He pondered quietly. He was quiet. Franz Josef Karl Ludwig Rudolf von Habsburg, a direct Habsburg descendant, accidentally traveled to Rudolf in his previous life while attending the funeral of Otto, the eldest son of the last emperor Karl I, in 2011.

It was June 28, 1913, and the European continent was quiet and peaceful, with the exception of the distant Balkan Peninsula, where the continent's major countries were still immersed in life and prosperity, and the smell of war seemed far away.

The United Kingdom spans the world, and although the empire on which the sun never sets has been slightly weakened in the previous Boer War, the majesty of the world hegemon is still not to be provoked.

The French Third Republic emerged from the shadow of 1870, and the usury empire stagnated its industrial development. But the booming economy, the Russo-French alliance, and even the British Entente kept the proud French at ease.

The German Empire has been going on for forty years, and they have worked miracles with iron and blood. Today, Europe's second most populous, first industry, the world's largest army and second largest navy give them the courage to do whatever it takes.

Tsarist Russia was a vast country, with a population of 170 million and abundant agriculture. With the reforms of Stolypin's government, the Russian East will become their solid rear. Backed by Britain and France, the two major world financiers, no one does not believe that as long as the materials are sufficient, the prestige of the "European steamroller" will once again resound.

The legacy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire remains rich, and as a traditional power, they seem to be exceptionally strong on paper. And the national question within the empire, under the long-sleeved dance of the Habsburgs, seems to be as trivial as the disease of scabies. And under the leadership and advocacy of Crown Prince Ferdinand, it seems that it can be resolved. He advocated the expansion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from a dual empire consisting of Austria and Hungary to a triple empire of Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia through the annexation of the Kingdom of Serbia, and this time the Slavs within the empire could be truly united.

Rudolf was a member of the Habsburg family, who grew up in Salzburg and studied literature and history at the Universities of Vienna and Paris. The Habsburgs gained much more and built a great empire. In the same way, they also lose a lot when the end comes, and end up paying for everything wrongly.

In his previous life, Rudolph was also illustrious, his father was a duke of the Austrian Empire, and his mother was the daughter of a marquis of the Kingdom of Hungary.

Born in 1888, Rudolf grew up in Vienna and Budapest as a link between the Magyars and the Germans. The warmth and freedom of the Hungarians, the open-mindedness and freedom of his uncle, the Archduke Ferdinand, seemed to be incompatible with the strict court of Vienna, and at the same time created a good relationship with the crown prince and the Hungarians. As a nobleman of the German region, Rudolf had a military life in addition to the study of nature and humanities in middle school. After graduating from the Austro-Hungarian Army Military Academy with a specialization in Infantry Command, Rudolf also studied staff officers at the Higher Military Academy in Berlin, the cradle of the General Staff as the place where Scharnhorst and Clausewitz served.

Needless to say, Rudolph was trained by the Habsburgs as a military talent. From 1913, when Rudolph completed his studies at the age of 25, he was transferred to the General Staff of the Reich, while continuing his studies at the War College. Although Rudolph has a high degree in military education, he will surely become a pivotal figure in the Austro-Hungarian military in the future. But now, at the age of 21, he only had a few months of compulsory military service in the 7th Infantry Regiment in Carinthia. It is no exaggeration to say that Klagenfurt's days were the only less professional military life he had.

Waking up from confusion and chaos, Rudolph accepts the memories and experiences of his past life. He pondered quietly, slowly accepting the unbelievable experience. Today, the beginning of war has not yet appeared, and he seems to have a bright future, but the painful memory of history reminds him all the time that the war has never changed, and the war has never ended. Perhaps he could rely on his noble status to be in the quiet War Department in Vienna. But as a member of the Habsburg family, his innate sense of responsibility told him that since God had given him the opportunity, he had to use it, to fight, to change the fate of the family and history.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire entered the war in a fit of rage, and for four years it was defeated, scrambling, and then falling apart in a trance. She failed to reach her potential, as if she had a series of curses at the end of a dynasty, falling like a meteor across the starry sky.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire had not yet gone to fight, and in the midst of the storm, she died suddenly. He was not the Ottoman Churchill had said: "Europe has been waiting for the death of the Ottoman Empire, but year after year, this patient is unwilling to die, and his weakened hands still hold on to the keys to a huge family fortune." "Although Zhou is an old state, its life is renewed," the Austro-Hungarian Empire inherited the ancient heritage, bloomed with the will to innovate, and united the various peoples of the Balkan Peninsula.

History one-sidedly blames the demise of Austria-Hungary on national contradictions, but as everyone knows, it was a series of external troubles and failures that triggered internal contradictions. In the face of danger this time, there was no Prince Eugen in the Great Turkish War, no Field Marshal Daun in the Seven Years' War, and no Grand Duke Karl in the Franco-Austrian War. During the world war, only Conrad's talent was left to put into his ideals, after all, the sword in his hand was fragile.

