World War I in Central and Eastern Europe: Politics, Conflict and Military Experience 9781350989870, 9781838609931

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Judith Devlin is Emeritus Professor of History at University College Dublin. She studied in Dublin, Paris and Oxford, has written monographs on French history and post-Soviet Russia, including The Superstitious Mind: French Peasants and the Supernatural in Nineteenth Century France (1987) and Slavophiles and Commissars: Enemies of Democracy in Modern Russia (1999); co-edited three books on European history, including with Christoph Mu¨ller, War of Words: Culture and the Mass Media in the Making of the Cold War in Europe (2013); and written eighteen articles and book chapters mainly on Soviet political culture, in particular the Stalin cult. Maria Falina is Lecturer in Modern European History at Dublin City University, Ireland. Prior to taking up the current post in 2016 she spent three years at University College Dublin as a lecturer and a postdoctoral researcher. She obtained a PhD in Comparative History from Central European University, Budapest in 2011. Her main fields of interest are intellectual history, history of political thought, nationalism, and history of religion and politics in Eastern Europe. She co-authored with Bala´zs Trencse´nyi, Maciej Janowski, Mo´nika Baa´r, and Michal Kopecˇek A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe, Volume I: Negotiating Modernity in the ‘Long Nineteenth Century’ (2016) and Volume II: Negotiating Modernity in the ‘Short Twentieth Century’ and Beyond (forthcoming in 2018). Her current research project focuses on the relationship between politics, religion and nationalism in inter-war Yugoslavia. John Paul Newman is Senior Lecturer in Twentieth-century European History at National University of Ireland Maynooth. He is the author of Yugoslavia in the Shadow of War: Veterans and the Limits of State Building, 1903–1945 (2015), and the co-editor (with Mark Cornwall) of Sacrifice and Rebirth: The Legacy of the Last Habsburg War (2016) and (with Julia Eichenberg) The Great War and Veterans’ Internationalism (2013). Until September 2011, he was an ERC Postdoctoral Research Fellow working on the project ‘Paramilitary Violence after the Great War’, to which he contributed a case study of violence in the Balkans.

‘This volume promises to be a very valuable addition to the rapidly growing literature on Central and Eastern Europe in World War I. It is extremely timely: due to the current wave of interest in East-Central Europe and the fascinating and under-researched topics it covers, the volume has every chance of attracting considerable attention.’ Alexander Watson, Professor of History, Goldsmiths, University of London ‘This is a welcome addition to the growing field of historiography on Central and Eastern Europe during World War I. The geographical scope ranges from Italy to Northern Russia and from Poland to the Balkans. There is a lot of new material and original research in the individual chapters, which cover such diverse aspects as displacement, identity, cultures of violence, legacies and memory.’ Klaus Richter, Senior Lecturer in Eastern European History, University of Birmingham ‘This is an excellent book that makes a substantial and original contribution to the history of World War I on the Eastern Front and beyond. It is the most genuinely transnational book on the war I’ve seen, managing to link together Italy, England, Russia, Hungary, Poland and other places and historiographical traditions.’ Jesse Kauffman, Associate Professor of History, Eastern Michigan University

WORLD WAR I IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE Politics, Conflict and Military Experience

Edited by JUDITH DEVLIN, MARIA FALINA AND JOHN PAUL NEWMAN

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain by I.B. Tauris 2018 Paperback edition published by Bloomsbury Academic 2020 Copyright Editorial Selection © 2018, Judith Devlin, Maria Falina and John Paul Newman Copyright Individual Chapters © 2018, Andreas Agocs, Steven Balbirnie, Simone A. Bellezza, Shannon Brady, Isabelle Davion, Kathryn E. Densford, Judith Devlin, Maria Falina, Francesco Frizzera, Georg Grote, Mark Lewis, John Paul Newman, Alessandro Salvador, Alexandre Sumpf, Jan Szkudliński, Dmitar Tasić, Joanna Urbanek Judith Devlin, Maria Falina and John Paul Newman have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Authors of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xii constitute an extension of this copyright page. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-7883-1187-8 PB: 978-0-7556-0226-1 ePDF: 978-1-8386-0993-1 eBook: 978-1-8386-0992-4 International Library of Twentieth Century History 126 Typeset in Garamond Three by OKS Prepress Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

CONTENTS

Foreword Acknowledgements List of Contributors

viii xii xiii

Introduction Judith Devlin

1

Part I

New Frontiers of War: State Treatment of Non-Combatants

1. The Failed Quest for Total Surveillance: The Internal Security Service in Austria-Hungary During World War I Mark Lewis

19

2. Fellow Citizens, Unwanted Foreigners: The Refugee Crisis in Wartime Moravia Kathryn E. Densford

42

3. Population Displacement in the Habsburg Empire During World War I Francesco Frizzera

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4. Italian–Austrian Prisoners of War and Italian Political and Military Involvement in the Eastern Front During World War I Alessandro Salvador

73

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5. Violence, Destruction and Resistance: Serbia’s and Montenegro’s Experiences of the Great War Dmitar Tasic´

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6. ‘We’re Half-way to Asia Here’: The Conduct of the German Army Units on the Eastern Front in 1914 and 1939 101 Jan Szkudlin´ski Part II

Soldiers and Veterans: Experience, Understanding and Memory

7. Choosing Their Own Nation: National and Political Identities of the Italian POWs in Russia, 1914–21 Simone A. Bellezza

119

8. Red Peril or Yellow Peril? British Attitudes Towards the Russian Other: Northern Russia, 1918–19 Steven Balbirnie

138

9. ‘I am Well and I Hope the Same of You. I Will Soon Change Location’: World War I Field Postcards to a Disappearing Homeland 160 Georg Grote 10. The Emperor’s Broken Bust: Representations of the Habsburg ‘Shatterzone’ in World War I Andreas Agocs

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11. A Mutilated Society: Disabled Ex-Servicemen of the Tsarist Russian Army Alexandre Sumpf

195

12. Keeping Up Appearances: The Aims of the Anglo-Russian Hospital in Petrograd, 1915– 18 Shannon Brady

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13. ‘Who Died for the Homeland?’ Celebrating Victory in East-Central Europe After World War I: An Overview of the Unknown Soldiers Isabelle Davion

224

CONTENTS

14. Memory of World War I and Veterans’ Organisations in Poland, 1918– 26 Joanna Urbanek

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Conclusion Wartime Experiences and Ensuing Transformations 255 John Paul Newman and Maria Falina Notes Selected Further Reading Index

264 328 330

FOREWORD Robert Gerwarth

One hundred years ago, on 11 November 1918, the world officially emerged from a conflict that has been aptly described by the American historian and diplomat, George F. Kennan, as ‘the great seminal catastrophe’ of the twentieth century. Given the scope of the horrors which Europe and the Middle East in particular experienced between August 1914 and November 1918, and bearing in mind the devastating legacies of that conflict, this verdict seems more than justified. Estimates of the casualties among the roughly 65 million mobilised soldiers range between eight and ten million dead combatants and between five and six million killed civilians – excluding the hundreds of thousands of men who were permanently disfigured or psychologically damaged, and the millions of people who were forced to leave their homes in search of safety. The chronological proximity between World War I and the even more destructive global conflict that erupted in 1939 has prompted historians, not without justification, to view the war unleashed by Hitler as the direct consequence of both the conflagration between 1914 and 1918 and of a peace that failed to contain the passions of war and left few people satisfied. The body of scholarship devoted to World War I, its origins and legacies is unsurprisingly large, but – as Judith Devlin notes in her admirably succinct introduction to this excellent volume – its coverage remains somewhat uneven; while the political events and diplomatic entanglements that led to the outbreak of war in 1914, the major battles

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on the Western Front or the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 have received considerable and sustained attention over the decades, historians have only recently begun to explore more fully the impact of the war on Eastern Europe and the ‘postwar’ paths of transition of Eastern and East-Central European societies from total war to ‘peace’ in the years after 1918. It is thus with good reason that as late as 2009, a German-edited book on the subject referred to the East after 1914 as the ‘forgotten front’ of the Great War.1 While this has gradually changed over the last couple of years, not least because of the important ground work undertaken by some of the outstanding authors assembled in this volume, the Eastern Front continues to feature less prominently than the Western Front in the public imagination, even in those Eastern European societies directly affected by the war. In countries such as Poland, the Baltic States, (ex-) Yugoslavia or (former) Czechoslovakia, the memory of World War I was not only overshadowed after 1945 by the horrors of World War II, but also by the national independence of these states in 1918. If the memory of the Great War was divisive because citizens of the Successor States had previously fought in different imperial armies, often against each other, national independence marked a shared moment of national pride – at least in the romanticised imagination of nationalists. In Soviet Russia, the ‘imperialist war’ of the Tsarist regime paled in comparison with the historical importance attributed to Lenin’s October Revolution. The imbalance between the respective ‘places’ of the Eastern and Western Fronts in both scholarship and collective memory is particularly remarkable because the clashes in the East have had an arguably greater impact on twentieth-century history than events in the West. The Eastern Front was longer, more than 1,000 kilometres from the Baltic coast in the North to the Black Sea in the South, and just as deadly in terms of the casualties of the war. It was here that the war started in 1914 – with the escalating conflict between Vienna and Belgrade – and where the violence of war outlasted the end of hostilities in the West on 11 November 1918. To view that date as the end point of the Great War is thus only possible if we ignore what was happening in the East, where violence often continued unabated for several years. The epicentre of postwar conflict lay in the Central and Eastern European ‘shatterzones’ created by the defeat and disintegration of the vast European land empires of the Habsburgs, Romanovs and Hohenzollerns. It was here,

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rather than in the West, that a complete re-shuffling of borders and revolutionary turmoil occurred and new logics of violence were born. The most extreme example of this was, of course, Russia. After the revolutionary turmoil of 1905, the Tsarist regime had been able to reassert itself and by 1914, the Romanov regime seemed to be more firmly in control than it had been for decades. Then came the war that changed everything. The exertions of wartime disintegrated state power, releasing the forces of revolution and civil war and reinforcing an economic crisis of epic proportions that eventually forced Lenin to change tactics by adopting the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921. While the Russian case was both extreme and specific, it had a profound impact on Europe and beyond. The Great War had opened the floodgates of social and national evolutions, with the Tsarist regime as its first major casualty. In that sense, the Russian revolution was a key event, both as a game-changer in international politics now confronted with the world’s first Communist regime openly hostile to Western liberal democracy and capitalism, and as a fantasy that mobilised antirevolutionary forces well beyond those countries where a triumph of Bolshevism was probable. In Germany and Italy the perceived threat of an imminent Bolshevik-style revolution quickly injected a powerful new energy into politics and triggered the emergence of determined counterrevolutionary forces, for whom the violent repression of revolution, and more especially of revolutionaries, constituted their overriding goal. Not dissimilar to the situation in the late eighteenth century when Europe’s horrified ruling elites feared a Jacobin ‘apocalyptic’ war, many Europeans after 1917 suspected that Bolshevism would spread to ‘infect’ the rest of the old world, prompting violent mobilisation and action against the perceived menace. Fear of ‘Russian conditions’ resulted in a right-wing counter-mobilisation that bred charismatic leaders such as Mussolini and Hitler. In addressing crucially important themes – from war-induced displacement to changing cultures of violence and legacies of the war in Eastern Europe – the 14 chapters brought together in this volume not only enrich our understanding of the war’s impact on the region. They also underline, in a very powerful way, that historians today approach the history of the Great War and its legacies in ways that are very different from those employed 20 years ago. The rise of cultural history in ‘war studies’, for example, has shifted the focus of historical enquiry away

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from the political and diplomatic decisions that led to war and peace in 1914/18 and 1939/45 (even if books on those subjects, and on the major generals and battles of the war, continue to dominate the shelves of bookstores). Instead, many historians today are more concerned about the people and societies affected by these decisions: the millions of mobilised and de-mobilised men as well as the men and women on the various home fronts, all of whom were largely absent in earlier accounts. It is precisely because of the work of cultural historians of war such as the ones assembled in this wonderful volume that we are now beginning to have a more rounded understanding of the conflict; one that includes battles and their consequences, but also takes more seriously the notion of cultural mobilisation and demobilisation (which generally takes much longer than making peace on the battlefield) and which views postwar periods as crucial for our understanding of wars’ legacies and how they shape the future. Given that 2018 will witness the centenary of the end of the war in Western Europe, this book is a timely reminder that a Western-centric approach to the Great War can only miss out on some of the key legacies of that conflict, many of which are still with us today.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This volume originated in ‘The Great War in Central and Eastern Europe: Politics, Culture and Society’ conference held in May 2014 at University College Dublin (UCD), under the auspices of the Irish Association for Russian, Central and East European Studies. We are grateful to all conference participants: those whose papers appear in this book, as well as those whose contributions could not be included but which nevertheless informed our thinking about the war experience in the region. We are deeply grateful for practical support to the School of History, Suzanne D’Arcy and the UCD Centre for War Studies, which was also at a different time institutional home to two editors of this book. We wish to acknowledge funding for the conference from the College of Arts and the School of History in UCD, and the grant awarded by the National University of Ireland towards publication costs. In the preparation of this book, we benefited from the invaluable assistance of Dr Sarah Feehan in UCD. We would also like to thank our editors at I.B.Tauris, Jo Godfrey and Sophie Campbell, Alexander Watson for reading through sections of an earlier draft of the manuscript, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Andreas Agocs received his PhD from the University of California at Davis, and teaches German and European History at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. He is the author of Antifascist Humanism and the Politics of Cultural Renewal in Germany (2017). His current research deals with the borderlands of German-speaking Centraland Southeast-Central Europe in the twentieth century. Steven Balbirnie completed his PhD studies at University College Dublin. His doctoral dissertation was entitled ‘British Colonial Attitudes in the Arctic: The British Occupation of Archangel and Murmansk 1918–1919’. His publications include a ‘Small War on a Violent Frontier: Colonial Warfare and British Intervention in Northern Russia, 1918–1919’ in Small Nations and Colonial Peripheries in World War I and an article entitled ‘“A Bad Business”: British Responses to Mutinies among Local Forces in Northern Russia’ in Revolutionary Russia. He has previously worked as an occasional lecturer at both University College Dublin and National University of Ireland Maynooth. He currently works for Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Simone Attilio Bellezza is Assistant Professor of Modern History at the Department of Social Sciences of the University of Naples ‘Federico II’. He previously was Shklar Visiting Fellow at Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (2008), Advanced Academia Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study of Sofia (2014), Jacyk Visiting Professor in Ukrainian History at the Harriman Institute of Columbia University (2016), and

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Jacyk Visiting Scholar at the University of Toronto (2017). His book The Shore of Expectations: A Study on the Culture of the Ukrainian Shistdesiatnyky is forthcoming in 2018. He is currently working on research entitled ‘Ukrainian Transnational Activism: Human Rights and the End of the Cold War (1970s– 1990s)’. Shannon Brady graduated with a Master’s in European History from National University of Ireland Maynooth. She completed her thesis on the Anglo-Russian Hospital in Petrograd in World War I. She currently works at an independent school in London. Isabelle Davion is Assistant Professor of the Contemporary History of German-speaking countries and East-Central Europe at Sorbonne University. She is also a member of the executive committee joint research group SIRICE (Sorbonne-Identities, International Relations and Civilizations in Europe), of the Center of Excellency EHNE (Writing a New History of Europe) and of the History office of the French Ministry of Defence. She is the author of Mon voisin, cet ennemi [My Neighbour, My Enemy: French Security Policy facing the PolishCzechoslovak Relations between 1919 and 1939] (2009), which was awarded a prize by the Institut de France. She has edited several collective books, including Militaires et diplomates face a` l’Europe me´diane. Entre me´diations et constructions des savoirs [The Militaries and the Diplomats in Median Europe] (2017) and has contributed to A Companion to World War II. Kathryn E. Densford is a doctoral candidate in History at George Washington University, Washington, DC. Her research focuses on World War I and its aftermath in Lower Austria and Moravia. Her article ‘The Wehrmann in Eisen: Nailed Statues as Barometers of Habsburg Social Order during the First World War’ appeared in European Review of History. Francesco Frizzera received his PhD from the University of Trento, in 2016, with a research project on Trentino’s refugees in Austria-Hungary and in Italy during World War I. Since November 2016 he has been a research fellow at the Katholische Universita¨t Eichsta¨tt-Ingolstadt (Germany) with a research project on food and agricultural policies in Germany from 1914 to 1933. He is currently a member of the historic committee of the German Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture and research partner of the project ‘Hunger Draws the Map: Blockade and Food Shortages in Europe, 1914– 1922’ (Oxford University).

LIST

OF

CONTRIBUTORS

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Georg Grote has been teaching Western European History at University College Dublin for many years. His research interest in historical nationalism and modern regionalism within the EU has led him to research the area of South Tyrol intensely. He is now working as Senior Researcher in the European Research Academy in Bozen, South Tyrol, where he is creating an archive of social history based on letters, postcards, diaries and photographs of the South Tyrolean in the twentieth century. Mark Lewis is Associate Professor of European History at the College of Staten Island and at the Graduate Center (City University of New York). He received a BA from Stanford University and an MA and PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the co-author of Himmler’s Jewish Tailor: The Story of Holocaust Survivor Jacob Frank (2000) and the author of The Birth of the New Justice: The Internationalization of Crime and Punishment, 1919– 1950 (2014). The latter won the Fraenkel Prize from the Wiener Library (2013) and the inaugural Bronisław Geremek Prize from the College of Europe and the Geremek Foundation (2015). Alessandro Salvador is currently a research collaborator at the University of Siena, Italy. He studied Contemporary History in Trieste and Trento, achieving his PhD in 2010. His main research interests are right-wing movements in inter-war Germany and, recently, the exploitation and management of resources during the German occupation of Italy (1943– 45). His most recent publication is New Political Ideas in the Aftermath of the Great War (2017), co-edited with Anders Granas Kjostvedt (Oslo). Alexandre Sumpf is Assistant Professor at the University of Strasbourg. His research interests touch on the social and cultural history of Russia/USSR, the history of propaganda and political mobilisation, and the history of cinema. He received his PhD in 2006 (Toulouse) and is the author of numerous articles on the Soviet Union in and after World War I, including De Le´nine a` Gagarine. Une histoire sociale de l’Union sovie´tique, Paris, Gallimard, Folio Histoire ine´dit, 2013; La Grande Guerre oublie´e. Russie 1914– 1918, Paris, Perrin, 2014; Filmer la guerre. Les Sovie´tiques face a` la Shoah (1941 –1946), Paris, Me´morial de la Shoah, 2015, catalogue of the exhibition (co-editor with Vale´rie Pozner

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and Vanessa Voisin); Re´volutions russes au cine´ma. Naissance d’une nation, URSS 1917– 1985, Paris, Armand Colin, 2015; Raspoutine, Paris, Perrin, 2016; and 1917, La Russie et les Russes en re´volutions, Paris, Perrin. Jan Szkudlin´ski is head of the History Department in Gdynia City Museum. From 2009 to 2017 he worked at the Museum of the Second World War in Gdan´sk, Poland, where he had taken part in designing the main exhibition. His research interests are military operations in the nineteenth and twentieth century. He is the author of Chancellorsville 1863, published in 2006. Dmitar Tasic´ is a researcher from Belgrade, Serbia, currently based at the Department of Humanities, University of Naples ‘Federico II’, Italy. His primary research interests are related to the history of Yugoslav armed forces both in inter-war and post-1945 periods, and paramilitary organisations and paramilitary violence in the Balkans. The most important contribution to the area is his research monograph: The TitoStalin Split and Yugoslavia’s Military Opening toward the West 1950– 1954: In the NATO’s backyard, co-authored with Ivan Lakovic´ (2016). In 2014 he was awarded an Irish Research Council Post-doctoral Fellowship, and in 2016 he was a research fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in Sofia. Joanna Urbanek works in the House of European History in Brussels. Previously, she worked at the Museum of the Second World War in Gdan´sk, and she lectured at the University of Warsaw. Currently, she is preparing her PhD about the Polish Veterans’ social and political activities at the University of Warsaw, and she is taking part in a research project on war traumas during the two world wars at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. She is the author of Le˛k i strach. Warszawiacy wobec zagroz˙en´ Wrzes´nia 1939 r. (2009) and Everyday Life in the Shadow of Terror: German Occupation in Poland (1939 – 1945) (English edition: 2015).

INTRODUCTION Judith Devlin

When Norman Stone published his study of the Eastern Front in 1975, it was the first English-language monograph to give an account of Russia’s World War I.1 In the writing on Russia and the Soviet Union, World War I tended to be treated as little more than a prelude to the key event, the revolution. The experience of the war itself, its legacies and memory were overshadowed by those of the revolutionary era, the Civil War and, subsequently, by the ‘Great Patriotic War’. Indeed, Alexandre Sumpf’s recent history of the war in Russia makes the point with its title: La Grande Guerre Oublie´e (The Forgotten Great War).2 In the historiography of Central and South Eastern Europe too, World War I attracted relatively little interest, with attention focussing instead on its political consequences – the peace treaties, the collapse of the old empires and advent of new political entities and regimes.3 In this region, the war that was remembered was World War II, with its devastating effects and consequences (or, in the official narrative, the emancipatory and modernising benefits conferred by Soviet victory). As a result, World War I has until recently been seen largely through the lens of the Western Front (as indeed Churchill’s 1931 account, The Unknown War: the Eastern Front 1914– 1917, made clear).4 Only with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union did attention turn again to World War I as it affected Central and Eastern Europe. The end of communism gave renewed momentum to research in the field, while it was no longer confined by the framework of backwardness, ‘otherness’

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and exceptionalism in which it was written for much of the twentieth century. More recently, scholarly interest has refocused on World War I as a crucial cataclysm which reforged not only the political landscape of Central and Eastern Europe but also its social and cultural structures and dynamics. A number of major international collaborative projects and publications have appeared and are underway which have helped to reshape our understanding of the war, both in a wider European and in a global context. They include 1914 – 1918 Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War, an international project run by the Free University of Berlin; the three-volume Cambridge History of the First World War and the more narrowly framed Russia’s Great War and Revolution.5 Our volume adds to the emerging literature with a collection of case studies that examine the war and its longer-term impact in Central and Eastern Europe. It contributes to our understanding of the war as involving new state practices of surveillance, deportation and incarceration. Radical population displacement, including a major refugee crisis, exacerbated ethnic and national tensions and contributed to the shattering of old identities and the problematic development of new ones.6 While these developments apparently disappeared in the early 1920s, their re-emergence later in the next decade raises the question of what, if anything, the next World War owes to its predecessor. Major themes examined in this book include the effects of forced displacement and incarceration of soldiers and civilians on the social order, inter-ethnic relations and on the self-understanding of the people involved. Several chapters concern the cultures of violence which developed during the war, the consequences for soldiers and veterans and the way wartime violence was commemorated. A survey of the extant English-language historiography on these themes should help to contextualise the scholarship in this volume. The new historiography of the Eastern Front has drawn attention to the differences between wartime experience East and West, stressing the wider scope of its violence and social upheaval and of the longer duration of conflict in the postwar ‘shatter zones’ of empire.7 The research into these developments moves beyond traditional interpretations of the impact of war in the East, with their emphasis on the end of the dynastic land empires and on the emergence of new national (or, more exactly, multinational) successor states. The regimes that emerged at the end of

INTRODUCTION

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war are no longer seen as shaped essentially by the efforts of diplomats, national elites and Wilsonian principles, and instead the violence and instability that accompanied their birth have attracted new attention, and the contribution of the imperial armies’ wartime policies and the wider experience of the war in these regions to the exacerbation of ethnic and national tensions and the development of paramilitary violence have emerged as leading themes of study and debate.8 The centenary of the outbreak of war prompted a host of publications, some of which attempt to rectify the perceived lacunae or unconscious Western bias of hitherto dominant historiography.9 Alexander Watson’s monumental study of the Central Powers argues that the war witnessed the emergence of a new type of warfare, which pioneered state practices of mass incarceration, deportation, exploitation and violence against civilians and vulnerable populations, suggesting that these practices prefigured those of Hitler and Stalin.10 While historians of these murderous regimes have increasingly retreated from the epithet ‘totalitarian’, historians of World War I lay increasing emphasis on its ‘totalising’ nature and effects.11 This argument surfaces also in one of the most authoritative instances of the centenary historiography, the three-volume Cambridge History of the First World War edited by Jay Winter.12 Offering a compendium of the latest (‘fourth’) generation of historians’ interpretation of the war and informed by a transnational approach to it, these volumes give a synthetic overview of the war and wartime experience. A number of chapters draw on research into the Eastern Front and attempt to integrate it into a coherent account of general trends and developments across boundaries. They include Heather Jones’ treatment of POWs, Peter Gatrell and Philippe Nivat’s discussion of refugees, Sophie de Schaepdrijver on occupation regimes and Annette Becker on captive civilians.13 Jones and Laurence van Ypersele, in their introduction to part three of the third volume, argue that the war should be seen as prefiguring the radical violence of the mid-century. They observe that deportation, exploitative occupation regimes, forced labour, internment camps and genocide were innovations of World War I, not of World War II, as popularly believed.14 According to Becker, the war was a ‘laboratory of the 20th century’ especially in the East. Its ‘zones of violence and military occupations provided a full-scale testing-ground for population displacement and repressions’, becoming ‘laboratories of an atypical front, where “artillery” and “gas” took the form of exodus, deportation

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and forced labour or the concentration camp.’ Camps became, she suggests, an integral part of the culture of war.15 The war in the East is now understood to have been violent in new ways, whose longer-term significance is still, however, a matter of debate. It is to this evolving understanding of disruptive social and cultural impact of wartime violence in East Central Europe that this volume aims to contribute with a number of regional case studies.

Cultures of Violence Since the turn of the millennium, the work of several historians of the Eastern Front has shown that the differences from the Western Front go beyond the fact that the war in the East was one of movement, involving dramatic and traumatic invasions and retreats over thousands of square kilometres. Enormous numbers of refugees and ethnic groups fled or were deported from occupied or frontline territories, large numbers of people (including both POWs and civilians) were incarcerated in camps and vast tracts of land were occupied and subjected to military administration. To manage these developments, military and state authorities pioneered or developed new practices of population control, especially in the occupied territories in the Baltics and in Galicia. Despite some variations between them, these practices had several common features. Because of the mobility of the fronts and (not least) the policies pursued by the imperial generals, violence was not restricted to the front. Civilians, like soldiers, were caught up in it, while captured soldiers entered civilian roles in large numbers and various forms (behind the front, in industry and on farms). Violence against civilians was accompanied by exploitative and extractive policies and widespread use was made of forced labour, internment camps, mass deportations and ethnic profiling.16 The war rapidly led to the erosion of the distinction between soldiers and civilians, with the latter in the vast front zones being treated as suspect or even enemy populations. Popular imagination too was infected by such attitudes: the home front was increasingly imagined by Russian soldiers as subverted by spies, internal enemies and loose morals, while Russian citizens of German nationality were subject to popular violence, deportation and state-led expropriation.17 The new historiography of the war on the Eastern Front argues that the old order in Russia dissolved in the ethnic tensions,

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social disruption and state-perpetrated violence of a war that embraced civilians as much as soldiers.18 Similar processes of increased military power over civilian life, forced migration and internment, as well as shortages and defeat, helped to undermine the Habsburg Empire.19 A number of chapters in this volume engage with the cultural context within which violence developed in and beyond the front. Andreas Agocs looks at accounts of the year 1914 to examine the concepts of ‘bloodlands’ and ‘shatterzones’. Analysing the representations of ethnic tensions and ideological attitudes in a diverse range of sources, he argues that the outbreak of war in the Habsburg Empire must be seen in a wider context of a breakdown of patriarchal structures, both in soldiers’ experiences and in the culture at large. Focusing on representations of the outbreak of ethnically motivated violence in the borderlands of the collapsing Habsburg and Romanov Empires, this paper’s approach sheds light on both the continuities and important differences between the two world wars in Central Europe. Steven Balbirnie examines the perception of Russians as an ‘Asiatic Other’ in the accounts of British soldiers who served as part of the Allied intervention force in Northern Russia in 1918 and 1919. He argues that the orientalised view of the Russians held by the British interventionists, while rooted in broader cultural trends, served only to frustrate cooperation with their local allies and produce false impressions of the enemies which they faced. The concepts of racial hierarchy which informed British behaviour in Northern Russia were symptomatic of a wider trend within Eastern Europe during the period of World War I. Similar attitudes and practices were also displayed by Austro-Hungarians in the Balkans, and by the German occupiers of Poland and the Russian Empire’s western borderlands. This case study serves as one example within a broader context of how, during the War, Western and Central Europeans regarded the continent’s Slavic population as a non-European ‘other’, attitudes which were used to justify the treatment of the local population in these Eastern European theatres of conflict. Jan Szkudlin´ski also examines cultural prejudices – in his case, those of German soldiers in Poland in 1914. His chapter describes the perception of Polish lands and its inhabitants but notes that these perceptions did not generally lead to brutality on the part of the troops. The Germans usually were shocked by the low level of cultural development of ‘Russian Poland’; nevertheless, apart from a few isolated episodes, most notably the sack

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of Kalisz during the first days of the war, there were no instances of mass repression, unlike the position in 1939.

Deportation Violence was often more direct and institutionalised. One of the most pernicious effects of the war in this theatre was the power it gave the generals. It enabled them to indulge their prejudices and fantasies with often disastrous consequences. Both in the Habsburg Empire, where the army assumed ‘vast dictatorial powers’ over the Austrian and Austro– Hungarian administrations and where political and constitutional civil and legal rights were suspended, and in Russia, the military gained unprecedented power over civilian administration.20 The Russian High Command, by an order of the Tsar of July 1914, ruled a vast swathe of territory from Finland and the Baltics in the north through Ukraine to the borders of the Black Sea, as well as the capitals of St Petersburg/ Petrograd and Moscow. The decree enabled prejudices and animosities to be played out on a hitherto unimagined scale. The Tsarist authorities declared that they were engaged in a war of ‘emancipation’ in Galicia, claiming the Ukrainian peasantry to be Russian and imposing policies of Russification on the inhabitants of the province. The broadly proAustrian Polish gentry, German officials and large Jewish population were an inconvenient obstacle to this policy, which the Chief of the General Staff, Yanushkevich – over the objections of the civilian authorities – solved by the mass deportation of the Jewish and German population to the distant Russian interior. No provision was made for this mass upheaval, which produced economic dislocation and dreadful suffering and mortality for the hundreds of thousands affected.21 The policy became increasingly radical during the Great Retreat of 1915, with women and children being included in the deportations, the expropriation of Jewish and German subjects’ property and its redistribution to Ukrainian peasants and a policy of widespread hostagetaking and incarceration complementing deportation. The Russian General Staff commissioned reports on the reliability of the empire’s borderland populations, which involved ethnic profiling of minorities deemed suspect, categorisations that were then deployed in deportation policy.22 In consequence, during the war, deportation affected not only subjects of occupied enemy territory but also citizens of the Russian and

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Habsburg Empires, who were deemed unreliable. Under the tsars, both Russian Germans (a quarter-of-a-million of whom were deported) and the Empire’s Jewish population were seen by the High Command and popularly represented as internal enemies to be denied civic rights and subjected, on occasion, to mass violence, expropriation and detention. These policies, which included the forced migration of about a million civilians, were not only socially and culturally disruptive, they also undermined the economy, the war effort and the prestige of and support for the government.23 The Habsburgs emulated, though somewhat less radically, the Russians’ focus on unreliable elements and their policies in the Balkans and Galicia involved not only the arrest, deportation and internment of suspect populations but also hostage-taking and executions. Social engineering was pursued by all occupying powers, which hoped to hold conquered territories and remould their citizens as, for example, in Ober Ost where Ludendorff reigned supreme and planned a kind of military utopia, organised exclusively for war. 24 A detailed census of peoples and resources was followed, in the Baltic region, by intrusive para-state intervention into people’s lives: freedom of movement was restricted, extractive economic policies and forced labour introduced to support the war effort. Efforts were made to modernise these supposedly backward regions of the benighted Russian Empire, with schools, publications and cultural life in the German mould being encouraged to exemplify German civilisation as opposed to Russian barbarity.25 In this volume, Mark Lewis addresses the question of the increasingly repressive powers of the state in the war. He explains the inspiration behind, operation and impact of the counter-espionage system which functioned during the war. The political police was greatly expanded, with an extensive new intelligence system created by high police officials and military intelligence officers at the outset of hostilities. With a wide remit, it arrested and interned many types of people on the grounds that they were security risks or politically unreliable. Although it may have protected the Empire from sabotage, it failed to secure the monarchy. The reasons for this are investigated and the consequences of this approach for Austrian society after 1918 are briefly discussed. Here, two contributors discuss the problems of deportation and occupation regimes. Francesco Frizzera addresses the questions of population displacement in the Habsburg Empire during the war. From 1914 to

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1916, nearly 800,000 Habsburg citizens were either forced to leave their homes or voluntarily fled to the internal regions of the Habsburg Empire. Until recently, the reasons for this displacement were seen as exclusively military, linked to the occupation by the Russian and the Italian Armies of eastern and central Galicia in 1914, Bukovina in 1916 and part of Trentino in 1915, respectively. However, this contribution argues that only the resettlement of people who were living in garrison cities was based on pure military or humanitarian reasons. These people amounted to only about a quarter of the total number of refugees. The others were evacuated because of ethnic prejudice (the Ukrainians were considered Russophiles, the Italians were considered traitors) or forced to flee by pogroms based on racial and religious prejudices. Dmitar Tasic´, examining the experience of the war in Serbia and Montenegro, argues that the violence associated with the war, occupation and resistance and the atrocities committed by imperial armies contributed to the exacerbation of the inter-ethnic conflict that would haunt the postwar settlement.

Refugees Apart from the hundreds of thousands deported, millions were forced to flee the fighting. Preeminent among the pioneers of this new historiography on this theme is Peter Gatrell, whose study of refugees in the Russian Empire during the war explored a hitherto ignored topic and revealed the profoundly destabilising effects of the phenomenon. Gatrell and Philippe Nivet estimate that by 1915, 3 million refugees had fled from or were forced by the authorities to evacuate the frontline zones where the military held sway. By November 1917, this figure had reached 7 million, most of whom belonged to the ethnic minorities from the Empire’s borderlands: Jews, Germans, Poles, Letts, Armenians among others. The effects of this predictably callous, ineptly managed and unplanned-for exodus to the Russian heartlands were, Gatrell argued, profoundly destabilising for the multinational Empire. It heightened ethnic tensions and national identities and activated a civil society increasingly critical of the state’s civilian and military authorities.26 An estimated 850,000 civilians fled west from East Prussia in September 1914. The Habsburg Empire was also affected by enormous numbers of refugees, principally from Galicia, but also from

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Bukovina, Trentino and South Tyrol: there were over half-a-million refugees from the war fronts of the Empire by mid-1915 and one-and-ahalf million by 1918. Hungary refused to accept any refugees, dismissing them as an Austrian problem, and the impact of their arrival on the population of the Austrian crown lands was disruptive. They placed an immense strain on the crown lands’ resources, where food shortages were acute. Serbia and the North Caucasus also experienced vast refugee movements, with approximately half-a-million Serbs and 350,000 Armenians fleeing the war. Everywhere, this population displacement acted as a solvent on prewar identities and created new frameworks for self-understanding and behaviour.27 In this volume, Kathryn Densford addresses home front experiences in Moravia with a focus on the refugee crisis and local civilian and police responses to this influx. Her chapter explores the interactions between these diverse refugee groups with the Czech- and German-speaking populations already living in Moravia, and the extent to which relations with these minority groups during the war shaped local attitudes towards minority populations. Shedding light on the home front experience during the war beyond the imperial capital, Densford argues that the war was essentially lost in the provinces well before 1918, as inter-ethnic tension combined with shortages to undermine the authority of the monarchy. The refugee crisis also laid the basis of future problems in the postwar European order, sharpening exclusionary definitions of national identity and belonging.

POWs The war on the Eastern Front also produced POWs on a scale not seen elsewhere.28 Of the 8.5 million soldiers taken prisoner during the war, about 6 million were held as POWs on the Eastern Front: by some estimates 2.8 million Russians and approximately 2.77 million Austro– Hungarian soldiers ended up in captivity.29 Russian camps were initially small, improvised and poorly supplied, by contrast with those in the West, but by 1916 some enormous camps were organised. In Russia and the Balkans, the mortality rate and conditions were far worse than in Germany, France and Britain. In Russia, mortality rates were estimated in 1929 at 17.6 per cent, those in Serbia at 25 per cent and Romania at 23 per cent (by contrast with approximately 4 – 5 per cent for Britain and

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France). Although some historians have seen the Russian camps as prototypes for those of the Nazis, lack of resources and disorganisation have been adduced by Rachamimov as a more plausible explanation for the prevailing conditions and he suggests that Russian practice owed more to the nineteenth century than to modernity.30 By contrast, Heather Jones, whose findings are shaped principally by the practices of the Great Powers in the West, believes the war revolutionised captivity practices, with the scale of camps, their use of modern technology and their militarised culture of control and coercion setting a precedent for the treatment of prisoners in World War II.31 As the war progressed, however, fewer POWs were confined to camps. Most Russian and Austro–Hungarian POWs were deployed as forced labour, either in industry or, more happily, in agriculture (where they sometimes formed relationships or married and with this experience working against nationalising tendencies of the camps). The significance of the exploitation of prisoners’ labour remains a matter of debate. All three empires segregated national minorities of belligerent states (although in the Habsburg case only cautiously and in Russia only in 1917), establishing separate camps for Ukrainians, Poles, Jews and Italians and others, to promote potentially subversive feelings of national identification among hitherto sometimes indifferent populations. The Germans engaged in subversive and competitive nation-building, using the camps to foster national feeling among the captured minorities of the Russian Empire, with cultural and propaganda efforts undertaken by disaffected nationalist and socialist elites protected by the Germans.32 About a third of all of the Dual Monarchy’s troops were ultimately taken prisoner and the Habsburg authorities doubted their loyalty, believing them susceptible to nationalism and, after the revolution, socialist propaganda. Rachamimov has argued that in this, they were largely mistaken, as the minorities who served in the army typically constituted a loyal opposition rather than nascent revolutionaries.33 This nonetheless begs the question of how soldiers who remained in the field for years or who were incarcerated in POW camps understood the shifting meanings of war and their place within it. In the much more destabilised social context of the Eastern Front, how did ex-soldiers keep going? Soldiers of the Habsburg and Russian Armies increasingly found themselves defending vanishing homelands. Habsburg citizens had undergone what has been called a dual mobilisation (for monarch and

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locality): by 1916, the latter was beginning to trump the former. Just as recent writing on the war has highlighted its contribution both to the revolution in Russia and to Bolshevik practices and policies, it has also challenged the long-dominant successor states’ interpretation of the Habsburg Empire as the prison of nations, doomed to collapse. New studies of the war on the Eastern Front point not only to the resilience of the Empire, the considerable loyalty it continued to command until well into the war – even in the unpropitious conditions of POW camps – but also to national indifference among the citizens of the new states.34 A number of chapters in this volume pursue these issues, exploring to what extent conscription into the war effort and POW camps enhanced new identities or subverted old ones. Simone Bellezza examines the shifting identities of Habsburg soldiers as the war progressed. Around 20,000 Italian Habsburg soldiers were taken prisoner on the Eastern Front and remained in the Russian prisoner-of-war camps until the end of the Civil War. Russian policy before the revolution hoped to exploit the nationalism of the minorities to weaken the enemy and even recruit men to fight the Habsburg Empire. This chapter challenges interpretations which have argued that the POWs were either Italian nationalists or loyal Austrian citizens, arguing that the feelings of national and political belonging of the Italian prisoners were much more complex and differentiated. In a similar vein, drawing on postcards written by German-speaking South Tyrolean soldiers during World War I, Georg Grote tracks the changing motivations and confusion of this contingent of Habsburg soldiers, as the war developed and the fortunes of the Empire declined. Many South-Tyrolean soldiers who had begun the war fighting for the trinity ‘Gott –Kaiser – Vaterland’ (God, Emperor, Fatherland) sensed the loss of their patriotic/nationalist motivation, fearing that their homeland would be ruled by a foreign/ Italian monarch once they came home. Like soldiers from other countries, the South-Tyrolean men wrote ‘home’ short postcards to maintain contact and help quell loneliness, fear and homesickness. However, unlike many other soldiers they could no longer be sure of the political meaning of their homeland. Alessandro Salvador also examines Italian prisoners of war in Russia and the Italian government’s attempts to repatriate them. He too points to the ambiguities involved in the supposed triumph of nationalism at the end of the war. His contribution

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explores the practical and ideological issues raised by their repatriation and reinstatement into civilian life in their new country.

Memory: Commemoration and Forgetting The costs of the war and its violence were enormous, both in the raw terms of the casualties and in the more oblique terms of trauma and hidden suffering. Of 65 million soldiers mobilised on all fronts, it is estimated that about 9 to 10 million died, 21 million were wounded, while 5– 6 million civilians perished. Combat-related deaths were highest in Germany (at 2,037,000) and Russia (an estimated 1,997,500), closely followed by Austria – Hungary (1,457,000) and France (1,400,000). Casualties were proportionately higher for the Italian, Romanian and above all the Serbian armies (at 600,000, 250,700, and 278,000, respectively).35 Serbia also had very high civilian casualties, with about 450,000 estimated to have died. Maria Bucur indicates that numerically similar forces were mobilised East and West, with 33.03 million men fighting on the Eastern Front and 32.7 million in the West. However, casualties in the East were much higher (with 6– 9 million dying in the East and Caucasian Fronts) with the highest attrition rate in the Balkans and Caucasus and Turkey. Excluding Italian and Habsburg losses, Bucur affirms that 6 million civilians died in the East as opposed to less than 50,000 in the West.36 The Eastern Front thus also suffered very high direct casualties, something which the industrial mass death on the Western Front, immortalised in literature, art and film, has tended to eclipse. One aspect of the costs of war, which tended to be obscured both at the time and subsequently, was the price paid by war-disabled veterans. While war memorials generally depicted grieving mothers or celebrated heroic soldiers,37 public iconography and memory preferred to forget the wounded and the maimed, those whose testimony to the human cost of the conflict called into question its legitimacy. Although France and Germany attempted to assist and even honour them, this was less true of Britain, while in Poland, their position was precarious, partly because of the poverty of the state but especially since their position, often as combatants in the opposing armies of the former occupying powers, sat uncomfortably with official narratives of statehood.38 Above all, their marginality was evident in Russia, where, in the early Soviet era, the war

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and its victims were largely overlooked and officially dismissed.39 In this volume, two chapters discuss this theme. Alexandre Sumpf studies the fate of the disabled ex-servicemen of the Tsarist Army, discussing their treatment and position in wartime society. With the brief exception of 1917, this new cohort in society remained marginalised and impotent, exploited by propaganda to encourage civic activism and patriotic sacrifice. After the October revolution and Civil War they were quickly reduced to silence and insignificance and reduced to second-class status even within the ranks of the disabled by a regime that consigned the ‘imperialist’ war to oblivion. Another forgotten episode is the Anglo– Russian hospital which functioned in Petrograd during the war. Shannon Brady examines its function and operation, until its closure in 1918, arguing that it was an early example of the use of aid for political and diplomatic purposes. The treatment of invalids was only one dimension of the problem of how was the war commemorated (or forgotten) in Eastern Europe. In this area, war meant defeat or at best an equivocal victory, with the disruptive emergence of new states and the accompanying disorientation and monumental challenges this involved. Being on the winning side mattered as it delivered a more convincing narrative about the meaning of conflict, one that made sense of wartime sacrifice. In Britain and France, the victors’ solemn rites of mourning have survived to this day but were not replicated in Central and Eastern Europe.40 In Hungary, the war was recalled as a national trauma and injustice (symbolised by the black flag that hung over the parliament), while, in Germany, as betrayal.41 In Russia, amnesia was – at least officially – almost total; if the war was not entirely forgotten, as Karen Petrone has shown, it was nonetheless entirely overshadowed by the October revolution and Civil War and excised from official memory, except as a prelude to the triumph of revolution.42 Elsewhere, in the successor states that benefitted from the Peace Treaties, as in Romania and Yugoslavia, collective memory was officially shaped to legitimise the regimes that had emerged from war. A tale of heroic sacrifice and triumph, it excluded minorities, veterans of the ‘wrong’ armies, civilian victims and less conventional, if all too typical experiences of the war, such as captivity and refugeedom: there were no monuments to the POWs and refugees. Coming to terms with the war was particularly problematic in Central and Eastern Europe, partly because so many citizens of the new states had

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fought on opposing sides during the war. As Bucur points out, not all citizens shared the same memory of the war and its significance, while the state did not impose its narrative on local and particular memory and commemoration entirely successfully. In Yugoslavia, as in Poland, veterans played a role in shaping memory and exploiting it politically, as Newman shows.43 War memory in the East thus appears to diverge from the patterns of memory and mourning described by Winter for the West. In this volume, two chapters address the question of memory and how it played out in the aftermath of war. Joanna Urbanek, in her study of memory of World War I and veterans’ organisations in Poland, argues that the Polish veterans’ movement differs from most of their European counterparts. It was extremely heterogeneous, with different organisations founded on the basis of different war and combat experiences. Most organisations of ex-combatants started with social programs and then turned to politics, becoming more and more embittered towards the democracy. They presented themselves not only as forgotten heroes but also as the voice of the army and ultimately supported Pilsudski’s coup. She argues that the impact of World War I and its veterans on the origins of Polish dictatorship cannot be underestimated. Isabelle Davion studies war memory in East Central Europe, where the successor states attempted to construct a new national memory, to unite the new ‘nations’ around symbols to justify the new political order and provide a ‘site of mourning’ for the bereaved. The search for suitable symbols that implied a shared national past and promised a collaborative future was fraught with difficulty, however, as most of the new states were in fact multi-national states, whose citizens had fought on opposing sides during the war. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was a favoured device but the choice of hero to commemorate and the location of his monument were problematic. This paper discusses the approach adopted in several successor states in the inter-war period and the fate of the monuments after the communist takeover and the Fall of the Wall.

Conclusion The war that was remembered in official culture was not that which we have encountered in this volume. Some of the features we have explored (such as harsh occupation regimes, deportation and internment camps) were encountered also in the West, but what differentiated the Eastern

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Front was the scope and intensity of the policies involved. There were far more POWs, refugees, civilian casualties and deportees in the East and their disruptive effect was magnified by the ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity of the region. Some aspects of the war on the Eastern Front thus seem to foreshadow the radical violence perpetrated by the Nazis and other ‘totalitarian’ regimes. As we have seen, some historians consider World War I as a ‘laboratory’ for practices which ruthless regimes would soon apply more consistently. There were however important differences in state conduct and policy between the two wars: as Alan Kramer has pointed out, Tsarist, German and Habsburg generals did not run an ideologically motivated racial war and they were neither as consistent nor as deliberate as the Nazis.44 Several chapters in this volume elucidate these issues in their treatment of state-led attempts to control populations deemed suspect or hostile, practices whose implications were not fully appreciated at the time. How soldiers themselves understood the war and how war memory was constructed and deployed in its aftermath are themes explored in the second part of this book. Traumatic and disruptive at the time and afterwards, the war swept away an ancien regime that had defied the challenges of an as yet limited modernisation, leaving unstable and fractious political entities in its wake and plunging the peoples of the area into an unfamiliar, unpredictable and before long unprecedentedly violent world.

PART I NEW FRONTIERS OF WAR: STATE TREATMENT OF NON-COMBATANTS

CHAPTER 1 THE FAILED QUEST FOR TOTAL SURVEILLANCE: THE INTERNAL SECURITY SERVICE IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY DURING WORLD WAR I Mark Lewis

Depending on whether one takes a long-term or short-term view, many reasons explain the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918. From a longer perspective, the prewar struggles to create a more representative parliamentary system across all regions of the empire, to modernise regions that were economically lagging behind the empire’s industrial cores and to resolve nationality conflicts rank high on the list.1 Shortterm causes include the military’s decision to go to war in 1914,2 the expansion of the war into multiple fronts,3 and the inability to manage domestic food shortages and price inflation4 during the war. Furthermore, individual loyalty, and in some cases, communal loyalty to an imperial Staatsidee disintegrated during the war.5 Labour unions and wild-cat strikers shut down industry and called for peace, and exiled politicians representing certain sectors of Czech, Polish and South Slavic societies successfully lobbied the Entente for their own states.6 But what about the police, which after the 1848– 9 revolutions was still charged with ‘providing for peace, order and security through observation, prevention, repression and discovery, with legal means’?7

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Anton Walitschek, describing the police’s bureaucratic organisation and legal structure, claims that the police in Austria repeatedly saved the state, including in 1918.8 Was this true? One way to answer the question would be to examine interactions between police and local populations on the local level throughout the empire, a task too broad for this chapter. Another approach is to investigate the state police, or the political police, explicitly devoted to protecting the security of the state, and, after the Ausgleich of 1867, two states. Did the political police, which was vastly expanded during World War I, have any role in the collapse of the empire? Shortly before the war, high police officials joined with military intelligence officers to create a new, extensive counter-espionage system, which investigated, arrested, and/or interned people considered to be security risks or ‘politically suspicious,’ categories which could include potential spies but also nationalist activists and everyday persons who criticised some aspect of the monarchy, even privately. In the eyes of the police, the system successfully protected the empire’s interior from acts of sabotage, and police and military intelligence intended to preserve the system for use after the war. Yet this system was not able to protect the Dual Monarchy’s structure and prevent its dissolution. One could argue that the other long- and short-term causes overwhelmed the capacity of the police, or the problems could not have been addressed by any police institution, and therefore the police’s role in the collapse was irrelevant. Still the police were well-aware of the power of strike movements, the attraction of Bolshevism and the deep influence of physical hunger on the population. The political police’s problem was that they believed surveillance and detention could maintain the social order, when in reality, centrifugal tendencies and counter-imperial movements could not be bottled up or locked away. The political police’s intent to preserve the old system might therefore share one similarity with the Habsburg military’s absolutistbureaucratic mentality in occupied Serbia, as described by Jonathan Gumz.9 Gumz argues the Habsburg military hated all forms of national politics because they had caused the revolutions of 1848– 9, and officers’ emphasis on harsh ‘legality’ (under martial law) persisted during World War I. In order to suppress all forms of nationalist politics, not just Serbian national identity per se, the Habsburg military’s intelligence

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bureau established a political police network in occupied Serbia to suppress networks of intellectuals and gymnastic organisations, as well as partisan fighters. Yet the civilian political police had a different cultural mentality: they were somewhat more careful in their investigations, were not as ruthless (they did not demand court-martial executions as a matter of course) and had more experience dealing with the civilian population, as they knew their own locales and maintained local relationships.10 They were not committed to the practices of the Rechtsstaat – as they still interned people with little or no evidence of actual crimes committed – but they did not jump to conclusions about cabals and conspiracies as readily as military officers did, especially in later stages of the war.11 Like military intelligence, they were antinationalist, pro-monarchical and anti-revolutionary, but their mentality was investigative-bureaucratic. Their strategy, a cultural practice dating from the nineteenth century, was to establish the facts and circumstances of crime through an investigation (Erhebung). The political police’s investigative mentality differed from the regular criminal police mentality in that it concentrated on two additional aspects: the suspect’s attitude toward the state and/or political culture (Gesinnung), and the person’s reputation (Leumund). The Austro – Hungarian political police also differed from imperial Russian and Bolshevik surveillance, which according to Peter Holquist, wanted to manage populations to construct what they thought and believed, not simply monitor them to gauge their support for the government and the war effort, or to prevent uprisings.12 The Austro-Hungarian system, which historically emphasised the values of public order and security, was more traditional, as it was primarily devoted to suss out enemies and threats, and pre-emptively arrest and detain them – rather than re-engineer their worldviews. While the empire used other means to build social solidarity during the war (exhibitions, film propaganda, donation drives, ‘re-education’ for soldiers who might have been ‘infected’ with Bolshevism while on the Eastern Front), political police files from the Austrian half of the Empire and from Croatia do not suggest that the police intended to construct ‘the new man.’ Still, the police probably wanted to prevent the spread of the ‘new woman,’ as police suspicions were heightened by the presence of women travelling alone, living independently, or not following the mores of ‘sexual propriety.’13

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A New Security System: The Defensive Kundschaftdienst Austria was a European innovator in the creation of a Higher State Police, a residence registration system and the implementation of enlightened social policy in which the centralising state supervised its officials and reported on the mood of the people. Johann Anton, Graf von Pergen, created the Higher State Police in the 1780s and expanded the residence registration system. During the Metternich era, Police Minister Count Sedlnitzky expanded the system, creating networks of confidential informers to watch secret nationalist organisations in the Habsburg’s Italian lands and in partitioned Poland, as well as suppress the spread of German nationalism and republicanism by using censorship, arrests, restrictions on university enrollments and travel bans.14 Though some aspects of the system were dismantled after 1848–9, the Habsburg Empire, Austria’s First Republic and the Austro-fascist Corporate State all maintained a central office that kept files on politically suspicious people. Based inside the Vienna Police Directorate (Polizei Direktion), it was founded in 1856 and called the Central Office for State Police Affairs (Zentralstelle fu¨r staatspolizeiliche Angelegenheiten); later it went through various name changes. In the late nineteenth century, it compiled information about constitutionalist and suffrage movements, worker strikes, nationalist movements and the explosive conflicts and riots in response to the Badeni language decrees of 1897.15 Around 1913, in response to Italian irredentism, the Pan-Slav movement and greater Serbian nationalism, political policing underwent an important transformation: the political bureau of the Vienna Polizei Direktion began co-operating with military intelligence to combine domestic surveillance with counter-espionage. Major Maxmilian Ronge, a K.u.K. General Staff officer in charge of the military intelligence office (the Evidenzbu¨ro); Edmund von Gayer, chief of the state police; and Johannes Schober, a police official in charge of the espionage department in the state police, established this collaboration. Together they uncovered some major spies working for imperial Russia, including Ronge’s former boss, Alfred Redl.16 In May 1914, before the outbreak of the ‘Great War,’ the Austro– Hungarian military’s intelligence bureau, the Vienna Police Directorate and the Hungarian border police formed a new type of domestic counterintelligence system to track alleged spies and suspicious persons.

