The General Staff recently sparked a controversy about the Škoda Arsenal.

The director of artillery production, Haust Bachholtz, proposed to strengthen the reserves of artillery raw materials at the Škoda arsenal in order to prevent the largest arsenal in Europe from being able to produce them due to the blockade during the war.

Lieutenant Colonel Kasif, an artillery lieutenant colonel of the General Staff, vigorously preached: "It is difficult to lose artillery, and instead of considering the shortcomings of artillery,

It's better to think about it, without those damn shells, those artillery battles would be useless. ”

Howst thought for a moment and did not immediately go to argue with Kasif, but asked the naval adviser Priyanka Chepra "Can the Navy guarantee the smooth passage of the Adriatic Sea?" ”

Priyanka looked embarrassed and said, "Don't talk about our pocket navy, if the British come, the Germans will not be able to guarantee their North Sea"

Haust is still not dead: "What if you add the Italian Navy? Their coastline is still adequate. ”

Priyanka shook his head, "It's hard! ”

"Artillery is inexhaustible, and if a unit can discard their artillery, then we can surrender and admit defeat in this war, and no amount of artillery can save it." ”

Rudolph recalled the material in his mind, and the joke of the Austro-Hungarian Empire came to his eyelids.

At the beginning of the war, the Austro-Hungarian artillery stored a large amount of ammunition, but only a small number of spare cannons, according to the theory put forward by a stupid person, the artillery will not have much loss in the future war, and even worse, the largest Austro-Hungarian arsenal, the Skoda Arsenal, although there is still a surplus capacity, did not store raw materials, as a result, after the start of the war, due to the blockade of the British Navy, the raw materials for the production of cannons in the arsenal were quickly exhausted. Next, the Austro-Hungarian artillery suffered huge losses in the war between Russia and the Balkans, which made the artillery of the Austro-Hungarian artillery almost depleted by the time Italy entered the war in 1915, to the point that it was almost impossible to deploy a single cannon on the Italian front. The Imperial War Department frantically scoured all the heavy firearms that could still fire to equip its artillery units, the old guns that did not have a resetter were re-issued to the troops, and even a 65mm bronze mountain cannon from 1861 was pulled to the front. Nearly 300 Russian prisoners of war took great difficulty to pull the cannon up the Ortler peak in the Alps at an altitude of 3,905 meters.

Rudolph approached them and casually interjected, "The war of the future will be more brutal than ever, it will be a general war." It's always good to be prepared. ”

Kasif and Haust seemed to accept this point of view, but then Kasif replied helplessly: "My Excellency, Captain, I am an artillery officer, I don't want to have a few more cannons, but look at it." ”

A form was taken out

Military Rankings by Country in 1913:

$880 million in Germany

Russia $850 million

UK $670 million

France 667 million US dollars

$620 million in the United States

Italy $400 million

Austria-Hungary $380 million

Japan: $230 million

Rudolf was speechless, and Austria-Hungary's military spending was even less than that of the newly independent Italy. The reason why such a strange suggestion can be come up with from an artillery officer is probably only a penny that stumps the hero, and he is forced to do it. Pity the Skoda Arsenal, which was able to create the M.11 305 mm howitzer, the best land heavy artillery of the First World War, and even during the defense of Sevastopol, the Germans still used it. Now, when the war is coming, there is no technology and production capacity, but there is no material support.

Such unmatched military spending was not only due to the excessive financial pressure on Austria-Hungary, but also because the Hungarian and Austrian governments constrained each other and acted inefficiently. The program of military reform, which has long been proposed, is constantly revised, discussed, rejected .... Cumbersome government and parliament make it difficult to implement modern reforms.

"Those parliamentarians have proven to be completely incompetent, irresponsible, and corrupt." —General Shermuwa, Chief of the Austrian General Staff, 1912.

The field artillery of Austria-Hungary was the most in need of salvation, and the War Ministry was completely powerless in this regard. On the eve of the outbreak of the war in 1914, the Austro-Hungarian Military Intelligence Bureau (Evidenzbureau) made an analysis of the field artillery of Russia and Austria, believing that the Russian division and army-level field artillery had completely suppressed the Austrian army in terms of range and shell weight, and had a numerical advantage: the Russian army had 48 guns/infantry division, 108 guns/corps versus 42 guns/army of the Austrian army/total army infantry division, 92 guns/corps.

In fact, Austria's backwardness in field artillery is not surprising at all, since the seventies of the last century Austrian artillery Major General Franz . Feng. After Uhayus invented the new cannon copper process, the Austro-Lunar field artillery was all steel-copper composite barrels. It should be noted that at this point in time in 1875, the bronze cannon had the advantages of cheapness and durability for the Austrian army, and both national and foreign experts gave the 9cm FK designed by Uhayus. The M75 field gun is well received.

