Serbia humiliated but no WW1

[Derek Jackson]

Had the war been avoided after Princip murdered Franz Ferdinand and Sophie, how much damage could have been done to Pan Slavism

I assume that most of Europe's intial response to the outrage was well shock horror and outrage.

Does this change things in Austria?

Or does the regime think they have been licenced to be nastier to Bosnian Serbs Czechs Slovaks and others

 

[Perfidious Albion]

I'm afraid I think you overestimate the civility of pre-war Europe. The initial responses of the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire to the assassination were to say it was all an Austro-Hungarian excuse to invade Serbia and to rapidly concoct a narrative whereby Franz Ferdinand was an evil war-mongering tyrant struck down by his own people, respectively. Germany and Austria-Hungary responded with horror, yes, and the British press response was less easily categorisable, but even then reactions were largely determined by allegiance.

Probably the best option I've heard for avoiding WW1 after the assassination is that Austria-Hungary goes on a knee-jerk reaction and immediately invades Serbia. The idea is that the UK would be more sympathetic without the ultimatum that made the crisis look like a great power bullying a minor power and probably wouldn't be too keen to go to war against Austria-Hungary for it, that Russian mobilisation would be slow and might not happen if presented with a fait accompli and that the French and Russian narratives wouldn't be well-established enough to contradict the Austro-Hungarian one. I'm not sure it would work, though.

 

[Captain Jack]

Probably the best option I've heard for avoiding WW1 after the assassination is that Austria-Hungary goes on a knee-jerk reaction and immediately invades Serbia. The idea is that the UK would be more sympathetic without the ultimatum that made the crisis look like a great power bullying a minor power and probably wouldn't be too keen to go to war against Austria-Hungary for it, that Russian mobilisation would be slow and might not happen if presented with a fait accompli and that the French and Russian narratives wouldn't be well-established enough to contradict the Austro-Hungarian one. I'm not sure it would work, though.

I agree that that is the best option for avoiding the war after the assassination. However, one of the reasons the Austrians didn't invade immediately OTL was that a large portion of the army (seven out of sixteen army corps)was on harvest leave and would be until 19 and 25 July. If they cancelled harvest leave it would be a blatant signal to Serbia of their intention to attack and would still take time to gather all the troops.

 

[Perfidious Albion]

I agree that that is the best option for avoiding the war after the assassination. However, one of the reasons the Austrians didn't invade immediately OTL was that a large portion of the army (seven out of sixteen army corps)was on harvest leave and would be until 19 and 25 July. If they cancelled harvest leave it would be a blatant signal to Serbia of their intention to attack and would still take time to gather all the troops.

I didn't know that. So do you think that it would have been realistically possible for Austria-Hungary to invade Serbia without provoking a Russian declaration of war, then?

 

[LordKalvan]

Given the results of the first attempt of A-H to invade Serbia IOTL I would not be surprised if also TTL half-cocked attempt would fail. What then? If the fighting lines stabilize (inside Serbia but still short of Belgrade) there would be more pressure to find a peaceful resolution of the conflict (and maybe for the message that A-H was not fully reliable to percolate into the German minds).

Anyway (and besides the harvest leave, which is certainly a very good point) I doubt very much that A-H would invade Serbia without a full German backing: it's true that the army was all in favor of a "short victorious war" (and the sentiment was apparently shared by Franz Joseph) in the belief it was the only way to shore up the tottering Austrian empire, but I am convinced that a cold-started unilateral invasion would be a step too far.

 

[GovernorGeneral]

What about Britain mediating and persuading Russia to let Austria-Hungary punish an act of insurrection/terrorism in it's own sphere of influence? If Russia hadn't backed Serbia, Germany wouldn't have felt compelled to back Austria-Hungary.

 

[Uhura's Mazda]

If the fighting lines stabilize (inside Serbia but still short of Belgrade)

I'm pretty sure Belgrade was right on the border before the Paris Peace Conference. But anyway, if they were attacking with only half their army, they'd make an even worse pig's ear out of the invasion than they did OTL and could even be repulsed before the other 7 corps got back from harvest leave (what shitty medieval country would still have Harvest Leave in 19-fucking-14, ffs? Who was their Generalissimo, King Harold? ) but maybe the distraction of the Eastern Front delayed their victory over Serbia. They would definitely conquer Serbia at some point once they had invaded, but a long war over little Serbia might prove to be the catalyst for the break-up of the Empire.

 

[TRH]

A third of the troops earmarked for Serbia got transferred to Galicia when the Russians attacked, so if that somehow fails to happen I think that will probably be a decisive change. And Belgrade was indeed quite close to the Serbian-Austro-Hungarian border at the time, so if there's an invasion in the Summer of 1914, I can't see the Serbs make it to Winter. Not in Belgrade, certainly.

 

[LordKalvan]

A third of the troops earmarked for Serbia got transferred to Galicia when the Russians attacked, so if that somehow fails to happen I think that will probably be a decisive change. And Belgrade was indeed quite close to the Serbian-Austro-Hungarian border at the time, so if there's an invasion in the Summer of 1914, I can't see the Serbs make it to Winter. Not in Belgrade, certainly.

The Austrians did not attack from the Hungarian plains across the Danube, but from Slavonia and Bosnia. While Belgrade is close to the border, coming from the north-west and west it's a bit longer to get there. As it happened, Belgrade was under artillery fire, but the Austrians were able to enter the city only on 2nd December 1914 (and less than 2 weeks later they had to evacuate the city and retreat beyond the border). Not to mention that logistics were not very good (no railways for example), and A-H were anyway less than brilliant.
The Austrians underestimated the difficulties of the terrain (as they underestimated the Serbian resistance), and so they made a pig's ear of the whole campaign. A sluggish army and worse logistics: I find it hard to believe that adding more troops would have made a lot of a difference. Even in 1915 the Serbian front held until the Bulgarians joined the CPs (October 1915), and even then the Serbian army managed to retreat to Valona where they were evacuated by Entente ships.
Couple of nitpicks: the 2nd Army Corps was redeployed to the eastern front only when the Russians called for a full mobilization (not an attack). Anyway given once again the logistics involved the 2nd army eastward movement was very slow, and they participated to the first weeks of campaign (and anyway 4 divisions of the 2nd army were never moved east and remained on the Serbian front for the whole campaign).