The Austro-Hungarian army VS The Russian army in WW1

[G.U.Y]

The Austro-Hungarian army VS The Russian army in WW1.

Hello, I am interested to hear all of your opinions on which was the better army. Personally, even though my Great-grandfather was a solider of the KuK, I believe that the Russian army was superior compared to the Austro-Hungarian. The KuK only won in Galicia thanks to German assistance (my view).

[GRAN CAPITAN]

Difficult question. I believe that in 1914, AH army had better equipment and organization than Russian imperial army. The main problem was the suspected reliability of some slav units, a problem which worsened with time and eventually triggered the final collapse of AH. Neverthelesss, AH army (with German support) fought decently and with some succes for many years both in the eastern and alpine fronts.
On the other hand, the Russian army started the war with very poor supply and leadership. After a few bloody defeats, the Russians recovered a little bit and even managed to launch a rather succesful offensive (Brusilov's offensive), but at the end of the day, they were not able to overcome their cronical shortages of weapons and ammunition. The best tribute to this army is the fact that despite horrible losses they were able to hold in line up to the start of soviet revolution.

[glenn239]

I'd suggest a numerical hierarchy for the value of an individual soldier in the three armies, 1914-1916. Something along the lines of:

German: 5
Russian: 3
Austrian: 2

[Calogerizmus]

The KuK only won in Galicia thanks to German assistance (my view).

This is wrong, in my opinion.
The KuK won *also* but not *only* thanks to German assistance.
At Gorlice-Tarnòw, the true turning point of the early war on the Eastern Front, the 65% of the men of the three armies involved were from KuK and there was four Austrian divisions also in Mackensen's armies (data from the Sondhaus' biography of Conrad). But, of course, it is regarded as a German victory.
The failure of Austro-Hungarian armies in the first months of war was due, in my opinion, to the disastrous leadership and poor planning of Conrad and his staff.

[agblume]

I would invite anyone interested in the actions of the Austro-Hungarian forces on the Russian Front during 1914-1917 to visit my website http://www.warchron.com and view the Chronology which has 350 pages and about 750 images as hyperlinks. There is an Index and Search function which can aid your research. Best regards, agblume