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Ronge wanted to create this system to counter Russian espionage in the Dual Monarchy, which had grown rapidly since 1906. Since 1910, provincial governments in Austria had instructed police to keep closer watch on bridges and military installations and report suspicious activity to the military, but they had no imperial-wide system to track convicted and potential spies. Additionally, officials believed that it was too easy for a convicted spy, who had been expelled from one province of the empire, to move to another.17 The new system, called the Defensive Kundschaftdienst, was supposed to permit quick responses to find and arrest wanted persons, and enable rapid communication between State Police officials, in charge of state security, and military intelligence, which engaged in active espionage abroad. Austria– Hungary, a dual monarchy of more than 60 million persons, was already divided into four basic administrative areas: Austria, Hungary, Bosnia and the Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia. The authorities established four Central Offices (Zentralstellen) for these areas, in Vienna, Budapest, Sarajevo and Zagreb, respectively. They collected files on all known and suspected spies, indexed the files, answered inquiries about suspects from lower-level police departments and sent out regular bulletins of wanted persons.18 Each Central Office was the main point of contact with a particular military intelligence bureau (Evidenzbu¨ro), the military’s espionage branch. Beneath the four Central Offices were Main Offices (Hauptstellen), responsible for directing investigations and sending in reports and descriptions of suspects to the Central Offices.19 They were supposed to have investigative independence from the Central Offices, though sometimes the latter issued urgent warnings about certain persons or told the Main Offices’ police to pursue certain cases. The Main Offices were generally stationed in existing Police Directorates (higher police authorities in major cities) or in border police stations (the system in Hungary). The Zagreb Central Bureau, called Sredisˇnja Defenzivna Dojavna Sluzˇba (SDDS), operated independently of Budapest and had four Hauptstellen under it.20 The system in Bosnia took a few years to develop and initially used military intelligence bureaus as the Main Offices.21 The essence of the system was to create a ‘reservoir of data’22 in the Central Offices that could be shared across the entire network. Main Offices would supervise the civilian population, as well as watch suspicious persons in foreign countries on the Dual Monarchy’s

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borders.23 During World War I, the system was integrated with mail censors and existing police forces, which used their own detectives and officers to investigate cases. Investigations sometimes started from a warning issued by a censor, through a confidential informant working for the police, through a notification from military intelligence, or from a member of the public, who reported when a neighbour was doing something suspicious. This system opened the door to more aggressive authoritarian policing in domestic society, in areas far from the fronts. People were investigated, expelled, interned, and sometimes tried and sentenced to hard labour due to their alleged actions, national identifications or political views. The police were able to conduct these investigations and intern people with a free hand because civil liberties were suspended in the Austrian half of the empire under the Kaiser’s decree of 25 July 1914, which declared a state of emergency under the 1869 law, ‘Suspension der Grundrechte und den Ausnahmezustand.’24 In many of these cases, there was no evidence of espionage at all; people were simply imprisoned because they were ‘politically unreliable’ or considered security risks. These were subjective judgments. Local police and even police in some of the Hauptstellen had no training in espionage investigations, although a training course was discussed several times during the war.25

Who Was Targeted? The Austrian police, like other European and South American police forces, had tried to create new collaborative ventures in the 1880s– 90s to combat anarchism and anarchist attacks, but the Austro– Hungarian system during World War I marks a change. Political policing had fewer legal limits, targeted more types of activities and beliefs and affected more groups. The number of police agencies and the production of bureaucratic records increased, but the greater impact was on how people were actually treated. Although the system was not as extreme as later variants (a secret police that used torture, such as the Nazi Gestapo, or a state police that relied heavily on regular civilian informants, as the Stasi used in the German Democratic Republic), the system did not offer many routes for appeal or freedom. Few cases in which a person petitioned for release from detention were successful.26 Very few people

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had lawyers, possibly because people were too poor during the war to hire counsel, or they did not come from a social class where legal representation was an option. Interestingly, people did not necessarily see themselves as confronting a ‘political police’ or a ‘secret police,’ since they were typically arrested and interned by local police in non-front zones. Furthermore, various police directorates ran into problems of money, personnel and communications that prevented them from becoming an all-powerful force. They were just one social force, along with military service (for soldiers) and deportation (for civilians in front areas) that uprooted people and could wreck their lives. A portion of the cases targeted ‘disloyal’ nationalities believed to be secessionists or irredentists, such as Serbs, Croats (who were proYugoslav), Czechs, Ruthenians and Galician Poles. Due to incomplete police files in some Central Offices, it may not be possible to present an exact number of how many people were investigated on the basis of nationality and how many were interned or prosecuted.27 Still, hypotheses about the nature of the suspicions and the outcome of certain investigations are possible. These cases were politically and culturally motivated. In the cases examined by the author, there is no clear evidence that the suspects actually engaged in espionage. The police were pro-monarchist and proDualist and viewed other nationalities’ aspirations for greater autonomy or independence as a threat.28 Austrian and Croatian police investigated and interned Serbs from Slavonia on the accusation that they were allegedly working for the Serbian secret service, but when they could not find any evidence, they simply interned the suspect as a security risk.29 This occurred during the July crisis of 1914, once the war started in August, and during the war. Other Serbs, from Vojvodina, for example, were investigated and interned simply because they made remarks in their private correspondence that were critical of Austria and expressed relief that Serbia had ejected Austrian forces from Belgrade at the end of 1914.30 These persons were targeted because they were allegedly ‘Great Serbs’ and possessed a national Gesinnung that the police found threatening. Investigations also targeted Croats from Austria-Hungary who deserted the K.u.K. army (or failed to enlist) and then joined the Serbian Army or fought as Serbian guerrillas (komitadji); prosecutors in Austria and Bosnia prosecuted them for military desertion and ‘crimes against the war power of the state.’31 While Gumz argues that the

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Austrian military in Bosnia used harsh violence against civilians there because commanders believed that non-uniformed guerillas violated the international legal concept that wars should only be fought by uniformed armies (anything else was illegitimate),32 the police operated with a more general mentality, believing that these Croats who deserted were traitors who helped the enemy. Croatian police also targeted intellectuals, such as doctors and historians, following the military’s accusations that these individuals were either pro-Serbian or pro-South Slav unification.33 Viennese police deemed Czech-speaking Moravians ‘Russophile’ because they allegedly refused to contribute to relief efforts for wounded soldiers, supposedly held secret meetings (‘conventicles’) and wrote graffiti on trains (‘Christ suffered for everyone, but we’re suffering for one’). One case, involving the Moravian town of Prerau (Prˇerov), indicated that Viennese police (whose lower ranks included both German-speakers and Czech-speakers) believed that Slavs in the provinces could not be trusted and were opposed to Austria. The police also expressed a kind of cultural nationalism when they interpreted the use of the Czech language as a demonstrative expression of Slavic-ness, which they believed was anti-Austrian.34 The Viennese police investigated managers of the major Czech bank Zˇivnostenska´ Banka before the war for allegedly transferring payments to Russian spies in Vienna – and continued investigating them during the war for allegedly dumping Austrian securities in the fall of 1914 and investing in Russian annuities instead.35 Because the case files from these investigations are incomplete, it is difficult to say whether the police wanted to wreck Czech financial power, believed that the Czech bank was helping the Russian state, or conducted the investigation to satisfy the military, which suspected that many of the empire’s nationalities were disloyal. The situation is clearer with the Ruthenians. Police in Czernowitz (Chernivtsi) arrested and interned Ruthenians from Galicia, some of whom had been active in ‘pro-Russian’ political parties, newspapers and cultural associations before the war. When Austrian military prosecutors were unable to build a treason case against them based on evidence, they had Viennese police continue to hold them in garrison arrest.36 Here the goal was to suppress prewar Ruthenian political parties, prevent the re-opening of Ruthenian schools and generally try to decrease

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the influence of movements for Ruthenian autonomy or, according to Austrian police, halt efforts to seek the protection of the Russian empire. In the eastern Galician city of Lemberg (Lwo´w), military prosecutors wanted to prosecute Polish nationalist politicians and intellectuals, some of whom were connected to the National Democratic Party.37 Initially these Polish activists helped create a Polish military legion in eastern Galicia in August 1914 with the approval of the Habsburg Military High Command, but then they dissolved it because they contended the military failed to give adequate equipment or training to the legion. Some of these activists also allegedly wanted to form an alliance with the Polish National Democrats in Russian Poland, so military prosecutors contended that this was a treasonous movement. Most figures escaped abroad, and even when Austrian Minister President Ignaz von Seidler wanted to renew the repression of Polish nationalists in Galicia in March 1918,38 many key Poles had fled to Switzerland or to Allied countries. Although military investigators took the leading role in this case, the State Police in Vienna provided background reports on the National Democratic Party and summarised military intelligence investigations for civilian government, thus serving as a liaison. Investigations also included Austro – Germans, which could be triggered by anonymous denunciations or censored mail.39 Police investigated them if they complained about the length of the war, the food situation, or the decisions of the monarchy; those who opened their mouths or professed pacifist ideas were investigated too and could be charged with le`se-majeste´ or insulting the imperial house. Austrian and Croatian police also operated with the assumption that women traveling alone might be spies. Suspicion is an amorphous, non-objective feeling; it is hunch, intuition and guesswork, and a male policeman often unconsciously combined his assumptions about women with facts and observations that might be incriminating, but might not. In various cases, police investigated an unaccompanied woman because: she was a well-dressed Austrian and spoke many languages and, other people assumed, she was a spy;40 she was the wife of a Hungarian military officer and suspicious because she was asking government offices and businesses for money with a possibly fraudulent story (which turned out to be the case);41 she was a Bosnian prostitute who admitted she had worked for a Russian military attache´ in Budapest, and he wanted her to form relationships with the Austro –Hungarian consular staff;42 she was

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a Bosnian Jewish businesswoman who traveled around the Balkans and might have a ‘secret agenda’;43 she was a Hungarian teacher from Fiume who did not follow the travel itinerary on her train ticket;44 or she was a Croatian woman traveling alone under a false name to an occupied city (Belgrade) and had a brother involved in a South Slav unification group abroad.45 In some of these cases, the woman’s nationality, geographic origin and travel route played a role in the male policeman’s suspicions, as did his perception of whether the woman was in a social class above or below his. Police were suspicious of women who showed an independence of action that did not fit the prescribed role of the wartime mother whose primary concern was her children, the wife who kept the household together while her husband sacrificed his life for the empire, the nurse who employed her ‘natural’ abilities as a healer of soldiers, or the female factory worker, who provided the empire with the goods and weapons it needed to defend itself against its enemies. In the abovementioned cases, one woman was a teacher, another was in business and another, police said, was a prostitute. Some of these cases involved other elements – suspicions against the woman’s family members and investigations of them, too– but they often started with the figure of the woman alone, traveling in wartime, engaging in activities that did not, in the male police mind, appear to be ‘right.’

Attempts to Extend Military Jurisdiction and Use Fingerprinting At an inter-ministerial conference on 8 February 1915, the Army High Command and the War Ministry tried to persuade the civilian ministries that the military should be allowed to extend military jurisdiction for treason cases across the entire empire.46 (It also wanted to gain this power over cases of desertion and abetting deserters, because the High Command had learned in December 1914 that there were Russian regiments consisting of Bohemian Czechs. It intended to prosecute Czech prisoners of war for high treason.)47 Military courts already had jurisdiction over treason and disturbances of public order in Austria, sentencing people from ten to twenty years in prison for unsuccessful provocation. At the conference, the Austrian Justice Ministry’s representative criticised these courts: ‘No European criminal code recognises concepts that are barely so limited, which therefore hold an

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important danger of being misused.’48 The Hungarian Justice Ministry rejected the High Command’s demands too, succinctly stating that state interests did not demand the imposition of emergency decrees that circumvented the Hungarian parliament’s power.49 Ultimately, the Foreign Minister, Count Stephan Buria´n, prevented the declaration of martial law for the whole empire in April 1915, during the increasingly hopeless negotiations to keep Italy neutral.50 Whether the police impacted the view of the Interior Ministry in some way is unclear; that ministry did not think treason across the empire had been much of a problem, except in Bohemia and Moravia, where courts were investigating who spread the Russian Tsar’s proclamation ‘To the Slavs.’51 The police, however, who were not present at this conference, did not seem bothered about whether military or civilian courts handled treason cases. We have to remember that the police had been in touch with military prosecutors and military intelligence officers since 1914, getting investigative leads and arrest orders from them. In fact, if the police had complaints in early 1915, it was over resources. In March Vienna’s Polizei Direktion complained that the new internal security system lacked enough personnel and money, so the tasks assigned to the Hauptstellen were not being fulfilled. Vienna police officials trained in counter-espionage were being called up for military service, while the Polizei Direktion’s requests for more officials and agents had been rejected. It also wanted more money for confidential informers, who had to be trained and tested. On the other hand, it was very pleased with railway control; all passengers arriving from Switzerland were being subjected to background investigations (Perlustrierungen), and Hungarian border police were doing the same from the line from Romania to Budapest. Mail censorship was working well too, as the Briefzensur was handling 1,400 pieces per day sent by suspicious people who had already been identified by the state police.52 The first year of the system also saw adjustments for the handling of information flows, which encompassed many different agencies and territories. The Vienna Polizei Direktion, acting as a Zentralstelle, regularly sent out printed information bulletins, but due to confusion between ‘home front’ areas and military zones, a regular process of sending out urgent notices by telegraph was proposed.53 The system produced a substantial amount of data and required processing time; suspicious persons had to be entered in forms, filed and indexed, plus

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office personnel had to check files in response to local police, gendarmes and the military. Discussions about introducing fingerprinting in the files raised special problems. The Viennese Polizei Direktion had fingerprinted suspects since 1903, and local authorities in the Bohemian district of Taus started using them in 1904 – to fingerprint all Roma (‘Gypsies’), regardless of age and past criminal record, before expelling them as a ‘criminal plague.’54 In 1913 the Austrian half of the empire developed rules to fingerprint all suspects and criminals. District offices (Bezirkshauptmannschaften) were outfitted with fingerprinting stations; courts, court jails, penitentiaries and gendarmerie posts, which were already recording prints, were now required to send fingerprint cards to a Central Registry inside the Viennese police.55 At this time, officials decided to exclude spy cases, believing that most spies were already ‘career criminals’ and would be fingerprinted under other categories anyway. But in May 1915 the military wanted all espionage suspects in Russian Poland and in the entire Habsburg Empire to be fingerprinted. With the suspension of civil liberties during the war, the military argued that ‘customary’ concerns about freedoms were irrelevant – and the public would realise that this was to protect their own security. The Vienna Polizei Direktion agreed, stating that the system could be easily implemented.56 Then the army went further, demanding that fingerprints be included in all identity papers across the empire (not just on passports, not just for criminals). The army was already taking fingerprints of people’s righthand index fingers in Russian Poland; it said this was necessary because people presenting papers did not always match the names on the documents. The Vienna Polizei Direktion supported this proposal too, though it warned that public resistance would have to be overcome.57 Nevertheless, this biometric technology was not actually implemented during the war.

The Pursuit of Traitors: Viewpoints of the Police, Military and the Courts The police believed the repression of espionage worked during the first three years of the war. For example, the Vienna Polizei Direktion’s annual security report for 1915 (just for Vienna) states that there were

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few espionage and treason cases; the police’s major concerns were corruption and price-rigging, as well as military fraud.58 In the 1916 security report, the number of high treason cases fell from ten in 1915 to four in 1916, and in Vienna, there were no reported cases of riots and rebellion in 1915–16.59 In general, officials in Lower Austria in 1916 were more concerned with non-political crimes (break-ins, profiteering and fraud) than crimes with an explicitly political meaning.60 The military, however, had a ravenous appetite for treason cases, especially those involving Serbian politicians and intellectuals from occupied Serbia with Bosnian connections. One goal was to prove that Serbia had been preparing military action in Bosnia long before the Franz Ferdinand assassination. (Military prosecutors had tried a similar strategy in the treason trial of Gavrilo Princip and his associates in October 1914.)61 The military also wanted to eliminate the impact of any South Slav intellectuals who were working to create a South Slav state (which, by necessity, would require dismembering the Habsburg Empire). One of the main targets was the Narodna odbrana organisation, a Serbian nationalist group which had aided and encouraged the Bosnian Serb students who had assassinated Franz Ferdinand.62 After occupying Belgrade in 1915, the K.u.K. military seized the records of Serbia’s military intelligence department. In February 1917, the AOKEvidenzbu¨ro (the central intelligence bureau of the Army High Command) announced that it found a major trove of documents related to Narodna odbrana (including membership lists), information about armed bands, and ‘a confidential list of persons from Croatia/Syrmia, through which active politicians in the Croat-Serb Coalition and other personalities were compromised. A similar list of informers (Konfidenten ) was also found in Bosnia in the records of the War Ministry.’63 The AOK-Evidenzbu¨ro thought the whole organisation had operatives among politicians and intellectuals in Bosnia and Croatia. Fearing this secret organisation was still active and threatened the state, the AOK-Evidenzbu¨ro wanted prosecutors to study these documents and eliminate the networks. Bosnian authorities for the most part had charged people mentioned in the documents with espionage, but Croatian authorities had refrained from doing so, ‘which requires clarification.’64 The AOK-Evidenzbu¨ro quoted an unnamed source at length who claimed that the Croatian officials and bureaucrats had done a poor job of watching and repressing propaganda in favour of

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Serbian-Croatian unity and espionage. The source claimed they had slacked off and botched the political trials of Serbs in Zagreb in 1909, and although they started some investigations after the Franz Ferdinand assassination, they did not pursue them with much energy.65 A conflict to control the material ensued between the Hungarian Interior Ministry, which wanted SDDS (the Central Bureau in Zagreb, run by Croatians) to examine the documents,66 and the Austrian military, which wanted Austrian military prosecutors in Vienna to take possession of the material. The military won out, apparently because it did not trust the Croatians. Additionally, it wanted to link trials of Serbian informers and intellectuals to Czech nationalist politicians who were being put on trial for treason, such as the Czech National Socialist leader Wenzel Klofacˇ67 and Young Czech leader Karel Krama´rˇ.68 Besides wanting to repress any anti-dualist political activity, the AOK-Evidenzbu¨ro was possessed by a conspiracy-mania. On a broader level, in 1916– 17, both civilian and military courts were dealing with political cases, and the Evidenzbu¨ro was concerned that the military was pursuing too many irrelevant ones. In new rules issued in February 1917, military courts were only supposed to deal with espionage cases, high treason and ‘crimes against the war power of the state.’ Under the new directives, military courts should only deal with cases relating to a larger ‘political or espionage movement,’ not merely individual criminal acts.69 It is not clear whether military courts indeed changed their strategy, though there are signs that the state police in mid-1917 were still expending energy on minor matters. For example, the Vienna Polizei Direktion had a police agent secretly watch a young Catholic Dalmatian for ten days because he supposedly had ‘Great Serbian sympathies’ and used the title of Doktor, although he did not have the degree. An investigation revealed that he had fought for the empire for two years on the Serbian front, and while he had not finished his doctorate, there was nothing suspicious about him.70

The Bolshevik Threat In 1917, cracks began to appear in the domestic intelligence system and use of police repression. The police and counter-intelligence chiefs were aware of Bolshevik ideas but thought they could be controlled. They remained excessively confident that Austria-Hungary would win the

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war, and they began to voice concerns showing that there were communication problems in the intelligence apparatus. In March, the Military Command in Zagreb informed the Zagreb security service that it did not think that the Russian revolutionary movement was catalyzing an anti-dynastic movement in Austria– Hungary; it merely admitted that due to food shortages and ‘other difficulties’ caused by the war, there could be local unrest. The military command therefore called for ‘strict observation of workers’ circles, [and] the activities of dissatisfied political groups.’71 On a higher level, all the counter-intelligence chiefs met for a second time in Vienna on 20 – 21 March 1917.72 Though Schober never mentioned Bolshevism by name, he urged greater protection of industrial locations against sabotage, and Ronge wanted informants in every industry: ‘One or two detectives was not sufficient,’ he said. ‘Instead there should be an entire chain of informants from the director-level down to the last worker. This way the Zentralstellen would stay in contact with the military leaders of industry.’73 At the time, however, the chiefs were satisfied with their overall effort, reporting that there had been no major cases of sabotage inside the empire, save for an attempt by a mentally disturbed person who had been stopped.74 Captain Ernst Ritter von Gross from the Evidenzbu¨ro also mentioned that the authorities had established control offices to find ‘subversive elements’ among Austro-Hungarian soldiers who had been prisoners of war and were now returning home.75 Most striking was the overall purpose of the meeting. The meeting’s chairman, Oskar Hranilovic´ von Czvetasin, the head of the military’s espionage department, seemed confident that the monarchy was going to win the war, and the empire would be preserved. He wanted the chiefs to discuss how the military should begin preparing to absorb the counterespionage structure once peace was declared – in order to undertake preparations ‘for a new war.’76 Ronge wanted all the informants, detectives and report writers to be retained under the military’s Nachrichtenabteilung (the espionage department), but Ritter von Gross doubted that the whole system could be sustained, since peace-time would bring budget cuts, as it had after the Austro-Prussian war in 1866.77 Although the military intelligence chiefs were full of hubris that Austria-Hungary would surely see victory and maintain the surveillance system, the Hungarian border police chief, Gustav von Ilosvay, cited a

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number of ongoing problems in the handling of information on the Hungarian side, which may indicate that all was not working as smoothly as the other chiefs believed. He stated that 1,500 espionage cases had been transferred to military courts, but there was no tracking afterwards to know who had been tried and convicted. ‘It is assumed that a large number [of suspects] are no longer alive, some were exonerated, or indeed were completely harmless.’78 Additionally, Budapest was receiving telegrams from military offices that merely stated, ‘John Doe’ has been arrested, without knowing the person’s identity or the results of the investigation. Budapest also reported that it had rich material about South Slavic movements, but that its contacts with Sarajevo were not as brisk as those with other Zentralstellen. There were language problems, too, as Budapest said that decoding and translating German reports into Hungarian and then translating answers back into German and coding them was time-consuming. There were no common reporting forms and no manual for standard coding/decoding procedures. The efficient handling of information remained problematic, showing the system was not totalitarian or even highly integrated across all sections of the empire. In January 1918, over 113,000 workers from virtually all industries went on strike in Vienna, shutting down the production of armaments, locomotive engines, animal feed and medical bandages.79 Police immediately knew the workers’ demands – a restoration of the flour ration, more food in general and peace without annexations in the negotiations with the Russian Bolshevik government at BrestLitovsk.80 They used force selectively, countering youth who broke windows at the Rathaus and arresting women and youth who seized bread and fruit trucks. They prevented strikers from marching into other firms (such as the city’s electricity plant) when the latter wanted fellow workers to join them.81 When the Social Democratic leadership announced the resumption of work on 21 January, mounted police wielding sabres dispersed workers who refused to comply.82 The police’s strategy now was to give moderate labour leaders a chance to resume production, but arrest and charge ‘the radicals,’ the revolutionaries who wanted to continue the strike or even emulate the Bolshevik revolution.83 When the government and military received reports that a new strike might break out on 29 January, they met to discuss security measures. The civilian government was willing to allow

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two days of negotiations with labour leaders before breaking the strike with military force. Although a new work stoppage did not happen, police and Landeschefs were instructed to spy on ‘dangerous agitators’ and arrest them.84 After the Austrian government in February 1918 told the Vienna Polizei Direktion that Workers and Soldiers Councils in St Petersburg had issued a call for their counterparts in Vienna and Berlin to seek world revolution as a step toward peace, the Polizei Direktion published a circular memo to all police agencies about the need to oppose all Bolshevik agitation.85 The Vienna Zentralstelle thought it could counter this threat by expanding the number of police bureaus and the reach of surveillance. At a final meeting of all the intelligence chiefs in May 1918,86 Vienna urgently wanted to open a police commissariat in Styria, the main seat of the weapons industry, plus it wanted to expand the personnel in the Main Bureaus in Innsbruck and Graz. It proposed extending police surveillance even deeper into the local level by attaching a type of secret police office to every Bezirkshauptmannschaft, which would keep files on suspicious people, report on the general mood and watch returning soldiers (Heimkehren). It seems doubtful that it managed to gather the resources necessary for this last project, since it stated that it needed 150 more police agents for its espionage service and 100 more for the Zentralstelle. Budapest was in the midst of a large change-over in its police organisation, as all city police throughout Hungary were to be nationalised and placed under central state control. Polizeihauptmannschaften were to take over local investigations. These divisions would be supervised by Bezirksoberhauptmannschaften, which would direct state political police investigations of nationalist movements and enemies of the state. The whole structure was referred to as an ‘Abwehrdienst,’ or defensive service, and would still be overseen by the Budapest Central Bureau (the VHK). A Central Detectives Corps was also planned. Budapest had enough detectives for this, but otherwise suffered from personnel shortages. The move toward centralisation was possibly supposed to firm up state supervision of political enemies, a reaction to fears that there were ‘politically unreliable’ people in the ranks of the Hungarian police, and the police wanted to confront the revolutionary threat by reorganising their bureaucracy. All this may have been catch-up.

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At the final meeting, Ronge was particularly troubled by the so-called Heimkehrbewegung, noting that in recent months these soldiers had attempted revolution inside the Hinterland. The general fear was that those who had been prisoners of war in Russia were ‘infected’ with Bolshevik ideas. The monarchy set up organisations on the borders to provide services for these returning soldiers, but Ronge said that ‘due to a lack of time and the size of the Heimkehrbewegung’ these organisations ‘had not been able to completely and reliably protect the state from the danger of the introduction of revolutionary ideas, the creep of agitators, etc.’87 All the Zentralstellen were supposed to do everything possible to prevent the transmission of revolutionary ideas by answering all requests from stations, soldiers’ camps and quarantine camps as soon as possible, and watch the returning soldiers as soon as they arrived. Budapest and Zagreb were particularly advised to closely observe soldiers returning from leave. Only Zagreb reported that Bolshevik ideas were not gaining any ground in its area. Vienna, on the other hand, only stated that Bolshevik propaganda entering via the railways was curbed. Alarmed by the Bolshevik threat, the police wanted to take strong measures and planned to extend their bureaucratic structure, but their resources were stretched. While they did not appear frightened, one wonders if they really believed at this point that the monarchy would survive, and whether they were trying to hang on in a fluid, uncertain situation. Ultimately, though, the economic crisis and social breakdown were driving people to the edge, and the police were powerless to do anything about it. The food and coal situation in Vienna remained a severe problem; a Viennese mother complained to the authorities in January 1918 that she had not received any coal for four weeks, and her children, one two years old and the other eight months, had influenza. She simply wanted an audience with the Kaiser to explain that ‘what we women are going through now and have suffered is inhumane and is not bearable anymore.’88 An anonymous letter from July 1918, forwarded to the Vienna police, complained that gendarmes and railway police were stealing produce from train passengers, and ‘if this robbery continues, the population will deal with government officials [. . .] the way the Bolsheviks deal with them in Russia.’89 Some letter-writers issued threats that they did not intend to carry out – a married man with a lung illness sent a letter to the Lower Austrian Governor blaming the Viennese mayor for his condition and

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stated that the mayor would come to the same end as Prime Minister Count Karl Stu¨rgkh, assassinated by Friedrich Adler in 1916. The police investigated him and decided that since he had been out of a work for a year-and-a-half, it would just file a report without prosecuting him.90 Other political opponents were serious about revolution. In July 1918 the Zagreb Central Bureau (SDDS) received reports that three different groups of anarchists were traveling to Vienna to assassinate members of the royal family.91 In Vienna, the police could not control the public mood after tragic accidents late in the war; for example, more than two hundred women workers were killed and seventy injured when a munitions factory in Wo¨llersdorf (south of Vienna) exploded and went up in flames in September 1918.92 The files from the Zagreb intelligence bureau from the summer of 1918 are filled with pamphlets and handbills of revolutionary proclamations and nationalist calls to leave the empire; it was impossible for the bureau to stamp it all out.93 In October, Austria-Hungary asked US President Woodrow Wilson for an armistice, and the various Slavic nationalities proclaimed their own republics by the end of the month. At that point, the counter-espionage system was dissolved. Censorship was lifted, and the military intelligence department of the Army High Command disintegrated.94 During the summer and autumn of 1918, the Austrian and Croatian secret police were really collectors and recorders of information about revolutionary and nationalist breakaway movements rather than suppressors. They could not alter the basic material conditions of farmers and peasants, the mood of the workers, or the experiences of the returning soldiers and prisoners of war. Just as the repressive mechanisms to stem nationalism and republicanism had failed to prevent the revolutions and civil wars of 1848– 9, the political police network of 1914– 18 could not alter movements operating inside and outside the monarchy that wished to hasten its collapse. While the revolution of 1918 drew from a much bigger working class than had existed in 1848, and the population was far more stressed by the hardships of food shortages and price increases than it had been in 1846–8, the techniques of policing, despite their expansion during the war, were ineffective against powerful social unrest. Additionally, the population no longer respected or feared the police and imperial house, and many sections of society did not feel that the monarchy was worth preserving.

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Postwar Developments and Final Evaluation of the Wartime Political Police In the postwar years, the authoritarian trends in the Austrian political police and the desire to create a total information bureau to watch the population for suspicious activity did not disappear. Several key figures from the apparatus, including Schober and another state police official, Franz Brandl, kept their positions in the transition from monarchy to republic. After the republic was declared in November 1918, the incoming Social Democratic government named Schober head of the Vienna Polizei Direktion. Schober did not accept this job because he believed in the idea of a republic; instead, he felt compelled to bring order and authority to the capital, where there were two attempted communist revolutions and hungry soldiers in the streets, trying to sell their weapons for food.95 Between 1919 and the mid-1920s, he recreated the wartime Zentralstelle fu¨r den defensiven Kundschaftdienst as an Austrian Zentralevidenzbu¨ro, still based inside Vienna’s Polizei Direktion. The first Social Democratic government approved this idea, apparently convinced by Schober’s argument that the Austrian state needed to protect itself against foreign spies and their domestic agents.96 The Social Democrats also relied on Schober and his police in 1919 to arrest communist leaders, who posed a threat to them.97 Several aspects of the inter-war Zentralevidenzbu¨ro were similar to those of the wartime Zentralstelle. It was an information bureaucracy that tracked and reported on threats to the state, based on the idea that close observation of the country’s political, social and cultural developments was necessary to protect the state. But despite the persistence of the authoritarian idea of supervision and the continuation of a higher state police, which had existed since Metternich’s era, the postwar Zentralevidenzbu¨ro was different from its wartime predecessor. It concentrated more on collecting information and writing reports than actively arresting and imprisoning citizens. It had some familiar enemies from the imperial period (South Slav irredentists and communists), but also some new suspect groups, including monarchists and National Socialists. It had to operate under a far leaner budget than the larger wartime system did, and it faced resistance from various bureaucratic departments in the republic, which

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did not want this new state police office to turn into an ‘information monopoly’, or Schober to gain too much political power.98 According to Gerhard Jagschitz, Schober’s quest for a ‘non-political’ state police that would serve the new republic failed, because he was unable to get sufficient funds to run it, too many other bureaucracies opposed him, and he lost authority after the Social Democratic-Christian Social governmental coalition collapsed. After Schober was dead (and the Zentralevidenzbu¨ro and the Polizei Direktion were run by his successor, Franz Brandl), the state police bureaucracy in the Dollfuß era was taken over by the Chancellor’s office. The Zentralevidenzbu¨ro’s files vegetated until they were seized by the Nazis in 1938, who carted them off to Berlin because they contained surveillance information about their own party in Austria during the 1920s and 1930s.99 In conclusion, the wartime system of the political police was a vast expansion of political policing compared to the constitutional era in the nineteenth century. Its ambitious plans, large-scale organisation, powers of arrest and extended set of categories of suspicious people show that it was more powerful than state police bureaus had been previously. The categories of suspicious people stemmed from prewar cultural and political conflicts with non-Austrian, non-Hungarian nationalities. The authorities’ fear of espionage gave them a broad pretext to arrest, interrogate and intern Czechs, Serbs, pro-Yugoslav Croats, Ruthenes and Galician Poles. In some cases, the war just opened the door to extend repression that authorities had used before the war, while in other cases, more people were targeted for new reasons, such as not fully supporting the war or now supposedly actively siding with the enemy. But hostilities towards subject nationalities and antipathy toward political activity were not the only factors in police suspicions, since male police also suspected women traveling alone. Many factors could start a police investigation – hunches about appearance, anonymous complaints, a suspicious comment in a letter – and interrogations and house searches might then lead to subjective evaluations of a person’s Gesinnung and political reliability. Police did not have to present enough evidence for a person to be convicted in a civilian court or a military court, as they could be interned under emergency decrees. Even with its vast bureaucratic organisation and powers, the system of the four Central Bureaus, Main Bureaus and border police command posts, all working together to track and record suspicious persons, was

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not a totalitarian system. The political police were not a separate uniformed secret police that terrified the population, but really an information bureaucracy. Various state police bureaus had their own detectives, but they also pursued suspects when directed by the military. They had to rely on local and border police, who were not trained in political surveillance or counter-espionage. Although mail censorship and the suspension of civil liberties gave the political police new tools to produce leads and conduct investigations, people found ways to circumvent the censors, and the chaos of the war sometimes made it hard for police to locate suspects. Furthermore, in 1917 and 1918, the system suffered from communication problems and personnel shortages. As city conditions in the empire became more chaotic – food riots, demonstrations, workers and soldiers demanding peace or revolution – the political police structure, designed as a counter-espionage system, was not designed to repress this kind of activity. The top police and military intelligence officials hubristically believed that Austria – Hungary would win the war and only seemed to take the domestic threat of revolution seriously in the spring of 1918, when it was probably too late to reverse. The Central Bureaus in Austria and Croatia could not do much more than issue warnings to border police and local police, and they had their hands full with streams of returning veterans and prisoners of war. The failure of the political police did not stem from an inability to gather information or make enough arrests; surveillance and detention could not solve the underlying problems. Perhaps because the solution had worked after 1815 and after 1848– 9, the police chiefs believed it would work again in a new period of crisis, as long as it was a well-organised bureaucratic partnership between the military and police. That turned out to be an incorrect calculation. In the longer-term, the espionage problem gave the police a springboard to expand their operations and possibly improve their status by working with the military. Whether or not that actually worked (an evaluation would depend on the social position of the person asked at the time), the police managed to squeeze their way into areas previously occupied by other authorities and then extend their power after the war. In Austria, the police were able to re-centralise and increase the number of Polizei Direktionen inside the country, as well as establish more power for the Vienna Polizei Direktion.100 Still, the fact that the police had a very checkered history in the inter-war period (their use of force during

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and after the fire at the Justizpalast in July 1927,101 their temporary alliances with the Heimwehr,102 and the involvement of Austrian Nazi policemen in the assassination of Dollfuß), suggest that the institution both worked for and against the state. That represents a change from World War I, when police chiefs wanted to create a security system that would protect the state from internal and external enemies.

CHAPTER 2 FELLOW CITIZENS, UNWANTED FOREIGNERS:THE REFUGEE CRISIS IN WARTIME MORAVIA Kathryn E. Densford

World War I had important implications for Central and Eastern Europe’s non-combatants. Many civilians became refugees, fleeing their homes willingly, or were evacuated by the state. This refugee crisis disrupted their lives and resulted in tension between them and the residents of the areas to which they fled or were sent.1 In the Habsburg Empire, refugees – whom the state classified according to national category as Jews, Ruthenes, Poles, Slovenes, Italians, Germans, Romanians, Croats – constituted one of the major wartime challenges for imperial and local authorities. This also frustrated residents who were confronted with the arrival of fellow Habsburg citizens with whom they shared little in common.2 Like the refugees Peter Gatrell has analysed in his study of wartime Russia, refugees in the Empire also had an ‘unsettling effect’ on society.3 In Austria-Hungary, the care and provisioning of refugees placed yet another burden on a society that had quickly felt the war’s economic effects, which permeated all aspects of everyday life. In this chapter, I employ the refugee crisis in Moravia as a case study to argue that the wartime movement of civilians played an important role in destabilising the Habsburg home fronts. Historians have analysed the refugee experience of Eastern European Jews in Vienna and the aid work undertaken on their behalf. They were

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not, however, the only civilian population to retreat behind the lines, and scholars have only begun to analyse in great detail the full depths of the Empires’s refugee crisis.4 While some scholars have addressed the refugees in the Bohemian Lands, little scholarship has thus far examined the experience of refugees in Moravia, especially those in refugee camps.5 Scholarship on the refugee crisis has revealed key insight into the experience of the war on the Habsburg home front, illuminating social tensions. Historian Robert Nemes’ analysis of the response of one Hungarian town to the arrival of Jewish refugees has demonstrated that wartime interactions between residents and refugees reinforced ideas of who was ‘local’ and who was not. In the process social tensions increased during the war.6 I examine a similar phenomenon in Moravia, taking into consideration the wider refugee crisis – beyond Jewish refugees – and address both imperial and local concerns. Examination of refugee flight to the Habsburg interior provides a window into the civilian experience of total war. Maureen Healy’s Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I analyses wartime experience, illuminating the enormous strain civilians in the Empire’s capital faced starting in 1914. Healy’s analysis points to the collapse of the Empire in everyday life on the home front prior to the state’s dissolution.7 Healy shows the importance of examining daily life on the home front and the relationship between citizens and the state for analysing the collapse of the Empire. This study of the refugee crisis in contemporary newspapers, official reports and correspondence with officials provides a means to analyse the relationship among citizens as well as that between citizens and the state. It focuses on the interactions between refugees from across the Empire with local Moravians during the war, exploring the response of Moravians as well as the state. It reveals how the wartime refugee crisis served as one factor dividing wartime Moravian society. It also highlights the difficulty local officials faced in managing the stress refugees placed on society. Thus, the relationships between refugees and the state, refugees and Moravians, and Moravians with the state increasingly were strained. As Pieter Judson has shown recently in his history of the Habsburg Empire, though the state sought to cope with this wartime refugee crisis, it lacked the resources to do so. Furthermore, the state proved unable to convince residents that these refugees were anything but foreigners.8 Moravia serves as an example of wartime

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experience in the Habsburg Empire, highlighting the conditions on the home front, which according to state propaganda was supposed to be at peace and in full support of the fighting front. This, however, was far from reality.

The Arrival of Refugees in Moravia In contrast to the largely stationary Western Front, the fluidity of the Eastern Front created challenges for the Habsburg military and the civilian population, both of which found themselves on the move repeatedly during the war. As the Russian Army advanced into Bukovina and Galicia in the Habsburg East, forcing its army to retreat west of the San River in early September 1914, local residents – many of them Jews – fled to the Empire’s interior.9 Thousands of those who faced Russian invasion fled, some walking great distances, and those who could boarded overcrowded trains headed to the Empire’s interior. The imperial and royal (kaiserlich und ko¨ninglich, abbreviated K.u.K.) army also evacuated thousands of ‘suspicious’ civilians to the interior.10 Whether these refugees left their homes voluntarily or not, they posed a threat to the stability of civilian society. The Ministry of the Interior acknowledged in 1915 after the arrival of still more refugees, this time from the Empire’s southern provinces after the opening of an additional front with Italy, ‘This incoming flood to the hinterland created a new social and ethnic problem, on whose solution depended more than the individual fate of the particular refugees.’11 In the state’s assessment, these refugees had the potential to disrupt local society, exacerbating tensions between different national groups. In the last decades before the war, Moravia had been the scene of some national conflict among Czech and German speakers. German speakers dominated the composition of the province’s larger cities while Czech speakers lived in higher percentages in the surrounding countryside. In the Moravian provincial capital of Bru¨nn (Brno), 63 per cent of the population identified as German-speaking in the 1900 census. In late September into early October 1905, Czech and German national groups in the city clashed over the question of establishing a Czech-language university in Moravia, something Czech speakers had been demanding since at least 1895. During the four days of fighting surrounding the respective German Volkstag and the Czech tabor, the city was the site of

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property damage as well as physical skirmishes, which resulted in the death of 20-year-old Sokol member Frantisˇek Pavlı´k. While the Moravian Compromise of November 1905 mandated electoral reform, tensions persisted between Czechs and Germans.12 During the war thousands of refugees subsequently faced state classification – both according to national group and class – and resettlement in the imperial interior, with many refugees going to Moravia. Thousands – many of them Jewish – had left Galicia and Bukovina in the war’s opening months.13 They were joined in 1915 by thousands of refugees from the Empire’s southern provinces after the opening of the front with Italy.14 By 1 October 1915, 57,501 refugees had made their way to Moravia, which, after the imperial capital and the neighbouring province of Bohemia, was home to the largest number of refugees in the Empire. Italians and Jews constituted the largest refugee groups in Moravia during the early years of the war. These displaced populations heightened the level of provincial diversity in terms of ‘national’ groups. Furthermore, the Ministry of the Interior identified 13,087 of these refugees as ‘well-off’ (Bemittelt) and the remaining 44,414 as poor (Unbemittelt) refugees.15 This high number of poor refugees serves as an indication that this population was in need of significant local and state support. The state’s class distinction made a difference in the treatment of these refugees: it transferred those who were without means to camps while those who could provide for themselves could travel with some freedom.16 By October 1915 only 7,293 of Moravia’s refugees lived in the camps while 50,208 were scattered throughout the province.17 The large number of refugees residing in private residences lived in direct contact with the local population. In analysing these numbers, it should also be noted that the figures only include refugees whom the state registered; contemporaries acknowledged that the number of refugees was higher than what the state reported.18 Refugee camps were to be found throughout the Habsburg home front during the war, and several were located in Moravia. The government began building camps in the early months of the war, using them as a means to house refugees but also for surveillance and control of this population.19 It constructed several camps in southern Moravia, including one at Nikolsburg (Mikulov) meant to house 6,000 Galician-Jewish refugees. The Nikolsburg camp consisted of 14 barracks,

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each 42 metres long and 16 metres wide. The camp also included an administration building, two hospital buildings and a temple. The imperial government constructed additional camps in southern Moravia, including a camp for 6,000 refugees near Pohrlitz (Pohorˇelice) and one to house 7,000 in Gaya (Kyjov).20 At the beginning of October 1915, the Nikolsburg camp housed 3,484 Jewish refugees, while camps in Gaya and Pohrlitz housed 2,364 and 1,445, refugees, respectively. State officials aimed to transport refugees of different national groups to separate camps. While Moravian camps largely held Jewish refugees from Galicia, those in Gmu¨nd (Lower Austria) and Wolfsburg (Carinthia) housed Ruthenians, and those in Leibnitz (Styria) and Chotzen (Bohemia) housed Polish refugees. Bruck an der Leitha (Lower Austria) also housed Jewish refugees from Galicia. Additional camps opened in summer 1915 for Italian refugees in Pottendorf (Lower Austria), Mitterndorf (Styria), Braunau am Inn (Upper Austria) and Deutschbrod (Havlı´cˇku˚v Brod, Bohemia). Slovenian refugees were sent to Steinklamm (Lower Austria). However, the distribution shifted over time with the arrival of additional refugees.21 Furthermore, refugees were not the only group interned during the war in the Empire’s interior. The State formulated four theoretical categories of internees: prisoners of war, members of enemy states, suspect citizens and the wives and children of those who fell into the previous two categories.22 Refugees were thus part of larger wartime issues of displacement and internment and were not the only outsiders residing in the hinterland during the war. In addition to housing, providing for the refugees’ other basic needs posed a challenge, and the state, together with local organisations and individuals, attempted to respond to their needs. The Ministry of the Interior in cooperation with Mayor Weiskirchner formed Vienna’s Central Office for the Aid of War Refugees (Zentralstelle der Fu¨rsorge fu¨r Kriegsflu¨chtlinge), which was created specifically to aid Galician and Bukovinan refugees. Subsequent committees were established for the aid of those from the south. These aid committees both carried out work for the state and actively sought private donations for the refugees to supplement state aid. In addition to the refugee committees, the local population, especially in Moravia and in Bohemia, aided a large number of Jewish refugees. At the local level, the Jewish Community (Israelitische Kultusgemeinde) helped to organise independent aid.23

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Local organisations’ efforts to aid refugees encompassed providing financial support as well as food, clothing, medical care, religious services and assistance in finding employment. Marsha L. Rozenblit has argued that humanitarianism, Austrian patriotism, and solidarity with fellow Jews motivated aid work undertaken on behalf of the Jewish refugees.24 Both the state and private organisations understood these refugees to be Austrian citizens, which drove – at least in part – their aid efforts. Already in September 1914 many Moravian newspapers mentioned that refugees had arrived. The papers included petitions to the general population, requesting assistance for the destitute refugees. On 23 September, the Znaimer Wochenblatt noted the daily influx of refugees in nearby Nikolsburg. The article encouraged local residents to donate bedding and clothing to these refugees. The article also noted the contributions of local aristocrat Prince Hugo von Dietrichstein and District Captain Paul Kretschmer to aid these refugees.25 Public pleas often mentioned the exemplary actions of Habsburg officials contributing to aid efforts, setting an example for the rest of the population. On 14 October 1914 a report in the German-liberal Tagesbote aus Ma¨hren und Schlesien from Bru¨nn noted that more than 1,500 Galician-Jewish refugees had arrived in Gaya. While the article praised the efforts of the local Jewish population to aid these refugees, the barracks intended for them would not be ready for inhabitants for the next five weeks, leaving these refugees in miserable living conditions. Local officials in Gaya thus requested donations, especially shoes and clothing for children.26 The refugees overwhelmed the city, necessitating the broader appeal for aid from other areas of the province. This example also highlights how authorities, even in the early days of the war, were unprepared for the human flood from the East. Though state officials constructed camps, these barracks did not meet the refugees’ basic needs. On 2 December 1914, the Znaimer Wochenblatt noted that following a visit to the Nikolsburg camp, local officials sent a memorandum to Interior Minister Baron Karl von Heinold, stating that the conditions in the camp warranted the ‘humanitarian, sanitary, and social consideration of the minister.’27 The hastily constructed camps failed to provide a satisfactory solution to the problem and had quickly become a site in need of further aid from the Interior Ministry.

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In the months after they arrived, refugees sought to have needs beyond those of food, clothing and shelter met in their new place of residence, and across the hinterland, the state established schools for the refugees. On 6 January 1915 a group of Galician refugees pressed for the opening of a Polish secondary school in Bru¨nn.28 On 19 January, Tagesbote aus Ma¨hren und Schlesien announced that Polish-language classes would begin on 25 January, following mass at the Church of St James. Students would then proceed to their classrooms at Huttergasse 24, located to the northeast of the city centre.29 By October 1915, there were 72 refugee schools in Moravia.30 The establishment of schools provides some indication that these refugees attempted to maintain a sense of normalcy and that the state continued to provide for the education of its citizens. Moravia provided a wartime home not only for refugees from Galicia and Bukovina, but also for refugees from the Empire’s southern provinces with the opening of an additional front after Italy joined the Entente in spring 1915. By November of that year, approximately 2,000 refugees from South Tyrol had arrived and were housed near Bru¨nn. Local newspapers carried appeals for clothing and money on their behalf, especially for children.31 These refugees also moved to Olmu¨tz (Olomouc), necessitating aid from the local population there are well.32 Thus, the arrival of additional refugees in 1915 added another wave of demands on Moravia’s residents, who were already struggling to provide for the refugees who had arrived in 1914.

Moravian-Refugee Encounters The refugees who poured into the Empire’s interior brought the reality of the fighting front into the everyday lives of those on the home front. Moravian residents found themselves inundated with aid requests for their fellow citizens. Newspapers printed appeals to the population of Moravia, requesting aid for these refugees, and at least some Moravians certainly contributed in spite of home front economic struggles. However, the interactions between refugees and the local population were not necessarily positive as these same newspapers often reported the criminal behaviour of refugees. As the war went on, frustrations mounted, and social tensions increased among the Empire’s civilians.

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Aid Efforts While at least some Moravians attempted to provide for the refugees’ everyday needs, this task proved nearly impossible to accomplish as waves of refugees continued to move into the province owing to the shifting of the Eastern Front. On 26 July 1916 Tagesbote aus Ma¨hren und Schlesien published a letter from Arnold Mueller in Hullein (Hulı´n) claiming that more than one hundred Galician refugees had arrived there in the past week. Hullein, however, had only three Jewish families, and they were unable to meet the needs of the Jewish refugees.33 This was not the only Moravian community affected by the influx of refugees in the summer of 1916. The arrival of more Galician and Bukovinan refugees in Gaya increased the need for donations as well.34 A letter in the Tagesbote aus Ma¨hren und Schlesien from Kremsier (Kromeˇrˇı´zˇ) remarked that the area had received an influx of 285 refugees from Bukovina since mid-July. The letter’s unnamed author noted that state government refugee aid did not cover the cost of food, especially given the rate of wartime inflation. The letter largely detailed the aid that had been provided – including food, clothing, shelter and even money, indicating that many locals had contributed what they could to the cause. However, the letter also noted the ‘intolerance of Kremsier’s inhabitants’ toward this population, perhaps indicating the strain that this caused for the local community.35 These examples highlight the sheer number of refugees arriving in towns large and small, providing a challenge for the Moravian civilian population and the state that they were unable to meet during wartime. The same individuals these appeals targeted faced their own economic and social challenges during the war aside from the refugee crisis. The diversity of refugees arriving in Moravia provided an additional linguistic challenge for the local population. The local Aid Committee for Italian Refugees made a particular appeal for volunteers in Znaim (Znojmo), requesting that individuals capable of interpreting Italian volunteer to serve in this capacity as a large number of refugees from the southern provinces had found refuge in the area. The committee requested that individuals would serve as intermediaries between the committee and the refugees themselves, volunteering once or twice a week to ascertain the complaints and wishes of the Italian refugees.36

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As the war went on, and daily life in the provinces became more precarious, local attitudes towards refugees became more hostile. Traces of this can be seen in the war’s opening months, but tensions mounted as the war drew on. In early 1918, the Znaimer Tagblatt, while relating the daily expenses of the state in caring for the war refugees, noted that in times of peace these refugees were tax-paying fellow citizens (Mitbu¨rger).37 These reminders of shared citizenship, however, did not outweigh the physical realities of the home front, where many – permanent residents and refugees alike – faced desperate circumstances.

Criminality Reports of refugee criminals frequently circulated in the Empire’s newspapers. The story of a 20-year-old ‘refugee thief’ in the Bohemian town of Kolin (Kolı´n) appeared on the pages of Tagesbote aus Ma¨hren und Schlesien on 14 January 1916. The unidentified 20-year-old allegedly had stolen jewelry worth 1,200 crowns.38 In April, the same paper reported that a 72-year-old Galician refugee, Karl Schlesinger from Zbaracz (Zbarazh, Zbaraz˙), appeared before the provincial court on charges of theft, fraud and gambling. The court eventually convicted him of fraud and gambling and sentenced him to four weeks in jail with a fast biweekly and a 20 crown fine or 48 hours of arrest.39 Yet another account published on 27 March 1917 stated that the 15-year-old Galician refugee Paisach Haber stole more than 20 crowns from a woman at the train station and was taken into custody.40 At least one account of criminal activity suggests the possibility that refugees engaged in group criminal activity. A 7 March 1915 article stated that the Galician refugee Stanislaus Ziemba stole the bag of an official’s wife with contents worth 14.95 crowns. While authorities arrested him, two other Galician refugees escaped.41 These cases reflect the frequent association of criminality with the refugees. Newspaper articles relating cases such as these likely did not endear the refugee population to those already living in Moravia. An article in Znaimer Wochenblatt with the tongue-in-cheek title ‘An Agreeable Galician’ (‘Eine liebenswu¨rdige Galizianerin’) describes the allegedly immoral and criminal actions of one refugee. On 27 September, Galician refugee Josefine Fried appeared in court for the crimes of threatening to endanger society and arson. Fried lived at

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the refugee camp in Nikolsburg and had requested permission to leave the camp to go into town in order to pick up a suitcase at the train station. When authorities refused to grant her request, she threatened to set fire to the camp. The court sentenced her to four months heavy labour and fasting.42 As with other newspaper reports on crime, this example highlighted negative refugee behaviour for its readers.

