The First World War

and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914-1918

Manfried Rauchensteiner, Anna Güttel-Bellert, Alex J. Kay, Anna Güttel-Bellert, Alex J. Kay

• Publisher: Böhlau Wien
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9783205795889
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9783205793700
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: History Reference
• Index: History

The well-respected historian Manfried Rauchensteiner analyses the outbreak of World War I, Emperor Franz Joseph's role in the conflict, and how the various nationalities of the Habsburg Monarchy reacted to the disintegration of this 640-yearold empire in 1918. After Archduke Franz Ferdinand"s assassination in Sarajevo in 1914, war was inevitable. Emperor Franz Joseph intended it, and everyone in Vienna expected it. How the war began and how Austria-Hungary managed to avoid capitulation only weeks later with the help of German troops reads like a thriller. Manfried Rauchensteiner"s book is based on decades of research and is a fascinating read to the very end, even though the final outcome, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy, is already known. Originally published in German in 2013 by Böhlau, this standard work is now available in English.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Imprint
• Content
• 1 On the Eve
• 2 Two Million Men for the War
• 3 Bloody Sundays
• 4 Unleashing the War
• 5 ‘Thank God, this is the Great War!’
• 6 Adjusting to a Longer War
• 7 The End of the Euphoria
• 8 The First Winter of the War
• 9 Under Surveillance
• 10 ‘The King of Italy has declared war on Me’
• 11 The Third Front
• 12 Factory War and Domestic Front, 1915
• 13 Summer Battle and ‘Autumn Swine’
• 14 War Aims and Central Europe
• 15 South Tyrol: The End of an Illusion (I)
• 16 Lutsk: The End of an Illusion (II)
• 17 How is a War Financed?
• 18 The Nameless
• 19 The Death of the Old Emperor
• 20 Emperor Karl
• 21 The Writing on the Wall
• 22 The Consequences of the Russian February Revolution
• 23 Summer 1917
• 24 Kerensky Offensive and Peace Efforts
• 25 The Pyrrhic Victory: The Breakthrough Battle of Flitsch-Tolmein
• 26 Camps
• 27 Peace Feelers in the Shadow of Brest-Litovsk
• 28 The Inner Front
• 29 The June Battle in Veneto
• 30 An Empire Resigns
• 31 The Twilight Empire
• 32 The War becomes History
• Epilogue
• Afterword
• Acknowledgements and Dedication
• Notes
• Selected Printed Sources and Literature
• Index of People and Places
• The Russian Theatre of War
• The Italian Theatre of War