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Title: A Mad Catastrophe

Subtitle: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire

Author: Geoffrey Wawro

Narrator: Geoffrey Wawro

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-29-14

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 93 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

The Austro-Hungarian army that marched east and south to confront the Russians and Serbs in the opening campaigns of World War I had a glorious past but a pitiful present. Speaking a mystifying array of languages and lugging outdated weapons, the Austrian troops were hopelessly unprepared for the industrialized warfare that would shortly consume Europe. As prizewinning historian Geoffrey Wawro explains in A Mad Catastrophe, the doomed Austrian conscripts were an unfortunate microcosm of the Austro-Hungarian Empire itself - both equally ripe for destruction.

After the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914, Germany goaded the Empire into a war with Russia and Serbia. With the Germans massing their forces in the west to engage the French and the British, everything - the course of the war and the fate of empires and alliances from Constantinople to London - hinged on the Habsburgs ability to crush Serbia and keep the Russians at bay. However, Austria-Hungary had been rotting from within for years, hollowed out by repression, cynicism, and corruption at the highest levels. Commanded by a dying emperor, Franz Joseph I, and a querulous celebrity general, Conrad von Hötzendorf, the Austro-Hungarians managed to bungle everything: their ultimatum to the Serbs, their declarations of war, their mobilization, and the pivotal battles in Galicia and Serbia. By the end of 1914, the Habsburg army lay in ruins and the outcome of the war seemed all but decided.

Drawing on deep archival research, Wawro charts the decline of the Empire before the war and reconstructs the great battles in the east and the Balkans in thrilling and tragic detail. A Mad Catastrophe is a riveting account of a neglected face of World War I, revealing how a once-mighty empire collapsed in the trenches of Serbia and the Eastern Front, changing the course of European history.

Members Reviews:

Good read

Geoffrey Wawro describes the death of the second sick man of Europe, Austria-Hungary. Beset by internal divisions amongst its many ethnic groups, especially between German Austria and Magyar Hungary, It's a miracle Austria-Hungary survived until 1918; it definitely wouldn't have done so without German support. A bonus star for being a WWI book 1) in English and 2) On a generally obscure subject area.

Wawro's Diatribe Against A-H Military Leadership

What made the experience of listening to A Mad Catastrophe the most enjoyable?

As I had previously purchased the book, I was re-familiarized with the depth of Wawro's disregard for anything and everything even remotely related to the Austro - Hungarian army's leadership before and during the First World War. After reading / listening to this litany of indictments I came away with the same persistent question, "Why would Wawro, after putting in prodigious research and formulating a central thesis for the book, really want to write it?"

Now, before hackles get raised and your eyeballs begin their arching movements in their sockets, I am very much aware that there is no written or unwritten rule that the author has to be sympathetic to his or her subject matter in order to write his or her book.

I guess the old saying "Let dead dogs decompose" or something to that effect... may be what I am weakly trying to convey.