A mad catastrophe : the outbreak of World War I and the collapse of the Habsburg Empire /

Wawro, Geoffrey.

A mad catastrophe : the outbreak of World War I and the collapse of the Habsburg Empire / Geoffrey Wawro. - New York : Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group, [2014] - xxiv, 440 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Includes bibliographical references (pages 427-431) and index.

The sick man of Europe -- Between blunder and stupidity -- The Balkan Wars -- Murder in Sarajevo -- The streamroller -- Misfits -- Krásnik -- Komarów -- Lemberg and Rawa-Ruska -- Death on the Drina -- Warsaw -- The thin gray line -- Serbian jubilee -- Snowmen.

"The 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 Speaking a mystifying array of languages and lugging outdated weapons, the Austrian troops were hopelessly unprepared for the industrialized warfare that would shortly consume Europe.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 ... historian Geoffrey Wawro explains in [this book], the doomed Austrian conscripts were an unfortunate microcosm of the Austro-Hungarian Empire itself--both equally ripe for destruction"--

0465028357 (hbk.) 9780465028351 (hbk.)

2013039393


Habsburg, House of.


World War, 1914-1918--Campaigns--Balkan Peninsula.
World War, 1914-1918--Campaigns--Galicia (Poland and Ukraine).
World War, 1914-1918--Causes.

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