Ritual Murder? The tension between refugees and locals also manifested itself in antiSemitic charges of ritual murder in 1918. Anti-Semitic violence had increased in the decades before the war, particularly in Moravia in 1899 following the repeal of the Badeni Ordinances.43 A report from the District Captain in Prerau (Prˇerov) to the provincial government in Bru¨nn detailed a series of local events that included alleged ritual murder, Czech– German conflict and frustrations with Jewish refugees. Reports surfaced in Kojetein (Kojetı´n) on 12 March 1918 about the alleged ritual murder of the maid Julie Gugler, who had been found next to a sugar factory with her veins sliced open. Gugler had recently traveled to Czernowitz (Chernivtsi) to visit her parents. Though rumours circulating in the community suggested that this was an incident of ritual murder, this was not the case, and the district court in Kojetein pressed charges against two men. The report went on to describe that 20 Czech children had harassed the German school teacher, Kornelie Kasperlik, and ten German students while on a walk near Kojetein. Furthermore, someone had stolen two windows from the German school, and someone had broken windows belonging to Rabbi Friedenthal as well as Ignatz Kaufmann. The report noted that both the Czechs and existing Jewish population in Kojetein very much disliked the refugees who were known to buy large quantities of food and then trade it, thus alluding to their participation in wartime profiteering. The report’s author attributes the rumors of ritual murder to the discontent that the local population felt in regards to the refugee population’s behaviour.44 This report connects several anti-Semitic episodes in Kojetein to social Czech–German conflict, while blaming the refugee crisis for these recent incidents. The first section of the report closely mirrors a ritual murder case in Kojetein in 1892 that historian Hillel J. Kieval has analysed in his article on ritual murder and politics in the Bohemian

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Lands, in which he argues that the discourse of ritual murder served an important political function in defining political groups in the Bohemian Lands from 1892–1902. In the case he discusses, a Christian girl employed by a Jewish family disappeared, and some of the town’s residents broke the windows of Jewish homes. Later the girl’s body was found, as she had drowned in the river. The violence then subsided.45 The connection between the German and Czech conflict made in this 1918 report and its association with ritual murder is not unique either; Kieval has argued that the discursive practices associated with ritual murder went along with the Czech and German conflict as Jews could be seen as not fitting squarely into either ethnic camp.46 What is important to note in this case, however, is the implied link between these events and the refugee population, particularly as it places the blame for these incidents squarely on this segment of the population. This report also conveys a sense of othering within the Jewish community, differentiating between the Jews already living in Moravia and the refugee population, a distinction that would have been clear given that many of the refugees were Hasidic Jews. The relation of all these events back to the refugee population then may indicate the perception by officials that the refugee crisis further increased other social fissures at various levels in local society. Taken together, these incidents – outright expressions of antiSemitism and frustrations with refugees as destructive and vectors of disease – show how as the war went on and conditions at home deteriorated, tensions on the home front increased and distinctions between those who were local and those who were outsiders became more ingrained. In the case from Kojetein, the local population – discussed in the report as Czech, German and Jewish – stood apart from the outsiders, the refugees. The episodes highlight the way in which the war could exacerbate preexisting conflicts and how these could be complicated by the refugee crisis. In their encounters with Jewish refugees, locals fell back on previous tropes. In the context of the war, however, these tropes furthered distinctions of who was part of the local community and who was not.

Damages and Reparations During the war many refugees in Moravia lived in local apartments because the camps did not provide nearly enough housing for the

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thousands who arrived. The housing of refugees in private residences, requisitioned by the state, provided a source of great frustration for many local residents. At the end of the war property owners submitted requests for the repayment of damages refugees caused to their apartments. Residents submitted at least 40 protocols to Bru¨nn’s Police Directorate requesting repayment for damaged apartments located in Bru¨nn, with the costs for each individual case ranging from just over a hundred to several thousand crowns.47 These requests continued well after the end of the war in the Czechoslovak Republic. Records of these cases consist of a request for funds specifying damages and reports containing a substantial number of receipts, a reflection of the high cost of housing these refugees and providing for them during the war. Several of these cases also contain personal letters written by residents initiating the reparations process, providing a window on the personal experiences and attitudes of Bru¨nn’s residents while also showing how society constructed an image of the refugee population as ‘Other’. The case of Marie Svoboda in Blansko bei Bru¨nn (Blansko) offers an example of the types of cases submitted to the Police Directorate in Bru¨nn. Her letter of 31 May 1918 stated that Galician refugees assigned by local officials had lived in her apartment at Huttergasse 24. The damage done to the apartment by the refugees left Svoboda unable to rent it to a new tenant. She thus requested repairs to be made at the expense of the state, and since the repairs would take at least two weeks, she also requested that she receive the rent she would have earned during that time.48 A 30 July 1918 assessment of the apartment at Huttergasse 24, which consisted of three rooms, a kitchen and a hallway, had damages worth 373 crowns and 50 hellers.49 The Police Directorate submitted the request for this amount the following day to the provincial government.50 On 31 August, provincial authorities approved the request.51 A copy of a letter dated 11 September 1918 informed Svoboda that officials approved her request for repairs worth 373 crowns 50 hellers.52 The time taken between the initial request from Svoboda to the date of the letter acknowledging her claim points to the lengthy bureaucratic process involved in fulfilling these claims. The case also illustrates that while refugees vacated their wartime housing, theoretically returning to their prewar homes, their impact on Moravian society lasted after their repatriation.

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A letter from Hugo Ptacˇnı´k of Bru¨nn to the Police Directorate dated 17 August 1918 describes the crowded conditions that refugees experienced. Ptacˇnı´k wrote that his home at Adlergasse 18 housed three Galician refugee families from 1 November 1916 until August 1918. These families lived in the third-floor apartment, which consisted of four rooms. Apartment residents were Sara Rosenbaum and her five children, Berko Roll with seven children and Hudel Menazes and her daughter, for a total of 17 people. Ptacˇnı´k claimed that the apartment had been in pristine condition prior to their arrival, but the refugees had left it dirty and worn, and thus he was unable to rent it again. As the apartment had been rented at the request of the central office, he requested payment for the damages.53 The Police Directorate submitted a recommendation for 400 crowns in reparations.54 On 28 October 1918 the Moravian provincial government approved the request.55 A letter submitted to the Police Directorate in Bru¨nn on 13 June 1918 provides a clear indication of the deplorable conditions that refugees experienced in these apartments while also conveying the attitudes of apartment owners that served to construct these refugees as outsiders. According to the letter, police officials had requisitioned two apartments, consisting of three rooms and a kitchen, at Sazamtsgasse 14 in Bru¨nn on 15 September 1916 to house Galician Jewish refugees Efraim Rennert and Manzia Holzmann. Damage to the apartments included the destruction of the ovens and stoves, smoke damage to the kitchen ceilings and the destruction of wood paneling and plaster, which left bricks exposed in places. The letter also notes the presence of bugs and lice in the apartments. Furthermore, the author notes that ‘those Jewish refugees, through their uncleanliness, were a direct plague [Plage ] on the aforementioned apartments.’56 This anti-Semitic comment embedded within this request for repayment provides an indication of the hostility and disgust felt towards this ‘plague’ that had taken over these previously pristine apartments and conveys the frequent association of refugees as diseased. A note from the Moravian Governor’s Office dated 26 January 1919 promises 944 crowns 50 hellers for the damages done to the apartments.57 These petitions provide a sample of the many appeals submitted for damages, and they highlight the difficulties that the refugee population caused for the permanent residents of Moravia. The effects of the refugees on the civilian population were a nagging issue, as the process to procure

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state funds for the necessary repairs took months, and even continued after the war, turning these grievances into a lingering issue. The authors of the letters examined here expressed frustration and even antiSemitism. The interactions between the permanent residents of Moravia and the refugee population did not serve to promote unity among the Empire’s citizens. Instead their interactions had the opposite effect. These cases also highlight the extent to which class served as a distinction between the refugees and the people already living in the Empire. For the people of Moravia, the refugees seemed more like invaders than fellow citizens.

Imperial Officials Attempt to Cope with the Refugee Crisis Moravian authorities struggled and failed to provide for the refugee population despite efforts to do so. An examination of local officials’ efforts in managing the refugee crisis demonstrates the inability of officials to manage the rapidly changing situation of population movement during the war. Local newspaper accounts show that officials were unable to meet refugees’ basic needs in the camps. Furthermore, the general attitude that emerges from the records of the Moravian provincial government is that these refugees were to be returned home as soon as possible; however, ongoing battlefront shifts in the East complicated this effort. While officials established procedures for the return of these citizens to their homes, they failed to carry out these measures smoothly, further alienating the refugee population. The conditions at the Nikolsburg camp deteriorated as the war dragged on, as officials were unable provide fully for the refugees’ basic needs. In June 1917 a district court in Vienna’s Leopoldstadt heard evidence in a libel case, which pitted camp officials against the 63-year-old refugee Abraham Weiser, who complained of the poor treatment accorded refugees at the Nikolsburg camp. Weiser described mistreatment by camp administrator Samuel Krakauer, who had allegedly threatened to deprive refugees of food for eight days if they brought a complaint against camp administration. Weiser also suggested abuses related to the shoe-making operation at the camp, as leather for the refugees disappeared. Refugees also did not receive adequate medical care, with some of them only being taken to the hospital ‘when it was already too late’, implying that authorities could

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be to blame for some of the deaths in the camp hospital. Refugees faced shortages of clothing and shoes, and faced punishment when requesting them. Though Weiser faced libel charges for these statements, other refugees confirmed his allegations. The daughter of the deceased Josef Hilsler stated that the camp administration had not provided her 63year-old father with warm clothing or food. She alleged that these circumstances, along with poor medical treatment, caused her father’s death. She also testified that she had seen camp administrator, Samuel Krakauer, order other refugees to be beaten, and she herself had been struck while caring for her dying father. Another witness confirmed the poor provisioning of those in the camp, testifying that one week, the refugees received only yellow turnips Monday through Thursday. The defense lawyer also suggested that the refugees had not received the payment that they were to receive for their work in the shoe-making operation. The state had sent 4,000 crowns a week to the camp to pay the refugees, and they were to be paid 15 heller per day each. Camp officials however, offered ten heller in addition to distributing plums worth five heller per day. However, since October 1916 the refugees had not received either the plums or the five heller.58 While this testimony clearly describes the type of poor conditions refugees faced in the barracks, it also provides an indication of the refugees’ own efforts to address their poor circumstances, trying to find redress through the courts with their testimony. That this case went to court also shows the extent to which the refugee situation occupied the attention of local officials at this point in the war, drawing their attention away from the fighting fronts to the pressing concerns of everyday life. Discussions of these refugees’ repatriation began soon after their arrival in Moravia. In November 1915 both imperial and provincial officials focused their attention on returning refugees to some areas of Galicia and Bukovina, as the Russian Army had retreated east in the course of the preceding months. The Moravian provincial government issued a document on 24 November 1915 to officials in Bru¨nn, Iglau, Olmu¨tz and Znaim detailing the procedures for the return of refugees to the two provinces. It stressed the need to have proper identification paperwork for the individual refugees returning to their home districts.59 Despite these officials’ efforts, some refugees from Galicia and Bukovina remained in Moravia throughout the war due to the ongoing shifting of the Eastern Front,

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and many remained months, even years after the end of hostilities on the fighting fronts. State officials also took measures to send refugees from the Empire’s southern provinces home before combat ceased. Moravia’s provincial government issued a document on 5 September 1917 stating that since it was becoming increasingly difficult to provide food and accommodation for the refugees in the interior, and due to the need for agricultural and industrial workers in the war zones, the Ministry of the Interior as well the Army High Command had decided that refugees from the South should return to their homes. The authorities recognised that the refugees further strained the already burdened population in the interior. Refugees were to be returned to most districts in Tyrol, the Austrian Littoral, Carinthia and Dalmatia. Officials stressed that these refugees must have the proper documentation for their return. They would be transported to their homes free of charge. The document also stressed that care was to be taken not to send refugees who were ill or known to have venereal disease; they were to be cured and then sent home. Authorities in the area of the destination of the transport were to be notified, as much as possible, of the incoming population. Refugees were to be prepared with provisions to last for two to three days.60 While correspondence between provincial and local authorities may have stressed the need to make adequate provisions for returning refugees in terms of proper documentation and physical wellbeing, the reality was quite different. The Moravian provincial government sent a letter to officials in Bru¨nn, the Mayor of Iglau (Jihlava) and the heads of the refugee barracks in Nikolsburg, Pohrlitz, Gaya and Ma¨hrisch Tru¨bau (Moravska´ Trˇebova´) on 17 June 1918 conveying a message they received from the governor’s office for Tyrol and Vorarlberg. The letter, dated from 31 May, explained that 19 refugees from Levico (Lo¨weneck), Tyrol had arrived on a return transport from Moravia with incomplete travel documents. These refugees, who remained in Innsbruck while officials sorted out their documentation, included ‘old people, the sick, women, and children who of course arrived completely exhausted. All of the discussed people belonged to the poor classes.’ This physical exhaustion and lack of documentation was further aggravated as their luggage had already been sent on to their intended destination. These people were ‘demoralised’ as a result of their wartime refugee return experience rather than having ‘feelings of gratefulness’ toward the state.

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Therefore, the letter from the Moravian provincial government urged local authorities to take care to prevent further occurrences like this and follow previously described measures for refugee repatriation, such as those of 5 September 1915, discussed above, which stressed that authorities only return refugees with proper documentation and that those in poor health should not be repatriated.61 Local officials facing the challenge of repatriating those displaced during the war failed to follow the protocols for repatriation, and perhaps they were unable to do so. As acknowledged in this letter from the provincial government, the experience of these refugees likely did not endear them to the state. Though it attempted to manage the refugee crisis as a means of control and to carry out its duty to provide for its people, the state was unable to manage or to fulfill its paternalistic role in providing for its citizens.

Conclusion This chapter reveals that the Habsburg Empire’s inability to manage the refugee crisis, along with the strain these refugees caused Moravian residents, led to the weakening of the home front throughout the war. The Habsburg authorities were unable to adequately support the basic needs of the refugees. Furthermore, the flood of refugees required the resources of Moravians who were already constrained by wartime rationing and inflation, and they were unable to meet the refugees’ needs. The ongoing presence of thousands of refugees only furthered the wartime frustrations of Moravia’s residents. The refugee crisis led to the fracturing of society as the relationship between the local population and the refugees deteriorated, and it also served to exacerbate pre-existing tensions. The refugees added yet another layer of ‘Other’ to these standing social conflicts, and ideas of who was part of the community and who was not sharpened. The refugee crisis did not abate with the war’s end; it continued into the 1920s in some places. The political circumstances, however, had changed. As Michael Marrus has written in his study of Europe’s refugees in the twentieth century, ‘In practically every way we can imagine, World War I imposed on contemporaries the awesome power of the nation-state.’62 This power of the nation-state applied to these refugees as the devolution of the Empire into national successor states had a deleterious effect on their status. While many had returned to their

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prewar homes, as the Empire had attempted to repatriate refugees as soon as possible throughout the war, many Jewish refugees remained.63 The postwar nation-state building process was hostile particularly to these Jewish refugees who faced calls for them to return home; yet, for many refugees, war was ongoing in their places of origin. The Polish–Ukrainian War made the prospect of returning home dangerous and life-threatening for many.64 Nascent states predicated on the idea of the nation that were carved out of the former Habsburg Empire faced questions of who belonged within their borders. Locals regarded these refugees as ‘strangers’ among other former Austrian citizens, as Vienna’s orthodox weekly, the Ju¨discher Korrespondenz, reported on 28 November 1918. Refugees were no longer the concern of the new states in which they were residing. The article further explained that Czechoslovakia, which had been established on principles of justice with the help of the West, did not provide a welcoming environment for these refugees. The article noted the argument of National Democratic Party Prime Minister Karel Krama´rˇ that the housing shortage necessitated the return of the refugees to their prewar homes, now located across international borders.65 The stakes for these refugees had changed; they were no longer within the borders of the Habsburg Empire, and the new Czechoslovak state did not see it in their interests to allow the refugees to remain.

CHAPTER 3 POPULATION DISPLACEMENT IN THE HABSBURG EMPIRE DURING WORLD WAR I Francesco Frizzera

Introduction After the invasion of the eastern and southern regions of the Habsburg Empire by the Russian and the Italian Armies, more than 600,000 inhabitants of Galicia and Bukovina (Jews, Poles, Ukrainians) and 290,000 citizens of South Tyrol, the Isonzo Valley, Istria, Dalmatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina (Italians, Slovenians, Croatians, Muslims) were forced to leave their homes. Only some of them fled voluntarily to the internal regions of the state. About 1.1 million citizens of the Habsburg Empire thus became war refugees, coming into contact with people with different cultures and languages, residing in the same state. Hence state authorities developed during the war new administrative practices and rules to deal with the citizens evacuated from the border regions. The classic studies on the Habsburg Empire during the war often overlook this issue1 or are inclined to adopt traditional and stereotyped explanations to describe this population displacement.2 In the Englishlanguage literature only a few articles have as yet been devoted to refugees in Austria – Hungary during World War I.3 Therefore, this chapter analyses the policies developed by both the Austrian Army and

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the Government to manage the refugee crisis during World War I in the Habsburg Empire. Moving from the reasons for the displacement, it shows how the military’s negative evaluations of the political trustworthiness of the populations living near the border led to unexpected evacuations. In addition, economic and sanitary reasons played a role in these decisions, and I argue that the reception policy in the internal regions reflects the rationale of the evacuations. The refugees’ experience was determined by official perceptions of them as populations to be kept under control, exploited as a cheap work force and managed as citizens without rights. In this context, the punitive function of the internment camp system appears clear. In short, this experience played a significant role in the process of disintegration of the Habsburg Empire. The issue of the war refugees in Austria –Hungary between 1914 and 1918 could be described as a purely Austrian problem. The Empire was run by two different governments (the first based in Vienna, and the other in Budapest), which controlled different populations and territories – respectively Cisleithania and Transleithania. Only in some policy areas, including foreign affairs and military questions, was sovereignty pooled. Given that all the refugees were Austrian citizens – and not Hungarian – and that they fled or were evacuated during the war from Cisleithanic regions after an enemy invasion, we can focus our research on the Austrian part of the Empire. Even though a small number of refugees had been temporarily displaced to Hungary in 1915 and 1916 to avoid overpopulation in Austria’s internal regions, they continued to be subsidised by the Austrian Home Ministry and were rapidly repatriated or brought to the Austrian Hinterland as soon as possible.4 The total number of refugees is difficult to assess. Although the Austrian Home Ministry statistics appear quite clear, this is true only at first sight.5 Firstly, the Austrian government considered as refugees only indigent people deported in the internal regions of the state (Bohemia, Moravia, Upper Austria, Lower Austria and the northern part of Styria). This means that all those who fled voluntarily from their homes to avoid the destruction of war, seeking refuge in the rear of the front (the so-called ‘war zone’, which included Bukovina, Galicia, Silesia, Istria, Salzburg, Tyrol, Ku¨stenland, Carinthia, Dalmatia, Krain and southern Styria) were not reported in these statistics. The same held true for all the

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people who decided to live on their resources or labour and did not declare their status as refugees, out of fear of the possibility of being sent to a internment camp. Secondly, analysing the statistics is quite a difficult task because of the continuous fluctuation in the numbers of the displaced population, due to new repatriations and expulsions every year and to the possible change of status. Finally, the refugees from the Bosnia and Herzegovina do not appear in the statistics either, since they were not Austrian citizens. The result is that, for example, while in the middle of 1915 the official statistics counted about half-a-million refugees6, the Home Ministry estimated their number at ‘about 1 million’7 and the Reichsabgeordneten Zygmunt Lasocki estimates them at 1.1 million.8 After December 1917 the statistics became more trustworthy: after a new refugees’ law, every person who had fled or was displaced because of the war was considered a refugee.9 Therefore, we have 441,285 refugees in the month of September 1917,10 488,974 refugees in the month of January 191811 and 326,841 refugees in August 1918.12 It should be noted, however that between 1915 and 1916 almost all the refugees from western Galicia were already repatriated, and in 1917 some refugees from eastern Galicia and from Bukovina were able to go back to their homes: so the statistics are useful only to calculate the number of the refugees displaced from the Southern Front. In conclusion, through cross-checking data, we can count at least 600,000 refugees from the Eastern Front,13 about 90,000 refugees in Bosnia and Herzegovina14 and 200,000 refugees from the Southern Front,15 although the total number of refugees might probably be greater, according to the assessments of the Austrian Home Ministry.

Escape and Expulsion In order to understand why such a great number of refugees moved into the internal regions of Austria during the war, we should analyse the reasons for the evacuation of this population. For a long time both historiography and the Austrian state authorities identified purely military reasons as the cause of the displacement of the civilian population living in border regions. This belief is grounded in the legal provisions developed by the Austrian Home Ministry during summer 1914, which provided for moving the indigent population living in

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garrison cities to prevent food shortages in case of siege.16 Since this was the only regulation concerning this issue until July 1917, explaining all the expulsions from the war zone by referring to these guidelines is quite common. Actually, the people evacuated from garrison cities (Czernowitz, Lemberg, Przmyl, Cracow, Trient, Riva, Pola)17 were only a minority of the total number of refugees.18 Summing up the number of those evacuated from these areas for safety or supply reasons and the number of individuals displaced because of military reasons (such as the need to build fortifications), we only get about one-quarter of the total refugee population. The majority was deported or fled from other areas for different reasons, which are directly linked with the strategy adopted by the military authorities, as is clear if we analyse the evacuations from the Eastern and Southern Fronts. Between summer 1914 and spring 1915, the Austrian government created an enormous war zone, where the military had also civilian power, with the goal of controlling the ethnic minorities and preventing sabotage.19 This means that the military – and particularly the lower military authorities – could decide who to deport, as well as where to send the evacuated population and how to do so.20 Therefore, the military’s negative evaluations of the political trustworthiness of Ukrainians, Italians, Slovenians and Croatians played a role in influencing these decisions, and led to unexpected evacuations.21 In fact, discouraged by the defeats of autumn 1914 in Galicia and influenced by the psychosis of the internal enemy, the military saw in the ethnic minorities and in the Jews a scapegoat for their defeat and a dangerous element threatening the safety of the internal front, both for political and sanitary reasons. For example, Franz Conrad von Ho¨tzendorf, Austrian Chief of Staff, asserted in September 1914 that ‘we fight on our land as if we were in enemy territory. Ruthenians everywhere are hanged on the spot. The Russians receive information from the peasants and overcome obstacles with the help of Ruthenian traitors.’22 In particular, the military considered the Ukrainians collectively Russophiles, so they decided to deport them as far as possible, exiling the whole Ruthenian upper class to the internment camp of Thalerhof (which held more than 16,400 persons in Lower Austria),23 killing about 30,000 of them without trial24 and moving about 80,000 Ukrainians to the western regions of

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the Empire. A similar fate happened to the Jews: during the Russian invasion in eastern Galicia in 1914, they fled to the cities of western Galicia because of pogroms and destruction caused by both the Russian Army and the local population. The sanitary and environmental situation of these cities deteriorated after the arrival of the refugees. As a result, Jews were forced to flee to Vienna, Prague and Brno or were expelled to the western regions of the Empire. This was done not only to avoid disease, but also and quite often to evacuate entire villages and cities using the fear of disease caused by overpopulation as pretext.25 The Polish population of western Galicia was evacuated due to a combination of military and economic reasons too: Cracow was evacuated twice in winter 1914–15 to prevent food shortages for the defending troops, following the guidelines drawn by the Home Ministry. However, several villages surrounding the city and inhabited by farmers were emptied, burned and razed to the ground,26 officially for military reasons, in practical terms to take advantage of the labour force of the displaced population, which was brought to the most productive internal regions of the Empire.27 Comparing this policy implemented in Poland with the displacement of the Italian, Slovenian and Croatian population (1915), we can recognise the same key elements, with the exception of the pogroms and sanitary reasons. The Italian-speaking inhabitants of South Tyrol, Ku¨stenland and Istria were considered traitors, 28 so the upper class was deported to internment camps in Katzenau and Wagna (4,500 people)29 and the indigent population deported as far as possible from the Southern Front. Furthermore, to exploit the refugee workforce, commissions were created to pick up able-bodied men from the refugee trains.30 In addition, as happened in eastern Galicia, the evacuation allowed the military to gain some population’s goods and to simplify requisition procedures.31 To sum up, the military authorities decided to manage the war as an opportunity to control the ethnic minorities through the introduction of martial law in the border regions and the expulsion of the unwanted elements. Moreover, the war gave them the opportunity to concentrate the workforce in the most productive regions of the Empire, namely Bohemia, Moravia, Upper and Lower Austria, even though no law concerning the displacement of people living outside garrison towns existed. The evacuation plan of the Italian-speaking population of

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Trentino demonstrates this clearly; in May 1915, the Austrian authorities planned the possible displacement of civilians living along the frontline in case of war with Italy and prepared an evacuation program. The government of Tyrol expected the evacuation of 40,000 inhabitants from the region,32 all living in garrison cities, following the government’s guidelines. In reality, when the military gained the power on the 23 May 1915, about 75,000 Italian-speaking citizens of South Tyrol were quickly and compulsory deported;33 even though they were not all living along the front or in garrison cities, they were considered potential traitors and therefore expelled from the ‘war zone’.34

Displacement and Division When the war began, the Austrian Home Ministry did not elaborate a plan for the evacuation of refugees, assuming that the conflict would be short and successful. In September 1914, however, hundreds of thousands of people were leaving Galicia and Bukovina, seeking refuge in the big cities of the Empire, often showing signs of desperate sanitary and nutritional conditions.35 Given that the first evacuations were ordered by the military fighting on the Eastern Front – without having previously informed the Home Ministry – and that many Jews scared of pogroms fled autonomously towards the western regions,36 the civil authorities were quickly forced to adopt a displacement programme to deal with this unexpected issue. In September 1914, most refugees were Jews and Ukrainians and the Austrian government organised a conference to draw up the guidelines for their relocation.37 This programme had two main goals: firstly, to avoid refugees upsetting the local civilian population, which at that point still believed in a rapid victory in the war and which, mainly in the German-speaking regions, was anti-Semitic and vehemently patriotic; and secondly, to control the refugees, since they were considered Russophiles or a threat to local public health.38 The decisions taken during the conference became the basic rules governing the displacement of refugees until the summer 1917. By this means, indigent refugees were forbidden to stay in big cities, such as Vienna, since the situation there was already troubling. Furthermore, sorting points (Perlustrierungstationen)39 were set up along the main train lines, where refugees were divided into national, religious and income groups.

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Moreover, all the indigent refugees were sent to a few internal regions (Bohemia, Moravia, Upper and Lower Austria, Styria and Carinthia). They could not leave their displacement village or camp without permission and their behaviour was controlled through police measures or censorship. The wealthiest refugees could choose their destination independently, but they were controlled.40 The fate of the refugees was also decided in the sorting stations. All those unable to work, due either to having a great many children, illness or age, and all those who were deemed to pose a threat to public health, order or morals were sent to internment camps,41 where they lived in alarming hygiene and food supply conditions.42 All the others were sent to small villages – whose inhabitants spoke what was, for refugees, a foreign language. Here, they accounted for no more than the 2 per cent of the local population,43 were subject to strict controls44 and implicitly forced to work to survive, since the state subvention for the refugees was inadequate for subsistence.45 Moreover, those who refused a job offer could be dispatched to the internment camps, where living conditions were even worse.46 The relocation throughout the Empire was organised as follows. The Jews were deported to Bohemia, Moravia and Upper and Lower Austria, and internment camps were created for them in Moravia (Nikolsburg, Gaya, Pohrlitz) and Bohemia (Deutschbrod). The Ukrainians were relocated to Lower Austria, Tyrol and Carinthia – as far as possible from the Eastern Front – or to the internment camps of Gmu¨nd (Lower Austria), Wolfsberg and St Andra¨ (Carinthia). The Poles were moved to Bohemia, Moravia and in the internment camps of Chotzen (Bohemia) and Wagna (Steiermark, only until summer 1915). The Italians were deported to Hungary (only until autumn 1915), Bohemia, Moravia and Upper and Lower Austria, and internment camps were created for them in Potterndorf and Mittendorf (Lower Austria), Braunau am Inn (Upper Austria) and Wagna (Steiermark, after Autumn 1915) – that is, far away from the Southern Front, as with the displacement of Ukrainians. Finally, the Slovenians were moved to Moravia and the internment camp of Steinklamm (Lower Austria) and the Croatians to the internment camp in Gmu¨nd (Lower Austria).47 In this context, the relocation policy adopted by the Austrian Home Ministry perfectly reflects the rationale of the evacuations, which exceeded purely military considerations. This is made clear by

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the use of the internment camps as the turning-point of the whole displacement policy. Firstly, the decision to create internment camps for the Italian and Ukrainian upper class and internment camps for indigent refugees reveals the fear of the Austrian authorities – both military and political – of the potential political untrustworthiness of the population living near the front and speaking the same language as the enemy.48 For example, a barbed-wire fence enclosed the internment camp of Braunau am Inn, designed for Italian-speaking refugees; at the same time, the camp for Russian POWs located nearby had no fence.49 Secondly, the camps were used as an instrument to control the movements of the refugees, who implicitly lost their citizenship rights, could not move freely in the internal regions of the Empire and were subject to state control and forced labour.50 Thirdly, the internment camps played a role in controlling the ethnic minorities who fled or were deported to the internal regions of the Empire, having out a punitive role in case of behaviour supposed to be dangerous for the public order.51 Fourthly, the refugees were brought to the most productive areas of the state: those who could work were moved to villages to work on farms or to industrial areas; those unable to work were detained in internment camps, where internal factories and farms were organised to exploit the marginal labour of women, the elderly and children.52 The decision to use the camps as a temporary solution to resolve the overpopulation emergency of autumn 1914 can explain only in part the reasons of their creation. When Italy attacked the Austrian Empire and the Italian- Slovenian- and Croatian-speaking populations of the Southern Front were evacuated, the government had known for months that about 100,000 civilians would have to be moved to the interior,53 and had had enough time to find a different solution to the problem. However, it preferred to adopt the same plan as that elaborated for the Ukrainians, the Jews and the Poles – the use of internment camps54 – even though that plan was more expensive than the displacement in villages 55 and the terrible hygienic conditions of the camps were well known. In conclusion, the displacement policy applied to the refugees replicates the reasons for their evacuation. If the military reasons had really been the main explanation for the expulsion from the ‘war zone’, there would have been no reason to create a strong control system characterised by internment camps to monitor the ethnic minorities in

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the interior and to exploit their workforce for the war effort intensely. The potential political untrustworthiness of citizens living near the borders emerges from this as the key to understanding the escalation of evacuations from the Eastern and Southern Fronts and as one of the main elements in understanding the evacuation and deportation policies adopted both by the army and by the Austrian Home Ministry.

Life in the Interior, Citizenship Rights and Intercourse with the Local Population Since in December 1914 the enemy was occupying the eastern regions of the state and the repatriation of the refugees could not take place soon, the Austrian Home Ministry decided to manage the presence of the refugees in the interior regions, subsidising them and taking advantage of their labour.56 Those who were granted state subventions had to live in the regions indicated by the State and in some cases they could be brought to internment camps. In either case, they automatically lost some citizenship rights, such as freedom of movement. In exchange, the State subsidised those living in villages and provided those in internment camps with food and clothes.57 At the same time, the authorities tried to organise a functioning child, health and religious welfare system, with the twofold aim of improving the refugees’ living conditions and of exploiting their work as much as possible. For example, relieving women of taking care of children through the creation of schools and nurseries, the State enabled them to work in internal factories built in internment camps.58 Moreover, the internment camps became an Arbeitreservoir, that is, an employment bureau for refugees, where the employers could find a cheap work force for summer field work or for public works.59 The fact that the refugees’ subventions, welfare payments and the accounting of internment camps had to be paid through a balance sheet item called ‘State security’60 confirms that fear of the untrustworthiness of these people played a role in their management. In fact, in spite of the efforts of the government to improve their living conditions, refugees were included legally in the category of the people considered ‘dangerous for the State’.61 The State, and particularly the Home Ministry, after winter 1914 –15 made a great financial effort to exploit the presence of the refugees in the

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most productive regions of the state, and also to enhance their living conditions,62 often helped by private welfare associations.63 Nevertheless, the displaced populations lived for years under the subsistence level and in a context of difficulty and discrimination. Moreover, at least until Summer 1917, the initial prejudice towards refugees influenced all the actions of lower state authorities, which treated them as dangerous elements.64 Some diaries and letters of complaint describe the refugees’ conditions and their treatment. For example, almost all refugees were transported to the interior in stock-cars; they could not leave the trains, they were often put up in fields or ‘wood cities’ surrounded by barbed wire fences and they were controlled by soldiers.65 If they denounced abuses or irregularities, they were brought to internment camps,66 where their living conditions were often comparable to imprisonment. Moreover, the accusation of disloyalty affected them every day, even though their men and sons were fighting in the Austrian Army against Russia, Italy and Serbia.67 The relationship with the local population was often difficult too. The population was influenced by the feeling that dangerous elements were hidden among the refugees, since they were controlled by soldiers or police.68 Above all, living together was problematic because of national and religious prejudices. The situation of Vienna is a good case study: the Jews who fled there were gradually expelled, because they were not generally accepted.69 Moreover, the refugees became quickly competitors in the labour market and unwanted guests, and this emerged clearly when the lack of food and goods became an everyday problem in the interior of the Empire. When the government selected the displacement areas for the refugees, almost all the local authorities refused to accommodate them, attempting to prevent their deportation on different grounds, such as lack of food or housing, fear of inflation and inappropriate weather conditions.70 After the arrival of the refugees, the local authorities often tried to expel them to internment camps71 or, when the internal situation of the Empire got worse, to repatriate them to their home regions, even though they had no right to do that.72 This happened mostly in the German-speaking regions of the Empire (Lower and Upper Austria, Silesia, Styria). However, the same trend can be found in Bohemia and Moravia after autumn 1917, when primary goods became

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hard to find and the refugees – particularly the Jews – were expelled and forced to return home.73

Repatriations and New National States The decision to evacuate so many people from the border regions thus caused problems in the interior, particularly when shortages of food and basic necessities developed. The government tried therefore to repatriate as many refugees as possible, once the Austrian Army reconquered part of state territory after spring 1915 (western Galicia), since the refugees represented a troublesome element for the internal front and for the local population.74 This policy, however, collided with the plans of the army, which did not accept a population it deemed ‘unfit for work’ and ‘politically untrustworthy’75 close to the front. A compromise was found dividing all the reconquered regions in three different areas, designed as A, B and C. Refugees could return to A areas, which had not suffered destruction; to B areas, which had been moderately devastated, only those ‘able to work and loyal’ could return; while repatriation to C areas, which were completely destroyed or near the battle front, was forbidden.76 These guidelines, conceived in autumn 1915 for western Galicia, became the rule for all the following repatriations. This means that as early as possible the majority of Polish refugees from Cracow and western Galicia could return home. The same rules were applied to the Jews and Ukrainians from eastern Galicia, who were able to return until 1916 – before the Brusilov offensive – and after 1917. Finally, Italian and Slovenian refugees of the Isonzo valley went home too after the victorious battle of Caporetto in October – November 1917.77 It is, however, worth underlining how these rules often resulted in forced expulsions and repatriations. For example, many villages of western and eastern Galicia, as well as the Isonzo Valley, had been totally destroyed after the battles of 1914–15 and 1916, and they were classified by the government as B or C areas. 78 Nevertheless the local Austrian authorities often expelled refugees hailing from these areas, seeing the repatriation rules as an opportunity to relieve themselves of this burden.79 The result is that the refugees were often returned to their former villages, where they had to survive in a devastated land without state welfare.80

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Although the Home Ministry tried to repatriate as many refugees as possible, particularly after a new refugee law promulgated in December 1917, more than 300,000 of them could not be repatriated until the November 1918.81 This meant that after the armistice they were not subsidised by the Austrian State,82 because they were no longer considered citizens of the new Austrian Republic. The new national states born after the fall of the Habsburg Empire took responsibility for many of them and organised some repatriation plans, which came to end in spring 1919.83 Jewish refugees in the territory of the Austrian Republic became instead an internal problem,84 since they decided to remain there to avoid the pogroms and the battles which broke out in 1918 – 19 in Ukraine, Poland and Russia.85 Therefore, even in the repatriation policy, the perception of the potential ‘untrustworthiness’ of the refugees played a central role. It is clear both in the decision to repatriate to border areas – such as B areas – only ‘loyal elements’ and in the drive to expel the unwanted guests quickly from the interior – even though they hailed from totally devastated regions.

Conclusion In conclusion, the war experience of refugees is characterised by the presence of prejudice and discrimination from the moment of their evacuation until their repatriation. The efforts of the Home Ministry, of many charitable associations and of some local authorities to enhance the refugees’ living conditions did not outweigh the perception of them as citizens without rights, to be treated as objects to administration and to exploitation, while their men and sons were fighting and dying for the Austrian Army. Military reasons play a significant role in explaining why some of the refugees were evacuated. However, most of the expulsions ordered outside the garrison cities and far from the front line find their ultimate reason in the overrated fear of the ‘untrustworthiness’ of the civilian population who spoke the same language as the enemy and this assumption characterised the whole displacement and reception policy. Therefore, this war experience, as well as the inability of the Austrian authorities to guarantee a minimum level of civil rights, played a significant role in the process of disintegration of the Habsburg Empire

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and in the erosion of the refugees’ loyalty to the State. It is not surprising, therefore, that this issue became part of the foundation-myth of the new nations born after the collapse of Austria–Hungary. Moreover, it comes as no surprise to us to learn that in the 1920s and 1930s only Italian, Polish and Ukrainian historiography dealt – often uncritically – with this theme, while Austrian historians have only recently analysed these issues and the difficult relationship between military and political authorities.

CHAPTER 4 ITALIAN—AUSTRIAN PRISONERS OF WAR AND ITALIAN POLITICAL AND MILITARY INVOLVEMENT IN THE EASTERN FRONT DURING WORLD WAR I Alessandro Salvador

Introduction1 The general mobilisation of the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Army involved a small minority of Italian-speaking citizens of the Empire. The Austrian part of the Empire included two small regions mostly inhabited by Italians: Trentino and its main city Trento and the Venezia Giulia with the strategic port of Trieste. Both the main cities and surrounding areas were claimed by Italian nationalists who wanted to complete the national unification started in the nineteenth century by annexing them. Even though Austria-Hungary and Italy had been allies since 1898, there were constant tensions about these areas. The region of Trentino witnessed the construction of impressive fortifications on both sides of the border that would later prove useless for war purposes but at the same time showed how fragile the alliance between the two countries was.2 During the war, the Imperial Army mobilised an estimated 80,000 Italians, combining those enlisted in Trentino and in

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Venezia Giulia.3 During the first year of the war, when Italy was neutral, the mobilisation of these men was a source of tension. First, Italian nationalists living in Austria decided to decamp and a few thousand of them managed to avoid compulsory military service and later served in the Italian Army. Secondly, nationalist propaganda attempted to popularise the idea that those fighting in the Imperial Army were victims of the Austrian tyranny and should be liberated. These arguments about Italian soldiers and civilians living under the Empire nourished irredentist and interventionist propaganda. With the beginning of the war and the uncertain position of Italy, the presence of Italian soldiers in the Imperial Army was considered a liability by the Habsburg military authorities. The risk of an attack from the southern border and the possibility of desertions or sabotage were considered realistic. Therefore, Italians were deployed to the Eastern Front, instead of the Balkans. As result of the first clashes in Galicia and the initial advance of the Russian Army, a substantial number of Austro-Hungarian soldiers ended up as prisoners in Russia, among them thousands of Italians. The existing literature about the Italian prisoners of the Royal-Imperial Army has focused mostly on personal writings such as letters and diaries. Italian historiography has rarely challenged administrative sources or foreign literature on the topic.4 This chapter will represent a first attempt to deal with the problem from the point of view of the Italian government, focusing on the efforts to find and repatriate Italian prisoners in Russia efficiently. It will also deal with the general context of Russia during and after World War I, giving specific attention to the events of the Civil War and the international intervention and how this affected the Italian operations in the Russian and Far East regions.

The Exploitation of POWs’ Nationalities in Russia National identity played a crucial role in the fate of many war prisoners during World War I. The Central Powers, for instance, exchanged prisoners of different nationalities for different purposes. As Reinhard Nachtigal has argued, the German government handed over French prisoners to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, believing that, as Austria did not have any common front with France, the French prisoners might prove useful as hostages. The same happened with Italian prisoners

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captured during the Austrian offensive in South Tyrol and Trentino in 1916 that were handed over to Germany. Following the principle of using national or even religious identity, Germany sent to the Ottoman Empire Muslim prisoners from Russia or from the Entente.5 The situation of prisoners in Russia was difficult from the very beginning. During the first phase of the war, the Tsarist Army took thousands of prisoners and their number grew rapidly in its first months. The Eastern Front was mobile and dynamic, and many soldiers were captured on both sides. The Russian government did not have the resources to host and manage all those prisoners. Thus, they started to adapt farms, old factories, theatres and even private houses as prisoners’ facilities.6 To help to overcome the difficulties of hosting many prisoners, the Russians started to exploit them for military or political aims, dividing them according to their nationality. The Tsarist authorities generally categorised POWs as Slavs, Germans, Italians, Romanians and Hungarians. Usually, Germans were sent to the eastern regions of the Empire. However, especially in the case of AustroHungarian POWs, distinguishing between nationalities was a difficult task and the authorities mostly relied on prisoners’ own statements. These declarations, however, were affected by prisoners’ ability to discern which nationality might give them more advantages.7 Despite the difficulties and the sometimes troublesome differences between nationalities, the Russians used prisoners’ nationalities to a wider extent than any other belligerent power. The Russian government even used prisoners for combat, notwithstanding the violation of the international law implied by this strategy. A very famous example is that of the Czechoslovak nationals, who were asked to fight for the Russian Army and, eventually, constituted an autonomous unit within it.8 The issue of Italian-speaking POWs was far more complicated even though they represented a small minority of all POWs. First, they did not belong to an ‘oppressed’ nationality of the Austro-Hungarian Empire striving for national emancipation, but rather represented a language minority within the Austrian population. The Italian claims over their regions were supported by some of the Italian-speaking Austrian population but this represented a minority of the soldiers and the argument of national emancipation proved insufficient for POWs to switch allegiance. Furthermore, the Russian authorities did not initially distinguish them from Austrian Germans and sent them to

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prisoner-of-war camps in the eastern part of Russia. Later, Russians thought they could be used to push the Italian government into the war. In late 1914, Russian delegates in Italy offered to free Italian prisoners, thus acknowledging Italian claims over Trento and Trieste. The first person to take interest in this offer was a noblewoman from Trentino, Marquise Gemma Guerrieri Gonzaga. She contacted the Russian delegates and started to use her contacts in Italian politics to raise the question at a national level.9 However, the Russians’ attempt to use the POWs and nationalism proved insufficient to propel Italy into the war. Unlike the South Slavs, who also aspired to independence from Austria-Hungary and who were eventually willing to cooperate with Russians and Serbians, dealing with an established European power was more complicated. Initially, the Italian government did not want to risk the deterioration of the relationship with AustriaHungary by taking any initiative about the prisoners during peacetime. Only after May 1915 and the declaration of war was rescuing Italian-speaking POWs from Russian captivity considered an important propaganda move. Eventually, the Italian and Russian governments signed an agreement about the POWs only after Italy entered the war. The agreement allowed Italian-speaking prisoners to choose Italian citizenship and, consequently, freedom.10 Far from being that simple, however, the agreement raised a considerable number of political issues that involved the Italian government for years and led to greater Italian political and military involvement in the Eastern Front and Russian questions than expected.

The First Repatriations: the ‘Good Patriots’ Bringing the Italian prisoners back home was an important, yet complicated, political question. Irredentism and nationalism were the main reasons the Italian government allegedly entered the war. Interventionist propaganda made a huge effort to spread the calls for the liberation of Trento and Trieste from Austro-Hungarian oppression. Nationalists, on both sides of the border, held that every Italianspeaking person under Austria was willing to join the motherland. Only a minority of politically involved people, however, shared this view. Even the Italian government, keen to use these arguments for propaganda, was aware that most of the Italians in the Habsburg Empire

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were neutral on nationality issues. A significant minority was even hostile to the possibility of rule by Italy. The Italian government and the military command were also conscious that taking care of war prisoners from an enemy army represented a serious political issue. Though they also sought a rapid resolution of the problem, the political and military actors analysed the situation carefully. Thus, they eventually came into conflict to some extent with nationalist and irredentist circles.11 Irredentists warmly welcomed the agreement between Russia and Italy and professed their certainty that thousands of prisoners would be willing to accept Italian citizenship and contribute to the war effort against Austria. The situation, however, was not that simple. The first delegation sent by the Italian consulate in Petrograd to the POW camps was not met with the enthusiastic patriotism they expected and had to face the difficult situation of the Italian prisoners, who were dispersed among many camps and were mostly diffident about their new prospective homeland.12 The Italian authorities also appeared doubtful about the idea of employing Austro–Italians for war duties. There were many reasons for this, the first being the POWs’ ambiguous national sentiment. Furthermore, there were political reasons that discouraged the use of former prisoners in battle, as it might have violated international agreements and provoked diplomatic reaction from Austria-Hungary. Finally, there was also a humanitarian aspect, because the families of the soldiers, who were still living in Austria-Hungary, might have been subject to retaliation.13 Once Italy and Russia agreed on the prisoners’ repatriation, the Italians should have been concentrated in a POW camp near Tambov, in the European Russia, in the small town of Kirsanov. There, the Italian consulate in Petrograd sent a first mission to visit them and ask for volunteers for repatriation to Italy. The response was not as enthusiastic as expected and, apart from strong irredentists, most of the prisoners did not trust the offer of liberation, mostly because they were afraid of being sent to the front again. Moreover, many believed that the Central Powers were winning the war and did not want to end up on the wrong side.14 In fact, most of the prisoners reacted to the Italian offer opportunistically, considering whether or not it would work to their benefit personally. After several attempts, around 4,400 prisoners decided to take their chances by going to Italy. In 1916, the mission

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repatriated them via Archangel, England and France. However, irredentists in Italy were disappointed, as they were fostering the idea of new Italians fighting to redeem their land, while all these prisoners accepted liberation only after being assured that they did not have any military duty to discharge. After the first wave of repatriation, thousands other prisoners waited in Kirsanov for a new expedition.15 The Italian government and public opinion warmly welcomed the former prisoners from Russia. Of the thousands in the POW camps, the first to be repatriated were considered the most politically and patriotically reliable and thus useful in terms of propaganda. The warm welcome, however, did not help to overcome the logistic issues of hosting thousands of refugees, as their homes still lay in enemy territory. They lived in temporary accommodation in Milan and Turin and, while able to look for work, in fact remained dependent on the Italian authorities for assistance until the end of the war. Nonetheless, the whole operation was a success and there was great enthusiasm for getting all the prisoners back from Russia.16 Unfortunately, the Italian authorities disagreed on how to effect repatriation. The War Minister and the High Command supported the idea of repatriating all the prisoners, whatever their patriotic feelings. The plan was to distinguish between reliable and unreliable prisoners only after their arrival in Italy.17 The main concern of the War Minister was to show that there were many thousands of them for propaganda purposes. The Foreign Minister, however, considered that repatriating only the ‘good patriots’ first and leaving in Russia the ‘unreliable elements’ was a safer way to proceed.18 In the end, these disagreements were overtaken by events on the ground, as the situation in Russia grew increasingly difficult and the outbreak of the revolution made the scenario even worse. The capacity of the commanding officers in Russia to be autonomous and resourceful in that situation became determinant.

Italian POWs in the Russian Civil War Immediately after the first 4,400 prisoners started their journey back from Archangel, another 2,000 were already waiting for their ships home. However, the onset of winter and the lack of available transport delayed their departure and forced them back to Kirsanov. Following that, the outbreak of revolution made the way to Archangel too

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dangerous and forced the leader of the Italian mission, Captain Cosma Manera, to find an alternative way out of Russia. He decided to move the prisoners along the Trans-Siberian railway to reach the Italian military outpost of Tien Tsin, in China, where onward transportation could be organised.19 However, the revolution also changed the relationship between Italy and Russia. As soon as Bolshevik power was established, the agreements signed by the Tsar lost their validity and the Treaty of Brest–Litovsk endangered the position of the Italian prisoners. In fact, they were no longer considered separately from their Austrian counterparts and were sent back to Vienna.20 Generally speaking, the conditions of POWs during the revolution and the Civil War were confused and dramatic. According with Rachamimov, 430,000 prisoners of the Central Powers found themselves in Siberia and Turkestan during the Civil War. They were free, but usually could not properly provide for their living and accommodation needs.21 The return of Russian soldiers from the front and the need to employ them in civilian production caused around 600,000 POWs employed in the Russian farms and factories to lose their jobs. These prisoners found themselves in a limbo between freedom and captivity. They were allowed to leave the country but at the same time they did not have the means to do that.22 The Brest– Litovsk agreement not only resulted in a chaotic situation for the POWs, but also had a massive impact in the Entente’s war conduct. Germany, following the treaty, gained access to Russian resources in the Caucasus. German and Habsburg policy-makers already supported nationalist claims of the minorities in southern Russia and tried to expand their sphere of influence. According to intelligence reports, furthermore, the Bolsheviks were arming the former prisoners. In addition, the Entente had deployed a huge quantity of weapons and military supplies in different Russian ports to support the Tsarist Army. Now, however, those supplies were abandoned and could be captured by the enemy.23 The British government intervened directly in the Russian Civil War to protect the supply depots from falling into the hands of the Habsburgs and Germans, protect the Entente’s citizens in Russia and help restore the order. However, the situation escalated into international intervention in the Russian Civil War with the clear intent of helping counter-revolutionary and Tsarist forces to fight back the Bolsheviks and restore the Eastern Front. Notwithstanding that, the

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intervention continued after the armistice in November 1918 and clearly assumed the role of an international anti-Bolshevik alliance.24 Italy also joined the international effort by using its already-existing military mission in Russia to coordinate the deployment of Italian troops in the former Tsarist Empire. In July 1918, an expeditionary corps of 1,500 soldiers and 50 officers left Italy for Siberia.25 This expedition was controlled by the Minister of War and, apparently, was unaware of the presence in Russia of the mission to repatriate the former Austro-Hungarian prisoners organised by the Foreign Minister led, as we saw, by Cosma Manera. Allegedly, the commander of the expeditionary corps, Edoardo Fassini-Camossi, was informed only in Quingdao that an unestimated number of former prisoners was located in Tien Tsin. He decided to move there and enlist those who were able to serve in the army. Despite the presence of more than a thousand prisoners, Fassini-Camossi left Tien Tsin with only 300 more soldiers.26 Some of the remaining prisoners were repatriated, while Manera decided to move to Vladivostok, where the international forces were establishing their headquarters for operations in Siberia. He also thought that in the Siberian port it would be easier to repatriate the majority of the prisoners.27 By November 1918, as the war in Europe ended, Siberia was hosting several international expeditionary forces helping the White generals to counter-attack and defeat the Bolsheviks. Japanese General Otani Kikuzo, with 72,400 men in the field, took the command of the multinational forces. They were joined by American, British, French and Czech troops.28 Once in Vladivostok, Manera reorganised his mission. He established his headquarters, provided training for his ex-prisoners and used them for logistical and military support for the international forces and the Italian expeditionary forces. He also sent officers to POW camps and elsewhere deep in Russian territory to find as many displaced prisoners as possible and re-route them to Vladivostok.29 Initially, however, the repatriation of POWs seemed to be his last concern. This was, probably, for both political and ideological reasons. Already after Brest – Litovsk, the Central Powers were concerned about the repatriation of their prisoners from Russia. The Austrian Intelligence service feared that they might be affected by the ‘bacillus of Bolshevism’. Therefore, from the winter of 1917, restrictive policies were implemented towards soldiers returning from Russia. Besides, many POWs were at the origin of massive mutinies within the Imperial Army

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(although these were not inspired by the aim of socialist revolution).30 Similar concerns about the political reliability of prisoners returning from Russia were shared by the Italian government.31 Thus, Manera adopted some measures to ensure that only trustworthy men would be sent to Italy.

