Much of the Great War was decided in the east

Just 29 years old, Karl I was desperate to lead Austria-Hungary out of the first world war. He was crowned as Habsburg emperor in November 1916 after the death of his great uncle, who had ruled for 68 years. Though the empire had been instrumental in starting the conflict following the assassination of its archduke, Franz Ferdinand, in June 1914 by a militant Serb nationalist, now Karl could see only the nightmarish cost. Austria-Hungary’s increasingly ramshackle, polyglot army had suffered devastating losses at the hands of Aleksei Brusilov, a Russian general, five months earlier. To function it depended on its ally, Germany. Vienna was starving. But secret peace talks went nowhere, and Austria-Hungary was dragged limpingly along in Germany’s wake to disaster.