Customer Reviews

The Undermining of Austria-Hungary: The Battle for Hearts and Minds

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Mark Cornwall's "Undermining Austria-Hungary" looks at Allied efforts during the Great War to pry the various nationalities (Czechs, Serbs, Poles, Italians, etc.) that made up the Habsburg armies away from loyalty to the Monarchy and the Dynasty. Cornwall's research into Allied propaganda and long-obscured archives in Vienna and Budapest is excellent, and he shows both the long and largely unsuccessful (at least until mid-1918) attempts of the Allied governments and their pet "national" emigre groups to undermine the loyalty of the non-German soldiers of the Monarchy and the fear and anxiety of the Habsburg authorities over any signs of disaffection. The armies of the Monarchy were, despite later legend, remarkably resilient throughout the war, and held together far better than anyone thought. Cornwall shows, however, something my own doctoral thesis on the nationality politics of the imperial-and-royal armies before the war noted: the Monarchy's generals overreacted to any hint of national unrest, often (as with the Serbs of the Monarchy's Bosnian units in summer 1914) imagining disloyalty and creating unrest where none may have existed. Cornwall gives a remarkable picture of a lost army and looks at the links holding together the Monarchy's regiments. My one complaint is the price-- the publishers have priced the book out of reach for all but the most determined readers. Still-- this is a finely written book, wonderfully researched and presented, and of interest not just to scholars of the Monarchy, but to anyone interested in national loyalties and the fate of multinational or multi-ethnic states.