The Legione Redenta (Redeemed Legion) in Siberia and Concerns in Italy The first sign that Manera’s mission was assuming a higher ideological goal was its denomination. Manera called his small troop Legione Redenta di Siberia. The raison d’eˆtre of the unit was self-explanatory, as Redenta implied the concept of ‘redemption’. Manera thought that his role was no longer to collect and repatriate Italian prisoners, but also to be sure they will become loyal citizens. The prisoners who had recently arrived in Vladivostok were, in fact, not at all like the ‘true patriots’ who had already returned to in Italy. There now remained only the undecided, the ‘Austrians’, the opportunists looking for a way out of the hell of revolutionary Russia. Furthermore, as the Russian government collapsed, they were left alone, neglected and in touch with the revolutionary elements. According to Manera, these people were the worst possible and could not be sent to Italy without a period of reeducation, in which they had to learn how to care for themselves and their comrades, to respect authority and discipline and to serve their new motherland. In other words, they needed a period of ‘redemption’.32 The end of the war in Europe, meanwhile, partially changed the mission of Manera and the role of the Italian expeditionary corps in Russia. The Italian government now occupied the regions of Trentino and Venezia Giulia, where most of the former prisoners displaced in Russia came from. In both regions, a provisional military government was established, which a year later slowly handed power over to a civilian commissioner, who had, inter alia, to manage the demobilisation of former Austrian soldiers.33 Although soldiers who were demobilised normally and the POWs in Europe did not represent a major issue, the problem of allegedly 20,000 prisoners still in Russia became a sharp political argument between the central State and the local authorities and organisations. In Venezia Giulia, the civilian commissioner and the military governor took over all operations

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concerning the demobilisation of former Austrian soldiers and gendarmes. In Trentino, most of the responsibility for demobilisation, especially the problem of social and economic assistance for former POWs, was delegated to the veterans’ organisation Legione Trentina, which was made up of the soldiers from Trentino who had deserted from Austria and enlisted in the Italian Army before and during the war. A similar organisation existed in Venezia Giulia but, according to known sources, it does not seem to have had the same relevance and operational capacity as that in Trentino.34 In the immediate postwar period, demobilised Austrian officials and gendarmes were temporarily imprisoned until they were no longer considered a political threat. For common soldiers, the situation was more complicated. Most of them could simply return to their homes, once the Italian authorities relieved them from any military duty and eventually assigned them some economic help. However, any former soldier of the Austrian Army who surrendered to the Italian Army in any theatre of war was considered a POW, including those belonging to newly acquired Italian territories, and their liberation took another couple of years.35 This broadly applied to the former POWs in Russia also. Once they were located and brought to Vladivostok, they had to pass a first selection. Only sick, wounded or absolutely trustworthy people could travel to Italy directly. Manera took his mission very seriously and sent monthly reports on how many former prisoners his officers found and brought to the Legione. He usually sent two lists each month, one of those former POWs whom he considered it possible to repatriate as soon as possible and another of those who needed to be made fit for repatriation to Italy. With the passing of time, the lists of the unfit, usually longer than the others, shortened and, after the first months, there were always fewer people kept in Russia for re-education.36 In the new Italian provinces, people and organisations grew upset with the delays in the return of the prisoners. War in Europe was over and awareness of what was happening in Russia and how the Italian government was involved was low. Even lower was the understanding of the role of the former Austrian prisoners in the Russian crisis. Pressure from public opinion and local authorities certainly influenced the changing attitude of Manera and, during the second year of his mission, he denied immediate repatriation to only a minority of prisoners.37

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While in Russia, the former prisoners were subject to patriotic propaganda. This started in 1916, when the prisoners in Kirsanov published a short newsletter in Italian, thanks to the financial and technical support of the Italian mission. In Vladivostok things were different, because of the poor conditions of many prisoners, but Manera thought he could increase their patriotic attitude through hard work and severe discipline. The prisoners were subject to military discipline, physical exercise and work. Most of the work was to maintain the mission. The prisoners also provided logistical support to the Italian and international expeditionary forces. Road works, house-building and, in certain cases, guard service for weapon and supply storehouses were the most common jobs that the Legione rendered to the actual military troops.38 A significant number of prisoners, around 1,600, served in the military expeditionary corps and became fully integrated into the Italian Army. The main role of the Italian troops was to guard a part of the Trans-Siberian Railway and protect it from the Bolsheviks. The actual operational effectiveness of the Italian Army in Siberia was very low but it had an important symbolic value, as all these former Austrian soldiers, whether they were in the Italian Army or in the Legione Redenta, were trying to gain the right to become citizens of their new country and to be trusted by their new government.

The Difficult Return: Missing People and Further Rescue Missions By 1920, the Italian commitment in Russia was no longer necessary. The Bolshevik forces won the Civil War and the international troops were demobilised. The Legione Redenta in Vladivostok was dismantled and, except some officers, all military and civilian personnel were repatriated, while the British consulate had duty of assisting any other former Italian POWs who reached the city thereafter. With the arrival of the last ships from the Far East, the controversy about how Manera had conducted the mission and how the government treated the former prisoners began.39 Manera in particular was accused by the local authorities and the press in Trentino of having deliberately delayed the return of the prisoners. The delays could be partially justified by the difficult situation in Siberia. However, the personal attitude of Manera also played a role.

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As already explained, the former prisoners in Vladivostok were divided into those who were deemed reliable and those who needed reeducation. However, for the former, the return home was not always easy. Most of them had to face some months of detention in Italy. The authorities feared those returning from Russia because of the contacts they had with the ideas and people of the revolution. Once the Brest– Litovsk agreement was signed and thousands of prisoners came back to Austria, the Italian information services observed that they proved to be a liability for public safety. Therefore, the arrival in Italy from Russia of thousands of former POWs, who were even not Italian to start with, was observed with concern by the authorities.40 On the other hand, local authorities and organisations generally claimed that the returning prisoners were reliable and had the right to come back to civilian life. In Trentino, especially, the efforts of the Legione Trentina and the Associazione Reduci di Russia41 contributed greatly to the improvement of the living conditions in the Italian detention camps and to the safe and quick return home of the prisoners. The same happened in Venezia Giulia with the help of local organisations and committees, while the governmental authorities adopted a more rigid approach because of the additional risk of Slavic nationalism. In his final report, Manera explained that everything possible was done to allow as many POWs as possible to come back to Italy. He justified the delays and POWs’ difficult situation and defended his idea that only through hard patriotic work were they finally able to become new citizens. He also pointed out that the revolution changed the diplomatic background and that the attempt to find the POWs after 1917, in the absence of formal diplomatic relations between Italy and Russia, involved great risks for the Italian personnel involved. At the end of the mission, the total number of prisoners repatriated was around 11,000.42 The Legione Trentina, however, provided evidence of several thousand other prisoners still displaced in Russia and, supported by local governmental authorities and veterans’ organisations, it promoted a new mission to Russia.43 The government in Rome, on the other hand, maintained a sceptical position about these claims and the Foreign Minister especially expressed irritation with the criticism of Manera’s work. Therefore, while the organisations in Trentino promoted a civilian mission, strongly opposing any further military involvement, the government sent Manera again on a new mission to Turkestan. The initial plan was to establish a

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base in Tbilisi and then move to Russian territory to look after other displaced Italians.44 Manera’s thoughts about the worsening of ItalianRussian relations, however, proved to be correct and, after a few months, the mission was cancelled because of the impossibility of entering Sovietcontrolled territory. 45 This revived the idea of a civilian mission again. However, the optimism of the veterans’ organisations had to face the strong opposition of the Soviet authorities, which wanted to use their approval as leverage on the Italian government to obtain commercial agreements and the mitigation of anti-socialist measures that caused significant difficulties to Russian people living in Italy.46 Because of the complicated diplomatic situation, the Italian government did not trust the idea of sending a civilian-controlled mission to Russia with its official approval. The Minister of War also maintained that only military personnel had the authority and discipline to deal with people who were living in Russia for many years, probably in a difficult situation and in touch with revolutionary elements. Once again, the different views between local organisations and the central government prevented a rapid resolution of the problem, with diplomatic troubles worsening the situation.47 Eventually, the stalemate with Russia was resolved at the Rapallo conference, when the Soviet authorities agreed to an Italian mission alongside the commercial delegation that was to be established in Petrograd. The mistrust between the people of Trentino and the government, however, increased during the years that passed. Meanwhile, some hundreds of displaced Italians came home through the Austrian missions, which worked efficiently in Russia. This provoked tensions in the border areas, as the ability of the Austrians to bring people home, compared with the impotence of the Italian government, nourished an increasing Pan-German propaganda.48 When, finally, the civilian mission was approved, it was then cancelled by the newly nominated chief of government, Benito Mussolini. Mussolini thought that, after so many years, the chance of finding hundreds of displaced Italians in Soviet Russia was insignificant and did not justify the economic effort. This put a temporary end to any other effort on this direction.49

Conclusion The results of this first evaluation and analysis of governmental sources on the attitude of the Italian government to Italian-speaking POWs of

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the Austro-Hungarian Army in Russia and its involvement in the Civil War after 1917 shed light both on Italian history and more generally on the problem posed by POWs for multinational armies. Italy was particularly concerned to rescue POWS from regions they claimed, mostly for propagandistic and nationalistic purposes. However, unlike irredentist propaganda, the government and the military authorities were aware of the concerns about the loyalty to Italy of these soldiers. At the same time, the Italians did not share the enthusiasm of the Russians for deploying these former POWs in the war effort. It must be observed that the numbers involved were so small, that their mobilisation in the Italian Army would have not affected the conduct of the war. There is also no evidence on the part of the Italians, unlike the Austro-Hungarian authorities, of a systematic attempt by Italy to obtain information or intelligence from the ex-POWS.50 The Italians treated the POWs from Russia neither as enemies nor as allies. The Italian rescue missions remained in the field of the humanitarian intervention and only later on the former POWs participated to some extent in the war effort by joining the expeditionary corps in the Far East or by providing it with support through the work of the Legione Redenta. This, however, appeared to be more a way to ‘redeem’ themselves to be true Italians, rather than being a strategic need. The history of the Italian-speaking POWs is a sort of a background noise in the Italian grand strategy, for which World War I represented far more than the attempt to achieve national unification and was rather part of a path that should have brought Italy to be accepted as a major European power. The requests of the London Treaty in 1915 included far more than the national emancipation of Trento and Trieste and extended Italian war aims into obtaining a significant geopolitical role in the Mediterranean as well as important colonial gains in Africa and Central Asia. The intervention in Siberia, within the context of further operations in the former Ottoman Empire and in Turkestan, must be seen within this grand-strategy. The loyalty of former Austrian POWs to Italy is highly disputed and this article shows that for the Italian government this represented a secondary issue. Despite initial claims, the idea of liberating the ‘Italians of Austria’ and perhaps employing them at the front was always unrealistic. This marks the biggest difference between the Italian and other – restless – minorities in the Austro-Hungarian Army.

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Czechoslovak prisoners of war, for example, willingly participated in the war effort in the attempt to gain independence from the Habsburg Empire. Similar behaviour can be observed with the Serbian prisoners of the Austro-Hungarian Army at the beginning of the war, when they tried to reach the Balkans to fight. Thus, the case of the Italian-speaking POWs hardly concerns their actual self-understanding as AustroHungarians, Italians or, as it is argued by Simone Bellezza in this volume, their perception of belonging to a smaller motherland identified with their region and their towns. Unlike the Serbs, South Slavs and Czechoslovaks, they did not participate in a process of national liberation or independence but were mostly passive subjects partially involved in the role that Italy was trying to play in the international context. Finally, they became active subjects during the Russian revolution in an attempt to prove that they were finally worthy of belonging to the nation to which they had ascribed. On returning to their homes and villages, however, they had to face the mistrust of the authorities, who were afraid that they could spread the ‘germs’ of socialism. It was this condition of being under suspicion, apart from their former captivity, that they shared the most with all other components of the Austro-Hungarian Army that came back from Russia.

CHAPTER 5 VIOLENCE, DESTRUCTION AND RESISTANCE:SERBIA'S AND MONTENEGRO'S EXPERIENCES OF THE GREAT WAR Dmitar Tasic´

When the first reports of the Austro-Hungarian offensive against Serbia reached the general public in the West in the autumn of 1914, together with similar reports from Belgium, they revealed the violent and destructive nature of what would soon become a global conflict.1 Although the violent nature of the Austro-Hungarian campaign against Serbia had a pre-history and could be explained by the tense relations between the two states that culminated in the assassination of the Habsburg heir to the throne on 28 June 1914, the German invasion of neutral Belgium told a different story. These events are often seen as the start of the turbulent twentieth century, in which extreme violence and brutality became associated not only with the ‘distant and primitive’ Balkan states but with modern and developed European empires as well. During the first offensive against Serbia in August 1914 advancing Austro-Hungarian forces committed numerous acts of violence against local civilian population. The first atrocities happened in the regions of Macˇva and Pocerina in west Serbia, specifically in Sˇabac and the villages of Zavlaka, Prnjavor, Kijavica, Cikot, Petkovica and Lipolist.

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These were the first Serbian areas to experience the destructive nature of modern warfare. While the Danube monarchy was fighting Serbia, it had opened another, internal, front, where the enemy were Austro-Hungarian citizens, primarily Serbs, but also other South Slavs who embraced the Yugoslav idea. A variety of measures were introduced ranging from court martials and internment camps to the use of auxiliary-paramilitary formations that favoured one ethnic or religious group over another. The first Austro-Hungarian campaign against Serbia and Montenegro proved to be an utter failure. However, causalities on both sides were so high that in the following months the Balkan Front was quiet. By the end of 1915, as a result of German involvement in Balkan affairs the Central Powers managed to organise and conduct a successful tripartite offensive (German –Austro-Hungarian– Bulgarian) against Serbia and Montenegro, that resulted in the temporary defeat and occupation of both states. Besides typical occupation practices such as economic exploitation, requisitions and the plundering of artworks, Serbia under Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian occupation, and Montenegro under Austro-Hungarian occupation, were exposed to far more destructive policies of denationalisation. In addition, both AustriaHungary and Bulgaria in their respective occupation zones took advantage of existing Balkan rivalries favouring one national or religious group over another, thus deepening existing divisions and misunderstandings. Armed resistance was a long-established Balkan tradition for dealing with occupation and its associated oppression, economic exploitation and denationalisation. Regardless of whether it was limited to the actions of individuals and small groups, or amounted to massive uprisings with thousands of insurgents, active resistance always led to the introduction of new and more violent counter-insurgency measures. It also demanded the engagement of additional manpower that otherwise would have been used elsewhere. Thus, one kind of violence instigated more violence of a different kind and created a spiralling cycle of brutality. Moreover, the violence did not end on the day of the armistice, and like other parts of Europe, the Balkans continued to experience the brutality of the war and its effects well into the inter-war period, when Serbia and Montenegro became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

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The First Austro-Hungarian Campaign Against Serbia and Montenegro The Serbian military expected the Austro-Hungarian offensive to come form the north following the Morava and Kolubara river valleys, but in fact the first and subsequent Austro-Hungarian offensives in 1914 came from Bosnia and Herzegovina.2 This was done in order to use the already deployed commands and units efficiently, as well to prevent mutinous behaviour among Bosnian Serbs. Austro-Hungarian planning and initial actions underestimated their opponents. Although aware of Serbian and Montenegrin victories in the Balkan Wars, the Austro-Hungarian High Command considered them to be due to Ottoman numerical inferiority and poor combat readiness rather than the victors’ tenacity and skill and expected their campaign to be a punitive one and Serbia’s defeat to be a brief autumn stroll.3 Austro-Hungarian plans envisaged a quick victory over Serbia and Montenegro, leading to their occupation and military neutralisation, and freeing the Austro-Hungarian troops to be deployed against the Russian Empire. On 12 August 1914, once the Austro-Hungarian units crossed over the river Drina and started advancing, they immediately encountered resistance from the Serbian border troops and irregular detachments of chetniks.4 These troops had gained valuable experience during the years of numerous skirmishes with Bulgarian and Ottoman irregulars and they proved to be very effective against inexperienced imperial soldiers who had not smelled gunpowder for three generations.5 The ‘small war’ waged by Serbian irregulars greatly affected Austro-Hungarian morale and, combined with active anti-Serbian propaganda, created a perfect setting for acts of violence.6 Unlike their adversaries, who still had an outdated nineteenth-century understanding of war, the battle-hardened Serbian and Montenegrin soldiers were fully aware of the horrible effects of machine-gun fire and artillery barrages. Moreover, the AustroHungarian military still wore traditional blue uniforms, making their columns perfect targets for Serbian and Montenegrin artillery and snipers dressed in grey uniforms that perfectly blended in local surroundings. To sow confusion in enemy ranks Serbian chetniks were armed with the same Mannlicher repeating rifles used by the AustroHungarians. Because of its nineteenth century mindset, the Austro–Hungarian military was not prepared for the modern type of

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warfare it encountered in this theatre, with its variable and blurred frontlines, habitual use of irregular troops and unclear distinction between civilians and soldiers. To add to the confusion, only the firstline troops of the Serbian Army wore full uniforms. This, however, was due not to cunning tactics, but to the poor supply of uniforms, which left the second-liners in almost-complete uniforms and the third-liners (consisting of the oldest conscripts) in their civilian clothes, occasionally wearing official military hats.7 In such circumstances, the stipulations of the Hague Conventions (Section 1, On Belligerents) were interpreted rather differently by either side.8 From the Austro-Hungarian point of view, Serbian irregulars or chetniks, although protected by the Hague Conventions as militia or volunteers, did not ‘conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war’ (Section 1, Article 1, point 4). In fact, some of the irregulars’ actions in the enemy rear, for instance attacks on sentries, runners, patrols and transport units, left a bloody trail of mutilated bodies because of the widespread usage of knives among chetniks. Based on their appearance and the combination of army uniform and national costume that they wore, Serbian irregulars and third-line regular troops were considered civilians; therefore, in the Austro-Hungarian interpretation, they were not protected by the Conventions. That led to the situation where, often, if captured during combat, both Serbian irregulars and third-line soldiers were executed on the spot.9 In some instances fear of chetniks (Komitadji, – as Austro-Hungarians called them) caused Habsburg soldiers to panic, again resulting in violence. In one such instance, which eventually came before the Austrian courts after the war, retreating Austro-Hungarian soldiers executed some 150 civilians in a church courtyard in the town of Sˇabac in western Serbia.10 This followed the suffering inflicted on the town, when many of its 1,500 inhabitants, who had been taken hostage, died in captivity.11 However, already in late autumn 1914, the Austro-Hungarian authorities publicly justified their actions, in response to a series of articles by the Swiss criminologist Rudolphe Archibald Reiss in the Gazette de Lausanne detailing the effects of the Austro-Hungarian offensive.12 The Serbian government invited Reiss to conduct a professional criminal investigation, when it became aware of the extent of the atrocities committed by the Austro-Hungarian Army. Reiss did a very thorough job visiting and investigating crime scenes,

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photographing and documenting sites and, interviewing survivors, Austro-Hungarian POWs and members of the Serbian Army. According to Reiss, almost 1,400 civilians were killed by AustroHungarian troops during their campaign in west Serbia, including 994 men, 306 women and 87 children. In addition, 489 men, 73 women and 20 children were recorded missing. The Habsburg authorities responded that these people were killed either because they took up arms against the imperial troops, thus making themselves legitimate targets, or because they were taken hostage and shot on account of the local population’s hostile conduct.13 Reiss challenged these claims by analysing how exactly the victims were executed. It transpired that they were hanged, shot or bayoneted, which were certainly not the usual methods of dealing with peasant insurgents. One-third of all victims were bayoneted or clubbed to death by rifle butts. Some of them, 131 in total, were burned alive in their homes, or in one case in a local church. Eighty-two of the children killed were aged under ten, of whom eight were not even one year old.14 Reiss supported his analyses by invoking the sections of the Hague Conventions relating to reprisals and hostage taking, which explicitly banned the collective punishment of the population of a country for the acts of individuals.15 In addition, he interviewed many survivors who were wounded but not killed during the course of an execution, which suggested that many of the victims shot by the firing squads were actually only wounded and were then buried alive. Several instances of rape were also documented, while the actual number of rapes was probably higher as many of these cases were not reported; in rural Serbia, rape was considered shameful and it was concealed, as it constituted a serious obstacle to the marriage prospects of young women.16 Pillaging of both urban and rural settlements was widespread. Town shops as well as farming households, granaries and wine cellars were looted not only because soldiers were not regularly supplied but also because they were instructed or allowed to do so. Such places were regularly set on fire either by soldiers or by groups of Bosnian Muslims who followed army units for the purpose of pillaging and arson.17 Due to its geographical location, the Serbian capital Belgrade was extremely exposed to Austro-Hungarian artillery fire. Before its occupation in 1915 some 40 per cent of buildings had already been destroyed by artillery fire, while approximately 1,000 civilians had

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lost their lives. In 1918, when liberated, Belgrade looked like a skeletontown according to contemporary eyewitnesses.18 Just a few months after the beginning of the war, the total number of inhabitants dropped from 90,000 to only 8,000, while the west Serbian town of Valjevo witnessed an extreme decline from 10,000 to only 300 inhabitants by the end of 1914. In order to be saved the majority of their inhabitants were relocated to the countryside.19 However, for Serbia the end of the victorious 1914 campaign proved to be a prelude to a real catastrophe. In winter 1914/15 an epidemic of typhoid fever broke out causing additional causalities both among military and civilians. The precise number of dead has not been determined. It is estimated that of 400,000 infected, around 100,000 civilians and 35,000 soldiers died.20 Austro-Hungarian POWs experienced a high death toll as well. By the end of the epidemic, 20,000 were unaccounted for, leaving only 714 officers and 37,056 NCOs and soldiers in Serbian captivity. In addition, some 9,000 died during the withdrawal across Albania in winter 1915/16.21 Serbian causalities in 1914 (excluding civilians and those who suffered during the typhoid fever epidemic) amounted to a total of 2,110 officers, 8,074 NCOs and 153,373 soldiers (killed, wounded, captured and missing in action).22 These causalities were crippling for a country that, according to the 1910 census, had a population of 2,922,058. Although Serbia had a high birth rate and was awarded new territories after the two Balkan Wars with a population increase to 4,576,508, these new subjects and territories did not contribute to Serbia’s war efforts proportionately. The main reason was the insufficient time between the Balkan Wars of 1912– 13 and World War I to successfully incorporate new territories and their populations into the Serbian state framework. Moreover, a considerable number of new citizens were Muslims, Turks and Albanians, or Slavs with pro-Bulgarian views, who tried to avoid fighting on the Serbian side.23

The Austro-Hungarian Home Front Besides fighting a conventional war on the Serbian and Montenegrin Fronts, as early as July 1914 Austria-Hungary introduced measures aimed against some of its own citizens who either supported Serbia and Montenegro or were seen as potential supporters. Most of those affected

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were the monarchy’s own Serbs, followed by members of other South Slav nations who either supported the Kingdom of Serbia or had embraced the Yugoslav idea, which by 1914 had evolved from a cultural into a political project. The Habsburg Monarchy felt particularly threatened by the prospect of South Slav unity aimed at overcoming national, religious and cultural differences and the eventual creation of a common state. After Habsburg Serbs and Croats had established a political coalition in 1905 and emerged as a leading political force in Croatian lands, Serbian and Montenegrin victories over the Ottoman Empire in 1912– 13 caused even more concern in Vienna. For Serbia and Montenegro, the incorporation of the former Ottoman European territories meant a successful completion of the first stage of the project unofficially known as ‘Liberation and Unification’. The next phase involved the Habsburg territories inhabited by Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and Muslims. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914 and the subsequent crisis created a perfect opportunity for the Austro-Hungarians to deal once and for all with its ambitious neighbour. From Vienna’s standpoint, the introduction of harsh measures against any potential proponent of the Serbian/Yugoslav agenda would frustrate Serbia’s aggressive policies and prevent its influence spreading. The first to experience these measures were Bosnian Serbs, following the introduction of military rule in Bosnia on 26 July 1914. Prominent local Serbs were arrested together with local pro-Yugoslav Croats and Muslims. Serbian cultural associations, societies and newspapers were banned. Similar measures were introduced in Croatia, Dalmatia and Slovenia. A larger wave of arrests followed after the official declaration of war. Courts-martial started convicting people for high treason, among them members of parliament and leading politicians of Serb, Croat and Slovene origin. The worst situation was in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where prominent Serbian intellectuals, priests and merchants were arrested and interned. The Austro-Hungarian authorities exploited existing ethnic and religious divisions between various groups in Bosnia – Herzegovina, thus intensifying them and creating an atmosphere of mistrust and antagonism. One of the measures based on this principle was the introduction of the so-called Schutzkorps, which consisted of local Muslims. Under the pretext of assisting the Gendarmerie, these paramilitary units were to ‘perpetrate illegal

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repressive measures’.24 Instead of uniforms they wore their national costume with only black-and-yellow armbands, clearly demonstrating their national and religious affiliation. Due to such policies, causalities among the Austro-Hungarian civilian population of South Slav origin, especially Serbs, were extremely high. In total, some 42,000 Bosnian Serbs died in internment camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina or through the actions of the Schutzkorps, while some 12,000 Serbs died in 17 internment camps in Croatia.25 The overall complexity of the situation became clear in autumn 1918 when advancing Serbian troops found some starving 20,000 Serbian children from mountainous areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Dalmatia; they were sent to wealthier northern villages in the Srem area for ‘nourishment’ because of food shortages at home.26 However, despite the Serbian and Montenegrin defeat in 1915 and the measures adopted against it, the Yugoslav idea did not lose its impetus. The Serbian government, now exiled on the Greek island of Corfu, joined forces with the so-called Yugoslav Committee, formed of the e´migre´ South Slav politicians from Austria-Hungary, to work on the establishment of a common South Slav state. Thus, the turbulent experience of World War I also saw the transformation of a century-long idea into political reality. The memory of repression and suffering during the war would become an important foundational myth of the future Yugoslav state and add to the feeling of moral superiority and righteousness of the Serbs.

Occupation After the campaign of autumn-winter 1915 –16 Serbia was occupied by the Central Powers. Austro-Hungarians organised Milita¨rgeneralgouvernement headed by the Governor-General and comprising mainly northern and central Serbia. Bulgaria, on the other hand, organised two administrations – the Morava military-inspectorate and the Militaryinspectorate Macedonia. In terms of territorial gains, Bulgaria’s possessions were larger than those of the Austro-Hungarians.27 Of Serbia’s 87,000 square kilometres, Bulgaria was promised 59 per cent or 51,425 square kilometres, with 2,664,168 inhabitants (55.6 per cent of Serbia’s total population), while the Austro-Hungarians took the remaining 32,287 square kilometres, with 1,741,390 inhabitants – not

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counting the territories of the Sˇabac county with 249,000 inhabitants and the wider Belgrade area, with 157,000 inhabitants. Unlike the Serbian government and army, the Montenegrins did not withdraw towards the Albanian coast. After several battles in January 1916, the Montenegrin Army surrendered, while Montenegrin King Nikola left the country. In the months and years that followed, Montenegro was occupied and ruled by the Austro-Hungarians alone. Its occupation regime was similar to those in Serbia. On 1 March 1916, the Military Government of Montenegro was established. As in the case of Serbia, most former civil servants were interned, so very few actually worked within the occupation administration. Montenegro had always been extremely poor and on the brink of famine. Now, traditional trade routes were interrupted, and Russian aid, vital for the existence of the Montenegrin state, ended, which, combined with the casualties of the Balkan Wars, led to famine. High taxation and the use of forced labour, internment and other occupation measures led to a sharp drop in living standards and epidemics of typhoid fever, tuberculosis and finally ‘Spanish flu’. The occupation of Serbia was seen by most Austro-Hungarian officials as a punishment for its previous transgressions. When in winter 1915/16 famine threatened Belgrade, there was no relief plan for its population. In addition, in line with the view of the Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff, Franz Conrad von Ho¨tzendorf, the Milita¨rgeneralgouvernement instructed: ‘The officers’ corps should never forget that the intelligentsia is especially responsible for the death of many of our fellows, for this reason no respect and no gentleness should be shown. This intelligentsia should be treated more roughly than peasants and should not be treated as equals by our officials.’28 Internment was among the measures adopted by the AustroHungarian and Bulgarian occupation authorities, who, in Serbia, considered deportation and internment a preventive rather than punitive measure. In four major waves of deportations during the war, some 42,000 Serbian citizens were interned in Austria-Hungary. The first wave took place in autumn 1915; the second in 1916 when Romania entered the war; the third in spring 1917 during the Toplica Uprising; and the final one in 1918, after the Entente offensive on the Macedonian Front. Internees were able-bodied men: ex-soldiers, the politically suspect, priests, as well as members of political, cultural or

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sport organisations. Bulgarian camps contained some 37,000 Serbian internees. The number of Serbian POWs was also significant. In AustriaHungary and Germany, there were some 127,500 POWs, while between 32,000 and 39,000 were in Bulgarian captivity. Poor living and hygienic conditions and inadequate medical care marked their lives both in interment and POW camps, where the most common diseases were pneumonia and dysentery. According to postwar analyses, 81,214 Serbian soldiers died in captivity in Austria-Hungary, Germany and Bulgaria, together with some civilian 82,000 internees.29 In the atmosphere of conflict and mistrust between military and civilians, as well as between the Austrian and Hungarian authorities, Serbia was exposed to a systematic policy of economic exploitation and denationalisation. Economic exploitation took the usual form of taking control of factories, mills and mines; the requisition of tools, clothes, livestock and grain; mass deforestation; the seizure of valuables from private owners, as well as the forced devaluation of Serbian currency. As for the policy of denationalisation, the occupation authorities decided to abolish all national cultural institutions and associations, the Cyrillic alphabet was banned, artefacts were confiscated from museums, libraries, church treasuries and archives. In addition, books of ‘suspicious content’ were removed from public and private libraries, and school curricula were similarly purged of any critical Serbian content. In a similar manner, in Montenegro the Cyrillic alphabet was banned and school curricula were purged of content relating to Serbia and Serbian history. Some school staff and high school youth protested and refused to attend classes, and were interned in retaliation.30 In the Bulgarian occupation zone, where military authorities alone were in charge, apart from the abolition of cultural institutions and associations and the ban on the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, all civil servants, including the clergy, were brought in from Bulgaria. The intensity of violence towards the civilian population was extremely high. Representatives of the Serbian elite, e.g., civil servants, teachers and clergymen, were especially targeted. While the occupation authorities’ measures in the Morava military-inspectorate were very brutal, in the military-inspectorate of Macedonia, the authorities tried to gain the locals’ trust and build on Bulgaria’s considerable number of already existing supporters in the region.31 According to Reiss’ postwar investigation, in the small town of Surdulica and its vicinity alone,

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between 2,000 and 3,000 civilians were brutally killed – bayoneted or clubbed to death by rifles butts between 1915 and 1918. Most victims were taken from the columns passing through Surdulica on their way to internment camps in Bulgaria. At one point, soldiers defied the orders and victims were handed over to bands of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO), who were already conducting counter-insurgency operations in the area.32 Together with other representatives of Serbian elites, hundreds of Serbian Orthodox priests were interned in Bulgaria, while 100 were killed, including Bishop Vic´entije Krdzˇic´ – Metropolitan of Skopje.33 Some of the occupation authorities’ measures demonstrated profound disrespect for national culture: thus, Belgrade University was turned into stables for Austro-Hungarian horses, while the Parliament building was turned into a military depot.34 Belgrade University was the first building to be bombed in World War I. Following suit, the Bulgarian authorities banned the Serbian national hat – sˇajkacˇa. Some 20 years later, during World War II, Bulgarians introduced identical measures when they again occupied almost the same areas. Following their pro-Albanian and pro-Muslim policies, the AustroHungarian authorities enlisted some 8,000 Albanians into the ranks of the Bosnian Gendarmerie and the 14th Corps of the Ottoman Army fighting on the Eastern Front. In the regions of Sandzˇak and Kosovo and Metohija auxiliary units were also organised, as also happened in the Bulgarian zone with the formation of special detachments of Albanians.35 Occupation measures and the ensuing violence provoked armed resistance. Isolated actions by small groups evolved into a full-scale mass uprising in the region of Toplica in south Serbia in the spring of 1917. It took place after the Bulgarian occupation authorities announced conscription of local Serbian youth. After some initial success by the insurgents, the Toplica Uprising was brutally quelled by Bulgarian and Austro-Hungarian troops with the help of IMRO and Albanian irregulars. Civilian casualties during these operations are estimated at around 20,000 dead. In Montenegro, resistance never reached the same mass scale primarily due to the reprisals and a general lack of organisation; however, throughout the period, the occupation authorities faced actions by small guerrilla bands (comitajis), led by former Montenegrin officers and officials and in which an estimated

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1,000 to 1,100 Montenegrins participated. They targeted military posts, Gendarmerie patrols, forage units and communications. In response, the Austro-Hungarian military courts sentenced and executed 489 persons in just four of Montenegrin counties.36

Conclusion After the war, investigations revealed that the overall war damage in Serbia and Montenegro was estimated at 10 billion French golden francs. By comparison, the South Slav lands of Austria-Hungary suffered slightly less war damage – 6.3 billion French golden francs. Of the 544 industrial facilities in Serbia, 57 per cent were completely destroyed. According to the official records, during World War I the Serbian Army lost 371,000 dead and 114,000 wounded. Bulgarian reprisals caused the death of 30,000 while Austro-Hungarian reprisals led to the death of around 10,000 citizens of Serbia. The Red Cross reported after the war that in Serbia alone some 58,000 children were orphaned. South Slavs from Austria-Hungary lost 300,000 dead and 450,000 wounded. On the Italian Front, some 120,000 became POWs and on the Eastern Front there were 260,000 South Slav POWs. It is estimated that the combined South Slav casualties of World War I reached 800,000 soldiers, 300,000 civilians and around 500,000 wounded. In total, it was 1.6 million of the most productive population.37 Montenegro suffered enormous casualties relative to the size of its population of around 436,000: 12 per cent of its population was mobilised. From 50,000 mobilised soldiers, 20,000 died in combat and POW camps – 5 per cent of the overall population and 10 per cent of the male population. Some 15,000 Montenegrins were interned. According to the war damage calculations submitted during the Paris Peace Conference, Montenegro suffered material damage of 723 million French golden francs.38 If we add the pandemic of ‘Spanish flu’, the global death toll of which has not been precisely calculated, the overall picture looks even more disturbing. In Serbia and Montenegro, now part of the newly founded Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the prolonged effect of World War I, beside enormous material and human losses, was felt in the continuous lowintensity military engagement and occasional conflicts. 11 November 1918 was an unexceptional day for Serbian soldiers who had been mobilised for longer than most of their allies and adversaries. In practical

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terms, the war in most of the Balkans began in October 1912 with the start of the First Balkan War, almost two years before the outbreak of World War I. If we take into consideration the prolonged engagement of armed forces after the official end of war and their subsequent participation in numerous military and security operations, border clashes and incidents, the quelling of rebellions, and counterinsurgency operations, then the actual end of war had arrived in 1920.39 In total, there were some eight years of continuous military engagement. Although less traumatic and violent than elsewhere, the new Yugoslavian state participated in the ‘after-shocks of the Great War’ and the ‘twentyseven violent transfers of political power’ in Europe between 1917 and 1920.40 Thus, the Serbian/Yugoslav case fits perfectly into the narrative of the ‘Greater War’ or prolonged state of war that lasted from 1912 until 1923, rather than the traditional narrative of World War I, which focused predominantly on the events on the Western Front. The violence that occurred in the Balkans in the course of World War I and its immediate aftermath, when placed alongside similar events in Belgium, France, Ireland, Asia Minor, Baltics, Hungary, Poland, Finland, Ukraine, Russia and the Caucasus, demonstrates that the Balkans were far from unique and can hardly be described as a region of deeply embedded violent traditions. Rather, it was World War I with its horrors, ironically waged as ‘the war to end all wars’, that contributed to global brutalisation and general insensitivity to violence, so clearly demonstrated in the course of World War II. Yet, despite the numerous challenges presented by the unification of culturally and religiously diverse nations, lands and regions, with different alphabets, currencies, judicial systems and practices, land ownership regulations and legal traditions, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was founded on 1 December 1918 without major violent shocks. The political stability of Yugoslavia in its infancy was never endangered by the prospect of a coup or revolution. Disputes between political parties, especially in relation to the issue of state organisation, were resolved, however inadequately, through parliamentary debate. Troubles in the south, that is, the infiltration and activities of IMRO komitadjis from Bulgaria as well as recurring Albanian insurrections represented a serious challenge for the new state, but they did not endanger its stability and integrity because, among other things, the Kingdom managed to place itself firmly within the new system of international relations.

CHAPTER 6 `

WE'RE HALF-WAY TO ASIA HERE':THE CONDUCT OF THE GERMAN ARMY UNITS ON THE EASTERN FRONT IN 1914 AND 19391 Jan Szkudlin´ski

Twice in the first half of the twentieth century – in 1914 and in 1939 – German troops entered Polish territory as conquerors. In 1914 the German Imperial Army invaded the territories of ‘Russian Poland’. In 1939 once again Poland became the target of a full-scale invasion by the German Army. Both times the crossing of the eastern border of Germany marked the very first visit abroad for an overwhelming majority of German soldiers, and the first opportunity to see a foreign land and its inhabitants. For many soldiers it was also the first combat experience with all its consequences. This chapter analyses the way German troops perceived the land, its inhabitants and the enemy in 1914. The main sources used are the German regimental histories published between the World Wars. These sources, though prone to manipulation, nevertheless reveal a lot about how German soldiers perceived the population of the conquered lands. Moreover, due to the destruction of most of the German Army records during the latter stage of World War II, the value of the regimental histories as a source has increased. These regimental histories are

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supplemented by official documents which survived beyond 1945 in copies, and personal recollections. Historians writing on the relations between German combat troops and civilian inhabitants of the westernmost part of Russian Empire in 1914 have mostly concentrated on the ‘Sack of Kalisz’ in August 1914. In Polish, this event was covered by Władysław Bortnowski2 and, exhaustively, by Laura Engelstein.3 Most other works either concentrate on the operational warfare,4 or on the military effort of various Polish groups, fighting alongside Central Powers or Russia.5 The latter part of the text briefly looks at the conduct of the German Army in 1939 trying to identify the key differences with 1914. In both cases I concentrate only on the initial period of the occupation and the relations between the combat units and the locals. There is also a geographical constraint. Those Polish lands that before 1919 belonged to the German Empire experienced in 1939 an ethnic conflict caused and shaped by a different dynamic; thus, I consciously exclude the notorious case of Bydgoszcz (German name Bromberg) from the analysis. The question of German war crimes committed in 1939 in Poland is often neglected by Western historians, who tend to set the starting date of the German war of destruction waged in the east in 1941. The criminal nature of the German invasion of Poland in 1939 has been extensively covered by Jochen Bo¨hler.6 There has been no attempt, however, to compare the conduct of German combat troops toward civilians in 1914 and 1939.

Infrastructure as a Sign of Cultured Life In 1914 the cultural shock came immediately. Most of the German units crossing the border were either infantry or horse-drawn artillery and train units; hence good road conditions were essential to their effectiveness. The condition of the roads in ‘Russian Poland’ was a memorable experience for the veterans. On crossing the border, deterioration of marching conditions became immediately apparent. One of the regimental historians noted: What a contrast! Until now, on the German side, the road [was] on a tall embankment, with hardened wayside, beautifully lined with trees. On the border it ends as if cut by a knife. The road narrowed, trees were no more, the run-down surface full of deep holes [. . .]

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In foul weather the roads turned into quagmires. Our baggage had to be dragged out of the mud by attached infantrymen.7 The state of the roads made a similar impression on the commander of the Guards Reserve Corps, General Max von Gallwitz, who wrote in his memoirs: On Sunday, 20th September, the Corps headquarters was relocated across the border. Until the border in a motor car, after that – on horseback. Our [soldiers], who had never been posted to the eastern border, were shocked. Until now a decent pike, afterwards – an unhardened road full of holes. The vegetation and agriculture poor, pathetic houses, people poor and dirty. Here starts Half-Asia!8 Another author treated the roads in ‘Russian Poland’ even more disagreeably: ‘In Western Russia one could not speak about roads in our meaning of the word. There were only stretches of land free of housing, on which vehicles drove.’9 The author of a regimental history wrote that during the operations in the Vistula Curve the regiment had to conduct forced marches on ‘Soaked roads, which the Panjes [i.e., Polish peasantry] praised as the “archduke worthy”, on which the mud was ankle-deep.’10 Other authors described the roads encountered by the Germans in Poland as ‘the worst you could imagine’, or ‘even worse than their fame.’11 For an army composed mostly of infantry units who had to cover between 25 and 30 km per day (during forced marches this distance could be extended to over 50 km), the condition of the road network was of crucial importance. The state of the roads severely hampered German tactical communication, then based mostly on messengers, who failed to distribute orders and reports quickly enough. The most severe problems were encountered with the usage of the standard German supply wagons – the heavy vehicles drawn by teams of four were not suitable for soft, ill-maintained roads. The state of the roads in ‘Russian Poland’ apparently was very well remembered by German veterans, because similar descriptions appear in virtually all regimental histories as well as in memoirs. Low development of the land – as opposed to the excellent road and rail network in Imperial Germany – contributed to the impression of

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cultural and civilisational superiority over the local population. The people inhabiting the roadless expanses of ‘Russian Poland’ feature prominently in the accounts of 1914. Histories of German infantry regiments include numerous and picturesque descriptions of the inhabitants of ‘Russian Poland’, giving us some insight into the impressions of the German soldiers, who commented on clothing, customs and language of the locals. Since the land, especially in rural areas, was chronically poor, the standard of living and hygiene often appalled the Germans, both officers and rank and file. General Gallwitz wrote that ‘The numerous dark Kaftan-bearers [i.e., the Jews in their traditional garb] and their black-eyed women looked especially alien.’12 The historian of an infantry regiment recalled that ‘The troops billeted with the inhabitants, with the pigs, hens, bugs and lice.’13 Especially critical was the author of the history of 150th Infantry Regiment, who wrote: ‘Most of the troops are astounded by the fact, how far Polish rural population is from what is considered human civilisation, and how close is their life to the one lived by beasts.’14 Especially shocking for the Germans was the fact that in many farmhouses inhabitants lodged in the same rooms with their livestock.15 As Vejas Liulevicius wrote, ‘For German troops this unknown land with its strange looking inhabitants resembled a new world, full of dizzying experiences and surprises [. . .] and disturbing questions.’16 The differences were especially visible when German troops were crossing the border in the reverse direction. After the retreat from central Poland in October 1914 one of the regimental historians describes the impression of the troops on re-entering German territory: ‘What a relief after the bloody Polish dirtiness! All around us everything is clean and orderly. There are beds, and no more bugs [. . .] you may sleep [. . .] and take a bath, at last a bath!’17 The highest ranks of German Eastern Army were keenly aware of the problem. The order of the day of Guards Reserve Corps issued on 20 September 1914 said: ‘In Russian Poland infectious diseases are rampant, especially venereal diseases in brothels. Beware of closer contact with local population. Increased care is required in providing drinking water and in fighting flies and bugs.’18 It happened, often perhaps, that the superiority felt by the German troops over the inhabitants of ‘Russian Poland’ was manifested in contemptuous or brutal treatment. The historian of a Guard regiment wrote that ‘The Polish population is indolent, dirty, in general however

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kind-hearted. The Jews, who are a majority in towns, are obtrusive, cheeky, and even dirtier than the Poles. Everything is infested with bugs, that unfortunately spread also on billeting German troops.’19 We may also safely assume that the authors of the regimental histories were not keen to report instances of mistreatment or brutalisation of locals for posterity. Yet, at least one of the authors of regimental histories chose not to hide the way the soldiers of his unit behaved towards the locals. When billeting the locals, who lived with their livestock, were without further ado thrown outside to make room for our troops, but first of all to introduce some cleanliness into their lousy huts. The locals would shiver in holes covered with wooden planks with their most prized possessions: their lousy bedding, which they were allowed to take with them by our gracious gunners. We wanted only a fireplace and a roof over our heads.20 It is not to say that the author of these words was bereft of the feelings of compassion towards other living creatures: We could never find a place for our poor horses. They would spend the cold, rainy and stormy nights outside and suffer a lot, despite all the efforts of the drivers who tried to shelter them from the elements using straw and canvas.21 To give justice to the authors of the quote above, a few pages further they admit that the fate of the local civilians was hard indeed, noting that ‘All the suitable horses had been taken from them by the Russians or by us. The cattle we needed was taken by us in exchange for receipts.’22 It is a rare example, where the author of a German regimental history writes frankly about the harsh treatment of the civilians by his regiment, and this comment stands out even more when compared with what the author writes about the animals. However, we have to take into account the fact that during World War I the armies’ combat value was absolutely dependant on animals. Thousands of horses that towed heavy guns and wagons of all descriptions were crucial to maintaining the combat value of the army, and they required proper care and forage, lest the armies become immobilised.

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Violence and Compassion: The Treatment of Civilians By far the most conspicuous example of violence directed by German units towards civilians was the ‘Sack of Kalisz’, the town located on the German– Russian border. In the very first days of World War I German units screening the mobilisation entered the town. Initially the relations between soldiers and civilians were friendly, more so because quite a few of the German soldiers recruited from the border areas were of Polish descent or at least knew the language well enough to communicate with the local population. Later, however, the situation changed radically. Most probably an accidental discharge of a rifle lead to the frenzy of friendly fire, where units of panicked, inexperienced soldiers shot blindly at each other through mostly wooden houses. Of course, all the field commanders reported that they had been attacked by francs-tireurs, which in turn resulted in a pacification ordered by the local German commander, Major Preusker, and later by a local Landwehr commander. As a result, nearly 80 civilians were either killed on the spot or executed in reprisals. The town was repeatedly shelled by German artillery, looted and burned. Most of the buildings were destroyed, making Kalisz the gruesome harbinger of destruction that would all too soon fall on the towns and cities in Belgium and France.23 The wartime propaganda of the Entente would work hard to depict the German Army as the incarnation of the Hun horde. Some Polish authors, writing in the wake of World War II, would describe the events in Kalisz as an example of German ‘bestiality’, or would call the sack of Kalisz as having ‘every characteristic of a pre-meditated action’ and write about ‘genocidal traditions’ of the German Army.24 It should be borne in mind that these words were written in the context of relatively fresh memories of German atrocities in 1939– 45. Some authors would explain the Germans’ behaviour by their ingrained militarism or alleged anti-Catholicism of their soldiers.25 However, I tend to agree with the contradictory explanation put forward by Thomas Weber, namely that the most important factor that lead the German Army to commit atrocities against the civilians was inexperience, ‘greenness’ of the average German soldier, who – having been shot at for the first time of his life – tended to see the enemy everywhere.26 To quote an officer of the German Landwehr regiment that took part in the pacification of Kalisz, the mysterious enemy was firing from ‘behind every corner, from

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the roofs, from the cellars and from the windows’,27 whereas in reality the town was completely bereft of any hostile combatants. This omnipresence of the enemy, so characteristic for terrified, well-armed and consequently trigger-happy soldiers, would soon fade away in the reports, in proportion to increasing combat experience. Kalisz remains the only example of such a war crime on the Eastern Front. Apart from the case of Cze˛stochowa, where the Germans shot two Russian civilians who allegedly fired on German units, and an incident at Lipsko on 4 September where the Germans executed a man accused of spying for the Russians, there seems to be no other case of slaughter of civilians during the German operations beyond the Russian border in 1914. Even the Russians themselves admitted as much – Laura Engelstein quotes the French consul in Warsaw reporting in early 1915 that ‘the Germans have not shown the kind of brutality they demonstrated in France, Alsace and Belgium, with the exception of Kalisz, at the start of the war, and perhaps Cze˛stochowa.’ However, the consul attributed this lenient stance to the alleged German designs to win the hearts and minds of Poles to prepare ground for the grand design of creating a Polish state with a German prince on its throne.28 However, in 1914 the commanding officers of various German units remained prepared to exact heavy retribution for any resistance on the part of the civilian population. On the capture of the city of Radom in August 1914 the local German commander issued a proclamation: ‘Everyone found with a weapon during an attack on a serviceman will be summarily executed by a firing squad. Every house, from which German soldiers would be fired on, would be demolished.’29 In September the command of the 9th Army ordered the subordinate commanders to inform the population that anyone caught tampering with the telephone cables will be summarily shot.30 Despite this and other examples of severe language it seems that there were no executions or large-scale demolition of houses. General Gallwitz, himself responsible for the atrocities against the Belgian civilians during the siege of Namur in August 1914, considered it necessary to inform his units: ‘The security measures, ordered by me in Belgium due to the hostile stance of the population, are not to be used towards the population here, as long as it does not display hostility.’31 There seems to be no proof that the German Army was planning to wage a destructive war against the civilians in order to terrorise them into submission.

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There are examples of how hungry German soldiers wanted to buy food from the locals, but were refused. This happened during the German withdrawal from central Poland in late October 1914, when the locals either did not have anything to sell, or, more probably, did not want to end up accused of helping the invaders by the Russians. The author of the history of 18th Infantry Regiment wrote: ‘The behaviour of the “chivalrous” Poles, expecting our withdrawal from the area, completely changed. During our offensive someone would always sell us a Katschka and Kurra [phonetically spelled Polish words meaning ‘a duck’ and ‘a hen’], now however to our frantic enquires for flour came a mean answer Munka nima [there is no flour].’32 A company commander in the 47th Landwehr Regiment wrote that he eventually managed to convince a local vicar to sell one-and-a-half loaves of bread, saying ‘non pro me, sed pro manipulo meo’ (in Latin: ‘not for me, but for my command’). The officer sourly commented: ‘But what were they among so many?’33 My analysis of the German sources did not reveal many examples of violence directed against the civilian population, nor have I come across accounts of brutal treatment of civilians by frontline troops in Polish sources. It seems that most German troops tended to treat the Polish civilians indifferently. Even Ludendorff himself would write about the polnische Wirtschaft in Austrian Galicia, that the wretched existence of the villagers ‘is not solely their fault, but also the fault of those who govern them’.34 The German accounts reveal also positive impressions made by the land and the people. General Gallwitz noted that deeper inside ‘Russian Poland’ ‘the terrain was picturesque, woods beautiful [. . .] The state of the land and agriculture deeper into Poland was better [. . .] roads [were] better.’35 The Germans could also count on sympathy of the locals. On 28 September, when the horsemen of the Saxon Carabinier Regiment entered Piotrko´w, they were met with a mass of citizens greeting them as liberators.36 There was also a fledgling Polish anti-Russian underground network answering to the patriotic Poles from Galicia (with Jo´zef Piłsudski as one of the prominent figures); already on 22 September 1914 the headquarters of the Guards Reserve Corps was warned about the concentration of Russian units around Warsaw by a ‘Polish agent, a woman’.37 There are also examples of selflessness on the part of German soldiers. On the night of 31 October 1914, the 2nd Battalion of the 128 Infantry

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Regiment was billeted in the village of Druz˙bice, near Ło´dz´. During the night one of the drivers of the battalion’s wagons accidently started a fire; the resulting conflagration consumed most of the wooden buildings of the village. To quote the regimental history: The soldiers could not reconcile themselves with the fact that the carelessness of one of their colleagues deprived the locals of their homes. They quickly organized a collection and gathered 400 Marks; the officers donated another 100. The next morning, before departure, the local vicar was given a sum of 500 Marks for the unfortunates.38 It meant that each of the German soldiers present must have donated a full day’s pay, assuming an unlikely scenario that the battalion was then at full strength. There were other similar instances. On 16 November 1914, the Russian artillery shelled the German positions in the town of Da˛bie, successfully defended by the German 71st Infantry Regiment against repeated infantry attacks. During the barrage the houses gradually went up in flames. One of the burning houses collapsed, trapping a group of civilians huddling in the cellar. German soldiers, seeing the unfolding tragedy, started to help the trapped people get out through a small window, but some children were too scared to try. Seeing this, a sergeant named Bo¨hme squeezed into the already burning cellar, and helped all of them out before escaping himself. The sad footnote of the story is that the heroic sergeant fell in December during the fighting along the Miazga river.39 Sometimes the fate of the locals caught in the middle of the violence evoked the compassion of the German soldiers. One of the most conspicuous examples can be found in the history of the German 150th Infantry Regiment, in the description of the aftermath of the significant success achieved in mid-November during the attack at Kros´niewice: The town [. . .] lay mostly in ruins and was burning. The inhabitants were gathering their possessions on the large market square: beds, tables, stools, couches, trunks – all piled on one another. Between these piles swarmed whining Jewish women and children – the town was inhabited mostly by Jews. All the men were trying to save the property. Some were fighting each other,

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when in the chaos someone grabbed someone else’s property. Many women sat stupefied, others were running mad, crying and wailing. A truly poignant image of the war!40

Respect and Contempt: Attitude Towards the Russian Army The attitude of the German Army towards Russian soldiers in 1914 was a mixture of professional respect with contempt based on the feeling of superiority. The actual combat experience of the German soldier in the East was not yet sufficiently dissimilar to the experience of their counterparts on the Western Front. It was still the phase of the war dominated by manoeuvres and fighting mostly in the open. The lessons learned in East Prussia resulted in a warning given by the German 9th Army command in the order of the day on the onset of the offensive in the Vistula curve: ‘One cannot prevail in a battle without losses, often heavy losses. Fear of losses should not dampen the aggressive spirit of our infantry’. Why was it necessary? The order goes on to explain that: ‘The Russians mastered the skill of erecting field fortifications. Their trenches are very solidly built, with anti-shrapnel roofs and covered embrasures, giving the riflemen excellent protection against highexplosive and shrapnel shells.’41 However, German 9th Army command chose to warn the soldiers about the possibility of treacherous behaviour of enemy troops. The order quoted above includes the following passage: ‘On wood edges the Russian riflemen often place themselves up in the trees. Even machine guns had been brought up on shooting platforms. These riflemen remain hidden until our troops have cleared the edge of the woods, and then open fire in the backs of our first lines.’42 The authors of the order continued: It often transpired that the Russian riflemen, and also artillery batteries, would cease fire and by waving white handkerchiefs give the impression that they wanted to surrender. Then, when our soldiers approached them, [they] would open fire again from point-blank range to a great effect. Therefore, the troops must be very careful and cease fire themselves only when the Russians throw away their weapons and truly surrender.43

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The results of such a warning did not take long to transpire. A careful reader of German regimental histories of 1914 will find numerous descriptions of such ungentlemanly ruses on the part of the Russian soldiers. On 15 November during the battle of Kutno soldiers of the 150th Infantry Regiment shot a Russian NCO, who allegedly continued to fight after having waved a white cloth.44 The most striking description of the killing of POWs can be found in the history of the 128th Infantry Regiment: [The 1st Battalion] in loose formation, expecting an ambush in any moment, closed down on the village of Wladyslawowo. Then they came under an intense fire from the edge of a wood about one kilometre to the South-West of the village. Immediately after, however, from the same wood came some Russians without weapons, frantically waving white handkerchiefs as a sign that they have given up the fight. When our soldiers approached to accept their surrender, suddenly the Russians threw themselves on the ground, and their machine guns opened heavy fire above their prone brethren. For such a treacherous duplicity there exists only one punishment: the capital punishment, and this punishment was immediately bestowed upon all the prisoners taken in this engagement. Those who fought honestly were respected. Those who proved to be scoundrels were treated according to the laws of war!45 It is very difficult to judge whether this incident was a genuine attempt to lure German soldiers into the killing zone of machine guns, or whether a more motivated part of the Russian soldiers did not consider themselves bound by the decision made by their less willing colleagues. Likewise, it is not possible to determine whether the entire incident was not invented by the Germans to legitimise a war crime of slaughtering prisoners of war. It is most plausible, however, that the entire situation was a result of the chaos prevailing on a modern battlefield. The experience of Lieutenant Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg is telling: I joined the headquarters on the edge of the wood, from where I could observe the 8th Hussars attacking the Russian infantry [. . .] Then, white handkerchiefs appeared in various points on the

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Russian firing line. Presently one of the staff officers called me and ordered: ‘Geyr, they wish to give up. Go to them and accept their surrender’ [. . .] I approached within the shouting distance – about 80 meters – holding a white handkerchief in my right hand. The Russians ceased fire. Then from the opposite side of the Russian line there appeared a wide line of horsemen – the charging German cavalry [. . .] The Russians of course must have construed my actions as a treacherous ruse. As it turned out, the charging cavalry unit was the 4th Cuirassiers; the charge was repelled by the Russians. As far as the fate of future panzer commander is concerned, he managed to escape the hail of bullets aimed at him by the enraged Russians by galloping not away from their lines, but along it, thus making it difficult for them to aim.46 Most importantly, such incidents combined with the image of the East instilled by the prewar literature and reinforced by the personal experience resulted in the growing dehumanisation of Russian soldiers. An early example was recorded by a Polish nobleman trapped for a while in the combat zone on the western outskirts of Warsaw in the first half of October 1914: My administrator saw how a Cossack, having blundered beyond the Utrata, had been wounded by the Germans and fell off his horse. He wanted to help him, but Jacobs [a German officer] forbade him saying that a Cossack is not a human being and should die like a dog. Later I stumbled across the Cossack’s body at the Utrata.47 This dehumanised image of the enemy soldier influenced also the situation of Russian prisoners in the POW camps across Germany. As Oxana Nagornaja writes: ‘a stereotyped image of Germany’s eastern neighbours moulded by mass-market fiction and wartime propaganda decisively influenced how the prison-camp system operated.’ The regime for Russian prisoners was most often more severe than for their British or French counterparts, and they were usually given more demanding tasks, including heavy physical labour.48 It seems, however, that in 1914 there were no organised massacres of POW on the Eastern Front. The 9th Army order quoted above stresses the combat prowess of Russian Army

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and while it warns against possible treacherous behaviour, does not treat enemy troops as members of some low species. Moreover, a Russian POW in German captivity had a very good chance to survive until the end of the war, which stands in striking contrast to the genocidal treatment of Soviet POWs by the Germans in 1941– 5, when an estimated three million Red Army soldiers perished in German captivity.

