The Carpathian
Winter War of 1915. The Carpathian campaign of 1915,
described by some as the 'Stalingrad of the First World War', engaged the
million-man armies of Austria-Hungary and Russia in fierce
winter combat that drove them to the brink of annihilation. Habsburg forces
fought to rescue 130,000 Austro-Hungarian soldiers trapped by Russian troops in
Fortress Przemysl, but the campaign was waged under such adverse circumstances
that it produced six times as many casualties as the number besieged. It remains
one of the least understood and most devastating chapters of the war - a
horrific episode only glimpsed previously but now vividly restored to the annals
of history by Graydon Tunstall. The campaign, consisting of three separate and
ultimately doomed offensives, was the first example of 'total war' conducted in
a mountainous terrain, and it prepared the way for the great battle of
Gorlice-Tarnow. Habsburg troops under Conrad von Hötzendorf faced those of
General Nikolai Ivanov, which together totalled more than two million soldiers.
None of the participants were psychologically or materially prepared to engage
in prolonged winter mountain warfare, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers
suffered from frostbite or succumbed to the 'White Death'. Tunstall reconstructs
the brutal environment - heavy snow, ice, dense fog, frigid winds - to depict
fighting in which a man lasted on average between five to six weeks before he
was killed, wounded, captured, or committed suicide. Meanwhile, soldiers warmed
rifles over fires to make them operable and slaughtered thousands of horses just
to ward off starvation. This riveting depiction of the Carpathian Winter War is
the first book-length account of that vicious campaign, as well as the first
English-language account of Eastern Front military operations in World War I in
more than thirty years. Based on exhaustive research in Vienna's and Budapest's War Archives, Tunstall's gripping
narrative incorporates material drawn from eyewitness accounts, personal
diaries, army logbooks, and correspondence among members of the high command. As
Tunstall shows, the roots of the Habsburg collapse in Russia in 1916
lay squarely in the winter campaign of 1915. Packed with insights from
previously unexploited primary sources, his book provides an engrossing read -
and the definitive account of the Carpathian Winter War.
Reviews:
"With bold, powerful brush strokes, Tunstall paints a picture of
horrendous death in the Carpathian Mountains.
Austria-Hungary and
Russia each lost about one
million men, making the battle more costly than the better known ones of
Verdun and the Somme 1916. Meticulously researched and well written, this
is military history at its finest. A must read." - Holger H. Herwig, author of
The Marne, 1914
"Snow falls on
the mountains, wolves howl in the distance, and two doomed armies learn the
truth of the old adage, 'there is no enemy more formidable than nature'. An
essential book for all First World War libraries." - Robert M. Citino, author of
The German Way of War"