The Austro-Hungarian artillery also believed that, according to the analysis of the Battle of Knigretz, the quality of the artillery crew was more important than the performance of the artillery itself.

In terms of the equipment of field artillery, the Habsburg Army had a total of 42 field artillery regiments* (FKR) in 1914, which in theory should all be equipped with the latest 8cm FK M.5 field guns - because this is the only way to keep up with the level of the Russian army, but the actual equipment is less than half of the total: each artillery regiment has two artillery battalions, of which only the first artillery battalion is equipped with the new M.5, and the second battalion is all using the old 9cm FK. M75 cannon! General Uhayus never dreamed that his artillery would be "popular" in the army for 40 years. The Austrians fought the 20th-century war with the Franco-Prussian War cannons, which is an excellent example of the impact of the monarchy's weak economic situation and the political drama of the two councils on armaments.

Rudolf was helpless about the state of Austro-Hungarian readiness, and he also knew that in such discussions, no matter how correct, powerful and convincing. None of them can make the overstretched military budget an extra crown. sighed to everyone sitting here, "Artillery is the king of land warfare, without it, no matter how good a soldier is, he can't win a battle, alas." ”

Rudolph decided to take this issue seriously, although he was only a young army captain, and he was a minor speaker in the General Staff of the Reich. can't stand the fact that he was born with a golden key and has no real power to know, all of them are big names in the military and political circles. I don't have the right to decide, but I have the right to make suggestions.

A few days later, the seaside city of Trieste hosted a grand ball, and the drunken Vienna was not chosen because it was hosted by Crown Prince Ferdinand and his concubine, Sophie, Duchess of Hornberg, who had had enough of criticism at the Viennese court. This evasion also contributed to the tragedy in Sarajevo next year.

Because the crown prince intermarried, his wife was not given the title and treatment of the Grand Duchess, and in all of Europe, except for the crown prince's friend Emperor Wilhelm II, his wife did not receive royal treatment. Even in Berlin, Kaiser Wilhelm II took great pains to get Archduke Ferdinand's wife to dine with them. So in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1914, the crown prince was determined to give his wife the royal treatment that Vienna did not have, so he took his wife with him, and the result was known to everyone.

Rudolph, as the crown prince's good nephew, inevitably approached Ferdinand at the banquet. As the crown prince of the empire and the host of the banquet, Ferdinand is undoubtedly the focus here. As representatives and leaders of the struggle for the rights of the Slavs in the empire, Poles, Croats, and Romanians from Inner and Transletania surrounded the crown prince and talked enthusiastically.

Most of the people who came were military officials, and there were inevitably restrictions on what could be discussed.

Rudolph pretended to interject unintentionally: "Our mountain artillery is a big problem? ”

The crowd was speechless.

The backward artillery of the Austro-Hungarian Empire has long been an open problem, and when the Krupp steel guns of the German compatriots were famous all over the world, half of the infantry guns of the empire were still using the steel-copper composite barrels of the Franco-Prussian War.

And the performance of the new M.5 bronze cannon is not much better. Just like the warning given by the Military Intelligence Bureau to the General Staff, the M.5 gun has a full kilometer less range than the Russian 76mm "Putilov" field gun of the same level, and the rate of fire is also at a disadvantage, not to mention that the Russian army has verified the practicality of the gun in actual combat in 1905, while the Austrian army has no actual combat experience.

Everyone knew that from the tsarist government, which was full of holes, they knew all the data of this powerful neighbor, but only that. The rights of the Magyars are too great. The Austro-Hungarian Entente gave the Hungarians the right to rule freely over "Transleitania", which meant that the Magyars, who made up only 19 percent of the empire's population, now had a free disposition over 40 percent of the empire's territory and 50 percent of the say in foreign and military tariffs. And what's worse is that these Magyalian liberals are also ethnochauvinistic. They openly discriminate against and oppress minorities in the territories they rule.

Since there was nothing they could do about the financial problem, everyone shouted angrily, "arrogant and greedy Hungarians," and after expressing a few words of demand for their own rights and support for the royal family, they could only make a fuss about tactics.

Svetozal. General Borojevich was a Serb Croat, but his loyalty to the empire and his military talent were beyond doubt. He was known as the best strategic defender of the First World War for his defensive prowess at the Battle of the Isonzo River.

"In defensive warfare, our artillery will only need to delay the enemy's attack, and strong trenches and fortresses will protect our soldiers."

Rudolf thought of this and assumed the posture of a German student, "The experiments of the Prussians have proved that not only fortresses, but also trenches will be the nightmare of all charges." ”