Twenty-five Years Later On 1 September 1939 the next generation of German troops crossed the Polish border again. The civilisational gap between Germany and former territories of Russian and Austrian partition, now a part of Poland, received strikingly similar treatment in the accounts of German soldiers and in the official documents. This time, however, the issue of the roads does not seem to be so prominent in German accounts of the 1939 Polish campaign. One of the commanders of German motorised units recalls how bad roads limited the operations of his battalion.49 The development of the land in inter-war years undoubtedly played some part in this change, but the key factor was exceptionally dry weather during the summer of 1939. The roads were mostly dry, mud – the bane of every foot soldier since the time immemorial – was gone, and the rivers ran low. However, the descriptions of villages, towns and their inhabitants from 1939 were strikingly similar to the ones found in the accounts of 1914. For example, an infantry NCO quoted by Jochen Bo¨hler reported: ‘We had the opportunity to see how the Poles lived. They feel well in incomprehensible dirtiness. A Pole has no idea of dwellings that even the poorest German requires.’50 A German naval officer wrote in October 1939 that in the city of Gdynia (the name of the city had already been changed to Germanic ‘Gotenhafen’) ‘the suburbs are built over with the most primitive huts, which could be found only in Negro districts [Negervierteln] in other countries.’51 German soldiers, subject to a massive, state-sponsored anti-Semitic propaganda campaign since 1933, reported extensively on the number of Jews inhabiting Polish towns and cities.52 Conditioned by this indoctrination, they perceived the poverty suffered by many Polish Jews to be the living proof of their alleged racial inferiority, which in turn led to numerous instances of mistreatment, beatings, humiliation

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and often murder.53 The idea of the inferiority of the population of the occupied Polish territories was reinforced by the German High Command. For example, on September 22 Hitler issued an order: The Fu¨hrer and Supreme Commander orders [. . .] that German Head of State, the officers and the dignitaries of the German Reich are to be humbly greeted by the civilians with removal of headgear. The civilian inhabitants of cities are to vacate the sidewalks when coming across a German officer or a dignitary of the Reich.54 The reason behind this order was the atrocities supposedly committed by the Poles against the Germans before the war. Thus began the separation of Poles and Germans on the occupied lands, which later on manifested itself in restaurants, cinemas, theatres, city parks, benches and public transport vehicles labelled nu¨r fu¨r Deutsche – ‘For Germans only’. This separation was strictly enforced and was one of the most striking differences between the German-occupied lands in the East and in the West; in the latter no such apartheid-like measures were introduced. There seems to be no trace of any compassion towards the fate of the civilians in Poland in 1939. On the contrary, the naval officer quoted above wrote: ‘The question of expelling Poles into Central Poland and of settling Germans and Baltic-Germans, though not our most pressing problem, often would give you headache and involves a lot of work’, thus reducing the expropriation and expulsion of tens of thousands of people to an administrative chore. It should not be odd to see the author of this undoubtedly private letter chose to end it with ‘Heil Hitler!’ in place of customary, non-ideological greetings one might expect to find in private correspondence.55 Earlier in the campaign a German supply officer in southern Poland wrote in his diary that on 5 September in Sucha Beskidzka 21 civilians were shot on an order of an NCO. It did not bother the conscience of the Germans that much, because the next day in Mys´lenice the very same NCO was seen playing skat with his colleagues – ‘There was beer, too, and humours were excellent.’56 The German Army and Air Force fought with extreme brutality without any regard for the civilian population. Undefended towns and cities were bombarded by the Luftwaffe, which also routinely strafed the civilians causing heavy casualties. German commanders warned the

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units that the civilian population will most probably conduct a guerrilla campaign and instructed the units to quell any resistance. ‘The civilians are to be treated harshly [. . .] if necessary, act ruthlessly’ – wrote a staff officer of 208th Infantry Division.57 Since the overwhelming majority of German soldiers and junior officers crossing the border in 1939 had no prior combat experience, fear and contempt resulted in a wave of arson and murder comparable to the events in Kalisz and especially in Belgium in 1914, although the scale of destruction was much greater. 1 September– 25 October 1939, when the responsibility for the occupied Poland was passed from the military into the hands of the civilian German administration, army units and the Einsatzgruppen burned 476 villages and executed at least 16,336 civilians (Gentiles and Jews).58 There were numerous instances of mass executions of Polish POWs, for example, 300 were shot in Ciepielo´w on 9 September in the largest massacre of POWs of the campaign59; overall over three thousand Polish POWs were murdered by the German Army units well after they ceased to fight.60 What were the reasons for such a difference in the conduct of the German Army in 1914 and in 1939? There is no doubt that the combination of the contempt resulting from cultural differences and the fear rising from the lack of combat experience contributed much to the way German troops behaved in Poland in 1939. Jochen Bo¨hler wrote that ‘Seeing the enemy as primitive Untermensch, they felt less and less scruples against excesses which served to vent their rage and frustration.’61 What is striking, however, is the similarity between the descriptions of the land and the people in Poland found in German accounts of operations in the 1914 and 1939 campaigns. There is little doubt that German soldiers of 1914 and the next generation, in 1939, had the same feeling of civilisational superiority when comparing themselves to the backward and poor Poles inhabiting under-developed towns and villages. Nevertheless, apart from the early destruction of Kalisz and smaller atrocities in other places later, the German Army behaved more or less correctly. There seem to be no reports of arson, robberies or murder on the part of the German units later in 1914. The overall number of civilian victims of the German Imperial Army in Poland in 1914 was very low, probably not more than a couple of hundred, and only once, in Kalisz, were they slain in larger numbers.

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What was different, then? German units operating in central Poland from late September 1914 were no longer green recruits, but had acquired combat experience during the battles of Tannenberg and Masurian Lakes; others were redeployed from the Western Front, where they had fought against the French, the British and the Belgians. Having gone through baptism by fire the soldiers no longer felt inclined to report ubiquitous guerrillas in recently captured places. What is perhaps more important is that in 1914 the higher echelons of the German Army were not aiming to wage a war of destruction against the entire population of ‘Russian Poland’, but their main preoccupation was to beat the Russian Army. Having initially reacted to the reports of civilian resistance with ruthless measures, they soon began to tone down the excesses and impose restraint on their troops. In 1939 the situation was completely different. Similar partisan scare and the similar image of the local population, reinforced and honed out of any proportion by the propaganda machine of a racist, totalitarian regime and by inflammatory orders issued by the Army command, resulted in a wave of racially motivated violence directed against the inhabitants of Poland. The comparison of fatalities is telling. Around 200 civilians and a fairly low number of POWs were killed in 1914, whereas over 16,000 civilians and around 3,000 POWs were slain in 1939. Even if we ascribe a large proportion of the fatalities in 1939 to the aforementioned ethnic rivalry on the former German lands, the contrast is still enormous and underlines the different nature of conflicts in 1914 and 1939.

PART II SOLDIERS AND VETERANS: EXPERIENCE, UNDERSTANDING AND MEMORY

CHAPTER 7 CHOOSING THEIR OWN NATION:NATIONAL AND POLITICAL IDENTITIES OF THE ITALIAN POWS IN RUSSIA, 1914—21 Simone A. Bellezza

A Question of Identity As Antonio Gibelli pointed out, despite Italian unification in the nineteenth century, Italians as a collective entity did not exist until the end of World War I: the conflict was the first common experience and constituted the first common memory of the Italian people. Men and women took their positions either on the external or on the internal front ‘for the fatherland,’ but learned what the fatherland was and how to deal with it only ‘thanks to’ and as a consequence of the war.1 This process also involved those Italians who, at the outbreak of the war, were subjects of the Habsburg monarchy in Trentino, the Julian March and Dalmatia. But if Italian patriotism was not a premise for all the citizens of the Kingdom of Italy, we should not take it for granted that the Italian-speaking population of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was entirely made up of passionate supporters of the House of Savoy. From the very beginning of the war, ethnic Italians were recruited into the Austrian Army and sent mainly to Galicia against the Russian

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troops: many of them became prisoners and spent the rest of the conflict in Russia. The Tsarist Empire, as well as nearly all the other countries involved in the conflict, tried to exploit the national factor in order to enrol the prisoners of war against their original homeland. Unfortunately, the national rhetoric of Fascism firstly and the Italian historiography later uncritically represented the Italian POWs in Russia as spotless patriots, whose only desire was to ‘go back’ to Italy and to join the Italian Army in its efforts against foreign domination.2 Some more recent attempts to re-write the story of World War I in Trentino challenged this interpretation, but they nevertheless took the identity of the prisoners as something given a priori and failed to address its transformations during the war.3 This study will be confined to soldiers from Trentino and will examine how the national (and to some extent social) identity of these Italian POWs in Russia changed over time from the beginning of the war until the return to their native land.4 Perhaps because of different historiographical traditions and of the many languages involved, scholars studying POWs on the Eastern Front have struggled with finding a common basis of enquiry and for the comparison of the various national cases.5 One possible solution to this stalemate and lack of communication could be, drawing on the most recent research on the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,6 to link the study of wartime captivity to more general questions like the consequences of World War I and the transformation of national identities. Keeping in mind the theoretical innovative concepts of national indifference and territoriality, in this chapter Italian POWs will serve as an exceptional litmus test of the feelings of national belonging of the Italian population of the Habsburg Empire.7 In this way, expanding on the intuition of the Italian historians Camillo Zadra and Fabrizio Rasera,8 I hope to contribute to the reflection on loyalties and to the study of nationalism from below.

Defection as a Clue to National Belonging? In the Habsburg Empire, starting with the summer of 1914, all males aged from 21 to 42 years old were mobilised into the Austrian Army: Trentino had a population of about 380,000 and provided 60,000 soldiers (nearly 15 per cent). This region consequently suffered from a

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strong depopulation from the beginning of the war, especially in one of the most productive layers of the population.9 The training in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was meant to provide the soldiers with a strong feeling of belonging to the Habsburg fatherland, but it did not prove to be very effective:10 the fact alone that Trentine soldiers often did not understand the officers’ language (usually German or Hungarian) played against this plan. Moreover, Vienna’s foes exploited the multinational factor of the Austrian Army to induce the defections of entire battalions.11 Particularly after Italy entered the conflict in May 1915, the Russian Army used leaflets and announcements to urge Italian nationals to surrender and join the Italian Army.12 Accounts published in Italy between the two world wars presented defection from the Austrian Army as an act of Italian patriotism. A well-known example is the article written by Ermete Bonapace for the collection The Martyrdom of Trentino. Bonapace was a sculptor, a strong Italian nationalist and a manager of the fascist trade union of artists, and in 1919 collaborated on the volume to celebrate the sacrifice of the Trentine people in their struggle to join the rest of Italy. Regarding the question of defection he wrote: ‘Imprisonment was considered a liberation. Saving ourselves in Russia!’13 However, Bonapace was also the author of a very interesting memoir published posthumously in 1961; in 1914, when the war broke out, he was a young student in Rome and he could have stayed there, escaping the recruitment in the Austrian Army. After a short but vivid period of uncertainty, Bonapace went back home and enrolled in the Austrian Army. This is how he explained his decision in the memoir he wrote during his Russian captivity: In my village men of up to forty-two years old were mobilized, including my two brothers. Was I to remain a cold spectator to this huge disgrace? I could see the egoism in that. What to do? What freedom? I wasn’t going to Austria only because I was afraid of death. I saw myself filthy with cowardice. If all the men had to pass through the storm, I could not give myself a dispensation.14 This explanation appears in many other diaries; solidarity with other men of the village was the first reason people did not resist recruitment. Everyone knew that war would not be easy, nearly everyone was afraid,

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and many people cried (all the accounts agree on that) but in the end, the men kept together. Due to the scarcity of sources it is very difficult to assess what feelings of belonging were prevalent in people from Trentino, but it seems that loyalty to the small fatherland, to the village, was the predominant factor. Once on the front, the behaviour of the officers towards the Italian troops also played a great role in determining the general mood: many soldiers complained of maltreatment from Austrian and Hungarian officers, especially after May 1915, when all Italian nationals were suspected of treason. Habsburg officers are often described as violent and cowardly, as in this memoir by Guido Biasi: During the shootings the lieutenant ran to the bunker with his prostitutes; when everything was calm again, he came back, always joined by his women, he ordered the muster of the company and, frowning like Brancaleone, threatened and cursed us out until his voice got hoarse. Such brutes, after all, were not rare in the imperial royal army; intimidation through insults was largely practiced.15 In some cases Trentine soldiers believed themselves to be particularly illtreated because of their national origins and this played a factor in deciding to defect. However, all officers, even Italians, used violence to control the troops, as reported by Alfonso Cazzolli, a printmaker from Tione, who later became a convinced Italian nationalist. He wrote in his memoir: A lieutenant from Trento, a certain Ciurentaller, commanded the transport, during this war I found more bad Italian officers than German; yes, I can say it, our own Italians were nasty with us, I knew a sergeant who instead of feeding three of his fellow countrymen who had not eaten for three day because of an attack, preferred to give the food to the Germans [. . .] and I could report many such cases about Italian-speaking officers against Italians, not only me but everyone said bad things about them, and even here in captivity they nearly always accuse us in front of Russian authorities and the whole thing often ends up in prison and we become prisoners twice.16

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For those who addressed the question directly, surrendering was not usually conceived as an act of Italian patriotism. Rather the reason for defection was the desire to stop fighting: the living conditions were awful and dying was the norm at the front. Therefore many soldiers defected as a way to save their lives: consequently the high number of defections from the Austro-Hungarian Army, according to these writings, can be considered more a failure of Habsburg patriotism than as a sign of the support for the Italian state.

National Divisions Prisoners from the Southern Front were usually gathered in Kiev, in the suburb of Darnytsia, which worked as a sorting centre and was where the mixed character of the Austrian Army emerged. Guido Biasi, who later remained a loyal Austrian citizen, wrote: Spontaneously, as if by instinctive racial call, each nationality formed a separate group and occupied a determined sector. The ethnic mosaic of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was entirely represented: Italians, Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Rumanians, Czechs, Slovaks, Ruthenians, Croats, Slovenians, some Turks and even a clan of Transylvanian gypsies [. . .] Meeting fellow countrymen who spoke the same language produced displays of camaraderie and solidarity: it looked like we found again a family and a strip of a far motherland.17 As Eric Lohr has demonstrated concerning ‘aliens’,18 for the Russian government the national categorisation of prisoners played a central role: the correspondence between the Darnytsia camp administration and the Army General Staff reports that specific orders about different treatments for prisoners of different nationalities were issued as early as 3 October 1914. In particular, enemy nationalities like Germans and Hungarians were to be sent to camps in Siberia, while friendly nationalities (including Italians and Romanians, although their countries had not yet entered the war) were supposed to remain in better camps in the European part of the Empire. However the camp administration complained that due to the unexpectedly high numbers of prisoners arriving, they were in practice unable to follow

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these orders in the proper way, and some Italians were dispatched to Central Asia.19 Even before Italy entered the war, many diaries reported that Russian officers were presenting the prospect of going ‘back’ to Italy: in fact Italian prisoners were exploited by Russian diplomacy as a stimulus to convince Rome to join the Entente against the central empires. Tsar Nicholas II offered them as a personal present to Vittorio Emanuele III on 27 October 2014, but the Italian government turned down the proposition as an attempt to influence a decision that should be taken in ‘full sovereignty’.20 In spite of the Italian refusal, the Russian government never abandoned the idea of using the Italian prisoners against Vienna, either as a diplomatic weapon or as a military force on the Russian or on the Italian Front. Italian prisoners were therefore exposed by Russian authorities to various versions of what would await them if they accepted the proposition to go to Italy, while the Italian diplomats and military officials could not get in touch with them until Rome had taken a final decision on the matter. This is perhaps the reason why official accounts and personal diaries and memoirs differ so much on the point of the offer to go back to Italy. Giuseppe De Manincor, a nationalist and a fascist who published his memoirs in 1926, presented the choice between Austria and Italy as an obvious one: Italians chose Italy. For the others (it would seem a minority in his words) there was absolute condemnation: they were either ‘an ignorant, gullible and idiot mass’, or ‘wild beasts’, ‘because they never clean themselves, they vegetate in the most revolting filth; because they are Austrophiles, they have an excellent mess, meat and soup, such as we volunteers [to go to Italy] have never even dreamt of.’21 Unofficial accounts report a much more varied scenery: what interested the prisoners most was going back home and avoiding returning to the battlefield. They chose according to what seemed the best way to stay alive and changed their minds very often: Battista Ciocchetti, a man from Moena, was taken prisoner by the Russians in October 1914 and even tried to escape. Then, he experienced life in the Russian countryside, where he suffered greatly while working in the country: ‘These bears with no education treat us worse than dogs, they mock and play pranks on us.’ After May 1915, Ciocchetti was transferred to Omsk, where Russian authorities were concentrating all Italian prisoners:

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In these days they told us that whoever wants to enrol in the Italian Army is immediately accepted and taken to Italy; they say a lot of people enrolled, but they do not explain it to us well and I cannot understand, then they say that this week a decision will be made about taking us to all Italy or not. I’ll see what will happen but, in order not to stay another year in Siberia I will [risk] everything. This captivity is very hard.22 Hard living conditions seemed to be the real reason for his decision. Once he declared himself for Italy, Ciocchetti was forced to remain in the prison camp and wait for a convoy to Italy; he could not work and his living standards became even worse than before; he wrote that the volunteers had become ‘real prisoners’. He consequently decided to revise his decision and opted to go work in the countryside; here his life improved a lot, as another remark from 15 October 1916 indicates: ‘There is now another possibility to go to Italy as an Italian subject, but knowing nothing about the consequences I prefer to stay another 10 years in Siberia, always with the hope of going back home safe someday, so help me God!’23 This remark is a confirmation that Italian authorities were unable to reach Italian prisoners in Russia and to explain to them that, as established in the Hague Conventions, former soldiers of one army could not be used again in the war against their original armed forces. Ciocchetti received reliable information only in July 1917: Here a letter from the Italian consul in Petrograd arrived with the permission to go to Italy, guaranteeing us that we have no responsibility and nothing to do with the war, that we will be free over there, and after the war will go free and safe to our homes, and that thanks to the good heart of good people who want to save the last leftovers of our nation, and not to let us die in vain in Siberia. The great majority of people from Trentino and I will go, I am absolutely sure I am not doing wrong, and that I will save myself as long as I am still healthy, another winter here scares me.24 Many Italian prisoners, however, never decided to betray their original Austro-Hungarian homeland. For example, in 1916 Guido Biasi was taken from Darnytsia to Tambov, a city southeast of Moscow, where the Russian authorities gathered the prisoners in a former theatre. An Italian

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mission presented ethnic Italians with the opportunity to go to Italy: those who accepted had to be transferred to Kirsanov, a small city in the same district, in a dedicated prison camp. Biasi commented: Many accepted the invitation, but more, fearing that they would be recruited again and sent to fight against Austria, preferred to wait in captivity for the end of the conflict. Of course there were also those who, though responsive to the national call, believed that it was more cautious to put off any decision until the outcome of the war would be clearer. Myself, being unsure of what to do, could not find anything better than following the majority.25 As Biasi reported, those who remained loyal to Vienna did so mostly for practical reasons. There were very few individuals, like Sergeant Burlanda from South Tyrol, who ‘considered it necessary to keep faith with the vow of loyalty to the emperor and the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, of whose final victory he had not a doubt.’26

International Aid and National Belonging For the Italian prisoners of the Austrian Army in Russia the decision to stay loyal to the Habsburg homeland or to declare themselves Italian volunteers depended more on a survival strategy than on ideological reasons. This does not mean that there were not some individuals, clearly a minority, who were convinced patriots on either side.27 However, as Ermete Bonapace’s personal history would suggest, during the war the national perception of the prisoners changed: before the war Bonapace surely belonged to a small fatherland, made of his fellow villagers, but he came back from Russia a convinced nationalist. As shown by the phenomenon of defection, Italian soldiers of the Austrian Army were not always ready to risk their life on the frontline for the Emperor and preferred to surrender to the enemy. During Russian captivity their disaffection for the Habsburg homeland grew because of a very important factor: the small amount of assistance they received from their fatherland through the Red Cross. This is, for example, what happened to Fioravante Gottardi, an educated peasant from Cazzano. Gottardi left a typewritten diary-memoir that he finished in 1925.

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The pages exude Italian patriotism from the very beginning, but his actions sometimes contradicted his words; for example, in September 1915 he preferred to turn down the proposal to go to Italy and remained to work in an undefined location of Chita, where his living conditions were not so bad. This suggests that he changed the manuscript of his diary slightly in the years that followed the end of the conflict, stressing his Italian patriotism. In many entries of his diary he complains of the scant help that he received from the Austrian government, especially in comparison with the Germans. This was the case in November 1915 (he had just turned down the proposal to go to Italy), when German prisoners received a substantial amount of money through a German lady from the Red Cross, and he commented: ‘So doesn’t Austria worry about its prisoners? It seems not.’ The following March (1916), Austrian prisoners like himself finally received some help: On the 30th a young Lady from the Austrian Red Cross arrives. I thought that Austria would have been generous, but we had to make do with the Emperor’s greetings and one rouble. WHAT A NICE CONSOLATION! With greetings you can live and stay happy. It doesn’t matter, as far as I am concerned I could even refuse the rouble, because if I have not died in the past, even without Francis’ greetings, I hope to live on maybe even longer than him!?28 Like many other Austrian prisoners, Gottardi compared the assistance he received from his homeland with the Germans, who were fewer in number and were given much greater help: this turned into a general feeling of having been abandoned by the fatherland.29 After declaring war with Austria, the Italian government agreed with Russia to take the Italian prisoners to Italy: consequently a special military mission was sent to the Russian Empire to organise the transfer and to support those prisoners who had supposedly declared their preference for Italy over Austria. This military mission to provide concrete aid to the Italian prisoners gathered in Kirsanov was backed by the Italian community and diplomats in Russia: among them a rich merchant from Moscow, Vigilio Ceccato. The latter was born in Trentino, and emigrated as a very young man to Russia, where he built his fortune as an art dealer, even selling to the Romanovs. Once the war

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broke out, Ceccato, who was an Austrian citizen and worried about his business because of the laws against enemy aliens, requested and obtained Italian citizenship. Later on he was even appointed consul and involved himself strongly in the support of Italian prisoners kept in Kirsanov.30 Though people in Kirsanov always complained about their poor conditions and were disappointed by the long wait before being sent to Italy, the support the Italian state provided the prisoners had favourable consequences on the prisoners’ feelings towards their new state. This is particularly clear in the story of Isidoro Simonetti, who was born in 1883 in Saccone di Brentonico. After fighting on the Eastern Front and being captured, Simonetti immediately accepted the proposal of going to Italy, apparently out of calculations of convenience and not out of patriotic feelings. During a transfer from one camp from another, Simonetti came across a group of Russian refugees, families fleeing from the war, who reminded him of the possible misfortunes being experienced by his family because of the war between Italy and Austria. Strongly impressed by this meeting, Simonetti addressed his fellows, who were singing an Italian patriotic song, like this: I addressed those who were shouting hurrah for the fatherland and told them, stop shouting and consider for a little moment the conditions of these poor people, caused by the word fatherland, the word fatherland – I say – means destruction of poor people I here leave memory of my conscience as far as I know, and of what I have seen: that fatherland is for poor people the whole world, where you are good, that is fatherland; your home your parents, wife and children, those are the fatherland, all the rest is just hate, anger and envy: in this world the only thing is to love and help each other and feel sorry for each other.31 At this point of his life Simonetti seemed to be a perfect representative of the patriotism of the small fatherland: his family, home, and village are the real homeland and there is a total rejection of the fatherland as a political concept or a nation-state. However, even if his notebook does not allow us to follow his life in Russia in detail after that, his feelings of national belonging changed considerably because of his experience in Kirsanov. In the camp his living conditions were hard, as he complained very often, but at the same time they improved with the help of the

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Italian mission and diplomats. The notebook reported many expressions of gratitude for an Italian consul who gave the prisoners a lot of money and food (I assumed, based on other sources, that it was Ceccato). Finally Simonetti made an admission that seemed to contradict his previous feelings: ‘Yes; it is really true, after we declared ourselves for Italy we received some care, we had somebody who worried for us, they always tried to improve our conditions, while before we had met them we were forgotten by everyone.’32 If one should not read this sentence as an expression of Italian patriotism, it is nevertheless impossible to deny that the way prisoners were treated and supported during captivity by the states that claimed their loyalty strongly influenced their feelings of belonging to these institutions: Gottardi’s resentment towards Austria and Simonetti’s thankfulness towards Italy demonstrate how captivity in Russia became an experience of nationalisation.

Laboratories of National Self-education The social life in the Kirsanov prison camp was an extraordinary complex that I would define as a laboratory of self-nationalisation.33 The camp occupied various buildings of the city, which preserved their previous names (theatre, jail, etc.).34 Prisoners were quite free to move inside the city perimeter during the day and were not supposed to work but just wait for a transfer to Italy. The life of the prisoners was not organised in any way by the Russian authorities, which limited the expenses of the camp to a bare minimum. Austrian officers of Italian nationality were also kept in this camp but were separated from the rest of the prisoners and benefitted from much better living conditions; this caused great resentment among the rank-and-file who, in a letter to their officers, accused them of not caring for the conditions of their subordinates.35 Privates and petty officers were therefore left free to organise their life in the camp as they pleased; all diaries and memoirs agree that a small elite of convinced Italian patriots soon emerged. The group included those figures who would go on to publish their accounts of the Russian captivity after the war and during Fascism: Giuseppe De Manincor, Annibale Molignoni,36 later Ermete Bonapace and a few others. This nationalist elite organised the camp as an Italian camp, exploiting the benevolent laxity of Russian authorities towards expressions of national belonging of ‘friendly nationalities.’

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The patriotic leadership of the camp organised the celebration of Italian public festivities (like the issuing of the Statuto, the Italian monarchical constitution), put together a small orchestra and a choir for concerts with Italian opera music and even made lectures on patriotism. They managed to publish an illegal newspaper entitled La nostra fede (Our faith). The first editorial (20 February 1920) explained the purpose of the journal: Our program is in the title; our goal is purely patriotic. We hope to be able to improve the mood of the friends gathered here. We will publish those truths of common interest, wherever they came from, and we will take note of those false pieces of news that come around sometimes either serving somebody’s purpose or as a madman’s inventions.37 The Russian authorities did not approve, but tolerated such initiatives; the newspaper was closed a couple of times. The Italian authorities approved these initiatives but were not involved in their realisation. Even when some sort of help came, it was on a personal plane and from particular subjects: the major donor to the Italians was the Italian consul in Moscow, Adelchi Gazzurelli.38 As a consequence of these initiatives a national rhetoric dominated the camp and won over many prisoners. It should be noted that this camp of national education was not organised from above by the Italian state, but it came out as a form of self-organisation: in conditions particularly favourable to Italian patriotism, a minority of Italian nationalists were able to assert themselves as the leading figures and to impose a particular public rhetoric which would dominate the public memory of the captivity in the following decades. This rhetoric was also symbolised by the building of commemorative monuments to the Italians who died in Russian captivity (carved by Bonapace) and by the weaving of official banners of the Italian prisoners from Trentino and the Italian March. The Italian military mission was able to organise some transfers of Italian prisoners in the spring of 1916 and 1917 through the Moscow– Archangel–Arctic Sea –North Sea –Great Britain – France– Italy route: around 6,000 prisoners were in this way ‘repatriated’.39 In the first dispatches Italian authorities included the officers (who were

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able to pay for the trip) and the nationalist elite of the camp. Russian authorities continued to gather Italians in the Kirsanov camp, but the 1917 October Revolution radically changed the political scenario.

The ‘Supreme Desire to Fight for Italy’40 After the Bolshevik revolution the political situation was unclear, as was the new relationship with the Italian government. As it was impossible to send the Italian prisoners to Italy through the northern route, the Italian mission decided to gather all the Italian individuals and send them in small groups first to Vladivostok and later to the Italian dominions in China, in Beijing and in Tien Tsin. For the first time in a few years the Italian prisoners were finally cleaned, fed and given a proper place to sleep, which had an immediate positive outcome on their mood and on their thankfulness towards Italian authorities. Fioravante Gottardi, the peasant disappointed by the Austrian Red Cross, reported his relief as soon as he got to Tien Tsin where some fellow former prisoners received him: I was immediately surprised seeing that they were all wearing the honourable uniform of Italian soldiers and from their words I understand that we have finally come to a place where life is good. We go through the city and once we get to the barracks we entered a big dining hall and I see on the tables plates filled with steamy soup, everything prepared for us. A deep sigh comes out of my chest and I think that we can finally eat like humans. After the meal they give us a double set of underwear and soap. They lead us to the bathrooms and here we leave (you can imagine, with such regret!) the old rags full of parasites and other filth. Finally, after we have all been fed and cleaned, we are conducted to the rooms where beds with white sheets are standing ready to embrace us. At last! Yes, we have suffered, but now everything has passed away and a new life is starting for us and I cannot help but tell myself that I am really pleased.41 On the way to Vladivostok, however, the military mission had gathered and sent to China all the Italians it could find, even those who had not

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declared themselves for Italy. Once in Tien Tsin, therefore, as reported by another former prisoner, Valentino Maestranzi, a sorting was conducted: Here three categories were formed, each could choose which one he desired to be put in. The one favoured by the mission was that of those who wanted to be enrolled in the army. The second was that of those who wanted to sign up for Italian citizenship, in which you got the green uniform, without military insignia, and this was the one I chose. The third was called the canaries, because they were dressed with a canvas uniform, yellow like a canary: these were those who did not believe that Trento and Trieste were under Italy, also that there was some sort of strategy, and did not believe that they would be repatriated.42 Unlike the affirmations of the official reports, not all Italians were willing to become citizens of the Kingdom of Italy. Officers of the Italian Army stressed more than once the utter desire of the former Italian prisoners to fight for Italy and free their land from Austria, but this was perhaps more a consequence of the desire to go home (even if the condition was to fight again). Former prisoners were not told that the Italian government had decided to dispatch a military mission to Siberia to fight against the Bolsheviks and that the Italian prisoners would join this contingent to spare men and money. When the backup forces of Italian soldiers arrived and only after the former prisoners had taken the military oath, the officers revealed that they were supposed to go back to Russia. The battalions formed with former Italian POWs were called Battaglioni neri (Black Battalions). The whole mission in Russia, although it was not too difficult (the Italians rarely engaged in active combat and were in the rear of the Czech battalions), was perceived as a heroic mission but also as a betrayal. There were mixed feelings: diaries and memoirs often report pride in this extraordinary experience. The former POWs understood where they were and how exceptional their story was; many of them had been migrants to both North and South America and were able to enjoy the adventurous side of these events, they were well aware of themselves. But these good feelings lasted only

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as long as everything went right, as long as it was not cold, as long as they did not have to fight or to suffer some extreme situations, which in the end did occur. They were at war again and that was not what they were really willing to do. This was revealed at the end of the war in Europe, when the desire to put an end to the prisoners’ wanderings emerged. Arturo Dellai, a baker from Pergine, was particularly explicit: It seems to me that they are fucking us around. [. . .] the anger grows. Once in Krasnoyarsk they tell us that the war between Austria and Italy is over, Trento and Trieste are Italian. The news causes disappointment in all the Italians mostly from Trento, Trieste, and the Julian March. I almost regret having signed that damned paper that promised to take us to Italy and heaven and earth. Perhaps Italy has abandoned us: I really don’t know what we are doing here in Siberia, so far from Italy.43 After a few months spent defending Krasnoyarsk, the Italian mission was withdrawn in August 1919 and all the prisoners went to Italy and back home through either the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal or the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and the USA. This analysis of the captivity in Russia allows a better understanding of how the events of World War I generated particular feelings of rejection or belonging to the states conducting the conflict, causing a meaningful change in the perception of the national identity of the soldiers. Not surprisingly, the memoirs and diaries of those prisoners who, for various reasons, never received any aid from the Italian government and never passed through the Kirsanov camp are characterised by a mild Austro-Hungarian patriotism and by an ambiguous use of the word ‘Italian’, which can be referred to both themselves and the enemy, with a good or a bad connotation.44

Participant Observations Captivity in Russia activated reflections on identity and the self not only as a consequence of the policies of nation-states claiming various

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nationalities: since Russian men were mobilised in the army, the Russian economy suffered from a chronic lack of labour force and the great majority of POWs were required to work. Prisoners were happy to earn some money and businessmen and peasants urgently needed their help. Working meant many different jobs, from peasant economy to mines, to industry and construction building, sometimes even intellectual work, like teaching foreign languages. The living conditions could vary immensely, from very good to insufferable, even for the very same prisoners who, according to the season, were sent to different jobs and locations. Prisoners were often free to move and easily escaped and looked for another job, when the working conditions were too bad. Many tried to go back home but, as far as I could ascertain, they were all blocked when approaching the regions next to the front. Prisoners lived together with the Russians they worked for, observed their customs, ate their food, learned their language and compared everything to their native culture; the prisoners’ writings can somehow be considered ‘anthropological surveys of the participant observations’ they conducted during their captivity. The first impression after being captured was usually a positive one: ‘the opinions about Russians begin to change, as we see that they are not so brutal and nasty as they were described.’45 Later, Italian POWs were struck by the poverty and the ignorance of Russians, especially in the country. Thanks to the Austrian school system, nearly all Italians were able to read and write, while the typical Russian peasant was not. The agricultural techniques were backward, and the hygienic conditions often unbearable. Italians always lamented being infested with lice and other parasites. Another thing that shocked the Italians was the nudity and supposed promiscuity of the Russians: many diaries describe the scene of nude men and women bathing together in a river as something absolutely perverted, and this is perhaps due to the sexophobic catholic education of the Italians. Agostino Dallagiovanna, who had worked in South America before the war, was shocked by the bad living conditions of Russian peasants: They are like that [. . .] uncivilized, much dirtier than our pigs, they are all illiterate and do not know numbers; [. . .] the clothes at home are so worn out and [unintelligible] that you can easily tell

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apart men from women although the dress is the same [. . .] They do not have handkerchiefs but on any occasion they can clean their noses with their fingers and throw the dirt on the ground with carefulness and attention, and they do the same they do when they knead bread or prepare food.46 Often the comparison with the richer and more civilised region of Trentino generated a sense of superiority and contempt towards the Russians, like Austrophile teacher Giorgio Bugna, who commented on some Russian peasants ruining the work he had done in the vegetable garden: This is not good, let me do it. I cannot say it because I do not know the language. After all, these Russians consider themselves pundits but they are not. It is proved by the fact that they leave the livestock in the cold in winter and they are not able to keep it well, they eat all from the same plate, sleep on hard wood, prepare their food in the oven, they are not able to cook and so on.47 POWs composed many poems to describe their life in Russia, the most popular being Customs and Traditions of Siberia’s Peasants, which has been found in many prisoners’ writings. They also sketched many drawings, especially about religion, which also looked very strange to them: sometimes they defined it as ‘ridiculous’, like Battista Ciocchetti talking about Orthodox Easter,48 but in other cases religious ceremonies were described in detail and some prisoners, like the railway worker Luigi Cazzanelli, sincerely enjoyed the spirit of the festivity and Russian hospitality.49 However, religion emerged from all writings as the most important difference; Trentine people were usually strong Catholic believers and their religion was the central element of their collective as well as of their personal identity. This is why, perhaps, even if indulging in describing Orthodox liturgy, POWs marked their distance from such rites, like Francesco Matteotti, who remarked: ‘I coldly attended these functions, knowing that this is not our religion, only observing for simple curiosity.’50

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Trentine prisoners usually did not try and integrate in Russian society; the greatest exceptions were those who remained in Russia after the Bolshevik revolution and somehow adhered to it. Unfortunately we have too little information on those who remained in the Soviet Union, also because, when they went back to Italy, their pages about Communist Russia were destroyed, as in the case of Luciano Bertoluzza, a worker from Trento. His diary lacks any expression of belonging or rejection of either the Austrian or the Italian fatherland. He never got in touch with the Italian military mission and did not know of the possibility of going to Italy. In captivity he changed many jobs, until he settled down in Penza. When he describes the ‘rite of passage’ from Austrian to Russian citizenship, the feelings that dominate his reasoning seem to lead back to the small homeland of personal affects: Many went home. But I did not think to come, until one day I heard from the command that the prisoners left in this city must make themselves Russian citizens and international immigrants, otherwise they would be arrested in 24 hours. I went and made myself a Russian citizen; I disowned the Austrian fatherland to become Russian. As the commander was writing my name, I was thinking of my poor Ida [his fiance´]. The biggest thought I had in my head was this. If peace would ever come, how could I go to visit her? I cannot go back to Austria, I cannot go to Italy, and I always knew that she surely would not come [here], therefore I could see myself already abandoned.51 In spite of all the – sometimes successful – efforts of the states to impose national belonging as a form of mutually exclusive loyalty, in some cases people from Trentino seemed able to preserve a much more intimate and variable identity and to exploit the national discourse to implement a personal survival strategy. It is nonetheless undeniable that during the captivity in Russia a twofold process of nationalisation was carried on: from below by the Italian patriots among POWs and, from above, by the Italian Army. Those who were successfully nationalised during the war would constitute the cornerstone of the nationalisation of Trentino in the following 20 years; some of them

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even became convinced Fascists. Many Trentine prisoners resisted nationalisation or only formally adhered to it; this indifference to nationalism was due to the strength of Catholicism as the main social identification factor. I believe that, in order to rightfully explain the dynamics of nationalisation during and after the conflict, future research should address the question of religion as the main element of group identification at the beginning of World War I and of its interactions with the growing feelings of national belonging. This would contribute to the understanding of the outbreak of postwar nationalisms as a consequence rather than as a cause of World War I.

CHAPTER 8 RED PERIL OR YELLOW PERIL? BRITISH ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE RUSSIAN OTHER: NORTHERN RUSSIA, 1918—19 Steven Balbirnie

Introduction Since the Enlightenment, Russia has been considered an ‘other’ within Europe; as Larry Wolff has argued, Western European scholars created the idea of Eastern Europe during the eighteenth century and thus Russia became geographically situated within Europe’s own Orient.1 Ezequiel Adamovsky, drawing on Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism, has identified that this ideological construction constituted what he terms ‘Euro-Orientalism’, whereby Europe’s Slavic population, the Russians in particular, became the subject of stereotyping and prejudicial treatment which mirrored that which Westerners applied to the peoples of Asia.2 Thus, since Russia supposedly embodied traditionally ‘Oriental characteristics’, the Russians came to be seen as an ‘Asiatic other’ within Europe. Adamovsky has argued, however, that while the roots of these attitudes can be found in the Enlightenment, the true emergence of ‘Euro-Orientalism’ came in the early years of the twentieth century.3 This perception of Russia was also part of a wider trend of Western European attitudes towards Eastern Europe;

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an example of this being the concept of ‘Balkanism’ which Maria Todorova has described as encompassing the stereotypes of ‘Orientalism’ with the added elements of ‘cruelty, boorishness, instability, and unpredictability’.4 The developments in this orientalised view of Russians are particularly significant as they coincided with the rise of ‘Yellow Peril’ fears in the West. While the ‘Yellow Peril’ or ‘die Gelbe Gefahr’ had its roots in the fear of the emergence of Japan as a major military power after its victory over China in 1894– 5, it quickly came to take on a broader application, which stretched as far as including Russia.5 This was not solely a product of Western prejudices either; the ‘vostochnik’ or ‘easterner’ wing of the advocates of Russian expansionism at the Tsar’s court in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, championed most prominently by Prince Esper Ukhtomskii, sought to redefine Russia as an Asian rather than a European nation.6 Vladimir Bobrovnikov has argued that this redefinition, pursued under the reigns of Alexander III and Nicholas II, was part of an attempt to assimilate the freshly conquered Muslim Turkic populations of Central Asia, and to homogenise the Russian Empire under Orthodox Great Russian dominance.7 It has been asserted by Marina Mogilner that this homogenisation was facilitated by the blurred line between the Russian metropole and its colonies compared to other European empires, whereby the Russian and non-Russian inhabitants of the empire lived in close proximity and often intermarried with one another.8 Thus it can be seen that Russian attempts to assimilate and subsume their Orient gave the impression to external observers that at the same time this Orient was also assimilating and subsuming the Russians. The British were certainly not immune to viewing the Russians through an Oriental lens in this period and were perhaps particularly susceptible due to their rivalry with the Russians in Central Asia as part of the so-called ‘Great Game’. Iver B. Neumann has observed that throughout the nineteenth century, British attitudes towards Russia could be characterised by: The idea that if one scrapes a Russian the Tatar will emerge. Take away the borrowed feathers of European civilization and Russia’s military might, and the barbarian (or even a savage, if one scrapes hard enough!) would emerge in the raw.9

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This sentiment is also reflected in Lord Curzon’s assessment of Russian expansion into Central Asia; he claimed ‘the conquest of Central Asia is a conquest of Orientals by Orientals.’10 The Geographer, Halford Mackinder also described Russia as a modern equivalent to the medieval Mongol Empire, as ‘her pressure on Finland, on Scandinavia, on Poland, on Turkey, on Persia, on India, and on China replaces the centrifugal raids of the steppemen.’11 In the discussion which followed this paper Sir Leopold Amery further reinforced the notion of Russia as an Asiatic ‘other’ by commenting: I would criticize one thing Mr. Mackinder said when he described Russia as the heir of Greece. It was not the ancient heir of Hellenic Greece, but of Byzantium, and Byzantium was the heir of the old Oriental monarchies with the Greek language and a tinge of Roman civilization thrown over it.12 It is evident that there was a trend in British perceptions of Russia prior to World War I that regarded the Russians as ‘Orientals’ and ‘Asiatics’. Not only did such perceptions persist despite the Russians and British being allied during World War I, but they also impacted the attitudes and conduct of the British soldiers despatched to Russian territory during the closing year of the war. Between March 1918 and October 1919 British soldiers served as a substantial component of an international interventionist force occupying Northern Russia. The initial purpose of British intervention at Murmansk and Archangel was embarked upon due to strategic factors related to World War I, namely the fear that if the region fell into German hands the Germans could convert the ports into viable U-boat bases and they would also be able to seize the substantial stocks of Allied war materials which had accumulated at these ports while the British and their allies had been trying to prop up the Russian war effort against the Central Powers. Circumstances on the ground quickly transformed this into an anti-Bolshevik military venture, though this too was initially because of perceived links between the Bolsheviks and the Germans. This perception was fostered by Lenin’s return to Russia via the infamous ‘sealed train’ supplied by Germany, Bolshevik anti-war propaganda and by the willingness of the Bolsheviks to sign the punitive treaty of Brest–Litovsk.

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British support for the Whites and antipathy towards the Reds was rooted first and foremost in the perceived loyalty of the Whites in the anti-German struggle compared to the impression of the Reds as perfidious. Ideologically the British were inclined to sympathise with the Whites as representatives of the vestiges of the old monarchical order, while opposing the commitment of the Reds to violent class struggle. However, it is worth noting that British observers regarded many Bolshevik excesses as the product of the inherent racial nature of the Russian people, which had been previously kept in check through autocratic rule. Concepts of inherent racial characteristics and a racial hierarchy were particularly prevalent in British discourse during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries due to the influence of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Karl Pearson was a noted exponent of the concept of SocialDarwinism in this period, whereby Darwinist principles were applied to human society in an attempt to account for racial differences. At a lecture in London in 1900 Pearson notably asserted that societies and nations only advanced through racial struggle as supposedly inferior races were conquered and superior races competed with one another, driving forward innovation.13 In the same period Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, pioneered the concept of eugenics, claiming in 1907 that racial differences could be attributed to the influence of history and culture upon biological development. Galton claimed that: The tyrannies under which men have lived, whether under rude barbarian chiefs, under the great despotism of half-civilised Oriental countries, or under some of the more polished but little less severe governments of modern days, must have had a frightful influence in eliminating independence of character from the human race.14 The work of individuals such as Pearson and Galton loaned a veneer of scientific respectability to the racial stereotyping of other races, such as the Russians, which was being propagated in this period. These ideas were also transmitted to the general populace through British travel writing. Michael Hughes has noted that British travel writing relating to Russia enjoyed popularity since the sixteenth century, which peaked during the immediate years prior to World War I.15

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The perception of Russia as an Oriental or ‘Asiatic’ nation was fostered through the tendency of travelogues to both focus on the more exotic Siberian, Caucasian and Central Asian regions of the Russian Empire rather than the central lands of European Russia, and for the failure of these accounts to make clear distinctions between what were the features of the metropolitan and peripheral regions of Russia.16 This created the impression that all of Russia was ‘an exotic place on the margins of the civilized world’.17 These attitudes towards Russia also formed part of a larger context, as Andrew Hammond has noted that British travel writing about the Balkans facilitated the spread of similar attitudes. Hammond has argued that British travel writing contributed to the popular impression of the Balkans as a region of conflict and barbarism.18 This chapter examines the firsthand accounts of soldiers who served in Northern Russia during 1918 and 1919 to investigate British perceptions of Russians as an Asiatic ‘other’, and the impact which these perceptions had upon soldiers’ attitudes and actions. This is explored not only in relation to the Red Bolshevik enemies of the British, but also in regards to their White Russian allies and the local civilian population. Even in a theatre of conflict so far from Russia’s Asian frontiers, notions of racial hierarchy and a ‘Yellow Peril’ influenced the opinions and conduct of British officers and men in Northern Russia.

Red Enemies The Reds in Northern Russia were largely an unknown quantity to the British due to the desultory nature of fighting in this theatre, and the attitudes of British soldiers towards the Reds were thus formed largely by rumours, propaganda and the instructions of their superior officers rather than from firsthand experience. As shall be seen, the mixture of condescension, fear and hatred which the British felt towards their Bolshevik adversaries was influenced by the perception of the Russians as an ‘Asiatic other’. J.A. Mangan has described the stereotype of an ‘Oriental’ as ‘religious but superstitious, clever but devious, chaotically violent but effeminately cowardly.’19 It shall be demonstrated that such attributes were reflected in the accounts left by British soldiers when discussing the local Russian populace, whether Red, White or neutral.

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The Bolsheviks were regarded as an inherently inferior foe, an incompetent, anarchic, rapacious horde that ranked lower than the British or their German enemies in terms of a perceived racial hierarchy. British perceptions of the Reds also robbed the Bolsheviks of any agency, instead regarding them prior to the November Armistice, and even afterwards, as puppets acting at the behest of the Germans. Both of these elements fused together to create a British attitude of condescension towards the Bolsheviks as they regarded them as an inferior rabble only capable of posing a threat if organised by supposedly racially superior Germans. When it came to taking military action against Bolshevik troops, this was viewed as an extension of the war against Germany; rather than being perceived as an adversary in their own right, the Bolsheviks were reduced in the eyes of the British to mere pawns of German puppet masters. Evidence for this view can be seen in 2nd Lieutenant J. Scott’s following account of an encounter with a trainload of Red troops on the rail line near a location he referred to as ‘Polyarna Krug’ in the Murmansk theatre: The train stops and we find here an [sic ] German officer and two hundred ‘Reds’. These ‘Reds’ ultimately formed the backbone of the Bolshevik fighting forces and the name has stuck to this day. The officer, quite a boy said he had been sent on this mission by the Germans after a liberal dosing of spirits.20 This further reinforces the notion that the pre-Armistice intervention in Northern Russia effectively played out as a proxy war between Britain and Germany fought largely through local intermediaries. However, in Scott’s case quite interestingly even after the Armistice, the Bolsheviks are denied independent agency in his account. The following is Scott’s description of an engagement with Red forces near Koikori in September 1919. The Bolo delivered another very heavy attack on us this time running at us with bombs and we were fortunately able to account for a lot of them, including a German officer.21 Even this long after the conclusion of World War I, it is evident that there were British troops who were incapable of believing that the

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Bolsheviks could be antagonists in their own right, so they continued to suspect a hidden German hand. For some soldiers, such as Colonel A.G. Burn, a German element to the enemy represented the only real threat to British forces in Northern Russia; he wrote in his diary that ‘so long as there is no stiffening of the Bolshie ranks with Germans, the Allied army yclept “Syren” can hold its own without difficulty.’22 Similarly to Scott, he perceived the Bolsheviks as being puppets of the Germans; he recorded on 10 July 1918 that ‘a Russian officer working for the Germans was arrested by us: he is said to be one of the enemy’s most important emissaries.’23 The reason for this impression of the Bolsheviks as lacking their own agency and acting in subservience to Germany being so ingrained among the British forces was the official line being given to them by their commanders. The official attitude of the British was firmly set out in the information the War Office gave to the commanders of British forces in Northern Russia to be disseminated among their men. Major-General F.C. Poole was supplied with an information sheet entitled ‘Information of general interest to troops arriving in Russia’ to be distributed among the ranks; this sheet divided the enemy into two sections, Bolsheviks and Germans; the Bolsheviks were described as: Soldiers and sailors who, in the majority of cases are criminals. Their natural, vicious brutality enabled them to assume leadership. The Bolshevik is now fighting desperately because the restoration of order means an end to his regime, and secondly, because he sees a rope around his neck for his past misdeeds if he is caught.24 The Germans however were accorded a far more significant role; ‘the Bolsheviks have no capacity for organisation but this is supplied by Germany and her lesser Allies. The Germans usually appear in Russian uniform and are impossible to distinguish.’25 While it would be logical to assume that such impressions of the Bolsheviks should not have outlasted the November Armistice, it is evident that these impressions proved to a certain extent to be resilient even among the top levels of the command.

