Tag Archives: KuK Army

The More Things Change, Maschinengewehr Edition

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Check out these two circa 1917 images of Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Army (kaiserlich und königliche Armee or k.u.k.) troops fielding a Schwarzlose M.7 water-cooled general-purpose machine gun from carefully constructed trenches, “somewhere in Eastern Europe.”

Maschinengewehr in Gefechtsstellung, 11.1917. Via Bildarchivaustria

Maschinengewehr in Feuerstellung, 25.09.1917 Via Bildarchivaustria

Now contrast them with these three of a modern MG 74 maschinengewehr emplacement of the Austrian Bundesheer taken earlier this month.

Sure, the uniforms are different, and the MG 74 is much more effective– the Steyr-made MG 42/59 variant has a cyclic rate of fire is 850 rounds per minute while only weighing 23.5-pounds instead of the M.7’s 450rpm rate and 90-pounds– the general concept is remarkably the same, even 104 years apart.

With uniforms this snazzy, how could they lose?

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The below image shows a  great selection of Soldiers of various units of the polyglot Austro-Hungarian army in 1914 (click to big up).

From left to right:
Austrian Landwehr ulan cavalrymen,
Austrian Landwehr (infantryman),
Bosnian Jäger,
Austrian Jäger,
Austrian infantryman,
Hungarian infantryman,
Tyrolean and Imperial Jäger,
Bosnian infantryman,
Hungarian honvéd infantryman,
Common, or joint (közös) Hussar in a new camp uniform,
Common, or joint (közös) hussar,
Common, or joint (közös) Jäger,
Common, or joint (közös) dragoon.

Note the Austro-Hungarian bluejacket at the far right, dressed for shore duty.

And it doesn’t even include such exotic units as the Albanians:

or ski troops…

Or crazy weapon systems like the water-cooled Standschütze Hellriegel Submachine Gun

While they looked good in photos and on paper, the Austrian forces were so poorly led, confusingly staffed and shallow in depth that German warlord Gen. Erich von Ludendorff said that to fight alongside old Franz Josef’s army was like being “shackled to a corpse.”

Of course, the uniforms would become much more practical as the Great War’s modern combat left the quaint 19th Century stylings behind in the mud of trench warfare– especially on the horrors of the Italian front, where the Austrians gave a better account of themselves than against the Serbs and Russians in the opening stages of the conflict.

Austro-Hungarian assault troops k.u.k. Sturmbatallione. They’ re-equipped with Austrian zeitzunderhandgranates, wire cutters and a variety of small arms.