josef's Armies, so I could show off my research skills.

Since then, I’ve learned that few very people care about historical research in wargames (or in anything else, for that matter). If you’re going to do it, do it for your own satisfaction. This of course applies to many things in life, if you’re a creative of some sort. And I have found a great deal of satisfaction in crafting Fall of Empires/Franz Josef’s Armies. But I’ve also found something a little disturbing.

When I was in grad school, I quickly found that military historians have a pretty poor reputation in the field as a whole. And it’s not just the mindless labelling of “warmonger” by self-righteous lefty types (though that definitely happens). There’s also a reputation for sloppiness, and for substituting “trumpets and drums” (you know, the movement of men and guns) for careful analysis.

At the time, I thought that unfair. I’ve come to revise that opinion; for one thing, finding the unit ID’s of every German bicycle battalion in the Ardennes might be an impressive feat, but it is not history. But in reading some of the more recent scholarship on the campaign in Galicia, I see that yes, sloppiness abounds.

One work blathers about an Austrian unit that stumbled into disaster: “The Russians had killed them all, and then withdrawn a hundred yards to slaughter the next wave, a battalion of Bosnians.” Well, I wanted to build a scenario around that action but found that, first, not everyone in that first wave died and second, the regiment in question is listed as “98% Magyar, 2% various.” That’s as ethnically pure as an Austro-Hungarian regiment gets in August 1914, since some of the officers and NCO’s always came from outside the home district. There were no Bosnians. I know the guy who wrote that – I even get a snarky shout-out in his intro – and I’m guessing “a battalion of Bosnians” just seemed too alliterative to pass up, and no one would ever notice or know. Well, I noticed and I know.

Then there’s the work, otherwise actually quite good, that insists on calling the two national armies, the Austrian Landwehr and Hungarian Honvédség, “militia.” As I’ve beaten to death in these pages, they were regular armies, not militia and not National Guards (as yet another work has it). That one may be an over-reaching copy editor fixing something that’s not broken, but still, they send you those galley proofs for a reason.

And another, by a historian with decades of outstanding work behind him, who proclaims that Italian mobilization plans in 1914 included sending five divisions to East Prussia. I’m pretty sure he’s confused that with the actual plan to send the Italian Third Army to Alsace, but he draws conclusions from it (mainly, that the Germans could not send reinforcements from their Eighth Army in East Prussia to help the Austrians, because the Italians reneged on their alliance obligations). Italian chief of staff Alberto Pollio made various informal offers to send troops to the Eastern Front, but these were never part of German or Austro-Hungarian war plans. I could be wrong here and this author has uncovered a fact that no one else has ever mentioned, but it’s not footnoted and I’m reasonably sure this is just not true.

Finally, we have a work by an author who seemingly spits out a 500-page tome on the Eastern Front (of either World War) twice a year. Here we learn that the 39th Honvéd Infantry Division was struck in the flank and routed off the field by the Russian XX Corps. Except that the 39th Honvéd Infantry Division, while taking enormous losses in brutal frontal assaults, attacked again that afternoon. Clearly, it was not routed off the field, nor did it even report a Russian attack that day. And the Russian XX Corps was several hundred miles away at the time, being surrounded and destroyed by the Germans at Tannenberg.

So, is my history the best there is? I don’t know, but at least it’s probably not the worst. Let’s look at some more scenarios from Franz Josef’s Armies.

Scenario Fifty-Seven
Ad Hoc
28 August 1914
With 15th Infantry Division shattered, the Austrian Fourth Army shored up its VI Corps with a scratch force cobbled together from three March battalions and the divisional reserves of the 39th Honvéd Infantry Division and K.u.K. 19th Infantry Division. As soon as they came under the orders of VI Corps commander Svetozar Boroevic, he naturally ordered them to attack the Russians at once.

Conclusion
The scratch force fell back with heavy casualties, failing to dent the Russian lines but keeping the enemy occupied and blocking their further advance. This met Fourth Army’s goals for the force, but not those of VI Corps, which continued its relentless attacks regardless of losses. The March battalions, replacements who should have re-filled the ranks of depleted units, were instead mown down before they ever reached their regiments.

Notes
This one could get ugly fast for the Imperial and Royal side. They have some elite Feldjäger, some middle of the road line infantry, and a bunch of just-arrived replacements who are still learning that whole hay-foot/straw-foot thing. At least it’s a very colorful scenario, with yellow, green and red Austro-Hungarians all jumbled together.

Scenario Fifty-Eight
Too Much Spirit
28 August 1914
The Austrian XIV Corps included two divisions of outstanding mountain troops and one infantry division from the Honvédség. The Landwehr mountain division that served as the corps’ third division in peacetime, along with the corps’ independent Landwehr mountain brigade, had remained with Third Army when XIV Corps shifted west to join Fourth Army. The 41st Honvéd Infantry Division, an independent division from Budapest, instead join the Alpine troops. They swept into their first taste of combat with what the Austro-Hungarian Official History would call “too much spirit.”

Conclusion
This action highlights an aspect of the campaign that its historians seem to have overlooked. The Royal Honvédség received its first artillery pieces in March 1913, following authorization the previous year. With a cadre of officers and gunners transferred from Common Army batteries, the new regiments organized and trained for the next year and in April 1914 were assigned to Honvédség divisions. Thus, these divisions (and their brothers of the Imperial-Royal Austrian Landwehr) had only included artillery for four months when they marched to war, with staffs and commanders clearly inexperienced in the fine art of combined-arms tactics. The campaign of August 1914 is replete with stories like this one: the 41st Honvéd Infantry Division left its artillery behind and attacked with infantry only. Inevitably, the attacks failed at the cost of horrendous casualties.

Notes
The Hungarians really do have plenty of spirit, but they probably would have done better to bring their cannons instead. All the intangibles are on their side, but it’s really hard to succeed without the tangible one: firepower.

Scenario Fifty-Nine
Hungarian Defense
29 August 1914
As the Austrian Fourth Army tried to close its encirclement of the Russian Fifth Army, the Russian responded with a series of sharp counter-attacks. FML Johan Nikic of 41st Honvéd Infantry Division had apparently remembered that his unit included its own artillery and deployed the guns against a potential Russian attack. When the Russians advanced, the Hungarians were ready.

Conclusion
The Russians made some headway against the 19th Infantry Division, but resistance stiffened and flanking fire from the Honvéd artillery – previously little-engaged – inflicted heavy casualties on the attackers. This would be one of the few actions in Galicia where the Austro-Hungarian artillery proved a major factor on the battlefield.

Notes
Now the Russians are attacking, which is less common in Franz Josef’s Armies but sometimes the Imperial and Royal Army took a break in its ceaseless efforts at self-destruction. This is an odd scenario: the main line is held by K.u.K. troops, with the Hungarian artillery off to the side able to fire into their flank as they advance. Ignore them, because Austro-Hungarian artillery is pretty crapulent, or divert the time and troops to clear them off their hill?

And that’s Chapters Seven and Eight (which join the scenarios from Chapters Seven and Eight of Fall of Empires). Next time, we’ll dive into Chapter Nine.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published an unknowable number of books, games and articles on historical subjects. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children and his dog, Leopold. Leopold knows the number.

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