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In May 1919 Major-General Edmund Ironside issued the following proclamation to the Red soldiers which his forces were ranged against: SOLDIERS OF THE RED ARMY! Read this and remember it. Surrender, come over to our side before it is too late. The ice has cleared. Our ships are coming to the North in order to enter once more the battle for real freedom. They bring fresh troops and all that powerful military equipment with the help of which Germany was beaten on the fields of France and Belgium. Now Germany continues to fight us on the fields of Russia. Your commissars are their hirelings. For the sake of German money they have enmeshed you in a net of lies, they have ruined the country, they have surrendered to Germany Russian gold, Russian goods, Russian grain and they send you to the slaughter! You cannot have any hope for victory. Come into the camp of the victors. Join the ranks of fighters for the right cause, for the freedom of Russia.26 This proclamation is illustrative of how even after the end of World War I the British persisted in denying the Bolsheviks their own sense of agency. This loss of agency can be attributed to a condescending attitude held by the British towards the Bolsheviks based on racial grounds. Such ideas were deeply ingrained in British thinking, with David Cannadine asserting: Like all post-Enlightenment imperial powers, only more so, Britons saw themselves as the lords of all the world and thus of humankind. They placed themselves at the top of the scale of civilization and achievement, they ranked all other races in descending order beneath them, according to their relative merits and de-merits.27 Differentiating between races in terms of superiority and inferiority was an established feature of British imperial thought. Cannadine has argued: Britons thought of the inhabitants of their empire [. . .] in collective rather than in individualistic categories, they were inclined to see

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them literally, in terms of crude stereotypes of black and white, and no-less crude relationships of superiority and inferiority.28 British soldiers drew on such stereotypes in their dealings with the different groups they encountered in Northern Russia. Such an approach formed part of a broader trend in contemporary attitudes among imperial societies, which Edward Said identified in his influential study Orientalism as ‘the culturally sanctioned habit of deploying large generalisations by which reality is divided into various collectives: languages, races, types, colors, mentalities, each category, being not so much a neutral designation as an evaluative interpretation.’29 Thus the British in Northern Russia were conforming to wider patterns in contemporary European society. The impression of the Bolsheviks as an Asiatic foe also led to a sense of fear among the British soldiers, however, as a dread began to emerge among the men in regards to what would happen to them if the Bolsheviks took them prisoner. George John Giggins noted this in a retrospective interview; ‘we were a bit scared to be honest, we realised that if we fell into their hands we’d get very rough treatment.’30 Others were far more explicit about their fears. The RAF pilot Eric John Furlong claimed: On more than one occasion they came upon some of our people who’d been captured, who’d been mutilated, badly mutilated, this led us to the decision that we were not going to be captured under any circumstances. So we arranged to carry revolvers [. . .] we carried the revolvers not only to defend ourselves but to finish ourselves off if necessary.31 The desire to commit suicide rather than being taken alive by the Bolsheviks was mirrored in other soldiers’ accounts. After being exposed to a Bolshevik propaganda leaflet, Charles Hunter of the Royal Fusiliers expressed similar sentiments. He revealed: It said, if you are caught prisoner you shall be needled in both eyes and turned adrift. [. . .] I wouldn’t say they were the exact words but something like that. So, I will tell you why I remember that so vividly. On two occasions I was cut off on my own and I kept my

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revolver at my head in case I was spotted. [. . .] I would sooner have shot myself than be taken prisoner.32 While Bolshevik propaganda and the discovery of fallen allies were two sources which fuelled the growing fear of the Reds among British troops, another significant cause were the rumours circulating among British servicemen. Commander C. Drage of the Royal Navy recorded that he: Went to the dentist in the hospital and found him full of hairraising stories of Bolshevik atrocities. They may or may not be true but it is certain that three Royal Scots and two sailors from the Attentive have been trapped on board a boat up the river and were found cut to pieces.33 This illustrates how British attitudes towards their enemy were impacted by the spread of hearsay. The spread of atrocity stories whether of true or false providence had a sometimes negative impact on the morale of British soldiers, undermining their combat effectiveness. While one side of the spread of stories of Bolshevik atrocities, real or imagined, was the development of a fear of the Reds, the other side was a growing hatred for the Red soldiers among some British troops which manifested itself in a desire among some British troops to commit counter-atrocities and occasionally the actual carrying out of what were seen as reprisals. A key source for the atrocity stories which fuelled these emotions were the accounts of North Russia’s refugee population, which had been drawn to Archangel from all parts of the former Russian Empire. These refugees were drawn from a wide range of social classes, political groupings and ethnic backgrounds but were united by their common desire to flee from the horrors of the Russian Civil War and seek safety in whichever foreign countries were willing to receive them. The port of Archangel represented a possible escape route. Captain F.O. Soden’s exposure to tales of Bolshevik atrocities came from a member of the refugee population which throughout the intervention was drawn to Northern Russia hoping for Allied protection. Soden wrote: A few days ago I and one of my officers found a woman sitting on the station at Medvja-Gora, two miles away from here, and as she

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was crying very bitterly we got an interpreter to ask her what was the matter. It seemed that she was a refugee, and only a few hours before she had been compelled to watch her husband cut up into strips, by Bolo Mongolian troops.34 The explicit reference to the racial character of the perpetrators is significant as this fed into British responses to these incidents. The conduct of the British military in the conflict, as has already been touched upon, also developed a dimension reflecting a racial hierarchy. Captain J.E.H. Neville provided a prime example of this in his account of a meeting of officers ahead of a raid on a Bolshevik position in June 1919: The morning of the 26th was spent in discussing every detail of the plans while aeroplanes droned overhead on their way to bomb the enemy. At the end of the conference Captain Baines asked if there were any questions. Serjeant [sic ] Bristow, with a broad grin on his jovial face, wanted to know whether “Chinks” were to be taken prisoners or otherwise disposed of. As the Bolsheviks were known to employ Chinese mercenaries on account of their proficiency in the more refined forms of torture; and as they had been known to hand over prisoners to the Chinese when their own ingenuity failed them, it was unanimously agreed by all present that no trouble should be taken to preserve any Chinese prisoners from harm.35 The emphasis on an Asian element among the Bolshevik forces was frequently raised as an attempt to demonise them and portray them as a non-European ‘other’. A February 1919 report on the composition of Bolshevik forces in Northern Russia made the effort to include the special mention that ‘Chinese battalions at Medvejaya-Gora [sic ] ¼ 1,000.’36 The Murmansk Area’s War Diary entry for 26 February 1919 also emphasised the supposed high levels of Asian foes, stating: In reply to a wire from Colonel Lewin requesting Colonel Meiklejohn to organise a better system of examination of prisoners of war in the south, as no reports from Intelligence on this subject have been received, Colonel Meiklejohn wired that scanty

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information as to the enemy extracted from prisoners captured at SEGEJA was due to the fact that they were all Chinese.37 The repeated denial of a white European identity to the Bolsheviks, and the transformation of them into a racially Asiatic foe in the perceptions of the British, served to impact upon both British attitudes towards their enemies and towards the conflict as a whole. As shall be demonstrated in the following sections, British racial attitudes had not only an influence on their opinions of the Reds, but they also had a negative impact on their relations with both the Whites and the local Russian civilian population.

White Allies The White Russians were the local allies of the British and the conduct of military operations was reliant upon close cooperation and coordination with the local White forces. However, relations between the British and the Whites were far from cordial and the efficacy of the intervention suffered as a result. Throughout the course of the intervention, British attitudes towards the Whites could be characterised as antagonistic rather than bearing a spirit of camaraderie. The British were generally condescending towards their Russian allies, regarding them as a liability rather than an asset and generally incapable of conducting effective operations on their own. Such attitudes naturally invoked a spirit of resentment among the White Russians and soured Anglo-Russian relations in Northern Russia. From the beginning of the intervention the British also treated the Whites as though they were subordinates rather than allies, constantly meddling in local political affairs and attempting to manipulate the Whites and subjugate them to their will. As the intervention progressed British attitudes towards the Whites steadily deteriorated and in the months leading up to the Allied evacuation of Northern Russia British feelings of condescension had given way to exasperation and contempt. Overwhelmingly, the British attitude was one of disregard for the capabilities of the White Russians when it came to combat, organisation or administration. A major contributing factor towards this attitude was the racial element which has already been examined in regards to the Bolsheviks. This British attitude towards Russian military

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capabilities had been evident during World War I, as British elites regarded the Russians as essentially inferior, ignorant peasant masses directed by corrupt and inefficient elites. The British military attache´ to Russia, Major-General Alfred Knox, recorded scathing remarks about the Russians in his memoirs of the war, in which his criticisms focused on the perceived racial inferiority of the Russians– an opinion shared by many officers and soldiers during the intervention. Knox wrote: The men had the faults of their race. They were lazy and happy-golucky, doing nothing thoroughly unless driven to it. The bulk of them went willingly to the war in the first instance, chiefly because they had little idea what war meant. They lacked the intelligent knowledge of the objects they were fighting for and the thinking patriotism to make their morale proof against the effects of heavy loss; and heavy loss resulted from unintelligent leading and lack of proper equipment.38 Knox also attributed this perceived racial inferiority to the apparently Asiatic nature of the Russians as he claimed: ‘The Tartar domination and serfdom seem to have robbed them of all natural initiative, leaving only a wonderful capacity for patient endurance.’39 It is clear that British perceptions of all segments of Russian society throughout the period of the Great War and the Russian Civil War were influenced by these notions that Russians were ‘Asiatics’ or ‘Orientals’. George William Green orientalised the White Russians in his recollections of the intervention, mirroring the previously discussed view of the Reds as Asiatic; he ‘to me was of the Mongolian type of man, he wasn’t a big upright Russian man.’40 This emphasis on physical differences was matched by the noting of character differences. Major Jack Poole recorded the following observations in his memoirs based on the difficulty found in trying to recruit local volunteers for the White cause: We had hoped to enrol large numbers, but few came forward. They were willing to fight to hold or regain their villages and farms, but had little or no interest in anybody else’s and, like all other Russians, they were suspicious of foreigners.41

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Colonel A.G. Burn attributed this apathy to the racial character of the local inhabitants: Our expectations were founded on optimistic calculations in which the oriental characteristics of the Russian mind had not been taken into consideration, and for this there seems to be little excuse. The Russians now enlisting have no patriotic ideals, food being probably the attraction and good pay in the S.A.B.L.42 These accounts demonstrate that Russians were orientalised as a racial ‘other’ through both perceived physiological and cultural differences. This focus on the Russians possessing a different racial character appeared not only in personal accounts but in official documentation as well. Evidence of the top level of British commanders regarding the White Russians as possessing a distinct and inferior racial character can be seen in their correspondence with the War Office in London. On 8 October 1918 Major-General F.C. Poole furnished the War Office with a report which included the following detail: We initiated the volunteer system of enrolment [. . .] but recruiting is now in a bad way, chiefly owing to the fact that this method of enlistment is foreign to the nature of the Russian who does little on his own initiative.43 The following month, Brigadier-General Needham also had negative opinions to express regarding the White Russians in a report to the War Office, ‘laziness, stupor and agitation with a sub-current of Bolshevism are the principal attributes of the people.’44 Needham’s account illustrates that the intervening British forces regarded Bolshevism less as a political ideology, and more as a generalised expression of recalcitrance. This is also indicated by the repeated usage in British accounts of the term ‘Bolshie’ to refer to Russians who behave in a difficult manner or contrary to British wishes, regardless of the political affiliation of the Russians in question. When Major-General Ironside came, in August 1919, to writing up a resume of events for General Rawlinson his report also used

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racialised language to describe the White Russians and their failings. Ironside wrote: From the very first I found that the peculation of rations and money by all officers practically without exception could not be stopped. Even men like Miller and Maronshefski [sic ]; whom one can regard as practically European, did not look upon the selling or overdrawing for their own use by officers of the men’s rations as anything serious.45 ‘It must be realised that the ordinary Russian peasant is like a child and is subject to great degrees of courage and depression. He has no backbone or solid grit,’46 he continued. In Ironside’s account of corruption it is significant to note how the social class of local Russians could not overcome racial divisions in the eyes of the British commander. The top-ranking Russian officers, Miller and Marushevsky, are here referred to as only being ‘practically European’, which indicates that they were regarded as being ‘more European’ than other Russian officers but still ‘not as European’ as the intervening British. His description of the Russians as being like children is also comparable to contemporary British attitudes towards their colonial subjects. Subsequently, Ironside’s assessment was reflected in Rawlinson’s report to Chief of the Imperial General Staff Henry Wilson of the same month. Rawlinson claimed that any: Hopes of enabling the North Russian Government to stand alone have been defeated by the corruption and instability inherent in the national character and the inability shown by Russians of all classes to tackle successfully any task requiring sustained effort in its execution.47 Rawlinson was equally dismissive of the White officer corps; ‘the Russian Officer appears incapable of devising and carrying out a scheme [. . .] because he has neither the imagination nor military knowledge to form a sound plan.’48 Such a condescending racialised attitude towards the White Russians being present on both a personal and official level inevitably impacted upon the way in which the British treated their local allies.

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Civilian Neutrals While not as central to military policy as were the Whites or the Reds, the British were responsible to a considerable degree for the welfare of the civilians living in their occupied territory. The British had to deal with these civilians on a daily basis, whether it was a case of them being labourers for the Allies, or that British soldiers were billeted to the homes of local civilians. The civilian population were an element which complicated matters as they largely lacked an allegiance to any particular faction though the populations could easily contain White or Red sympathisers and informants, or even Bolshevik fighters masquerading as civilians. All of this contributed to a marked level of distrust between the British and the locals. Akin to the Reds and the Whites, the civilians were also treated condescendingly by the British though British attitudes towards Russian civilians seem to have been even more notably condescending than the views which they held of Red and White combatants. The condescending attitude of the British towards Russian civilians had distinctively racial trappings with emphasis being placed upon their ignorance, superstitions or their supposedly non-European racial characteristics which were described in a language usually reserved for British discussion of their Asian and African imperial subjects. As has been previously noted in regards to the Reds and Whites, differences in physical characteristics were immediately seized upon by British soldiers such as Hubert Joseph Vale, who described the locals as ‘blank-faced men and square-jawed women who looked more like Eskimos than the Russian types we had expected to see.’49 Differences in character were also emphasised by other observers. W.C.G. Crewe of the Royal Engineers neatly summed up British opinions of the civilian population when he wrote in his diary that ‘my idea of the Russians is that they were a very servile race, no doubt due to the long years of oppression, hard workers, pleasant enough once you knew them, very simple, very superstitious, very illiterate.’50 The superstitious nature of the locals and their attachment to religion was seized upon in some British accounts as a way of illustrating Russian ‘otherness’ and justifying British condescension towards them. W. Kennedy of the HMS Attentive recorded an example of such superstition which occurred on 2 July 1918; ‘arrived at Kandalashtski [sic ]. People ran away from the

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shore on our arrival, and bowed before the shrine.’51 Another example of this can be seen in a collection of postcards held by the National Army Museum which were originally sent home by Sergeant Henry Selley to his girlfriend. On the back of a postcard depicting a church in Archangel he wrote the following: This is the best church in Archangel and the people love their church but their homes are filth and dirt its [sic ] all they think of is going to church and that has been one of the downfalls of Russia being misguided by the Popes of the country.52 It is clear that the devotion of local Russians to their Orthodox faith was regarded by the British as a sign of backwardness and an indication of inferiority, similar to their dismissal of the religious observances of African or Asian peoples.53 It is certainly evident from written accounts of the intervention that the British drew definite comparisons between the population of Northern Russia and the populations of their African and Asian empires. Colonel A.G. Burn, who had previously served in the 14th Madras Infantry during the Third Burma War in 1887, provides a prime example in his memoirs of these attitudes. Arriving in Russia in mid-June 1918, Burn had slipped firmly back into a colonial mindset by the time he was writing his diary entry for 28 August. In this entry he emphasised the physical difference between the occupation force and the locals. Traces of the Tartar invasions centuries ago are still observable in the Mongolian type of features among the working classes and also some of the Bourgeoisie, and that the unenviable characteristics of those inhuman hordes still persist in the modern Russian seems possible.54 In another entry he had the following to say of what he perceived to be the intellectual capacity of the local populace; ‘the people of Russia in the mass are slow-witted and their intelligence is of a low grade, and this is the opinion of men who have spent their lives in various parts of Russia.’55 Burn also described Russians as being ‘semi-oriental in their mentality’56 and further emphasised what he perceived as the Eastern nature of the Russians in an anecdote he recorded whereby:

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A late arrival from Murmansk tells us that at Pechenga an officer talking to a Russian lady asked her what was thought of the British, a question which she parried in the Oriental style by posing him with the question: ‘well, what have you done?’57 The British naval commander in Northern Russia, Admiral Thomas Kemp, was another officer who allowed his prior service to colour his view of the local inhabitants. The British Consul at Archangel, Douglas Young, wrote that Kemp: Had served in China during the Boxer Rising and his superficial knowledge of Russia led him apparently to think about the Russian masses in terms of Chinese Boxers. He had constant nightmares, not only of attacks upon Embassies and Consulates, but also of the outraging and murder of women and children.58 With so many accounts describing the Russians as Asiatic or Oriental, it is significant to point out the psychological impact of the Boxer Rebellion and how this may have influenced British perceptions of the local Russian population. As Paul A. Cohen has argued: In the years immediately following the uprising, the Boxers were a prime focus of Yellow Peril demonology. Throughout the century they have been understood single-dimensionally as an emblem of barbarism, cruelty, irrational hatred of foreigners, and superstition.59 As has been shown, British accounts of the intervention continually drew attention to the superstition, barbarism and suspicion of foreigners which they observed among the local Russian population. These accounts would indicate that the prior colonial service of members of the British forces had a distinct impact upon how they regarded the Russians within their sphere of operations, typically relying upon the language of the coloniser to describe the people who surrounded them. The official instructions issued by the War Office to officers and their men only served to further entrench racialised attitudes through their descriptions of the local inhabitants. A document from 25 July 1918 issued to the Elope Force, entitled ‘Guidance to Officers and Men in their

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treatment of Russians’, had the following advice to offer; ‘it is quite a mistaken idea to treat Russians harshly or in an off-hand manner; Russians are highly sensitive, and require handling with the greatest tact.’60 Such a description is typical of the language used in describing a subject colonial people. The previously mentioned pamphlet, ‘Information of general interest to troops arriving in Russia’, with which Major-General Poole had been supplied, also had some similarly condescending generalisations to make about the national character of the Russians: Generally speaking the Russian is exactly like a child – inquisitive, easily gulled, easily offended. He is very clever in a theoretical way but is rarely practical. Consequently two golden rules for dealing with Russians are: – 1. Treat him very kindly, absolutely justly, but absolutely firmly. 2. Never believe him when he says ‘It is done’ or ‘It shall be done’. Go and see for yourself.61 The deliberate infantilising of the local population in this passage further reinforced the paternalistic and condescending attitudes held by the British expeditionary force. The advice seen in these pamphlets is reminiscent of the attitudes held by the British towards the local inhabitants of their African and Indian possessions, and only served to inculcate colonial attitudes among the British troops in Northern Russia. It is thus unsurprising that relations between the British and the local Russian civilians were characterised by distrust. The fact that the mass of the local population seemed to be generally ambivalent towards the Allies was a source of some nervous tension for British soldiers who could not accurately gauge the local attitude towards their endeavours. 2nd Lieutenant J. Scott wrote that ‘the Russian does not quite know what to make of our arrival and is I think inclined to view us with distrust and suspicion, which is quite typical of the race.’62 As American observers have noted, British actions and attitudes were far from conducive to building trust with the civilian community in Northern Russia. Lieutenant John Cudahy, writing under the pseudonym ‘A Chronicler’, has left us with an account of the North Russian intervention which provides a stern critique of the British role in Northern Russia. According to Cudahy, the British were blinded to

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the true feelings of the locals by being thoroughly convinced that they were on a ‘civilising mission’ in Northern Russia and: Thus the campaign was another effort of England to impose her will upon an inferior people, and bring them for their own good to a higher order of things, disregardful of their volition in the premises. It was an echo of South Africa and Egypt, Mesopotamia and India, inspired by that lofty faith in Britain and the immortal commission of the Empire to rule an afflicted world and bring the blessings of sustained order, where only trouble and chaos prevailed before.63 As Byron Farwell has pointed out in his study of the Boer War, the notion of a ‘civilising mission’ was one which exercised considerable influence over British attitudes in this period: The concept of an imperial mission, of the desirability – the nobility – of one nation assuming suzerainty over another, or of one nation arrogating to itself a position of paramountcy in a part of the world containing other nations, is today an unpopular one. Yet it was commonly held prior to World War I. Englishmen believed in the ‘white man’s burden’, in what was regarded as the heavy, thankless duty of civilised men to rule and teach all lesser, more inferior races.64 Viewing Slavic peoples through the lens of a ‘civilising mission’ was not unique to the British in this period either, as Robin Okey has identified that Habsburg officials took a similar attitude towards their administration of Bosnia in the period immediately prior to World War I. Due to their history of living under Ottoman domination, the population of Bosnia were also regarded as ‘Oriental’ people who Austrian administrators felt duty-bound by a ‘cultural mission’ to civilise and uplift.65 Ralph Albertson, who served in Northern Russia as a YMCA secretary, succinctly summed up the situation when he wrote: The failure of the North Russian Expedition was the failure of the British to make friends of the Russian people. There was no

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purpose of conquest here. The purpose of his government was to be helpful to the Russian people. But the British soldier does not think in these terms. He had been a pupil in the school of imperialism too long to become a conscious knight-errant of the League of Nations so suddenly. He took his imperialism to Russia with him, and Russia would not stand for it.66 It is thus easy to see how British attitudes and actions prevented them from winning the hearts and minds of north Russia’s civilians.

Conclusion It has been demonstrated that there were considerable similarities in British perceptions of Russians and Asians during the period of Britain’s intervention in the Russian Civil War. The British use of terminology to describe the Russians, the stereotypes which they drew upon, and the physical characteristics of the Russians which they focused on when describing the Russians was reminiscent of contemporary perceptions of Asians. It is also evident that these perceptions had a significant impact on the conduct of the British in Northern Russia during 1918 and 1919. The Red enemies were underestimated and demonised by the British due to the British perception of the Bolsheviks as a manifestation of ‘Asiatic barbarism’. British relations with the local Whites and civilians were predominantly characterised by a sense of racial condescension, which led to a considerable sense of resentment and undermined the efficacy of the intervention and the White cause in Northern Russia. Ultimately the orientalised view of the Russians held by the British interventionists, while rooted in broader cultural trends, served only to stymy co-operation with their local allies and produce false impressions of the enemies which they faced. The concepts of racial hierarchy which informed British behaviour in Northern Russia can most readily be compared with the colonial practices of Europeans in their overseas empires, but this episode also formed a component of a wider trend within Eastern Europe during the period of World War I. As demonstrated by Okey and Adamovsky, similar attitudes and practices were also displayed by AustroHungarians in the Balkans, and by the German occupiers of Poland

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and the Russian Empire’s western borderlands. This case study serves as one example within a broader context of how, during the period of World War I, Western and Central Europeans regarded the continent’s Slavic population as a non-European ‘other’ and how this racial differentiation was used to justify the treatment of the local population in these Eastern European theatres of conflict.

CHAPTER 9 `

I AM WELL AND I HOPE THE SAME OF YOU. I WILL SOON CHANGE LOCATION': WORLD WAR I FIELD POSTCARDS TO A DISAPPEARING HOMELAND Georg Grote

Since the 1980s there has been an increasing historical focus on soldiers’ letters from the front,1 particularly during World War I,2 in an attempt to write a history of the experience of war ‘from below’.3 Much of this scholarship has emerged from studies of French war letters (largely written in French)4 and German and Austrian letters (largely written in German).5 More recently, the work of Martyn Lyons has examined World War I letters of Italian and French soldiers in the context of the development of the writing culture of ‘ordinary people’ in Europe.6 However, his work does not consider the writings of German-language soldiers due to the obstacle of language; therefore, in the case of South Tyrol – an Italian- and German-speaking region – he has only considered letters from the Italian-speaking inhabitants, in particular Trentino.7 The history of wartime letters and their significance for a historical understanding of an international experience of war awaits further scholarship that will more comprehensively transverse this

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linguistic divide. While many questions can only be teased out following a larger comparative process, there is sufficient material available to offer some tentative observations about the transnational experience of wartime separation and how this was represented and dealt with in soldiers’ letters home. For example, which experience shaped these letters most: the universal experience of separation during war, which united all soldiers and their families, or the differing political contexts which divided these men from each other? Did soldiers of different nationalities use letters to politicise war (the realities of censorship permitting) or was the tendency, irrespective of national context, to downplay the politics of war and highlight its personal impact? Did the pressures of censorship, expectations of normative male behaviour and the limitations of composing one’s self on paper (often for the first time) result in largely similar letters from the front irrespective of the nationality of the writer? This article will explore some of the potential readings of the Austro-Hungarian fieldpost-postcards written by German-speaking South Tyrolean soldiers in the War to the evershifting sands of their Heimat, in the light of the existing international scholarship on such letters from France, Italy, Austria and Germany. Finally, this paper will offer a close reading of a soldier’s correspondence in captivity comprising 50 letters, offering a reading of how identity shifted from ‘soldier’ to ‘prisoner’ and how this transition impacted on the various literary strategies employed in this correspondence to maintain meaningful contact with the home front. South Tyrol, or, to be more precise, the Southern part of the Habsburgian crownland of Tyrol, was a deeply contested area in the nationalist struggle between German and Italian nationalists. Particularly its southern half, today’s Trentino, featured early on the Italian wish list of geographical enlargement for a postwar settlement. Italy conducted negotiations with both its war-ally Austria and the Western Allies from as early as 1914, finally deciding to accept the Western Allies’ offer of not only Triest and the Trentino as far as Mezzocorona, but also the German-speaking South Tyrol. This deal brought Italy’s border up to the Brenner Pass, thus fulfilling Ettore Tolomei’s national boundary theory that envisioned the borders of Italy corresponding with the orographic nature of the Alps, that is, the main Alpine ridge would become the new border to Austria. The Secret Treaty of London was signed in April 1915, and shortly afterwards unconfirmed

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rumours began circulating among South Tyrol’s population that the much yearned for end of the war may herald a new, unwanted, future for the predominantly German-speaking population. One would be forgiven for expecting to find some trace of these momentous events in the letters of the soldiers so directly affected, however, in his analysis of the Italian-language letters from the front, composed by Trentinian soldiers, Martyn Lyons has observed that they were surprisingly apolitical. He has noted that instead their letters tended to dwell on the mundane aspects of civic life as experienced before the war and on the health and wellbeing of themselves and their families. Lyons has concluded that on the whole these written artefacts lacked any sense of national cohesion.8 Preliminary research into the writings of the German-speaking population confirms Lyons’ readings in this regard; these soldiers’ letters are also remarkable for the absence of any commentary regarding the massive political shifts occurring, many of which directly affected these men’s homeland. South Tyrolean participants in the war would have been serving among the Kaiserja¨ger alongside 55,000 Trientinians,9 and, at a later stage in the war, also in the Tiroler Standschu¨tzen. The Kaiserja¨ger Regiment was considered an elite unit, specially trained and held in high esteem among the general population, but also among other sections of the Austrian Army. Furthermore, it is widely accepted that there was an extraordinary amount of enthusiasm for armed struggle in 1914, particularly among the Germans and Austrians. Therefore, it was even more understandable to expect a greater sense of disillusionment or disorientation, at least, among these particular Austrian soldiers who, by the end of the war, found they were fighting for an Austro-Hungarian Empire that no longer existed – and their own home-place South Tyrol was becoming a part of Italy.10 From early 1916 there were rumours that Italy had struck a deal with the Western Allies, in which South Tyrol would be taken from Austria and given to Italy as a reward for the latter joining of the Western camp against Germany and Austro –Hungary. Many South-Tyrolean soldiers who had begun the war fighting for the trinity ‘Gott-Kaiser-Vaterland’, therefore, were more than likely aware by mid-1916 that the patriotic/nationalist motivation for joining the war effort had altered utterly. Like soldiers from Germany, France and Italy, the South-Tyrolean men found themselves, often for the first time, far away from their place of birth writing short postcards ‘home’ to

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maintain contact and help quell loneliness, fear and homesickness.11 However, unlike many other soldiers they could no longer be sure of the political meaning of their homeland. It seems it was the latter aspect of the experience of war – the personal separation from family and community – rather than the dramatic political changes – that marked the letters of these soldiers. This is all the more incongruous because of the visual impression left by the Kaiserja¨ger postcards themselves; the photographs used on these popular postcards reflected, unsurprisingly, the values of masculinity and patriotism, while the sentiments recorded by the soldiers themselves rarely did so. Thus the declaration by Luis Locher, one Kaiserja¨ger soldier from South Tyrol, in September 1916, that ‘maybe we’ll get on our march and get into the Welsch [Italian] country’,12 was a relatively rare display of wartime vigour and valour. However, Locher’s friend and neighbour Alois Niedersta¨tter received an unusual example of disrespect for the war in May 1917, when his brother Florian sent him a photocard to the front addressed to ‘Regiment Horrible, Company Cruel’.13 In this communique´, Florian used the photocard to subvert the military message of prowess and endeavour; the photocard depicted Florian in traditional attire, in a casual pose sporting a cigarette declaring, ‘Most cordial regards from Bozen from your brother Florian and, as you can see, I do not care about the war at all’.14 It is more than likely that this photocard was sent in an envelope (there is no stamp on the actual card) hence evading the censor’s beady eye. This contact from home must have given Alois cause to smile; however, from our point of view it raises some interesting questions about the purpose and content of these communications between family members during the war. The tone and content of Florian’s missive implies a prior understanding between the brothers regarding the war; surely the reference to the regiment as ‘company cruel’ was based on a previous conversation between the brothers about Alois’s experiences? However, but for this one rare example that evaded the censor, we would have no idea from Alois’s other letters that he had any such feelings of cynicism about the war or his regiment. Which leads us to ponder a bit about what these letters deliberately did not articulate, as the vast majority contain no such politically provocative humour. There are few traces of enthusiasm for the war, rather an acceptance of the inevitability of the situation and its demands. These sentiments were

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often obliquely expressed; for example, in February 1915, Luis Locher had sent his best friend, the aforementioned Alois Niedersta¨tter, a photo-postcard of his army unit and explained: ‘Here we had a photo taken, but it’s not a good one. It looks very warlike and there is nothing we can do.’15 Again, this is an example of a soldier using a photograph to comment on the war, if less overtly than Florian. Luis went on to express his wish to return home to the Sarntal: ‘Dear Alois, I would love to spend the festive season in Sarnthein, but it won’t happen. It will be different at some stage.’16 At this point, Locher’s writings were fatalistic in tone, but still capable of evoking a sense of home – ‘the festive season’, a symbol of community, peace and domesticity, while the ‘warlike’ photo and the observation that ‘nothing could be done’, was perhaps a reflection on the impotency war forces on ordinary men. By August 1916, Locher seemed unable to conjure home when he briefly wrote to his father: ‘I have arrived here happily and will be coming home soon’.17 Where was here? Where was home? War had become about unnamed places and vague hopes of a home coming ‘soon’. The photograph that had situated real people in a real place was replaced by one soldier’s arrival somewhere; the ‘festive season’ had been replaced by ‘coming home soon’. The only concrete comfort his father was offered was the simple word ‘happily’. There are a few reasons for the relative absence of direct references to war. The most obvious is the fear and reality of censorship; military details were not permitted on these cards, nor were any views that may criticise the military or the war in general. However, this did not prevent the men from reflecting on their political fears, particularly relating to their homeland, and yet there is little evidence in either censored or uncensored material that they did so, except in exceptional cases. The vast majority of soldiers’ postcards were restricted to banal personal communications. These included domestic/financial negotiations, such as, ‘thank you for the money I received / I send you some tobacco, half of it you keep, the other half is for me’;18 or expressions of concern regarding ill health or affirmations of good health, ‘I am well and hope I can say the same about you’;19 and (especially during this early phase which was dominated by military training), positive reassurances, for example, ‘I am well and the weather is good’20 and ‘things are not as bad as you often hear’.21 Perhaps Christa Ha¨mmerle offers the best indication of why this was so; she points out that for the majority of soldiers the only contact with home for months on end was through letters.

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Therefore, ‘in the crisis of war letters became a part of everyday life’,22 quite simply, letters were not the vehicle for exceptional news (as they once had been), but rather the means of continuing some sort of ‘normal’ contact with home. Hence, the more that these letters focused on the humdrum negotiations of domestic and community life, the more they served their primary function: keeping those ties alive and normal, in abnormal times that constantly threatened to death and the permanent sundering of those bonds.23 Hence, there was an obvious manifestation of a sense of dependence on relatives to carry out important tasks at home and thus the issuing of instructions and subsequent gratitude were commonplace; for example, in August 1914 one soldier thanked his brother ‘you have been on to the city hall for me’, obviously referring to some civic issue his brother had resolved on his behalf.24 While others requested packages of food, not just because food was a constant issue at war (particularly its poor quality), but also possibly because food next to love was one of the most central aspect of domestic life. As one soldier succinctly wrote in 1917: ‘Other than that I am quite well, only the food, that’s why I often wish for a parcel.’25 Furthermore, for many of these soldiers (and their families) the war represented the first time in their lives that they had engaged in sustained letter writing, particularly to conduct everyday relationships. Hence, if their letters appear dull and laconic, this was possibly borne of inexperience.26 For example, shortly before Easter 1917 Kaiserja¨ger Franz Kro¨ss sent a photocard home to his family depicting himself and two of his comrades in field attire. His short message was perfunctory in tone and sentiment: ‘I have to send you a card, report that I am well, hope the same of you and wish you a good Easter [. . .] Farewell and a happy reunion at home.’27 However, it fulfilled an important function; it offered his family visual proof of his ongoing health and it marked the important religious celebration of Easter, which would have had considerable meaning for his Catholic family. Kro¨ss was also following the advice of the military authorities, to send communications home at important dates (e.g., Easter) preferably including a photograph for reassurance. Ha¨mmerle has noted that ‘private correspondence was subjected to continual and unprecedented public attempts at standardization, supervision and tutelage,’28 thus it is hardly surprising that many of the letters are so similar to each other or are relatively perfunctory. In fact, a special army postcard on green paper was issued,

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which had the following pre-printed text, in all the languages of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy: ‘I am fine and in good health.’29 These cards were to be used during postal bans to offer families a sign of life, however, this phrase or one very similar, is repeated in the soldiers’ own hands in card after card, implying a dearth of literary inspiration and/or experience and the fact that these cards/letters were principally acts of contact – signs of life – the messages they actually contained were often secondary to the act of posting and receiving. For example, in March 1917, a South Tyrolean soldier, Johann Locher, wrote to his sister Maria in the Sarntal, ‘Mir geht es soweit gut bin auch gesund, was ich auch von dir hofe [sic]’ (‘I am well and healthy and hope the same of you’) – his exact phrase features in nearly all correspondence written by South Tyroleans during the war. Martha Hanna suggests that these often repeated phrases expressing wellbeing and well-wishing, had their origins in the education system; the letter writers were often repeating phrases and letter-writing practices they had been taught in school. The meaning of these seemingly banal phrases therefore lies in establishing a cultural context which both writer and reader share and in which they feel at home – a sense of Heimat and a memory of a better life through a formulaic phrase.30 In view of the realities of separation the majority of soldiers’ letters reflect feelings of loneliness, longing and insecurity. Both Ha¨mmerle and Lyons have commented on the perpetual references to how often letters are received and how many letters contain either subtle or explicit rebukes when relatives were not writing often enough or providing letters with sufficient detail about home life.31 Even soldiers who were not exemplary in maintaining contact were motivated to do so when they were changing location; for example, every change of location during the war was reported home as soon as possible by many soldiers. In May 1917, Josef Kro¨ss, who began by apologising for his general negligence in terms of writing home, was motivated to pick up his pen because of a change of location: ‘I am going to change my current location very soon again.’32 Ha¨mmerle notes that this desire to ‘make sense of the new geography of the front’33 was an important feature of these war letters; this is possibly because each movement reinforced the separation of war, the realities of the unfamiliar new world and an underlying fear of getting lost in the chaos of war. These letters, after all, were often about conjuring and protecting the familiarity of home.

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War disrupts civil society; nowhere is this more starkly recorded than in the desperate efforts of soldiers to ensure that their homesteads remained viable despite their departure to war. As Lyons noted of Trentinian soldiers, they ‘retained a close relationship with the farm or the small shop back home’, in a bid to manage family affairs and, he argues, they ‘were reluctant to hand over responsibility for the family business entirely to their wives.’34 Similar anxieties manifest themselves in the Austrian letters home. In September 1914, soldier Anton Kompatscher, innkeeper in the lower Eisack valley, dedicated eight pages to instructing his wife Kathi about domestic debts and obligations, informing her whom they owed money to in the village and, in turn, who owed them, and how to handle business deliveries etc. The letter was peppered with apologies at having to offload his duties in such a fashion on his wife.35 Kompatscher had married Kathi Wenzer only in February 1914, both were in their early twenties and the war forced them to learn to run a farm with a small seasonal restaurant through letters. While Kompatscher expressed a reluctance to burden his wife with the many instructions his letters contained, this is not the same as a resistance to relinquishing the business to his wife, but rather a regret at not being able to carry out his share of the responsibilities. These letters could equally be read as expressions of regret at the disruption war caused to domestic life and gender partnership, rather than, as Lyons implies, a patriarchal reluctance to hand over domestic power to a wife. As Ha¨mmerle has convincingly argued, if these wartime correspondences are viewed through the prism of gender relations they reveal men and women’s ‘mutual dependence.’36 Equally, as Hanna has suggested, these letters actually transcended the gender divide imposed by war,37 allowing couples to remain a team, particularly in relation to family businesses. Soldiers’ attempts to remain in close touch with the Heimat and to remain active members of the family and business life were really challenged when the soldier was fighting at far away fronts or when he became a POW and remained in captivity. Between February 1915 and January 1918 Alois Wenzer, from the little village of Vo¨ls am Schlern in the lower Eisack valley, wrote 50 postcards and letters from Russian captivity to his family. This collection offers an insight into the literary strategies adopted by a soldier in captivity over a long period of time to maintain communication with his family.

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Alois Wenzer, known as Luis, was a member of the famous Austrian Kaiserja¨ger regiment and was sent to Polish Galicia to fight Russia. In the town of Lemberg (today’s western Ukrainian Lviv) his battalion, the 3rd K.u.K. Armee, was defeated and 130,000 Austrian soldiers marched into Russian captivity, thousands never to return. Luis’s first surviving postcard home was sent from Rasdolnoje near Vladivostok in Siberia, on 13 February 1915. In this first card, written in pencil like all following cards, Luis struck a relatively positive note, he wished his family a happy Whitsun and assured them that he was well and had enough to eat.38 However, hinting at the more complex reality of survival, he conceded that the food was not great, but acknowledged little else could be expected under the circumstances.39 His letter had a practical function also as he requested the sum of 20 Kronen and reiterated his address in extra clear lettering: ‘Primoskoje Oblast, Stancia Rasdolnoje bei Wladiwostok, Mandschuria Russland’, which was a subtle indication of the need for a speedy response to his missive. Thus Luis’s first letter from captivity did not read markedly different from the thousands of letters sent by soldiers in active combat: good wishes were sent, practical requests were made and a response was urged. However, he had established a persona he would develop over four years; he was now his family’s prisoner, describing himself as ‘Euer Gefangener‘ (‘your prisoner’), thus underscoring the shift in his identity from soldier to prisoner, whose claims and dependence on his family were even greater than before. Although he did not alter his tone too dramatically, he was still concerned for their welfare (asking after his brothers fighting elsewhere) and he was still stoic and brave in the face of poor food and physical deprivation. Luis’s second card home, written on 1 July 1915,40 was in response to the news that his sister had given birth to a little boy. Vital communication with home had been re-established and he was free to reaffirm his connections sending his best wishes to everybody he knew at home, which included all family members, neighbours and other villagers. Lyons has also noted the fact that these soldiers’ letters were often written to multiple audiences and, therefore, were private documents, but often intended to reaffirm a soldier’s civic identity at home.41 Luis’s first cards home from captivity served to re-establish his connection with home and to reassert his existence in the public domain in his home village of Vo¨ls. In the same month Luis underscored his

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sense of dislocation in a letter home in which he was more insistent on his need for regular communication,42 and his words contained a subtle rebuke for his family’s tardiness in this regard. He begged for information about the family, work and village life, even if it was to be bad news: You never write to me anything new, such as who you have to help you with the work or how many cows, oxen and horses you still have, how the harvest and the grapes have turned out or how the neighbours at the Oberhuberhof are doing. All this you can write to me, I am very curious also about my brothers’ fate and who of the local people have passed on. You can write a bit on every card and send them all on to me. Also, send me picture postcards to Siberia and write only the truth, I am prepared for anything.43 In his reassurances to them about his own welfare, he managed to include sufficient detail to cause any discerning reader concern; he recorded his wellbeing despite the cold winter conditions and the arduous work he must carry out in road construction. He included a page dedicated to his mother, which reasserted himself as a grown, loyal son who could manage what fate had handed him: Dear mother, you may have to carry a heavy burden at the moment, it is easy to imagine how difficult it must be for a mother to see all her sons threatened by enemies. May God give you the strength to carry it all. I am now old enough to be no longer childlike and I now know what a good mother is and I will always think of you.44 While many of his cards reiterated the phrases, such as, ‘I am well and hope you are too,’45 always combined with best wishes to all, these were more than mere formula; interwoven with these sentiments were attempts to assert his presence and to work against his absence. For example, in September 1915, when offering his sister his best wishes for her little boy’s future, he placed himself centre stage: ‘I hope the little man will begin his life quite healthily, gay and active so that he may welcome his relative soldiers in military style upon their return.’46 Thus his new nephew was to grow up and assert the purpose of his uncles’

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struggle by welcoming them home ‘in military style’. His nephew should be raised with these ‘relative soldiers’ in mind and in so doing he would negate some of the damage of their separation and reaffirm their sacrifice. There are many similarities in Luis’s collection of letters home from captivity to other soldiers still fighting at the front, except for Luis it was no longer about fighting but survival. However, survival contained many of the same challenges as fighting: food remained the main issue, next only to weather and his inability to protect himself from its worst vagaries. Like so many soldiers, Luis was preoccupied with the frequency of post from home and the limitations of the postal service; lamentations regarding the regularity of contact or lost letters and particularly lost photographs appear throughout his letters and cards. In the weeks before Christmas 1915 he recorded the loss of a photograph from home simply thus: ‘Card received, but not your letter with the photograph of you, what a pity.’47 In fact, Luis used the postal service as a way of providing his family with a mental map of how far away he was from them. In December 1915 he explained to his mother: It is easy to comprehend that the post does not always find its correct path as every card must make a long journey before it reaches its final destination. You cannot imagine how far away from you I am, I will have made a big global journey if/when [no difference in German ‘wenn’] I return safely. From Galicia through the European part of Russia across the Volga into the Ural mountains and through Chinese Manchuria to the coastal lands of the white sea. The Transsiberian Railway which carried us is the longest train journey in the world, and we travelled from beginning to end. We travelled for 6 weeks uninterruptedly and you can imagine how far you get then. When I come home I will have much to tell, if only we all had the fortune to meet again.48 In a bid to order the communications from home and possibly to give himself something to occupy his mind, he suggested that they begin to number all postcards and letters.49 This provides us with a sense of how difficult it was for relatives communicating under these circumstances to maintain a sense of coherence and continuity;50 letters went missing, arrived in no sequence with some being delayed for months and others so

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heavily censored as to be virtually meaningless. For example, in June 1916 Luis sent a Red Cross card home to his family, which was so censored that the only news remaining was that the weather had been bad for the previous eight days, but that he was fine and there was no cause to worry.51 In keeping with observations made about other war-correspondences, Luis often embedded several reasons to worry in banal descriptions of nature or the weather. Ha¨mmerle reiterates Isa Schikorsky’s suggestion that there may be ‘five common “emotive speech act strategies” that soldiers employed in their letters to temper the war or the events on the front: saying nothing about it, playing it down, poeticising and phraseologising it [. . .] and image-building’. Soldier Luis Wenzer employed yet another variation which also helped him to circumvent censorship on his postcards home: he connected descriptions of the surrounding nature in Russia with his own wellbeing or lack thereof – a trait that runs through all his postcards to his sister.52 In October 1915 he marked his first anniversary in captivity by connecting with annual events at home: ‘Today is the day of the parish fair, but only in my thoughts. Things are different now, and there is little we can do, but we carry in our hearts our hope to meet once again. A year ago I marched through the beautiful town of Lemberg, which was occupied by the enemy, there was a lot to be seen and felt then.’53 His prose juxtaposed a beautiful town with its (and his) fate of captivity concluding with only an oblique reference to the pain that experience must have caused him ‘there was a lot to be seen and felt then’. Luis gave several hints in his correspondence that nature served a particular literary function for him, one that masked more troubling realities. For example, in March 1916, he wrote to his sister: ‘Sometimes there is a beautiful blue sky, but beneath it’s not so wonderful.’54 In the same month when contemplating a move of location he explained: ‘we are being moved, but do not know where. You may not receive post from me for quite some time, but do not worry. There is still a lot of ice and snow here.’55 This was, of course, news to worry about, each move meant a potential loss of contact and as a captive he was even less sure of the geography of his war than a normal soldier. Again, he used nature in this seemingly innocuous passage to underscore his anxiety: do not worry but there is ice and snow, not sunshine and spring. Luis made a veiled reference to his sister in one letter regarding the difficulties that censorship caused him and how this

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shaped his letters: Luis begged for more news from the family hinting that these would pass the censorship without causing problems, unlike many of the things he would wish to tell them: ‘you can write family news [. . .] I have a lot to tell you but we need to postpone this to a later stage and talk about it’.56 After his move in April 1916, when he managed to ascertain where he was, ‘in Mukten where the Russians and Japanese once fought,’57 he expressed his relief through the weather: ‘we are enjoying nice freedom and great weather.’58 Uncertainty dominated Luis’s correspondences home; unlike a fighting soldier he could not be sure that if something happened to him his family would be informed. His family also had only his letters and terrifying newspaper reports regarding the fate of captives. For example, in August 1915 the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung reported on the living conditions of POWs in Tsarist Russia: All the terrors, all the gruesome descriptions about the situation of the POWs in Russia are topped by unequivocal reports from those lucky ones who managed to escape these places of horror and whose reports have been made available to the German government recently. Exposed to shameful blood suckers and exploited as slaves by uncultured hordes of Czerkessen and Cossoks, thousands of German and Austrian prisoners in the districts of Viatka and at the Olonetz-Murman railway line are most likely to face a death of such horrendous description that the human mind refuses to imagine their plight. It is hell out there! In the winter the prisoners work in the bogs in their bare feet in the terrible cold. Everything gets wet and the freezing people are attracted to the most severe colds. For months, these poor creatures who suffer from severe rheumatism and pneumonia and who are covered in sores and wounds, lie on their bare timber beds and receive no help. Men, whose lips and gums have burst and bleed – whose teeth have become so loose that they can be removed by a simple pull of their fingers – receive no other food than hard black bread and cabbage soup until death relieves them of their terrible situation.59

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According to the newspaper, these incredible living conditions were topped by the cruelty of the personnel in these camps who tortured their inmates: Covered in sores and seriously ill, prisoners are being driven to work by using whips [. . .] One of the camp wardens has instructed the Circassians to beat the prisoners as much as possible. Irrational punishments are so barbaric that Russian soldiers prefer to fight at the front rather than act as henchmen in the camps.60 These articles were certainly part of the propaganda war. Georg Wurzer has argued that the Russian administration, both in the Tsarist period until October 1917 and under Soviet leadership, tried to adhere to internationally accepted norms regulating the captivity of soldiers. However, Wurzer also highlights that certain areas, namely the conditions at the Murman Railway line in the North, where Luis was being held, were never satisfactory, even though a certain improvement was detectable after 1916.61 Nevertheless, such newspaper reports often remained the only public source (beyond hearsay and rumour) of information about these camps and filled families with horror and worry about their sons, husbands and brothers in a POW camp. Reports from Luis’s home such as the one he sent in February 1916 that ‘we have passed our winter time by making musical instruments and now have a zither, a violin, a guitar and a flute. We have created a fabulous music, I am not part of it, mostly musicians from the regiment’,62 must have been welcomed. However, by October of that year Luis’s letters became literal representations of his failing health: his handwriting visibly deteriorated. He himself made a connection between his worsening writing and his circumstances: ‘you once told me that I was a nice writer, but probably no longer with me writing so little and the work being so hard, yet this doesn’t matter as you are working even harder.’63 If we read these letters as the relatives would have done, it is not necessary for Luis to explain his failing health, it was manifested on the page plain for his loved ones to see, but not necessarily obvious to a censor – there were many ways to send messages home.64 By Christmas 1916 Luis, equally far away from his home in the Western Urals, near Perm, wrote with the forlorn wish for peace:

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The greatest gift for you and me and most European human beings would be the dear christkind’s gift of peace. Thus, you and everybody at home, hold out cheerfully and full of trust, I will do the same and the great gift will not be far and we will meet again.65 Unbeknownst to Luis and his family, 1917 marked his last full year in captivity, during this period his letters were less expansive and poetic and much more focused on survival. In March 1917, he expressed his main preoccupation, to ‘only to remain healthy, everything else when I come home.’66 Sadly, this period was also marked by a breakdown in communication with home, letters were not getting through to him and much of his correspondence recorded the fact that he had heard nothing from his family. The weather still represented hope and survival for Luis; good weather and good news continued to go hand in hand. The arrival of spring in Siberia in May 1917 once again filled him with optimism: ‘I have received no news, please write more, the snow is gone, there are fragile little flowers reminding me of home, I work in the forests, which is ok, so is my earnings, only the food is poor’.67 However, the anniversary of his third year in captivity in June 1917 prompted a bleak reflection on the cruelty of fate: ‘Today I am marking my third patron saint’s anniversary in Russia, who would have guessed that possible?’ He concluded with what had become a familiar mantra, ‘Write often, the odd card may get through to me. Otherwise I am fine, I work a lot.’68 In August 1917, he informed his family that he had almost died – ‘I almost lost my little head’ – he provided no details, presumably due to the fear of censorship. However, the addendum ‘there are many half-wild guys here and they are dangerous,’69 indicated that he was either the victim of a fight in the prisoner camp or that he was mistreated by the Russian personnel – both common occurrences in the lives of lowranking army prisoners of war in Russia. In October 1917, his despair had become palpable when he declared that ‘what happened is unbelievable and there is no end in sight.’70 The following month, after receiving a card from home, he acknowledged without any poetry, ‘life is tough where you are, so it is here.’71 Luis’s last message home was written in January 1918; his handwriting had deteriorated vastly, his card was barely legible. For a man to whom nature meant so much and had defined so many of his experiences, it is perhaps indicative of his

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state of mind that in this card he recorded the inability to tell humans for animals – he explained that Russians clad in their thick fur could be either men or beasts. Life’s coherence had broken down. He ended his card with an eye to a future he would not see: he wished his sister ‘much luck with your little baby Karl.’72 Luis was never heard from again. There was no resolution for his family, who never received word of how he died or where (if) he had been buried.

Conclusion The ‘writing frenzy’73 that occurred during World War I was a phenomenon shared by all nations that fought in the war; irrespective of nationality, soldiers displayed an overwhelming desire to write home throughout the war. This was largely possible due to the democratisation of writing that had taken place at varying speeds during the nineteenth century throughout Europe.74 These writings home, be they postcards, letters or mere notes, were highly contested arenas in which individual soldiers had to wrestle with the limitations of their literary skills and emotional articulacy, consider censorship, both official and personal, and rely on paper to maintain contact with their previous lives. These writings served no simple purpose either; historians have argued that they operated on multiple levels (often for multiple audiences) from mere ‘signs of life’ to assertions of identity to a range of complex emotional negotiations related to trauma, separation and death. Thus a simple card home that recorded the author’s good health and inquired about the family’s wellbeing emerged from an intricate and complex set of conditions and considerations. While the content may often have seemed banal, there was nothing mundane about writing from the front. While so much separated an Italian and an Austrian soldier in terms of language, political ideology and national aspirations, the commonality of the experience of the dislocation of war has meant that the records they have left to posterity – the hundreds of thousands of letters they wrote from the front – are remarkably similar. Even the soldiers’ postcards from the contested area of South Tyrol which form the corpus of this article are not so much characterised by expressions of patriotic duty and nationalist sentiments or by the very real fear of losing one’s Heimat, but by the desire to stay alive in adverse circumstances, by worries about the home and the family and by the desire for peace.

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In this they join countless soldiers from various countries who found themselves at war between 1914 and 1918. A closer reading of the extraordinary transnational explosion of personal letter-writing during the war that is not restricted by language is required to ascertain where and if there were points of divergence in terms of content, literary strategies and cultural meanings.