Rudolph seems to have accepted this predetermined ending, but he is still unwilling, since he has come, he cannot only walk through. We don't know if it's in man or in heaven, but we should at least do our best. Rudolph thought.

Rudolph began to check the military situation of the empire, although he had a good understanding of it, but when he looked at it again, he still couldn't help but sigh, worthy of a strange dual empire.

The so-called "Austro-Hungarian Empire" was in essence a reluctant concession of the ancient Habsburgs to the rise of modern nationalism. In the Middle Ages, when the sense of nationality was weak, the Habsburg royal family ruled over a large number of territories, from the banks of the Rhine to Western Ukraine, and the royal family ruled over this vast land and its subjects of different nationalities with a long list of titles such as "king, prince, grand duke, duke, count". This medieval structure of government was outdated even in the 17th century, with the rise of single-ethnic monarchies such as France, England, and Prussia, in stark contrast to the decline of the Habsburgs.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the royal family lost the Holy Roman Empire throne that had been a façade decoration, and had to be renamed the Emperor of Austria, however, in the 60s of the 19th century, even the Austrian Empire could not be maintained, with the defeat of the empire in Italy against France and Prussia in Bohemia, the once suppressed national liberation movement was surging again, and the royal family had to grant Hungary autonomy in 1867 in order to win over the Hungarian nobles who had been loyal to the royal family since the time of Empress Teresa. This is the origin of the so-called "Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy", referred to as "Austria-Hungary", its official full name is: "the kingdom and territory represented by the Imperial Parliament and the crown of St. Stephen of Hungary", which is still a mixed system of the Middle Ages and modern times, the so-called "dual monarchy", although generally speaking, refers to the geographical and administrative significance of the two geographical parts of Austria and Hungary that constitute the co-main union, but at a deeper level, It is also a very fitting description of the mixture of medieval and modern political structures in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In essence, with the defeat of Sadova and the collapse of the Empire's hopes of regaining influence in the German region, the Empire began to expand its influence in the southeastern Balkans in an attempt to seize the predominantly Slavic-occupied territories left behind by Turkey's withdrawal from Eastern Europe, which led to the turn against the Empire and its close allies for centuries, Russia, the Slavic protector and self-proclaimed Big Brother, and had to tie itself to the German chariot against the powerful Tsar.

With the unfolding of the Second Industrial Revolution, the empire returned to the last 30 years of the 19th century, so much so that before the war, the empire actually relied on a vast territory (second in Europe), a huge population (52 million, third in Europe) and not weak industrial power (especially the military industry), and seemed to be one of the great powers in Europe and even the world. It was this illusion, along with the conviction of German guarantees, that made the Reich throw itself into the war without hesitation, and then be crushed by it.

The military bureaucracy of the Reich was not short of talent, and the defeat of Sadova allowed the Reich to quickly absorb the experience of its former enemy, now its ally, Germany, and establish its own general staff and mass mobilization system.

This was reflected in the specific military deployment, which had been used as a reserve army, the "Landwehr" (Local Defence Force) was upgraded to the position of a regular army, and since this upgrade began at the same time as the Hungarian autonomy, Hungary was allowed to create its own "Local Defence Force" (Honvéd).

Thus, before the war, the Imperial Army consisted of the following three parts:

Imperial Wehrmacht (Bewaffnete Macht or Wehrmacht)

The Kaiserlich Koenigliche Landwehr (here, the Emperor, refers to the Emperor of Austria, and the King, refers to the King of Bohemia, but Bohemia only has the name of a kingdom, but does not have the same autonomy as Hungary), which is a local defense force in the non-Hungarian part of the empire (also known as the Inner Letania region), although called the local defense force, but has field capabilities, but according to the law, its deployment and operations are geographically limited, unlike the Imperial Wehrmacht, which can be deployed and operated in any area of the Empire.

The Royal Hungarian Local Defence Force (Honvéd), whose mission and nature are the same as those of the Royal and Royal Local Defence Forces, is the local defense force of the Hungarian part of the empire (Trans-Letania region) and is also a regular field force. In terms of military administration, the Imperial Defence was under the direct command of the Imperial War Department in Vienna, the Royal and Royal Local Defence Forces were under the jurisdiction of the Austrian Local Defence Ministry, also based in Vienna, and the Royal Hungarian Local Defence was under the jurisdiction of the Hungarian Local Defence Department in the port of Pest (part of the present-day Budapest, port area), and these two local Defence Ministries were jointly under the Imperial War Department in Vienna. In terms of the military command system, the Imperial Army, which was composed of these three parts.