Board Thread:Timeline Discussions/@comment-4656717-20130106102552/@comment-32656-20130109103352

Cal, when I read the title you referenced I had to clean my computer screen. To put it bluntly, that author has been a touch discredited over the years, and hasn't had anything published academically, to the best of my knowledge, since the early 1970s. With good reason.

He has only published so-called "popular" works since then. Which have not been worth the paper they were printed on, as far as their content. Numerous errors. It's a shame, really, considering how highly "rated" he was coming out of university.

Such a problem is very common with "popular" books. Either by someone who's been out of production for forever, or by someone who doesn't know anything about what they're talking about.

His book also does not have a section on the war, but one on the Battle of Königgrätz. There's a bit difference, and he doesn't even get that accurate.

That artillery is overstated - if you cannot use it, artillery doesn't help one way or the other. Unless you're charging cavalry into the guns, the advantage was, at that period, minimal. Artillery played almost no role in the fighting, and the Prussians actually held the better quality of it, anyways. Their troops knew far more what they were doing, and their guns were of a better quality, overall. Krupp industry made their new ones - far better than anything in the Austrian arsenal.

They were outnumbered by the Prussians. Prussia kept its military at a far larger size ratio than any other European power. Austria's army was mostly on leave at all times, for pete's sake. Moreover, given the numbers participating in battles on various dates, and the concentration at Königgrätz, those numbers aren't at all accurate. Not even remotely. Had either side had those numbers, and such concentration, the other side would have destroyed them. And it didn't. For that matter, the Prussians had enough reserves and regular forces to easily take on Austria, their allies, and France, at the same time. This is something that has long been a known fact, Cal. Austria couldn't say the same.

Nor are those figures for Italy as accurate as you think. That usage of the word corps isn't correct, technically, either. While that is what they were called, they were not corps size - corps denoted a far smaller unit at that time in Austria than it does today, and did elsewhere at the time. Think more like a modern division in scale. That statement you read was grossly inaccurate, to say the least.

...You do realize that by the time that "campaign" started, the war had already long been determined, right? And, except for the Bavarians those other states never even managed to get mobilized, more or less. Add to that that what they did mobilize never went far, not usually leaving their borders. The Prussians had also already proven themselves more than able to defeat twice their number, which you've failed to take into account. Austria's German allies did not have any of its advantages, either, only its weaknesses.

Russia during WWI had severe problems getting its troops to the front. Not near, of course, as much as Germany expected, but it's still true that it was a problem. There's a reason why the Germans were deeply concerned about them completing their network in a few years.

Now, compare that to the 1860s - i.e. subtract a few decades - and it is worse. During the Crimean War, ending only a decade prior to the Austro-Prussian War, the Russians were barely able to keep their troops supplied and moved, and only managed that because of their internal waterways on the Volga. This network does, and did, not exist going to the west. Russia cannot get forces there and beat the Prussians. And all they had, rail-wise, heading that way was a tiny, tiny number of rail lines, with only a very small about of trains. Heck, they only had a single line going into Warsaw from that direction until after this war ended.

The same problems existed in the Napoleonic Wars. It was, however, in many ways less of an issue then, as it was easier to maintain lines. But by the 1860s? Not at all.

Russia was recovering from the Crimean War in the 1860s. It was not in better shape than before WWI.

Before you try to belittle someone, Cal, actually look into what they say.

...Nicholas I had not been the Tsar in a bit more than a decade since the Crimean War. Nor was his opinion at all valid, either - it was wrong at the time, and wrong prior to that war too. There's a reason why the Austrians supported the Turks in the Crimean War. They were not allies in the least. The Tsar only thought that because he had saved their butts in 1849. He couldn't have been more wrong.

203, that is not true in the least. Recruitment wasn't introduced in Russia until the early 1900s. Conscription had been used to get their military since Peter the Great. The troops were, however, paradoxically still "called" recruits. They were, however, nothing of the sort. Those reforms you refer to in 1861 abolished the conscription of children and reformed how they conscripted, overall.

Russia was also not opposed to the Prussians in any way, shape, or form.