CHAPTER 10

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THE EMPEROR'S BROKEN BUST: REPRESENTATIONS OF THE HABSBURG SHATTERZONE' IN WORLD WAR I Andreas Agocs

Joseph Roth’s story Die Bu¨ste des Kaisers (The Bust of the Emperor) describes the dynamics in an ethnically diverse village in the Habsburg border province of Galicia before and after World War I. As depicted by Roth, who grew up in the Galician city of Lemberg (Lviv) before the war, the province’s inhabitants combine a strong sense of social hierarchies with fluid and overlapping layers of collective and personal identities. The story’s protagonist is Count Franz Xavier Morstin, a landowning aristocrat of German, Polish and Italian lineage. Although he does not have an official function in the government bureaucracy, the local peasants and townspeople extend the loyalty they feel for Austrian Emperor Francis Joseph I to the count, who serves as a symbol for the Habsburg monarchy. The story describes Count Morstin as a benevolent and paternalistic local authority figure, who despises ‘modern’ tendencies such as nationalism, democracy and Darwinian science.1 In addition to painting a picture of the socio-political order in the Habsburg provinces, Roth’s story comments on the cultural and artistic environment in the wider Austro-Hungarian Empire. Not only politically but also culturally conservative, the story’s Count Morstin

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scorns the modernist art of the Vienna coffee-houses but cherishes a bust of Francis Joseph, made for him by a local village boy before the war. The bust, which the count continues to display in the newly founded Polish nation state after World War I, symbolises Morstin’s refusal to acknowledge the changed political and social order in his home town. At the end of the story, the hierarchical, feudal and paternalistic order of the Habsburg monarchy is shattered and ultimately destroyed by the populist-democratic nationalism and ethnic chauvinism of the inter-war period. Much like his contemporary and fellow Austrian exile writer Stefan Zweig, the Jewish-born Roth, driven into exile by the racial persecution of the Nazi regime, is famous for his somewhat nostalgic portrayal in his works of the lost world of the Habsburg Empire, a world whose collapse began with the outbreak of the war in 1914. ‘The Bust of the Emperor’ fictionalises a narrative that is familiar to historians of Central Europe: the implosion of the patriarchal but ethnically diverse order of the Habsburg Empire and its substitution after 1918 by aggressive populist ideologies and ethnic and nationalist tensions. This is especially salient in the province of Galicia, Roth’s birthplace and the setting of his story. Historically Galicia, with its population of Poles, Ukrainians, Jews and Greek Catholic Ruthenians, constituted parts of the borderlands of the Austrian, German and Russian Empires. With the beginning of the modern period, Galicia became one of the regions at the heart of the evolving concept of ‘Central Europe’, the fluctuating transitional space between Western and Eastern Europe.2 It is also a region that did not only become one of the main battlegrounds of World War I’s Eastern Front, but, about two decades later, the centre of what the historian Timothy Snyder has called the ‘bloodlands’ of the twentieth century, the setting of the unrestrained violence of Hitler’s racial imperialism and Stalin’s campaigns of collectivisation and famine.3 Thus, the north-eastern battlegrounds of World War I took place not only in geographical borderlands between East and West but they also seem to be located on a chronological border between two images of Central Europe: The older, mythologised Habsburg world of diversity and coexistence before 1914 on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the postwar ‘bloodlands,’ whose explosive violence arguably had its roots in events unleashed by World War I. Yet, as Omer Bartov and Eric D. Weitz point out, borderlands – such as

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the Habsburg province of Galicia – ‘are spaces-in-between, where identities are often malleable and control of the population is subject to dispute. [. . .] Borderlands are therefore also constructs of the political imaginary and products of ideological fantasies.’4 As a result, ‘the notion of borderlands can have various uses, ranging from a license for conquest and annexation to a preoccupation with nostalgia and marginality. The scope, definition, and meaning of borderlands are, therefore, fluid and unstable.’5 This chapter tries to navigate between the twin stereotypes of nostalgic Habsburg multiculturalism and twentieth-century bloodlands by looking at the Austro-Hungarian borderlands at the outbreak of World War I through the lens of the socio-political and cultural imaginary of late German and Austro-Hungarian society. Roth’s story, published in exile in 1934, is an example of how the Eastern Front of World War I influenced the cultural imaginary of postwar writers. Read in this way, the story complements influential works of cultural history that explored how the experience of World War I – especially the industrial warfare and mass slaughter in the trenches of the Western Front – have shaped modern consciousness and expression, from the use of irony in modern culture to the revival of religious traditions.6 For Central Europe, on the other hand, cultural historians such as Carl E. Schorske and Pe´ter Hana´k have established a connection between the emergence of populist mass politics and the cultural and intellectual trends of modernism in the Habsburg Empire but they did not focus on the specific impact of World War I’s Eastern Front on twentieth-century cultural change.7 This chapter links the experiences of World War I at the Eastern Front to wider cultural changes in Central Europe before, during and after the war.8 Taking into consideration that the eastern borderlands of World War I were situated in what Bartov and Weitz have called the ‘shatterzone’ of the twentieth century – the vast region in Central, East and Southeast Europe that experienced the collapse of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman Empires – these pages analyse the experiences of some of the participants during the early phase of this ‘shattering process’ in 1914 and 1915. Specifically, the chapter investigates changes in the attitudes towards political and social cohesion in ethnically diverse Central Europe, an attitude that – as we saw in Roth’s story of Count Morstin – was closely tied to concepts of monarchical symbolism and overarching patriarchal authority. The chapter

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will first discuss some of the observations of the German commander at the Eastern Front in 1914 and 1915, General August von Mackensen. In a second step, the article discusses the findings of recent historical studies of German-speaking Austrian soldiers in Poland and Russia. The article focuses especially on the soldiers’ perceptions of the breakdown of patriarchal structures in both families and the state. Finally, the chapter will analyse the memoirs of the Hungarian painter Be´la ZomboryMoldova´n to argue that the experience of a ‘shattering’ of the Habsburg state’s inner cohesion had an impact on Zombory-Moldova´n’s perception of the cultural atmosphere in the Habsburg capital Budapest. The recurrence of similar tropes in the records of these diverse sources – the Jewish writer Roth, the German general Mackensen, the Austrian common soldiers and the Hungarian painter Zombory-Moldova´n – are in themselves sign of a common cultural consciousness that crossed national and ethnic lines. Whether Jewish, German, Austrian or Hungarian, the witnesses to the Eastern Front in these pages express sentiments of dissolution of a political and cultural unity in Central Europe before the war. Their observations and memories in the early stages of the war all express anxieties over notions of political and cultural cohesion provided by authoritative father figures. Thus, the chapter investigates how the outbreak of the war coincided with and reinforced the emergence of new, anti-traditionalist identities that replaced real and metaphorical ‘fathers’ in families, the arts and in the dissolving monarchy.

I As Larry Wolff’s work has shown, intellectual discourses in the late eighteenth century gave rise to a dichotomy between a supposedly enlightened, civilised Western Europe and a backward and savage Eastern Europe.9 The dividing line between these two unequal halves went through the vast Habsburg Empire. In the cultural consciousness of early twentieth-century Europeans, this placed Galicia, part of the borderlands of the Austrian and Russian Empires, squarely in the backward East. For example, the Polish historian Jo´sef Szujski’s 1882 ethnography of Galicia begins with the statement that ‘the Austrian fatherland of Poles and Ruthenes’ is one of the ‘most derelict’ and abandoned provinces of the Empire.10 Primary accounts from the first

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years of World War I testify to the enduring power of this construct among German-speaking combatants. An example is the commander of the 17th German Army Corps at the Eastern Front, August von Mackensen. In his notes Mackensen depicted the German Army’s crossing the border from eastern Poland into Russia: The uninviting territory, the filthy villages and people, are made even less appealing by the rain. In every respect Russia is a backward, ugly country. The cities, too, crumble in dirt and disorder. Even as important a town as Radom offers conditions unheard of in Germany, not to mention the many Jews who inhabit this place. The roads in these parts are an absolute mess. I have the impression that this country’s administration does not view it as their task to do anything for public transportation. Even the so-called boulevards between the larger towns are in a brokendown shape. This obviously doesn’t help our campaign.11 The impression of the eastern borderlands as ‘filthy,’ ‘backwards’ and ‘broken-down’ are not confined to the Prussian general Mackensen. They are shared by the Jewish Austrian writer Joseph Roth himself, who – although initially a critic of the war – volunteered for the Austrian Army. His fieldpost letter from the Galician front in August 1917 echoed the observations of Mackensen: ‘I’m currently in an East Galician pig stall, a tiny village. The only things you can see in this gray filth are a few Jewish shops. When it rains, everything’s awash, and when it’s sunny, it stinks. At least we’re 10 kilometers away from the frontline.’12 Similar comments, on the ‘filth’ of the borderlands, their general backwardness as well as on the large presence of unassimilated Jews, are common in numerous letters by German and Austrian–Hungarian soldiers entering the eastern battlegrounds in 1914.13 According to Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius, who has investigated the impact of the Eastern Front in World War I on the German cultural imagination, fighting in and occupying regions such as Galicia ‘had profound consequences for how Germans viewed the lands and peoples of the East during the war itself and in the decades to come, until ultimately these ideas were harnessed and radicalised by the Nazis for their new order in Europe. In this sense, the eastern front-experience was a hidden legacy of the Great war.’14 Liulevicius stresses the continuity of

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the central European borderlands in World War I with the ‘bloodlands’ of World War II. Yet he also quotes the German Jewish soldier Victor Klemperer, whose perception of the ‘cultural “gap” between himself and the Ostjuden’ he encountered at the Eastern Front ‘confirmed for him his Germanness.’15 Apparently common attitudes towards the Habsburg borderlands created a sense of vague German-speaking cultural identity that could be shared by personalities as different in background as the Prussian aristocrat Mackensen and the Austrian-Jewish intellectual Roth. There are other aspects that complicate the notion of continuity of the German attitudes in World War I and the racial and genocidal policies and actions of World War II. For example, in the accounts of 1914 and 1915 it was not only the backwardness of the East Central European borderlands that was exacerbated by the front experience but also their very modernity and the disappearance of traditional sources of national unity and authority. Mackensen’s Aufzeichnugen (notes) detailing his campaigns in Poland, Russia and Serbia offer a description of the Polish city of Ło´dz, which the German Ninth Army had made its headquarters in January 1915.16 Mackensen, who rejected the luxurious quarters offered to him in favour of a more modest apartment, wrote to his wife that the city had little that made one feel at home (‘Die Stadt hat nichts Anheimelndes’). Just as in the East European countryside, the city’s primitive features, its poverty – and its large Jewish population – disturbed the German field marshal: working-class tenements built ‘completely out of wood, more barracks than houses and extremely dilapidated. [. . .] [T]he streets, especially where the Jewish population congregates, are indescribably filthy.’17 In addition, however, Mackensen seemed to feel alienated by the city’s modern, industrial features and its lack of aesthetic appeal: ‘It is a modern industrial town with infinite, angular and highly prosaic streets, teeming with unemployed factory workers. Except for a few rich villas and lavish bank buildings, all you see in this city of half a million inhabitants are unadorned (nu¨chterne) department stores and working-class tenements.’18 The stay in Ło´dz also prompted Mackensen to comment on issues of cohesion and unity, between the combatants and the home front, as well as within the allied Austro-Hungarian military. On 11 April 1915, Mackensen complained about the visits of Schlachtenbummler (battlefield tourists) from the German capital: ‘A lot of people from Berlin and other

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places in the interior are visiting these days, and it’s stunning to hear how authorized and unauthorized folks at home feel about the war and to realize how different the situation’s assessment is here and at home.’19 For Mackensen, the front visits by non-combatants intensified the perception of a rift between the military in the borderlands and the population at home, which now had become the interior. The field marshal wrote about opportunism and internal squabbling at home. According to Roger Chickering, censorship of newspapers had to be especially tight in Berlin, indicating a potential for dissenting views, especially among parts of the Social Democratic workers’ movement.20 In Galicia, the general would also have been unlikely to experience instances of French prisoners ‘given a warm reception’ by some German working-class women, a conduct that letters to newspaper editors in Berlin described as ‘undignified.’21 The ‘unpatriotic’ tendencies of the capital stood in contrast to the frontline troops, whose loyalty and unified resolve was heightened by a visit in Ło´dz of Emperor Wilhelm II in February 1915. Mackensen described the German emperor inspecting the troops: ‘The first and second rows consisted almost completely of soldiers decorated with the Iron Cross. The troops greeted the Kaiser with their guns by their sides and with “hurrahs” that were accompanied by the national anthem. The attitude of the troops and the decorations on their chests made a deep impression on the Kaiser, who repeatedly stated that he had never before inspected such a proud army.’22 Mackensen’s observations suggest that the perception of World Wat I tied in to nineteenth-century anxieties that ‘considered a united front necessary in order to defend the “national goods” against a Slavic menace.’23 But the emperor’s visit also seemed to highlight the contrast between the German Army and the Habsburg military. For Mackensen, the unity that the Kaiser bestowed on the German troops was lacking in the army and the aristocratic officer corps of his Austro-Hungarian allies. According to the German field marshal, the weaknesses of the Habsburg Army, which was defeated by a Russian counter-offensive in summer 1914, were grounded ‘in the national character, in the education, and in the understanding of the nature of war. The quality of the troops, which are a mixture of many nationalities, is very uneven.’ The Habsburg officer class ‘does not lack bravery but they never learned a real sense of duty and they rather indulge in their personal inclinations than follow their duties to state and fatherland.’24 Arguably the presence at the

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borders of the Empire led officers such as Mackensen to reflect on wider issues of loyalty and national cohesion, a preoccupation reflected in other German-language representations of the Habsburg ‘shatterzone’.

II Wolfram Dornik’s analysis of writings by Austrian soldiers from the Eastern Front reveals many examples for attitudes that correspond to Mackensen’s notes.25 Evidently, German nationalist discourses, including anti-Slavic and anti-Semitic sentiments, were part of the Eastern Front’s experience and point to wider patterns after 1918. In letters describing the advance of Austrian troops into Poland, Ukraine and Western Russia, comments on the poverty, the ‘filth’ and the lack of hygiene among the Slavic and Jewish populations abound. At least latent sentiments of anti-Slavism, anti-Semitism and a general sense of alienation are shared even by some Austrian-Jewish soldiers, who – just like Roth, and similar to the German Jewish soldier Klemperer – experienced a striking contrast between their urban Vienna social backgrounds and the impoverished Jewish population of Galicia.26 The Austrian experience conforms to Liulevicius’s analysis of the German soldiers, whose ‘identity was thrown into this crucible of war in the East. The sum of powerful first impressions was that the new conquerors were in control, yet in many other respects disoriented.’27 Accordingly, the experience of war and occupation in the borderlands could provide contradictory experiences. While some of the letters analysed by Dornik mention looting and the destruction of buildings, others comment on the hospitality of the local population in Galicia and other Polish regions, notably the Jewish population, which is seen as generally sympathetic to the Central Powers’ military effort.28 Other experiences of the Eastern Front echo wider cultural discourses at the beginning of the twentieth century. For example, comments on the wide and empty landscapes in the East can be interpreted as a ‘colonial gaze’ staking out future Lebensraum fantasies. But, just as Mackensen’s descriptions of the unappealing, bland industrial cityscape of Ło´dz, they can also be placed in the context of aesthetic critiques of mass society and urbanity, as they were published by sociologists such as Max Weber and Georg Simmel in the years leading up to World War I.29 Some of these early twentieth-century writings analysed urban life as

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fragmenting and de-personalising, which could after the war feed into right-wing constructions of a rural and ostensibly authentic ‘folk spirit’ and a cosmopolitan urban world in decline.30 Indeed, a diary entry by an Austrian soldier praises the Polish landscape where ‘one does not feel as chopped up (zerstu¨ckelt) as in the city back home.’31 However, in this soldier’s letter it’s the Habsburg metropolitan core, not its Slavic borderland provinces, that is ‘alienating’. Thus, not all contemporary observers depicted the dynamics at World War I’s Eastern Front in terms that evoke the ‘war of annihilation’ of the 1940s. The war correspondent for The Times of London, Stanley Washburn, who served as an observer with the Russian Army in Poland and Galicia in 1914 and 1915, pointed out the lack of destruction that retreating German troops had wreaked in Polish villages: ‘For a country however which has been the scene of so much fighting I find this in exceptionally good condition. The abundance of livestock on every hand certainly indicates that the Germans have not wantonly looted the villages through which their armies have now passed twice. Even burned villages are rare.’32 According to Washburn, both German and Russian soldiers conducted campaigns that were marked by mutual respect for the enemy. The Times correspondent associated atrocities and massacres of civilians not with the borderlands between Germanic and Slavic civilisations but rather with the Western Front. At the end of October 1914, he commented in his notes, ‘I have seen or heard nothing here or in the Galician country which can in any way be compared to the campaign conducted by the Germans in Belgium.’33 Interestingly, throughout his notes Washburn emphasises not the contrast between the Germans and the Russians, but between the German military and its Austro-Hungarian allies. While German and Russian soldiers share nationalist sentiments based on the veneration of their respective emperors, the Habsburg soldiers display – just as in Mackensen’s letters – a lack of national unity and commitment to the monarchy. By late summer of 1915 the problems in the AustroHungarian Army, under the command of Field Marshal Franz Conrad von Ho¨tzendorf, had become more evident. The Austrian Fourth Army had 33 per cent of its officers taken prisoners by Russia in 1915 – compared to 5.2 per cent of the German officers in the same year.34 Rumors abounded among the Austrian soldiers that ‘the Slav soldiers of Austria– Hungary were giving in too easily.’35 This impression was

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confirmed on 3 April 1915 when the Czech soldiers of the 28th Infantry Regiment ‘laid down their arms and surrendered en masse.’36 In September 1915, during Conrad’s second disastrous offensive in Galicia, ‘Czech and Ruthenian units of the 19th Infantry Division ran over to the Russians almost to a man.’37 Conrad’s successor as chief of the General Staff, Arz von Straussenburg, held the belief that the non-Austrian and non-Magyar soldiers of the Dual Monarchy were ‘nationally contaminated.’38 In addition, even more than in the German war effort, the gap widened between the Austrian frontline experience and the capital in Vienna, where anti-militarism appeared to be ‘fashionable [. . .] in academic and professional circles’ and where many young Austrians ‘developed draft evasion into a fine art.’39 Dornik’s analysis of the writings of Austrian soldiers at the Eastern Front also reveal discussions of loyalty to the patriarchal emperors at the helm of the warring nations, even though the Austrians tend to emphasise the similarity, rather than the contrast, of Austro-Hungarian and Russian sentiments. In the words of one Austrian soldier at the Eastern Front the Russians were nothing more than ‘loyal citizens who fulfil their duties to their emperor’ – the letter writer implied that the Russian soldiers were very much like the Habsburg soldiers themselves.40 This stands in marked contrast to the widespread condemnation of the Italian enemy by the common Austrian soldiers. Like his predecessor Mackensen, General Major Hans von Seeckt, chief of the German Army sent to relieve the Habsburg military in 1915, had doubts about the strength of his Austrian allies, who had suffered a series of defeats by the Russians in 1914 and 1915. For the later Reichswehr chief von Seeckt, the war effort in the East would have been more successful if only the Austrian soldiers had ‘hated the Russians as much as the Italians.’41 In the ethnically diverse and politically complex Habsburg borderlands, questions of collective loyalties shaped the dynamics of violence at the Eastern Front. Massacres and atrocities, where they occurred, were often the result of the suspicion of minorities with unclear loyalties. Consequently, the Eastern Front saw Russians and Poles engage in pogroms of Jews, who were accused of collaboration with the Central Powers. The Times correspondent Washburn wrote about the Polish town on Lowicz in October 1914: ‘This little place is filled with Jews, a section of the population which is, as we are told,

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unfriendly to the Russians. Here, it seems, when the Germans were forced to retire, the position of the Jews was not a happy one, as the Poles lost no time in telling the Russians of the open friendliness their neighbors had shown the Germans. Hence the Hebrews are under suspicion by the present lords of the town, who attribute every act of hostility to them.’42 If Jews were suspected of disloyalty to the Russians, for the Habsburg Army in Galicia, the population of the Greek-Catholic Ruthenians – some of whose members had engaged in terrorist activities before the war – was an unreliable minority that defied easy categorisations as Russian, Ukrainian or Polish. Austrian solders recounted rumours that Ruthenian civilians were recruited by Russian intelligence agents to spy and commit acts of sabotage behind the Austrian lines. According to Martin Schmitz, a study by the Austrian Army command even asserted that the Russians engaged in the recruitment of spies among Ruthenian children – especially among the poorest children, child prostitutes and orphans.43 The war had created – whether in Russian actions or the Austrian imaginary – an enemy with no discernible loyalty to any paternal authority, either political or biological. It is in describing the frustrating attacks by disloyal minorities that the Austrian Field Marshal Lieutenant Joseph Roth – no relation to the writer – refers to the Eastern Front as a Mordlande (murder land) – a term that does not seem too far removed from Snyder’s ‘bloodlands,’ yet without the context of ideology or ethnic hatred that accompanied the mass violence of the 1930s and 40s.44 These examples suggest that World War I in the Habsburg borderlands at the Eastern Front was not only a clash of empires but a shattering of old concepts of authority. In the Habsburg realms the popular image of Emperor Franz Joseph (Francis Joseph) embodied the concept of a paternalistic but determined authority. As Luisa Bialasiewicz contends, the image of a paternalistic authority who rules over his diverse nationalities like a reassuring father over his children ‘served both as a spiritual support and as a propaganda tool in the Empire’s struggle against the new ideal that was emerging, the ideal of the modern nation state.’45 By viewing World War I in the Habsburg borderlands as the ‘shattering’ of a patriarchal concept of political and social authority, it is tempting to draw a connection between the

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experience of the war and the cultural trends in the Habsburg capitals in the years before 1914. As seminal works by Carl Schorske, Robert Weldon Whalen and others have depicted it, fin-de-sie`cle Vienna was at the centre of modernist ideas and cultural products that thematised and challenged the idea of patriarchal authority, most famously of course in the thought of Sigmund Freud.46 In another Habsburg metropolis, Prague, Franz Kafka imagined and produced some of the most memorable and unsettling portrayals of the anxiety accompanying paternal role changes. Another fin-de-sie`cle Habsburg writer, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, was stationed in Galicia during the war. According to Larry Wolff, the Viennese poet and celebrity commented both on the perceived ugliness of the region and its inhabitants’ exaggerated expressions of respect. Hofmannsthal ‘reacted to Galicia with aesthetic horror, while he himself was treated as some kind of royalty, or even divinity by the prostrate Galicians.’47 There are indications that even before the war the political disturbances in the Habsburg borderlands were tied to the cultural discourse in Vienna. In 1908, in an event that seems to foreshadow Sarajevo, the Austrian viceroy of Galicia, Count Andreas Potocki, was assassinated by a Ruthenian student in Lembeg (Lviv). As Wolff points out, this led to an ‘intense psychological analysis’ of the assassin by the Vienna press, suggesting a developing link between discussions of political violence and modernist understandings of the self.48

III Hofmannsthal and Roth were not the Habsburg Empire’s only artists who experienced the Eastern Front of World War I. Another artist was the Hungarian painter Be´la Zombory-Moldova´n, whose memoirs of 1914 were only published in English translation.49 The Hungarian artist’s memories of the eight months between the outbreak of war in August 1914 and April 1915 illustrate some of the war’s impacts in both the borderlands and in the Dual Monarchy’s other capital, Budapest. In addition, Zombory-Moldova´n’s status during this period as both artist and officer makes him a perceptive witness of the political as well as cultural ‘shatterings’ that ran parallel to the events at the front. Zombory-Moldova´n, a member of the privileged gentry class in Budapest, received news of the outbreak of the war while on a group

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holiday in an Adriatic seaside resort. Unlike Galicia, the southern/ Mediterranean borderland resort is depicted as an idyllic place of carefree leisure and multi-ethnic (upper-class) harmony. ZomboryMoldova´n’s fellow guests and acquaintances, with names such as Knoll, Kriegl, Hajnal, Jankoviusz, reflect the ethnically diverse composition of the Habsburg Empire’s social elite, whose members spent the day before the war’s outbreak with excursions and attending talks ‘extolling the historic friendship between the Hungarians and the Croats.’50 When Zombory-Moldova´n rushes back to the hotel upon learning of the war, the multicultural Habsburg microcosm of the resort has fragmented: ‘The dining room had changed. [. . .] The guests had gathered at separate tables according to their nationalities. Groups which had previously spread themselves around now clustered together. [. . .] Czechs, Serbs, Croats, Germans – all sat apart.’ Adding to the divisive atmosphere – and mirroring the eruption of the nationalist feelings in Roth’s Galician village – everyone ‘spoke in their mother tongue, as if enciphering what they had to say.’51 Upon arriving in Budapest to report for this deployment as a reserve officer, Zombory-Moldova´n finds that the scene here, too, has changed. The genteel artist, with his distinct aristocratic sensibilities, feels uncomfortable with the outburst of popular nationalism and chauvinism that accompany the celebrations of Austria–Hungary’s invasion of Serbia. For Zombory-Moldova´n, these events are part of a wider trend of political and cultural revolutions: ‘The twentieth century opened with the Sezession and the pace keeps quickening.’52 Like the cultural historian Pe´ter Hana´k, Zombory-Moldova´n seemed to understand ‘secession’ in a ‘broader sense’.53 Around the turn of the century, Hungarian artists such as the art nouveau architect O¨do¨n Lechner, the poet Endre Ady and the composer Be´la Barto´k ‘seceded’ from the dominant nineteenth-century styles by incorporating traditional ‘folk’ elements in their respective arts. At the same time, modernists like Ady and his circle of followers around the journal Nyugat (West), shared political critiques of Hungarian ‘backwardness’, especially the power of the country’s semi-feudal landowning class. Similar to political progressives such as Oszka´r Ja´szi, the modernists advocated a cosmopolitan ‘European’ Hungarian patriotism to counter the country’s increasingly crude and aggressive nationalism that followed the crisis of Hungarian liberalism since the elections of 1905.54

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Characteristic of this combined political and cultural criticism is an early article that Ady wrote in 1902 on the occasion of a monument to the 1848 reformer Miklo´s Wessele´nyi in the Transylvanian town of Zala˘u (Zilah). The monument by the sculptor Ja´nos Fadrusz expressed all the sentiments of the Hungarian elites – middle-class liberals and provincial landowners. The monument portrayed a towering Wessele´nyi placing his hand on the shoulders of a prostrate serf, who embodies the peasant class’ gratefulness for the liberal reformer’s efforts. In his article, Ady made the sarcastic comment that Fadrusz had accidentally created a satire of rather than a dedication to Wessele´nyi.55 The monument’s conservative aesthetics as well as its underlying message of benevolent and patriarchal authority evoke the image of Count Morstin’s bust of the emperor in Joseph Roth’s story. Ady’s critique of the Wessele´nyi monument is another example of how political and cultural responses to paternalistic attitudes and representations intersected in the years before 1914. At the end of Zombory-Moldova´n’s memoir, the artist’s friend and fellow painter, Ervin Voit, a cousin of the composer Barto´k, remarks, ‘Artistic anarchy was already wreaking havoc before the war started.’56 The outbreak of the war made havoc and anarchy a much more tangible reality for participants who were transported from the artistic debates of the capital to the Eastern Front. Zombory-Moldova´n’s account of his deployment with the Hungarian Army reveals a striking state of inadequacy and unpreparedness. Most of his fellow officers do not know the Hungarian commands. His regiment is made to march 75 km through the Hungarian province, leaving many soldiers out of commission long before they are anyway near the frontlines. In their very first engagement at the Galician front in Rava Ruska, the troops under Zombory-Moldova´n’s command open fire in confusion on fellow Hungarian soldiers of a different regiment. Galician sand makes the Austrian weapons ineffective (not, however, the Russian guns). Overall, the Russian military is vastly superior in terms of numbers, technology and strategy; nationalist political quarrelling in parliament over the use of Hungarian as the language of command has held up the modernisation of the Hungarian forces.57 During the devastating battle of Rava Ruska, Zombory-Moldova´n narrowly escapes death as Russian shells twice explode close to him, and he barely survives the chaotic retreat of the defeated Austro-Hungarian troops back onto Hungarian territory.

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Throughout the narrative members of non-Hungarian ethnicities – Poles, Slovaks, Germans – are associated with formal and heartfelt loyalty and reverence. The aristocratic reserve officer, like Roth’s Count Morstin, is a benevolent and patriarchal superior, who takes the loyalty shown to him as an expression of a natural order. However, just like in many of the German and Austrian accounts, loyalty in the borderlands is unreliable and deceptive. Zombory-Moldova´n, thirsty and in pain during the Austrian Army’s retreat, expresses rage at a Jewish villager, who expects payment for a glass of lemonade that he just had served the wounded officer.58 This incident sheds light on an earlier reflection according to which the ‘twentieth century will be the century of the Jews, and of revolutions.’59 At the frontlines of the borderlands, where the old feudal order of the Empire comes apart at the seams, a conservative such as Zombory-Moldova´n identifies Jews with a lack of reverence for the old monarchical order and its patriarchal representatives. This provides a richer context to the evolution of antiSemitism in the twentieth century. Thirty years later, following the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, Zombory-Moldova´n took the great risk of sheltering a Jewish family from deportation and murder.60 Latent anti-Semitism accompanied and was probably reinforced by the perceived breakdown of authority in the borderlands, but it was not the decisive factor in turning these regions into the twentieth-century ‘bloodlands’. Zombory-Moldova´n’s memoirs suggest that the old Habsburg order was not only shattered in the borderlands but also in the core cities of the Empire. Like the German general Mackensen, who expressed annoyance with his frontline visitors from the ‘interior’, Zombory-Moldova´n experiences the contrast between the veterans of the front and the population that stayed safely behind in the capital. The wounded and shell-shocked painter expresses bitterness against his fellow artists, who avoided service at the front by claiming ‘essential positions’ at home. While at its fringes the Empire breaks up into its different constituent nationalities and ethnic groups, Budapest’s coffee-houses – already before the war divided up among different art schools and cultural movements – now become sites of contests between monarchist veterans and pacifist opponents of the war. Zombory-Moldova´n is especially resentful of Ady, whose followers congregate at the cosmopolitan-named New York Cafe´, ‘the lair of the “Ady-ites,” where all the prattlers

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gathered round to worship the master.’61 Thus, just as in Roth’s Galician story, the battle lines between traditionalist and modernist culture correspond to political conflicts between different attitudes towards the Empire and the war. But whereas in Roth’s story the cohesion of the Empire fractures in its borderlands, for Zombory-Moldova´n it breaks apart in the coffee-houses of the capital. Attempting to escape the alienating influence of the Budapest coffeehouses, Zombory-Moldova´n seeks to regain his health and spiritual wholeness in the Hungarian province. One of his uncles is a small province town’s stationmaster, an official of the Habsburg state, who often treats his station staff, ‘down to the last assistant, to a meal in the station restaurant, thanks to which they all thought him a great democrat.’62 In the small village of Sajo´va´rkony another of his uncles fulfils the same patriarchal authority as Roth’s Count Morstin. In this Hungarian province town, about halfway between Budapest and the border with Galicia, the old order of reverence for the symbols of the monarchy and the Empire are still intact. At a reception in honour of his uncle, a villager is allowed to hold Zombory-Moldova´n’s sword, part of his officer’s uniform and symbol of imperial authority: His face beamed and his eyes lit up as he held the thing between his knees and put his hand round the grip. [. . .] He had done his military service years ago, and he was past his prime, but – especially in the old days – no officer’s sword would ever have been entrusted to him. This was not just a steel weapon. It was a symbol. A gentleman was entitled to bear one and derived his authority from it. [. . .] ‘His majesty wears one just like this. It’s what makes a man fit for court.’ And now he was free to fiddle with this sacred piece of regalia.63 But even here, among the rustic and loyal villagers, away from both the Galician frontlines and the cantankerous Budapest coffee-houses, the old order seems to survive only as a parody. In a humoristic scene, ZomboryMoldova´n’s uncle gives a high-spirited speech loaded with religious references and praises of family cohesion. The drunken host, trying to not be outdone, gives a eulogy to the pig whose meat provides the food for the reception. Zombory-Moldova´n comments, ‘It was a fine eulogy. People have an inextinguishable impulse to say something

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complimentary about those who have been sacrificed for their benefit’, a statement that might refer equally well to the pig as to the fallen soldiers. Zombory-Moldova´n finally achieves something resembling wholeness in another borderland of the Habsburg Empire, the northern Adriatic region populated by German, Italian and Croatian speakers. Here, the painter spends the last days of his leave among natural beauty and his Austrian host family, ‘an example of kindliness, devotion to duty, and affection.’64 His memoirs end a few days before he has to leave in spring 1915, when Zombory-Moldova´n learns that Italy has joined the war on the side of the allies, presumably shattering the dynamics in this border region as well.

Conclusion Historiographical debates surrounding the Habsburg Empire and its demise during World War I often centre around the question of the Dual Monarchy’s ‘modernity’ or ‘backwardness’. Recent contributions to the scholarship of Austria –Hungary have refuted or revised ‘a tradition of pathologising the Habsburg Empire as teetering on the verge of collapse thanks to nationalist conflict.’ 65 In a recent synthesis Pieter Judson, for example, showed ‘how countless local societies across central Europe engaged with the Habsburg dynasty’s efforts to build a unified and unifying imperial state [. . .] Taken as a whole, these complex processes of empire-building gave citizens in every corner of the Empire collective experiences that crossed linguistic, confessional, and regional divides.’66 A comparison of Austro-Hungarian and German impressions of the first years of the war makes the Empire-wide focus of recent Habsburg scholarship even broader. This chapter’s wider Central European scope therefore ties in with Judson’s effort to transcend the emphasis of national histories of World War I. On the one hand, the comparison shows that some of the older views of an empire breaking apart at its multi-ethnic borderlands are confirmed by the observations of a wide range of contemporaries, from the Jewish-Austrian writer Roth to the German general Mackensen, to the Hungarian painter Zombory-Moldova´n. The decline of identification with an overarching imperial identity in favour of more narrowly defined nationalisms seems to set the long-term stage for the

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violent history that the former Habsburg borderlands experienced in subsequent decades of the twentieth century. However, it can also be argued that these diverse contemporary observers were part of a wider Central European mentality which – often under the influence of broadly defined modernist ideas and cultural movements – saw signs of breakdown or shattering not only in the borderlands but also – or especially – in the metropolitan centres of Berlin, Vienna and Budapest. This makes it possible to describe the rise of nationalist sentiments and movements not just as the cause of a breakup but an accompanying phenomenon of a more far-reaching ‘cultural shattering.’ The experiences of the Eastern Front in the borderlands of the Habsburg Empire took place in a wider context of the breakdown of traditional, patriarchal forms of authority, and its accompanying anxieties and (re)definitions of loyalty and belonging. In accounts of the Central European borderlands, whether by high-ranking officers, common soldiers, or writers and artists, aesthetic observations that reflect larger cultural trends blend with reflections of the dissolution of political authority, which by the beginning of the war was still modelled on the patriarchal symbolism of the emperor’s personal rule. For this reason, the study of World War I at the Eastern Front benefits from a combination of cultural and socio-political history that analyses the experiences of ordinary participants in the events as well as artistic productions and representations. Such an analysis of social, political and cultural factors could also widen our understanding of the ‘shatterzone’ of twentieth-century Central Europe. By describing processes of perceived fracturing of traditional authority and national cohesion, whether among soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian Army or artists questioning prevailing forms of representation, we might be able to go beyond an interpretation of the Central European borderlands as sites of all-encompassing violence or multicultural nostalgia. Rather, the frontlines of the borderland intensified and strengthened the perceptions of crisis phenomena that affected a wider ‘shatterzone’ in twentiethcentury Europe before and after World War I.

CHAPTER 11 A MUTILATED SOCIETY: DISABLED EX-SERVICEMEN OF THE TSARIST RUSSIAN ARMY Alexandre Sumpf

The Tsarist Russian Empire fought several wars in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: the Napoleonic wars, the Russo – Japanese War, the Crimean War and the Russo – Turkish War. These conflicts created many casualties, but disabled ex-serviceman only ever represented a minority of them. It was not until World War I that disabled ex-servicemen became a genuine social group, comprising between 900,000 to 1.7 million men, or about 10 per cent of the veterans of the Imperial Army. This new group included men of varying social, ethnic and religious origins; men who belonged to a generation that had experienced three major conflicts (the Russo – Japanese War, World War I and the Russian Civil War) and that needed to adapt to a society deeply influenced by three revolutions (1905, and the February and October revolutions of 1917). The members of this group intervened in the public sphere and they did indeed benefit from their government’s social policies, at least initially. But in contrast to war veterans and their associations in Western Europe, the social role of Tsarist disabled veterans sharply decreased after 1921. In the West disabled veterans joined organisations both to engage in lobbying activities and also to keep alive the memory of the war and to seek solidarity with their wartime comrades.1

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But Russia had no organisation representing both able-bodied and disabled ex-servicemen.2 Before World War I, the greatest efforts on behalf of the disabled were made by philanthropists, who were responsible for the problems of work, housing and care of the disabled. World War I itself accentuated this trend. It was only in 1917 that ‘crippled fighters’ (увечные) became ‘invalids’ (инвалиды) and participated in the burgeoning civil society throughout the country,3 a trend that was itself cut short when World War I became the Civil War.4 In 1918 communist authorities instituted a hierarchy amongst war veterans that favoured men who had fought in the Red Army – the sacrifice of disabled ex-servicemen of the Tsarist Army was annulled. The Bolsheviks seem initially to have ignored this group, which counted for just under 1 per cent of the total population. It was not until October 1919 that the authorities created the All-Russian Committee for Mutual Aid for Disabled Ex-Servicemen, known by the acronym ‘Vserokomom’.5 It united disabled veterans of the two wars (1914 – 18 and 1918 – 21) and competed for public assistance with disabled workers (whose conditions seem to have been even worse than disabled veterans) and the congenitally disabled. To date there is no synthetic work on this topic, or of the many publications that appeared during the war and the inter-war period, or of the archival materials.6 The archival material on this topic is in fact abundant, in both the federal collections and the regional and city archives. These typically contain institutional collections, and to a lesser extent subject-specific materials and personal collections. At the regional level the Moscow and St Petersburg archives provide a wide range of legal, police, judicial, medical and cultural sources. This chapter will begin by discussing the impact of mechanised warfare on men’s bodies, evaluation and care by medical experts, and the creation of a new social category, the ‘invalid’. It will go on to look at this group as a source of public action and patriotic mobilisation. Finally, it will offer a social and political history of the failure of disabled veterans to return to civilian life, looking at the considerable problems of physical rehabilitation, social and work reintegration and political recognition of their war sacrifice.

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War Invalidity: Mutilated Bodies Disabled ex-servicemen of the Tsarist Army constituted an unprecedented social problem, one whose size and composition contemporaries (and therefore also historians) struggled to determine precisely. The sources confirm a clear distinction between the periods before and after October 1917: the vast majority of documentation about disabled ex-servicemen refer to them as ‘mutilated’ soldiers, ‘cripples’ or invalids (this last a term translated from French that was favoured after the February revolution). This terminological conflict spoke to a long struggle for the recognition of equal rights for the disabled (either through accident or birth), an uncertainty about status (e.g., did a man became an invalid after being declared incapable of fighting, or after the state provided him with a pension?), and statistical imprecision, which was itself a consequence of underestimating warfare’s impact on human bodies. Moreover, some data is clearly missing (nature of disability, ethnic origin of subject) and can be established only through a long exploration of military and auxiliary sources – as well as a certain amount of extrapolation. In 1939 the e´migre´ historian Nikolai Golovin gave a figure of 4.2 million wounded soldiers (300,000 fatally wounded), using Russian, Soviet Army sources, as well as data from the Red Cross and Zemgor.7 However, whereas Golovin typically overstated his figures, when it came to those men who were disabled in action, he gave the unusually low figure of 700,000. Taking into account (as Golovin did not) figures from Petrograd and Moscow, the true number of disabled veterans is probably closer to 850,000, with potentially another 350,000 who were ill (there is, unfortunately, no data available concerning soldiers with tuberculosis or light mental disabilities). In Russia, only those declared so by a military medical commission were considered ‘invalids’. Medical expertise was arguably the deciding factor. In contrast to their Western colleagues, many Russian surgeons had previous experience with these matters, and called upon their experiences of the conflict with Japan in the treatment of injuries in World War I. Conditions were harsh. In 1915, Doctor Rozanov complained bitterly in the pages of The Journal of Military Medicine that ‘We surgeons [. . .] struggle a long time before deciding to amputate.’ Even without an amputation bullets and shrapnel wrecked so many bones, nerves and

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veins that ‘the ends twist and shorten; such a wounded man is also mutilated: he lost much of his capacity to work, becoming an inadequate worker for his family and for the government.’8 As was the case ten years previously, medical progress, ethical issues and wartime justice intertwined.9 Surgeons used the war to test new methods and expertise on men who, of course, had no say in the matter. Audacious medical experimentation and accelerated scientific progress are commonplace when speaking about military medicine during World War I. Alongside the press and numerous medical staff memoirs we have a series of film images about this particular aspect of the conflict. Historians can analyse newsreels of the time, and also an important documentary film Reborn to Life.10 Shot in 1916, this film had important French precursors (L’avenir de nos mutile´s, L’e´cole de re´e´ducation des mutile´s de guerre aveugles a` Reuilly)11 that also reached Russian audiences in World War I. The extant descriptions of its missing parts suggest that Reborn to Life did not dwell on the precise nature of the injury, but rather on the processes of rehabilitation. A soldier fighting in an unnamed war (its topicality was obvious) falls victim to an enemy shell (the audience would assume it was German). Having lost a part of his body he survives and is seen lying in a common room at the hospital. Then he stands up and begins to work in the workshops organised by the benefactor and sponsor of the film – Princess Maria Pavlovna. The scenes that are preserved do not show the traditional patriotic discourse, but rather emphasise voluntarism and medical expertise. In accord with the likely tone of the movie in its entirety, the scenes we still have mute physical and psychological suffering. Nevertheless they clearly show a downgrading in social status of the disabled veteran. The ten minutes of footage available consist of three main sequences: a fixed shot on disabled veterans coming and going in front of the committee workshop entrance, shots of the men at work shaping leg and arm prostheses and a lengthy inspection of the disabled with their prostheses, probably before returning to civilian life and the labour market. This last scene strikingly exposes the contrast between the experts’ faces – focussed, smiling, exchanging appreciative glances – and the dazed muteness of the disabled themselves. The staff do not make a single unnecessary move. The military chief acts in a familiar fashion with the patients. A male nurse roughly chases the disabled

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down the queue. Medical experts explain their inventions. Civil authorities examine artificial limbs without a glance for the exservicemen themselves. Their inferior social status undoubtedly plays a role here, but the images give the impression that disabled veterans were not in control of their own choices or fate, appearing only as objects for experimentation. There was also the treatment experienced by the mentally disabled in special institutions.12 Just as in France, ‘shell-shock’ had been a particular point of interest for Russian medical specialists. During the war there was a heated dispute about the specific characteristics and nature of such neuroses. In his doctoral dissertation, published in 1917, the psychiatrist S.A. Preobrazhenskii insisted on the unprecedented role played by artillery fire in the mental illnesses he had studied at the Central Hospital for the Mentally Ill (funded by the Committee of the Union of Municipalities).13 As a liberal seeking to define new neuroses and find innovative treatment for them (without sending men back to the battlefield) he opposed his conservative colleagues, who considered patients to be psychotics devoid of any rights. In 1924 Preobrazhenskii estimated that World War I and the Civil War had created 1.8 million disabled veterans, 80 per cent of whom suffered from neurosis or shock (the symptoms being ‘idiocy’, memory or auditory loss). According to him, no one had received an appropriate cure for this to date.14 This kind of neglect was not due to Soviet inferiority or a lack of funding for specialists and medical facilities: it was a legacy of a broader and earlier attitude. Disabled fighters often suffered the same fate as that imposed by military and Tsarist authorities unto men suffering shell-shock, that is, they were labelled as deserters. In the ultra-patriotic and tense circumstances surrounding successive defeats, especially during the ‘Great Retreat’ of 1915, losses other than deaths were not tolerated, as they invalidated the symbol of the ‘Russian hero’ either triumphing (like the Cossak Kuzma Kriuchkov) or dying (like the aviator Nesterov). Escaping from the battlefield, wounded men became a needless weight for the army, the government or their families. They were also a painful reminder of Russia’s fate in the war. They became scapegoats who were accused of losing the army’s battles, and just like prisoners of war who were suspected of surrendering without due reason, wounded soldiers were suspected of self-mutilation.15 Some of them were even executed

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for this, others lost the right of state financial support. In the eyes of the military and of society in the rear, the few proven cases of self-mutilation cast a shadow of doubt on all such cases. In a society facing total war, there was little space for soldiers who did not fight, or civilians who could not produce.

Disabled Ex-Servicemen as Objects of Charity and Patriotic Mobilisation Disabled ex-servicemen were not the sole victims of the war, and they competed for care and assistance in the public sphere with refugees and soldiers’ families. Posters thus contributed to creating an image of the war ‘invalid’ in the collective imagination. Such drawings of disabled exservicemen were of generally good quality, although the war itself remained an abstraction (denoted only by the soldiers’ uniform) and physical and/or psychological suffering tended to be concealed under calm and pacific looking faces. In contrast, posters of refugees insisted on the helplessness of their subjects, who were depicted as abandoned and tormented. Typically, the ‘invalid’ in uniform appears alone, whilst a paternal or maternal figure nearby symbolises public social assistance. Disabled fighters were represented as victims and not as representative of a new social group created by the war, deserving and expecting recognition for their sacrifice. The fate of ex-servicemen differed depending on a number of factors, such as their geographical position, whether they lived in a village or a city, whether they were at home or in unfamiliar surroundings, in a region with a tradition of assistance, in a location with sufficient political importance to grant the disabled ex-serviceman at least minimal privileges. At national and local levels disabled ex-servicemen were presented as dependent victims who could not find a way out of their trying postwar circumstances without support from society. Help would come in the form of the Red Cross, the imperial family, the Zemgor, or the numerous community committees, all of which competed with one another rather than collaborating to ensure that medical and social care was delivered effectively.16 As victims and as heroes disabled ex-servicemen could unite the nation and its many communities, and this group was often deployed as a symbol of patriotic propaganda. Usually living apart from the rest of

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society in medical institutions, or else hidden in their homes, disabled ex-servicemen were at times thrust into the spotlight for special public events such as galas, spectacles that included singers, actors, humourists, poets, generals. Disabled ex-servicemen were objectified in such galas, where they stood merely as a symbol of war’s cruelty; no-one gave them an opportunity to speak – not because they were unable to do so, nor because the authorities feared they would speak out about the horrors of the war, but simply because they were treated as objects rather than subjects. They had nothing to give society except for their earlier sacrifice. And with rare exceptions they did not belong to the authorised elites. In Russia, the imperial family were at the summit of the authorised elite. From January 1915 onwards each of the great princesses, and even the empress herself, started to make a display of caring about the wounded, the disabled, widows and orphans. They offered not only to use their sacred Romanov name to collect funds, but also to become Sisters of Mercy, organising sanitary trains and like-minded philanthropic pursuits. This garnered much publicity, whilst in reality the real efforts to counter the effects of the war were carried out by the Union of Cities, the Zemstvo and the Red Cross. One of the most famous of these royally patronised institutions was the Committee of Great Princess Maria Pavlovna. It was at this institution that the film Reborn to Life was produced. The film was unique in so far as it combined two otherwise vastly separated milieus: the royal family and the film industry. The main sequence, discussed above, shows a large room full of war veterans, surrounded by (able-bodied) army officers sitting at desks, doctors inspecting prostheses, and civilian officers in suits observing the proceedings. The message is clear: institutions dealt efficiently and effectively with victims of the war. The sheer number of disabled exservicemen on screen demonstrated the extent of the work being conducted at such an institution. Despite these good intentions, Colonel Eroshevich, the chief of the cinema section of the military censorship commission in Petrograd, advocated banning it. He judged that ‘the film makes a very bad impression and it threatens to corrupt the spirit of society, something that would be quite undesirable given the ongoing need for conscription. It is also unlikely that the film would cheer up the soldiers if it were sent to the front.’17 The Princess’s Committee promoted a traditional kind of philanthropy, one in which Orthodox

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Christianity and the monarchy played a central role. But Eroshevich was a professional with a special sensitivity for the requirements of cultural mobilisation. The press did not mention Reborn to Life. It is possible that this was used on the occasion of gala screenings, charitable tours and so on. As only fragments of the film remain it is impossible to judge whether or not Eroshevich was right in his judgement. The Drankov Studio wanted the film distributed throughout the army, which contradicted the Committee’s efforts to target an audience of philanthropists and the disabled. Some scenes from this film were shown in 1929 (included in Evgeny Yakushkin’s film The Great War) and in 1975 (in Elem Klimov’s Agony), but they were used to satirical effect. The film thus failed to achieve its goal.

A Failed Return to Life The status of a disabled person was essentially defined as the ‘other: the disabled, the invalid person was a distorted mirror of humanity, of masculinity, or of the majority.’18 Bridging this gap between the disabled ex-servicemen and the rest of society depended on medical rehabilitation, on the return to work and also on self-perception, constructed by disabled veterans either individually or through the group that the disabled veteran had unwittingly joined. Their legal status encompassed contradictory welfare and social provision policies. Rehabilitation was key, and this meant obtaining a precious prosthesis to compensate for loss of one or more limbs (usually hands and arms). In this field, however, economic interests seemed to prevail over philanthropic ones. The best prostheses were produced in Petrograd, Moscow or in Kiev, in specialised medical institutes (where constant experimentation meant output was scarce) or in the numerous workshops that sprouted up to meet the increasing demand for such prostheses.19 Despite progress made in these fields, there were never enough prostheses for all disabled ex-servicemen. In 1916 the chief at the Mariinski Asylum in Petrograd deplored about the conditions in barracks for ex-servicemen waiting for prostheses.20 In 1917, the Union for War Invalids claimed that each stump should be provided with two prostheses within a three-year period.21 But data show that by 1926 only 70,000 had been produced since the beginning of the war and that, given the poor quality of the prostheses, these had to be replaced every

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two years. The invalid workshops of the inter-war period did not mass produce these prostheses – they produced instead cardboard, baskets, mineral water and pastries. These occupations were self-financed by disabled veterans, who were forced to compete on the market with workshops employing able-bodied workers. And even this minimal state support was lost during the communist period. Rehabilitation itself was not extended to ex-servicemen who had mental health problems, who had lost their sight, or who were chronically ill. The Tsarist government provided these men with some financial compensation instead. Committees for the care of disabled ex-servicemen faced severe financial problems. For example, the Alexander Committee had in 1916 a deficit of 838,828 roubles – a state of affairs that forced it to cut pensions for Russo– Japanese veterans down from 20 to 5 roubles per month, with no compensation for widows and orphans of war.22 Almost every institution faced a similar crisis. After February 1917, the Union for invalids returning or repatriated from POW camps advocated a remodelling of wartime disability scales so that they would become more egalitarian. They claimed that rank-and-file soldiers deserved the same amount.23 But the Provisional government in its brief lifetime was unable to meet these demands. Categories of disability did not grant access to work or special training courses, thus undermining the emphasis on rehabilitation. Nevertheless the Department for Commerce and Industry in the Tsarist government offered courses for district clerks, book-keeping in local credit institutions, railroad work, village policemen and market gardeners. Strangely, this initiative ignored industry. The Ministry for Land Affairs organised 300 training courses for 15,750 students. The Ministry of Public Instruction trained workers for credit institutions. These institutions accepted only literate candidates, they also closely checked candidates’ ‘morals’, and did not hesitate to expel anyone whose behaviour did not satisfy his superiors. In theory disabled ex-servicemen returned from the battlefield with the benefit of access to employment through job centres. In reality they constantly struggled to find suitable employment, and they faced a lack of interest from employers, sometimes even exploitation (especially in the workshops that produced prostheses). For example, in January 1916 Vasilii Morozenko, a 90-per cent-disabled veteran, wrote in despair to the Minister of Industry and Commerce describing his trek from one

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office to another, the disdain he faced from potential employers, and the fact that he could not find employment despite his training in law and economics.24 Another disabled ex-serviceman, Piotr Liaschenko, was admitted to a training course but declined and requested instead to be employed as a warehouse janitor, because of lack of faith in the rehabilitative system and the desire simply to opt out of it.25 In the big Russian cities, disabled ex-servicemen were housed in common rooms in large numbers, forced to live in close proximity with one another. Were these conditions conducive to solidarity, or did they lead to anomie? Further research on such questions is needed: the sources remain scarce in a society that deprived disabled ex-servicemen of self-expression. Only occasional and exceptional testimonies are available to us, such as the evidence offered by a police report about Fregmont Artamonov. Artamonov was sentenced to short imprisonment after criticising the failure of the state to support him and threatening the government, declaring ‘we soldiers know what we have to do.’26 Disabled ex-servicemen were barely visible. In Soviet movies (e.g., Dovzhenko’s Arsenal) a disabled person tended to be someone who had lost a limb or two. The blind were much less present than they were in the West.27 The non-ambulant and people with facial disfigurements were practically invisible.28 Whether this was the product of personal choice or collective taboo, the absence is reflected also in the lack of data about particular injuries and the disabled.

Conclusion The Russian disabled veterans of World War I endured many traumatic war experiences. First, after having served and been wounded under fire on the frontlines they faced a chaotic demobilisation process and their disorganised return home posed a challenge to the military instances, the civil authorities and society. In the rear, they founded the first, and eventually the only, veterans’ unions to have existed in Russia. Second, they suffered from the mechanised war that severely affected individuals’ bodies and minds. The war cut out of the army a new social group whose members had very little in common beside this painful experience. Their new life as ‘invalidy’ deepened this trauma with marginalisation during and after the war, and the loss of social status. Third, this powerless collective of maimed soldiers became guinea pigs for medical

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experiments, as victims of war, they were used in philanthropic initiatives and as disabled citizens, they were confronted with as yet untested socioeconomic policies. Wartime Russia proposed a legal framework for disabled veterans that diverse social actors, including the ex-servicemen themselves, struggled to adapt to the ongoing events. The 1912 law offered a beneficial status to professional soldiers mobilised in the war against Japan in 1904– 5. However, the promoters of the assistance system did not manage to face the urgency of the situation during World War I. If the medical-military commissions ruled quite rapidly, the administrative path toward recognition of a new status was trying and the wait for prostheses painful. The law failed to guarantee the maimed and the mutilated the most fundamental rights; no serious sanctions were in place to punish the infringement of entitlements, such as the administration, housing authorities or enterprises if they refused to allot a shelter or a job to disabled ex-servicemen. The veterans’ unions themselves ignored these crucial aspects to focus on their fight for new legislation and a new more equitable and generous pension scale. In the veterans’ leaders’ eyes, only the invalidy could organise mutual aid networks. The rehabilitation programme reveals a total change of perspective. If being rehabilitated at the beginning of the war was claimed as a patriotic duty, it became political activism in 1917: the conquest for civic autonomy. The traumatic experience of each ex-serviceman was now considered as a school of injustice, qualifying them to implement a justice founded on the principle of equality. However, the assistance system remained focused on the individual (not the group) and the selfmanagement that was promoted accentuated its very localised nature. The extreme variation of regional situations and local conditions forced the ex-servicemen, especially outside the cities, to form groups that could sustain themselves over prolonged periods and influence the rules on the game: collectives of invalidy (such as houses for disabled veterans, artels, cooperatives), professional circles and families. After the war and such treatment procedures as they underwent, exservicemen were dispersed all around the country. However, an activist minority decided to organise themselves collectively and tried to oblige society to recognise their sacrifice. After the hopes raised during the democratic year 1917, the Civil War added a new set of victims and

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overshadowed World War I – a lost war for the Whites, and an imperialist one for the Reds. Moreover, the Bolsheviks voluntarily enforced political discrimination between social classes and among veterans. The Red Army’s disabled ex-servicemen were allocated higher allowances than those of the Tsarist army: 250 roubles a year as against 168 (for those who had 100 per cent of work capacity), 175 as against 108 (70 per cent), 100 as against 60 (40 per cent)29. The only justification was the labelling of the civil war as ‘just’. After the February revolution disabled veterans made use of new channels of expression, taking part in spontaneous street marches or in organised lobbying. The Union of Invalids was the most prominent association of the disabled ex-servicemen. As early as March 1917, the first issue of its major publication The Invalids’ Voice stated its two main principles: ‘Invalids have to care about invalids’ and ‘We don’t need charity’.30 In this way they rejected the previous philanthropic paradigm, defining themselves through activism, not passivity. In many countries the war created a new social group, disabled ex-servicemen, but did not unite individuals around a common position about such the group’s significance and goals. In Soviet Russia, in October 1919 the highest Soviet authorities created the All-Russian Committee for Mutual Aid between Invalids, an institution that was supposed to centralise all state care: employment, health, living conditions. Yet despite this institutional acknowledgement of a distinct social status, disabled ex-servicemen lost even more in the wake of the financial ruin of the Bolshevik state in 1921. One should not be deceived by the voluntarist Bolshevik discourse about social insurance. In the event, the Soviet system offered disabled ex-servicemen less support than the Tsarist government. There were far fewer beneficiaries than during the war, and all private philanthropy had disappeared. Vserokompom did employ a large number of disabled exservicemen, but the latter did not seem to have much influence on Sovnarkom’s decisions which gradually eroded their benefits. In 1926, Vserokompom’s expertise and specificity were abolished by a law stating that the institution should now work on the social reintegration of all former conscripts who were not disabled and did not have any war experience. After two years of existence, Vserokompom’s bulletin more or less gave up the debate with the authorities and merely publicised official policies.

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The status of the invalidy was stronger before 1918: they were the only men with the right to lifetime assistance from the state. This old template modelled in a certain way the new rights given by the Soviets to the labouring population. Ten years after the war, their specific trauma did not seem to interest many people. After World War II, a new generation of mutilated, amputees and war neurotics replaced the probably quite diminished number of World War I invalids. Above all, the word invalidnost’ was widely diffused and was finally applied more to women than men. Sometimes disconnected from any serious disability, it represented one of the variables inside the very complex Soviet wage system. The genuinely disabled ex-servicemen fell to the bottom of the social scale, without any state, social or private support.

CHAPTER 12 KEEPING UP APPEARANCES: THE AIMS OF THE ANGLORUSSIAN HOSPITAL IN PETROGRAD, 1915—18 Shannon Brady

The Committee have been animated by one desire to carry out the original ideas of the founders of the scheme, namely to ‘show their sympathy with their great Russian Ally and to foster the good feeling already existing between the two nations.’1

Introduction On 6 August 1915, almost one year to the day that Germany declared war on Russia, the first advertisement for the Anglo-Russian Hospital (ARH) appeared in The Times newspaper. In an attempt to ‘appeal to the British people in the hope that it will contribute to so deserving an object’ the first subscriptions for the ARH were sought.2 The ARH was an idea largely accredited to Lady Muriel Paget, the hospital’s organising secretary, which had the backing of the British government and many influential aristocrats, laity and politicians. The ARH could boast three hospitals. Work began on a base hospital in Petrograd in 1915, with the first patients admitted in February 1916. A field hospital was deployed

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to the front in June 1916, and the British staff attached to the ARH worked in a field hospital in Lutsk throughout 1916. The base and field hospitals subsequently closed in 1918.3 The ARH was to be a completely self-sustaining entity from Britain, with all equipment and medical staff – with the exception of orderlies and several nurses – coming from the British Empire. In terms of the ARH’s bureaucratic arrangements, the hospital came under the management of the ARH Committee, which administered the hospital’s finances and staffing from London. In Russia, responsibility for the hospital’s activities fell to the Russian Red Cross (RRC). Lady Sybil Grey and Lady Muriel Paget, two women of British aristocratic lineage, undertook the hospital’s daily administration. This article will be a micro-study of the ARH, examining it as a medical charity operating in an Allied nation, during a time of total war. It will look at Anglo-Russian relations in the hospital, answering the questions: Was the hospital a symbol of Entente cooperation and, if so, how did the Allied relationship unfold within the ARH? While the hospital was put forward in the British press as the type of ‘assistance in this moment of crisis that Russia will most value’ that is not to say that the hospital was created with the view of benefitting the Russians alone.4 This article will argue that that the ARH’s primary goal was to promote a positive image of the British Allies to the Russian wounded and public. While cooperation occurred between the British staff and RRC, this relationship was not without its difficulties. The British administrative staff’s ideals of how they believed Britain and the British should be viewed in Russia affected this relationship, causing them to not only come into conflict with RRC authorities but also their own committee in London. Despite its prominent origins the ARH has received little scholarly attention,5 the most substantial work being The Forgotten Hospital: An Essay, published by Michael Harmer, the son of a surgeon who worked in the hospital, between December 1915 and November 1916.6 This is a narrative account which details the establishment, running and closure of the ARH, as well as the medical personnel who worked within it. Another, largely descriptive source, that deals solely with the ARH is an article by Irina Kuptsova entitled ‘The Anglo-Russian Hospital in Petrograd’, while a biography of Lady Muriel Paget, authored by Wilfrid Blunt, deals with the ARH in three chapters.7 Other texts which

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mention the ARH do so only fleetingly and, as such, any detailed critical engagement with the hospital has yet to be carried out.8 Using archival material such as private papers of the staff who worked in the hospital, newspapers, pamphlets, Russian Red Cross documents and minutes from a Provisional government meeting, a picture of how the Allied relationship played out on the micro level of the hospital will be examined. The ARH is only one small story within World War I Russia and Britain. However, looking at the ARH as a microcosm allows the hospital to be used as a conceptual tool to examine the larger wartime processes of charity work and Allied relations.

The Origins of the ARH The British Allies established the hospital with the explicit purpose of garnering favour among the Russian public and wounded. The Great Retreat, which saw Russian forces withdraw from Galicia and Poland throughout the summer of 1915, resulted in a large number of casualties. Medical facilities were overwhelmed with the number of wounded, both at the front and the rear, as they struggled to tend to the large number of casualties.9 It was during this time the ARH was created ‘not so much to supplement the provision made by the Russian Red Cross as to give a practical sign of British admiration and gratitude toward the Russian people,’10 Sir George Buchanan, the British Ambassador to Russia, supported the hospital. Buchanan disclosed to the Foreign Office, in August 1915 when the first advertisement for the hospital appeared, that the British and French Allies had a poor reputation in Russia. According to Buchanan, those in Russia felt they did not have Allied support and as such, he believed it was imperative to thwart this image.11 Contemporary press publications contended that the hospital had the ‘active support and assistance of the British government’ suggesting that one reason for the existence of the ARH, was so the British could garner favour from their Russian Allies and in doing so show appreciation, sympathy and support.12

Positive Anglo-Russian Relations: Public and Private Portrayals In Russia, the hospital’s physical presence was to be a symbol of British friendship and assistance towards their Entente partner. Lady Sybil Grey,

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one of the hospital’s administrators, aided in ensuring the ARH had a prominent location in Russia. Coming from an aristocratic family, with her father previously holding the position of Governor General of Canada, she served as the hospital’s administrator in Russia, from October 1915 to June 1916, and returned to the position once again, between October 1916 and July 1917.13 Writing to the committee in London when considering potential buildings for the hospital, she found that: One was discarded as too small, another might have done but it was badly situated in a back street and unsuitable in other minor ways. The third was the palace of the Grand Duke Dmitri, a cousin of the Czar. It is significantly situated on the principle street of Petrograd and is just opposite the Palace of the Dowager Empress. Nowhere could we have found a more central position, or a more imposing looking building for your hospital – and we have the added satisfaction of knowing that both the Russian Red Cross authorities and the British Embassy consider the Dmitri Palace to be the most suitable building for the hospital.14 The intentional location of the hospital in Nevsky Prospect, a focal point in Petrograd, ensured the ARH had a high level of exposure in the city. The United Kingdom’s flag was hung outside the ARH, so any confusion surrounding the hospital’s origins could be avoided. The crest of the ARH was the lion and two-headed eagle, the symbols of both nation’s empires, portraying the hospital as a joint and cooperative venture. Furthermore, a pamphlet produced for the 1917 Russian Exhibition (of which more will be said later), noted that part of the hospital’s usefulness was that it ‘kept the Union Jack flying in the main thoroughfare of Petrograd for close on two years.’15 The ARH’s outward appearance as a British emblem sought to strengthen the latter’s presence in Petrograd. As such, those in charge of the hospital hoped to ensure the Russian public’s amity towards Britain at a time when the Allied relationship was strained, as opposed to simply providing charitable aid to their Russian Allies.16 The personnel of the ARH, when first arriving in Russia, noted how they were received by the Russian authorities. In an official

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capacity Lady Sybil Grey reported to the Executive Committee in London that ‘the Russian Red Cross authorities and in fact everyone we have met have given us a most hearty welcome and are all only too anxious to help us in any way they can. The Red Cross have most kindly detailed two officers to assist us in our work of getting the Hospital ready.’17 Relaying to the committee in London, the positive reception given to the hospital, highlighted that the ARH was being appreciated and positive Anglo-Russian relations were being established. Similarly, the perception of the hospital by Russians residing in Britain was a concern, as was noted by Lady Muriel Paget, the hospital’s Honorary Organising Secretary. Born into an aristocratic family, her father and mother being Lord and Lady Winchelsea, she was active in charitable causes in Britain before the war, having previously been appointed Honorary Secretary of the Invalid Kitchens in London. When in Russia, she served as the hospital’s administrator between April and November 1916, returning to the post again from June 1917 to March 1918.18 Writing an undated report (most likely around Christmas 1916) from England to Lady Grey, she relayed how: they are asking for interviews and information for subscribers and say there is not enough publicity given to [the] work of [the] hospital etc so do send me as many points as you can from time to time [. . .] that would please the Russians. One has to keep commonplaces for fear of mentioning something that mightn’t be complimentary.19 Seeking to maintain a strong relationship with the Russians, those overseeing the hospital’s activities were equally concerned with how their actions were being interpreted by Russians in Britain and Russia. The RRC, similar to the British, viewed the ARH as a cooperative Entente effort. During the war in Russia, the RRC had control over frontline medical activities and the Union of Zemstvos, a local government body, was responsible for medical arrangements in the rear, where the base hospital in Petrograd was located.20 Despite this demarcation, both the base hospital in Petrograd and the field hospital at the front

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were to come ‘under the flag of the Red Cross’.21 In Russia, the Red Cross recognised the hospital was ‘coming to Russia from England to render aid to our wounded’ though this would not be without help from the Red Cross and Russian aid.22 Difficulties were foreseen as ‘the majority of personnel who serve are unfamiliar with the Russian language and customs of our native land.’23 As such, it was asked that Princess Maria Anatolievna Shakohvski, a member of the Russian nobility, aid the hospital so as ‘to not deny further care and assistance for the creation of the conditions by which the operations of the hospital will run normally and fruitfully.’24 This letter was written in order to try and secure Russian assistance for the hospital which, in part, explains the ARH being described as a potential hindrance. Nevertheless, the RRC accentuated the role those in Russia would play in supporting the hospital, as opposed to seeing it as a predominantly British endeavour. This call was accepted and three months later the RRC wrote to Princess Maria praising her for the help she had given. The letter sought to flatter Princess Maria, expressing ‘profound gratitude after all the difficulty and troubles which you, with such energy and attention invested in this duty and owing to this, the English hospital is one particularly excellent in organisation.’25 The difficulty and trouble referred to was most likely related to the non-arrival of the hospital’s stores from England. This meant equipment had to be bought in Russia which the British believed, to some extent, altered the hospital’s status as a gift.26 While the cooperative Allied relationship was still highlighted by the RRC, outlining that the ARH had begun ‘its fruitful work with the fraternal assistance of our allies-the Englishmen’ this was evidently not due to the good work of the English but, the assistance Princess Maria, provided.27 This illustrates that in the Russian context, and in fact in reality, the British would need help, as the establishment of the hospital was not regarded solely as a British effort by the RRC. The RRC viewed those in Russia as playing a much more active role than was acknowledged in the British press at the time of the hospital’s establishment.28 Thus, while both nations recognised the beginnings of a cooperative relationship, the dominant partner in this connection was dependent on the context in which it was being discussed.

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Lady Muriel Paget, Lady Sybil Grey and the Image of the British in Russia Ladies Paget and Grey were concerned about the image of the British and by extension the hospital in Russia. The relationships between the RRC personnel at the front, the hospitals administrators and the committee in London were frequently strained. Annoyed with certain chauffeurs who had been sent over from England, due to drunkenness and rudeness, Lady Paget believed ‘they only cause very unpleasant criticism and are not a credit either to our unit or our country.’29 She further hoped for ‘men of the right type’ to be sent to Russia as drivers.30 Lady Grey, also mindful of the staff’s behaviour, considered Dr Flavelle, an ARH surgeon, excessively blunt when speaking to the Russians at the front. He had no tact, reminding her of a ‘Russian peasant’ when in the morning he was unshaven ‘and his hair and eyes are more than unusually wild.’31 This behaviour was not what these Ladies wished for in their staff, as they believed it reflected poorly on the hospital and offended the Russians they were to be working cordially with. Concerned with the Russian’s perception of them, they were to be dignified, quiet, cooperative and the antithesis to rude drunks and lower-class, wild, Russian peasants.32 Both Lady Paget and Lady Grey came from English aristocratic families, where social hierarchy was an entrenched value.33 Their class-based rhetoric illustrates that while Anglo-Russian relations were to be convivial, this would be achieved by employing (who they believed to be) the correct type of people. Through the embodiment of positive qualities the British abroad could foster a favourable image among the Russian wounded and public. However, it was not only the British staff in Russia who agitated Lady Paget, as the committee in London could also cause her great annoyance. In Lady Paget’s opinion they ‘in a mild way’ pretended to know about Russia when they did not.34 Furthermore, the dearth of knowledge the committee actually possessed on the matter would render them ‘the laughing stock of the country’ if they recalled the ARH field units from the front, as they wished to.35 Lady Paget’s qualms, in regards to the RRC, could be no more specific than vague references to Red Cross authorities at the front who she believed were ‘intriguing’ with Lady Paget unaware of ‘what game they were up to’ but having her ‘suspicions.’36 However, frustration with the RRC also came to light

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when Lady Paget felt her orders were not being carried out. General Willemnov, a natchalnick (commandant) with the RRC, provides an illustration of this. After General Willemnov refused Lady Paget permission to move the wounded from the front to the rear, she claimed he ‘had hinted that the English were frightened’ to which she ‘sent a polite message to say that English and Russian Red X methods of working were very different – that our staff were there to do whatever work was required but that I thought more consideration might have been given to the wounded’.37 Further criticisms were cast on the natchalnicks as she disclosed that: There has been so much trouble and disagreement [. . .] lately in our field hospital owing to the unfortunate choice of natchalnick that it is important once and for all a satisfactory person would fill that post – It is seldom that we find the most competent of people in the employ of the R.R.C there is much scheming for self advancement, decorations and complicated motives prompt so many of their actions that one has to be on the look out all the time to see that the interests of our English organisation receive anything like due consideration.38 The bureaucracy of Tsarist Russia was seen as ineffectual and corrupt by many in Britain leading up to World War I.39 While popular sentiment, such as this, could have laid the cultural groundwork for viewing Russia with suspicion, it cannot fully explain Lady Paget’s qualms, particularly in light of her aforementioned annoyance with the committee in London. Charitable work was the duty of her class and often how women coming from the upper echelons of society expressed patriotism in Britain during the war.40 Any loss of prestige could have reflected poorly on her, as she was publicly connected to the hospital and could have also added to a negative view of Britain. Similarly, relaying frustration at the RRC not being attentive to the hospital, attests to the fact that while important publicly in Britain, when at the front other matters took precedence, much to the chagrin of Lady Paget. In both instances, anxious about the impression the British were making in Russia, Lady Paget’s descriptions denote how the reputation

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of the hospital and the image of the British as brave, caused her concern. The ARH represented Britain which along with the hospital’s staff needed to display strength, not weakness. As her comments regarding the committee in London were made at a time when there were discussions about closing the hospital, she would not have wanted the British to be seen as fleeing because of a feeble nature.41 It thus appears likely that Lady Paget’s ideas about a specific image of Britain abroad and the importance she placed on the hospital as a British endeavour were the principle factors affecting her relationship with the RRC (as well as the Committee in London), as opposed to popularly held British attitudes towards Russia and its people. However, Lady Paget’s conflict with the Russian authorities was not unique to a foreign hospital in Russia, as disputes arose between the Tsar’s military authorities, the Russian Red Cross and the Union of Zemstvos.42 Furthermore, Lady Paget’s comments were not without basis, as there were genuine issues with the Russian Red Cross as it experienced difficulties throughout the war, including a lack of funds, disorganisation and insufficient resources to manage the copious amounts of Russian wounded who demanded attention.43 As such while Lady Paget frames her annoyance as a British issue, clashes such as these were, to a certain extent, commonplace at the front. While the relationship between the RRC and British staff could be tense, Lady Grey sought to foster positive relations between Red Cross officials and the ARH. It was believed the giving and receiving of wartime decorations would pacify difficult RRC employees, ensuring the ARH assistance. Colonel Blair, the British Assistant Military Attache´, recommended to Lady Grey that Boris Ignatiev and Baron Meyendorv, two RRC officials attached to the ARH field hospital in Bukovina, should receive wartime decorations. Lady Grey, writing to Lady Paget, ensured her that Blair believed ‘even if they weren’t all that they should be it won’t hurt us giving them something and it might hurt us very much not doing so.’44 She balances this potentially negative advice by ensuring ‘they are going, the Russians, to be very generous about decorations for the whole staff’ and ‘that it would be much nicer to be generous too about our decorations although the people in some cases may not have deserved it.’45 A month later this strategic sentiment was still present, as again, in correspondence with

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Lady Muriel Paget, she revealed Colonel Fenoult, a member of the RRC, recommended: give nothing until the War ends. It is not expected but English Decorations are so sought after that if a few get it now there will be a load of discontent by the ones who don’t who may quite likely try to put trouble in your way – whereas when you go it doesn’t matter so much if a few are discontented there are bound to be some because all that hope and expect cannot possibly get decorations.46 She ends this report saying that Sir George Buchanan was told the same thing and would recommend the Foreign Office postpone giving decorations to the Russians.47 Similar to the previous report she reinforced the point that the English would be receiving their awards soon.48 Through the exchange of wartime decorations it was hoped the ARH’s position in Russia would be strengthened and the hospital helped.

Lady Muriel Paget, Lady Sybil Grey and the Anglo-Russian Hospital as Positive Publicity The hospital administrators not only sought to promote positive relations with the RRC authorities but also with the patients in the ARH. Through schemes for the endowment of beds it was envisaged the wounded in Petrograd would see the British in a positive light. In 1915, before the hospital was opened, the British public were called upon ‘in order to make this tribute to Russia as universal as possible, all the principal towns are contributing to equipment and maintenance of at least one bed for a year at £100, which shall be named after the donating town.’49 Seeking to extend their activities outside of the ARH in late 1916, Lady Grey proposed that beds would be given around Petrograd with ‘2 to the Military, two to Lady G’s which represents the Red Cross, 3 to the City (which are by far the poorest) and two to the Zemstvos – I think on the whole the gift should be given in money for I am told that if it was given in stores some of them would not wish to put up a Shield.’50 This shield would display the name of the town or benefactor from the British Commonwealth which had endowed the bed, along with the

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crest of the ARH.51 Lady Paget disagreed wanting to ‘give one bed to each hospital and spread the coat of arms over the town in as many hospitals as possible and certainly to give stores and not money as [. . .] money would not produce the same result.’52 Lady Paget further noted that she would ‘consult with the F.O. [Foreign Office] (or equivalent) to settle where from [a] propaganda point of view the towns to be chosen should be.’53 While it remains difficult to ascertain what type of connection the ARH had with the Foreign Office, the importance of publicising British activity in Russia is clear. For both women, the visibility of the shield to the Russian wounded was crucial though they had different ideas on how to effectively execute this plan. In fact, Lady Sybil Grey noted the importance of the hospital giving money ‘for any of the patients to know anything about it’; ‘it’ being the aid the ARH was giving.54 There is however, no evidence the extended scheme Ladies Paget and Grey discussed ever came to fruition. In a similar vein, Lady Paget believed creating a factory for prosthetic limbs would encourage a favourable image of the Allies amongst the Russians. An exhibition pamphlet from 1917 outlined how it was ‘proposed to open a workshop for the manufacture of artificial limbs at the base hospital in Petrograd. Two wards will be set aside for orthopaedic surgery in connection with this branch of the work.’55 Writing two months later in July 1917, Lady Paget believed there was a need to provide as many limbs as quickly as possible to the wounded in order to ‘convinc[e] the men of the efficiency of English and American work’.56 In the same entry she discussed the ‘colossal German propaganda’ and the need to personally ‘appeal to the people’ in order to counteract its effects.57 She believed this could be done by producing limbs for the wounded, describing this work as ‘a real good’ which, as the above attests to, was most likely a bid to garner favour amongst the Russian wounded, as opposed to being motivated by purely humanitarian ideals.58 Despite Lady Paget’s plans a month later she was exasperated with ‘the Com’ who ‘behaved very rudely and stupidly’ when dealing with ‘ministers and committees’ in Russia. She further lamented that ‘if they had grasped the political situation they would have put their stupid heads together and done something so as not to waste 3 months here of golden opportunity and send out Liverpool limbs’ which would have ‘pleased the Russians’.59 By September, she had written a letter to Lord

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Cheylesmore (though it is unclear if she sent this) to tell him she was handing over the artificial limbs project to the Americans, admonishing ‘the English’ for the ‘great opportunity’ they had now missed.60 In spite of these protestations, Lady Paget continued to discuss the various ways she believed supplying limbs to the Russian wounded could be carried out with publicity in mind.61 In fact, Lady Paget’s comments were reflective of her general concern that the Allies should be harnessing support through the spread of propaganda. The lack of help from the committee in London led Lady Paget to state she would aid the Americans in founding a limb factory but ‘not as a member of the committee of the A.R.H.’62 In an undated postwar recollection, she clearly identified the ARH as one cog within the propaganda machine believing limbs should have been provided for the soldiers ‘through Allied Red Cross institutions’.63 In this she definitively equated the provisioning of limbs with Allied propaganda as: men a year ago were in need of some form of artificial limb, and for humanitarian reasons as well as propaganda no better form of Allied relief could have been give, as soldiers returning to their homes throughout Russia would have carried with them practical proofs of our help instead of only pamphlets containing promises.64 While showing a willingness to use organisations other than the ARH to promote a positive Allied image, this does not change the fact that she conceptualised the ARH as a means toward this end.

Anglo-Russian Relations after the February Revolution In the wake of the February Revolution in 1917, the hospital as a symbol of positive Anglo-Russian relations was reemphasised. The war had caused discontent among much of the Russian Empire’s population which, amongst other reasons, led to the February Revolution which saw the Tsar abdicate and the 300-year-old Romanov dynasty end with the establishment of the Provisional government.65 It was in this context that a new wave of adverts for the ARH appeared seeking continued support for their Russian allies, asking that:

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on behalf of the Administrative Committee of the Russian Flag Day, which is raising funds for the maintenance of the AngloRussian Hospitals in Petrograd and at the Russian fronts, venture to point out that the recent changes in Russia very greatly add to the importance of showing practical sympathy with the new popular government by the maximum assistance to their wounded soldiers?66 This emerged after planning had begun for the Russian Exhibition in 1917, which saw numerous announcements in favour of both the exhibition and the hospital.67 Arrangements for the exhibition began before the Revolution, which was simultaneously a way to retrieve funds for the ARH and an exercise in propaganda. Minutes taken from an exhibition meeting discussed the possibility of having a Russian Exhibition Flag Day and believed it might be ‘better to distribute flags having an advertisement of the Exhibition on the back, without charge, as the occasion is one of propaganda instead of the usual appeal for funds.’68 It was also in 1917 that the theme of Anglo-Russian friendship in relation to the hospital strongly re-emerged as Russia was changing politically. The exhibition served multiple purposes and displayed a variety of incentives to contribute to not only the ARH but to Russia as an ally. The exhibition was ‘to give the English public an opportunity of learning about Russia, her people, art and literature, and to demonstrate the opportunities that exist for closer friendship and trading relations between England and Russia.’69 Thus, the exhibition, according to the press would build on the positive relations the Allies had previously cemented. It was hoped in Britain that the new head of the Russian government, Prince Lvov, would harness public support for the war, a sentiment enshrined in the British press.70 An advertisement for the exhibition reported that ‘Russia went to war not for aggrandisement, but to protect a weak nation, whose people were of their own race and whose religion was the same as theirs. They would never flinch before this task until their object was attained.’71 This view, of Russia protecting a weak nation, was comparable to British notions of their role as protector of Belgium, against an invading, barbaric Germany and the rights of small nations.72 In British eyes Russia was a remade empire and one which, it was believed, more closely resembled Britain. Similarly, Russia’s new

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democratic character was outlined in the introduction of the exhibition pamphlet, written by John Galsworthy, a novelist and playwright, who stated that ‘Russia is at last the Russian people. We welcome her into the democracy of nations; we love her for making herself free.’73 Stills in the section ‘Photographs of Revolution Scenes’ had titles such as ‘men who have just been to the Duma to place themselves at the disposal of the new government’ and ‘the opening of the Duma.’74 This depicted the revolution as an orderly process to the British public, with their Russian Allies presented as likeminded in liberal and democratic ways. While in Britain the links between the two empires were being strengthened, in Russia, the image of the hospital as a space of AngloRussian cooperation changed according to the staff. Countess Olga Poutiatine, a nurse with the Voluntary Aid Detachment in the ARH, wrote in her diary on 15 March that ‘a patrol (which said that it came from the Duma) ordered [us] to take down the Russian flag: “This is not the flag of our nation”’, which had hung from the hospital.75 The day after, on 16 March, Olga recorded that the hospital was ‘approached’ and ‘we saw an enormous British flag waving and the sign under it – “Under the August protection of their Imperial Majesties the Emperor and Empress” – covered with white paint. When it was being painted over in the morning the crowd had gathered to applaud.’76 In these first days of the Revolution, Nevsky Prospect, where the ARH was situated, became a focal point for revolutionary activity. This space was claimed by demonstrators through the removal and defacement of symbols which represented Imperial Russia and were replaced with revolutionary emblems.77 The ARH was no exception to this, as it was not palatable to be connected to their former ally, the Tsarist government. Thus, the changed appearance of the hospital cannot be seen to represent an antiEnglish sentiment, but must be viewed in the wider context of Petrograd as a space in transition. Nonetheless those working within the ARH feared this change as they believed it could be detrimental to the hospital. Countess Olga Poutiatine feared ‘that it will be difficult to provision the Hospital. Supply Officer Surelets [Streletz?] [sic ] was arrested yesterday because of his German name, but the British Embassy freed him.’78 While the hospital was seen as being in a precarious position by some, it remained opened until 1918 and the staff noted the pro-English sentiment in Petrograd and looked on the revolution favourably.79 Similarly, the

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Russian authorities were still cooperating with the ARH as Lady Muriel Paget, on 8 June 1917, was given a pass by the Russian Embassy which submitted ‘a request to the Russian Customs, War and Civil Powers to render assistance for passage in Russia [. . .] [to] Lady Muriel Paget’ who ‘departs there to work in the Anglo-Russian Hospital in Petrograd.’80 Minutes taken from a meeting of the Provisional government, in the autumn of 1917, show that Lady Sybil Grey and Lady Muriel Paget were both put forward, by the Russian Red Cross, to receive awards as the ‘matrons’ of the ARH.81 Thus, in Russia, there was an official effort, albeit small, to maintain goodwill by assisting and publicly recognising, the hospital and those attached to it. Despite this goodwill the ARH increasingly received calls from England to leave Russia and return home in 1917. While this was resisted throughout the summer and autumn, by February 1918 most of the personnel, with the exception of Lady Paget and a few members of staff, returned to England. The base hospital was subsequently ‘handed over to a Russian Committee of the Russian Red Cross, with sufficient stores, clothing and equipment to carry on for six months on the same lines as heretofore’ though without the British personnel.82 It was emphasised in the press and in a report, presumably written by Lady Paget to the ARH Committee, that the hospital’s usefulness was redundant and as such, leaving Russia would not have a negative effect.83 Similarly, when previously writing to her family, in the summer of 1917, Lady Paget did not want to leave for fear of offending the Russians noting in one instance they would neither ‘forgive or forget’.84 Thus, even as the hospital was reaching its end those attached with the ARH were still, to some extent, thinking of Anglo-Russian relations and the image of the British in Russia.

Conclusion Throughout the war those connected to the ARH sought to promote positive Anglo-Russian relations and bolster an image of the British allies to their Russian Entente partners. This was achieved through various means, as the ARH was to be a symbol of British aid both at home and abroad. However, this one dimensional depiction of the hospital did not endure, as the RRC also aided the hospital recognising that the British would need assistance as they neither understood the

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language or structure of how hospital work was to be carried out in Russia. While cooperative relations with the RRC were sought, this was done with the goal of the hospital being given due assistance by the Red Cross. Similarly, the ARH administrators hoped that through their medical work, the Russian wounded would look favourably upon the British. After the February Revolution, while an effort was made, by both the British administrators and Russian government to maintain positive relations, ultimately, the hospital’s closure would render this point moot. One hospital worker, Lyon Blease, writing a letter to his mother believed ‘the Anglo-Russian Hospital is always more Russian than Anglo’.85 However, this would not appear to be the case. The ARH embodied British ideals about how the hospital would be run and what it would represent in Russia. As such, the Anglo-Russian Hospital would appear to be more Anglo than Russian; for if it was not, the ARH would have been unable to carry out its main function, as it attempted to win Russian support towards their British Allies.

CHAPTER 13 `

WHO DIED FOR THE HOMELAND?' CELEBRATING VICTORY IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE AFTER WORLD WAR I: AN OVERVIEW OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIERS Isabelle Davion

In the aftermath of World War I, the rite of the Unknown Soldier which was inaugurated by Great Britain and France, aimed at giving meaning to industrial death as well as paying tribute to the soldiers who died in order to build a free Europe. The belligerent states did not wait for the war to end before they took care of their fallen soldiers. Beyond the traditional burials along the front line, some armies began to think about establishing military cemeteries as early as 1915. The Austrian headquarters created a special service in order to bury the soldiers who died in Galicia between Tarno´w and Gorlice.1 Thus the Austrian Army already had 378 cemeteries before 1918, where about 70,000 Austrian, German and sometimes Russian soldiers lay, and a catalogue of these places was published in Vienna in 1918 as Die westgalizischen Heldengra¨ber aus des Jahren des Weltkrieges 1914 – 1915, by Rudolph Broch and Hans Hauptmann. But as we will see, providing an individual grave for each dead warrior proved to be

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impractical, and the figure of the Unknown Soldier became a substitute. This figure was associated to victory and for the successor states of the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires, the ceremony of the Unknown Soldier also offered the opportunity to highlight their belonging to the victorious Allies. The Hungarians had expressed their intention to build war memorials during the autumn of 1914, and in 1917, a law initiated the ‘heroes’ right to a monument’.2 Once defeated, Hungary did build about 1,600 war memorials, some of them dedicated to ‘Unknown Heroes’, but did not construct a unique Unknown Soldier grave. In Vienna, the Austrians only consecrated the Heldentor to the memory of the soldiers who died during World War I. From this point of view, this is a rite of victory that anchors the successor states on the side of the Allies. Indeed, in Bucharest, the military attache´s representing the wartime allies of Romania took part in the 1923 ceremony. But for these new states, it appeared to be very difficult to ascertain the national hero’s profile, since, as John Paul Newman puts it, ‘in addition to being ethnically heterogeneous, the new successor states cut across the fault-lines of World War I.’3 In East-Central Europe, the Unknown Soldier had sometimes to be chosen from several constituent nationalities – this was the case for the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes – and sometimes threatened to weaken a composite nation that included minorities from the defeated side – as with the Germans and the Magyars in Czechoslovakia. This patriotic figure set the terms for a national debate that emerged as questions arose, such as, which moment of the war was going to be celebrated? This question is especially relevant in cases such as Poland where the years 1918– 21 contributed to the fight for the rebirth of the state and the establishment of borders. What authorities can or cannot have their say in the matter of the choice? Here, the answer happened to shape the political discourse. Where to build future monuments? Indeed, the selected site would be part of a new symbolic apparatus; the point here is to invent a tradition, to root the immediate past into a new national frame. Therefore in the 1920s, choosing an Unknown Soldier challenged the establishment of the very identity of the new country. Afterwards, all through the twentieth century, memory of World War I happened to react to the political transformations that shook the core of East-Central Europe. When the Unknown Soldier survived World War II, it was confronted

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by the communist powers in various ways. Thus, in some cases, it was forbidden to commemorate World War I, whereas in some other instances, the authorities took hold of the symbol for themselves. The industrialised nature of the slaughter is illustrated by the unbelievable gaps one can observe between the different demographic assessments, especially regarding the Eastern Front. According to various respected sources, there were between 40,000 and 270,000 deaths in Serbia, between 158,000 and 250,000 deaths for Romania, and 1 million and 1.5 million deaths in Austria– Hungary.4 We can readily understand why these massive casualties provided a powerful impact on everyday life, even once the war was over; death was everywhere, among grieving families and friends. Governments had the duty to organise a national mourning in addition to private ones, and to the local ones which offered what Jay Winter calls a ‘fictive kinship’.5 Many families were deprived of the body of the beloved one, because it could not be found or identified, or because it rested in another country, sometimes very far away. After the war, different situations led to the inability to provide individual graves to each family; there could be anonymous corpses and scattered remains, and missing corpses as well. Systematic disinterring and counting of the bodies took almost 20 years (in France, 122,000 French and German corpses were found between 1926 and 1935).6 All these deaths had to be justified; people could not have fallen in vain, but in the fulfillment of a great task memorialised by society. Therefore, a public commemoration was necessary to explain the meaning of the losses, and this service had to produce unanimity so that all parts of society felt represented. This was a huge difficulty for the successor states, firstly because of their multinational composition, and secondly because they originated from defeated territories. In this search for national cohesion, governments chose to honour an unknown soldier instead of a famous officer, a fact that proves the progression of liberal democracy throughout all of Europe in the aftermath of World War I. Until then, the most common case was that illustrious high-ranking military officers were the only ones to benefit from post-mortem celebrations. The massive casualties underscored the sacrifice of the ordinary soldiers, the sacrifice of the low and median levels of society. Gratitude towards them was expressed during as well as after the war, in Western and Eastern Europe.

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This need for a grave by proxy was particularly strong in Czechoslovakia. In winter 1918, Czechoslovak society lived in an atmosphere mixing sadness and enthusiasm for independence, grief made deeper by the fact that a lot of victims fell sometimes far away on the Eastern Front. The ignorance of the places where the dear ones were buried in Russian soil was worsened by the fact that these Czech and Slovak combatants had been ostracised by the Bolsheviks for their counter-revolutionary commitment during spring 1918. There was actually a war memorial in Kolovraty (currently in the Czech Republic) proclaiming ‘To the far-off graves’7 but that was insufficient solace. At this early stage, the discourse on memory emphasised the losses, the burden of pain and the suffering of the ones who survived. In 1918 –19, the dead soldiers became heroic figures through the sacrifices they rendered. In certain cases, as in France, public opinion, sometimes supported by political circles, acted as the originator and then as a catalyst in the Unknown Soldiers’ process. In Poland, early commemorations were spontaneous; a provisional sarcophagus appeared in Warsaw during autumn 1920, installed by private citizens. A plaque held by an eagle proclaimed: ‘Died for the homeland’, and on All Saints Day, Warsaw’s inhabitants visited it to pay their respects. The real official process started only in 1921, as the ‘Balinski Committee’ – named after the president of Warsaw city council’s – suggested erecting a chapel of rest within the cathedral. Considered too modest, this project failed; once again, public opinion intervened to express its lack of enthusiasm. In December 1924, a plaque was added to the monument of Prince Jo´zef Poniatowski on the Saxon square: ‘For the Unknown Soldier who died for the homeland’, which mourners very soon covered with flowers. Associations and inhabitants organised wakes. This initiative quickly spread from Warsaw to the whole country, and plaques appeared in about seventy towns, thanks to the funds provided by private citizens or professional and civic associations. Once the official tomb was built, these plaques were removed to cemeteries or to the Polish Army Museum. This civic mobilisation revived the governmental committee reorganised by the War Minister General Sirkoski. This fervour for a collective memory regarding the ‘wars of independence’ is confirmed by Julia Eichenberg who not only looks into the veterans activities but more broadly into the national commemorations: ‘In the Polish case,

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veterans, but also the society and press, were keen to live up to these demands.’8 In Belgrade, women came spontaneously and visited the grave established by the Central Powers to the ‘Unbekannter Serbischer Soldat’. They came from families who had been deprived, for one reason or another, of the body of the beloved dead one. We are confronted here with the specific ambiguity of recent history within the successor states. In the matter of nationalities and split pasts, Czechoslovakia was an extreme case. For this multinational state in 1922, choosing an Unknown Soldier challenged the establishment of the very identity of the new country. During World War I, 96 per cent of the Czechoslovakians who died were serving the Dual Monarchy. Roughly 5,405 Czechs fell on the Allies side and about 138,000 of them, plus 70,000 Slovaks, on the Central Powers side.9 But even these statistics were questioned, and there debates on the ‘Czech sacrifice’.10 The Romanian population prior to 1919 composition had lived under five different regimes and fought in three different uniforms (Romanian, Austro-Hungarian and Russian).11 In all these cases, the difficulty lay in finding a figure in which the population could identify, so that the Unknown Soldier could provide not only comfort but also a retroactive ideology, that says that the so-called former enemies always belonged to the nation, and World War I had been an anomaly. In effect, 1918 rationalised a situation in which territory and nation had not always matched, a situation which demanded a reconciliation of former wartime enemies. This great European challenge, as John Paul Newman underscores it, is primarily ‘a domestic concern’.12 In Poland at the beginning of the 1920s, soldiers served in five different uniforms while fighting in World War I and in the ‘Independence wars’ of 1918– 21: Russian, German, Austrian, French and finally Polish. Among the 530,000 soldiers who died during the 1914– 18 battles, about 220,000 died for Austria, 200,000 for Russia and 110,000 for Germany. Postwar Poland, emerging from a century of partition, had to wait for its frontiers to be settled before entering the Unknown Soldier process. After the signature of the Riga treaty of 1921 and the annexation of Wilno in 1922, the renewed state launched into the reconstruction of a national symbolism, of a mutual past, in order to build a mutual future. Thus this backward/forward vision eventually embraced the heroes of the distant wars, and not only these of 1914–18. The Polish state intended to commemorate World War I per se as well as the ‘Independence wars’

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and the conflicts with its neighbours of 1918–21, which caused about 55,000 deaths. The choice of an Unknown Soldier also threatened to weaken the composite and brand new society of Czechoslovakia that comprised 51 per cent of Czechs, 14.5 per cent of Slovaks, 23.4 per cent of Germans in addition to Magyars, Ruthenians, Poles. If the government intended to celebrate all components of society through the symbol of the Unknown Soldier, it had to pick a soldier from the Austro-Hungary Army who represented a more appropriate sample. But this rite was supposed to celebrate the victor and the liberators. That was why the choice almost immediately fell on the 190 legionaries who died at Zborov on 2 July 1917 (which makes the Czechoslovakian figure the least anonymous of the Unknown Soldiers); while the Kerensky offensive happened to be a failure, the Czech and Slovak Druzˇina defeated the Austro-Hungarian Army on this point of the Russian Front. By choosing to celebrate a representative of the Zborov legionaries, the Czechoslovakian government highlighted the involvement in the war of 4 per cent only of its children. Indeed the tribute paid to the liberators raised the stakes for minorities: German-speaking and Hungarian-speaking national groups could not be forced to celebrate the Zborov battle since ‘their people’ fought there as enemies.13 And the Czechoslovak press proudly insisted that ‘There, a unique Czechoslovakian brigade destroyed many enemy divisions, defeated the head of the Austrian and German forces, cornering them into a rapid retreat. The little cemetery of nearly two hundred Czechoslovakian bodies remained in Zborov, near the village of Cˇecova, as an ever painful memento, but the enemies who fell there were ten times as numerous.’14 The ‘mythographic imagery of the Battle of Zborov’ is born, accompanying the need for wartime ‘national martyrs’.15 This difficulty in producing a unifying figure can also be appreciated through the case of the Yugoslav Unknown Soldier, or, in reality, the ‘Unknown Hero’. Indeed, Serbs refer to ‘heroes’ ( junak) to designate all the soldiers that die for the homeland at any historical period. On the 28 January 1921, while the French Unknown Soldier was buried under the Arc de Triomphe, French General Franchet d’Espe´rey was in Belgrade to award the Legion of Honour to the people of the city of Belgrade for their heroism and suffering during World War I. A few months later, the government suggested erecting a monument to a World War I hero,

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but the challenge lay in articulating a Yugoslav symbol with a Serb figure.16 One of the main issues in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes related to the lack of national cohesion. Since the unification of the South Slavs population resulted from World War I, the Unknown Soldier provided an opportunity to embody this new nation. This rite, in acknowledgement of World War I as the birth certificate of the Kingdom, will confirm that the soldiers who did not come back from the front, gave their lives to fulfill the so-called ‘age-old aspirations’ of the South Slavs.17 The monument would make the patriotic discourse concrete and, at the same time, ‘invent’ a tradition. Radoslav Agatonovic´, a member of parliament from the Democratic Party, suggested the erection of the monument at Mount Avala situated in the south of Belgrade, where there had been a medieval fortress since the Middle Ages. During the nineteenth century, this place had become a romantic symbol of the Serbian yearning for freedom and national unity, and during the latest war, it was a strategic point of Belgrade’s defence. The rite ‘invented’ a tradition that meant that Mont Avala forged a link between the ancient battles and the ones that took place in 1914– 18. Besides, the German occupants had already established a grave there in 1915 to ‘Ein Unbekannter Serbischer Soldat’ as a tribute from the Central Powers to a defeated enemy who had fought with dignity. Serbia was conquered but it nevertheless deserved to be honored. In this case, the government had no need to look for an anonymous body, and was spared the sometimes violent debates about the places where to dig to find it. But, of course, there had to be a verification of the uniform; the Unknown Yugoslav had to be a Serb from the Serbian Army, not from the Austro-Hungarian Army. The body was exhumed on 23 November 1921 in the presence of three pillars of the new regime: Agatonovic´ himself (that is to say, representing the parliament), the War Minister (for the army) and the president of the National Assembly, Ivan Ribar, who in this matter represented the Croatian part of the population as well as the peasantry, both being his two origins. Personal effects that proved the Serbian-from-Serbia identity of the anonymous soldier were brought to the Assembly and the remains placed in a casket that was buried, awaiting his last resting place. A provisional monument – a national Pantheon to be built in Belgrade – was inaugurated on 1 June 1922 and dedicated to the soldiers who fell during World War I and the Balkan Wars. The grave was constructed from plain stone, like that

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traditionally used by Serbian farmers, with a cross of six branches to reflect both Byzantine and Latin designs. In the context of the settlement of the new state, which underwent vigorous debates on agrarian reforms, the decorum underscored the Orthodox-Catholic syncretism and the figure of the farmer-soldier that were prominent components of the Yugoslav people. But this first event retained a purely Serbian profile and did not draw a huge audience apart from the inhabitants of the small villages surrounding Mount Avala. Nevertheless, Ivan Ribar delivered a speech that showed the determined policy of a government in unifying its nationalities, wishing that ‘the good Croats, Slovenes and Serbs will pay tribute to our known and unknown heroes, not only through the opening of the Pantheon, but also in rivaling in love for King and country and in forging our national and political unity.’18 The soldier lying in the grave had no nationality anymore, for he had become ‘the symbol of the glory of all the unknown heroes who have fallen all over our fatherland.’ For the Avala farmer’s enlightenment, he insisted that ‘you will welcome your brother farmers that you have released, from Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, Bosnia and Slovenia. Here on this grave you will strengthen them in the love for the state.’ But beyond this speech, we can confirm John Paul Newman’s view that ‘the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was strongly identified, both domestically and abroad, with Serbia’s victory during World War I and with the great sacrifices of the Serbian people and their army towards the creation of the state. [. . .] The great cost of the war to “gallant little Serbia” was recognised and lauded throughout the countries of the Entente.’19 Even if this first step was modest, foreign delegations paid visits to the monument. Symbolically, the first to come were the French, on the occasion of the royal wedding, which was an opportunity to show that France and Romania shared mutual values. In 1932, King Aleksander decided that the already-impaired grave gave a shameful image of the Yugoslav Kingdom. The time had come to erect a new and sumptuous monument on Mount Avala, since the project of a Pantheon had long been dropped. Every aspect of the renewed rite gave the opportunity to highlight great national myths. For instance, the first stone was to be laid on the day of Vidovdan 1934 – Saint-Vitus being the commemoration of the 1389 Kosovo Battle, a national myth that the Karadjordjevic´ dynasty nourished – and the official opening of the monument was scheduled for autumn 1937, the 25th anniversary of

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the Balkan Wars which would thus become the first step to the unification of the ‘Yugoslavian regions’. As far as Mount Avala was concerned, there would be a shift in its symbolic meaning because it had represented a symbol of the Serbs’ fight for freedom from the Ottoman period to the twentieth century, and now figured the efforts of the Yugoslavian people to achieve unity.20 Eventually the first stone was to be laid shortly before the assassination of King Aleksandar, in October 1934, and the opening ceremony took place in June 1938. The unveiled gravestone was a pyramid made of black granite from Herzegovina, surrounded by caryatides in costumes representing the different Yugoslav regions. Their gigantic measurements, certified by the official ethnologists as the ones of the ‘Yugoslav race’, presented proof of the fertility of the nation, and their bare feet treading upon the soil illustrated the rural origin of the people and thus their social homogeneity. There was no religious sign which could cause dissent, but instead references to Greek Antiquity and to the Persian Empire. This ceremony was part of a wide attempt, as Newman puts it about the veterans and the culture of victory, to provide a symbol of Yugoslav unity, to replace ‘the simplified dialectic of Serbian victory and nonSerbian defeat’.21 But this 1938 ceremony failed to achieve a national consensus on a hero figure; in the end the event was more a mark of loyalty to the murdered King and his work. In France and Great Britain where the rite was initiated, the choice was made under the duress of emergency. This was not the case for the successor states where several years passed between the peace and the choice of an Unknown Hero. This specific chronology illustrated the complexity of their situations. In the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, ten years were required between the decision to build a monument and its final construction. In the Polish case, it is instructive to follow the political rift between Piłsudski and the Narodowa Demokracja (‘National Democracy’, right-wing nationalist movement) through the different steps which led to the Unknown Soldier.22 If agreement was easy on the principle of a tomb and an eternal flame, debate raged on the question of the inscriptions, the meaning itself of the rite. Which battles were going to be mentioned? Which patriotic narrative would serve the nation’s enlightenment? At first, military historians lean towards mentioning ‘the seventy most important battles in Polish history’, but eventually the choice was made to focus on the

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1914–20 period. Within this frame, government opponents, and particularly Minister of War Sikorski, felt penalised by the seeming dismissal of their battles. That was the case for Piłsudski’s legionnaires of 1914–17 and for the veterans of the anti-German insurrections of Posnania (1918–19) and Silesia (between 1919 and 1921). In the end, everybody found their place – battles as insurrections – but the solution arose only after Piłsudski’s coup d’e´tat and General Sikorski’s withdrawal in 1926, with the proclamation: ‘Here lies a Polish soldier who died for the homeland’, the same phrase as in France. But we clearly see that Polish troops in the Habsburg, German and Russian Armies were out of the frame, and that the Pilsudski’s Polish Legions were the only ones to be commemorated. The first question to answer relates to who was responsible for the victory, who gave birth to the new or renewed state? Was it the soldiers who fought in the battlefields or the politicians who made it possible by lobbying among the Great Powers? In Romania, the government rather favoured the part played by political leaders and high-ranking officers in its own headquarters, as well as the Allies’; in their eyes, these were the supposed fathers of Great Romania.23 But facing the growing influence of public opinion that accompanied the democratisation of this part of Europe, the Romanian government paid tribute to the farmer-soldiers who made up the Romanian Army. The recognition of their rights had already been acknowledged at the end of the war through men’s universal suffrage and rights of ownership. As in the Yugoslavian case, Romanian tradition stated that all the dead soldiers were heroes, and that their graves were already taken care of by the villages’ inhabitants regardless of kinship connections. Queen Mary of Romania began to patronise an association dedicated to the construction of mausoleums. These tombs for the heroes were erected in such places as Focs¸ani or Ma˘ra˘s¸ti, or the locations of the worst battles. Romania first entered the war on 27 August 1916 and withdrew on 9 December 1917, only to re-declare war on 10 November 1918. In this specific chronology, the year 1916 and the summer 1917 were unquestionably the deadliest phases. Still, in 1919, the authorities undertook an inventory of the improvised graves and gathered the unearthed remains in ossuaries. But what to do with the numerous Russian soldiers who died on Romanian soil in 1916? And what was to be done with the thousands of Romanian soldiers who fell in Austria and Germany? The figure of an Unknown Soldier imposed itself

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as a federative solution, especially in Romania, a country with strong French influences. Many locations were thus considered and eventually government chose Carol Park in Bucharest. It had been inaugurated in 1906, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Carol I’s reign, the 25th anniversary of the Romanian Kingdom and the 1,800th anniversary of the conquest of Dacia by Trajan’s legions. In Czechoslovakia, the difficulty of commemorating the war while skirting its participation on the Austro-Hungarian side confronted society. The challenge was to articulate the dichotomy between remembrance and oblivion.24 The question of the responsibility for the victory was very strong in this new country where the place of 1914–18 war in the national history was more controversial than anywhere else. In the aftermath of World War I, patriotic memory tended to focus on the part played by political leaders in exile and particularly the one played by the Czechoslovakian triad of the heroes: Masaryk, Benesˇ, Sˇtefa´nyk. The perception, promoted by the authorities themselves, was that they led a fundamental fight during the war, by inducing the Allies to favour their Czecho-Slovak cause, by persuading them to find a democratic and pro-Western alternative to the Kingdom of Austria – Hungary.25 In the beginning for Czechoslovakia it was the word, and not the sword, that opened the path to independence. Indeed, as Masaryk reached London in December 1914, the Austrian press ironically proclaimed that he was going ‘to declare war on the Central Empires all by himself’.26 Thus at the very beginning of the new state, the memory of World War I is given a small share in the account of the First Republic, whose father was not a warrior but a philosopher; President Masaryk is known as an intellectual in favour of a militia rather than an army, even if, as a ‘founding father’, he is claimed as their commander by the Czechoslovak legionaries.27 As his speech addressing the National Assembly on the 22 December 1918 put it, ‘The idealists have prevailed, Mind has defeated matter, [. . .] The law – strength, ferocity and treachery.’28 As observed in the Polish case by Julia Eichenberg,29 the demobilised, or here: ‘to-be-demobilised’, soldiers were not first priority for Czechoslovakia and the successor states in general. But as the new institutions move forward, the memory of the soldiers’ fight for liberation began to be linked to national pride and took on narratives. This evolution was favored by the society and by the government itself, which sought more cohesion in the society and thus looked for a tighter

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integration of the components of the military forces. This marks the beginning of a real ‘Legionary Republic’,30 as the first Czechoslovak Republic was sometimes called, nourished by the myth of the ‘Siberian Anabasis’, or the odyssey of the last Czech and Slovak legionaries who were still stranded in Vladivostok – due to their involvement in the Russian Civil War – and would come back ultimately at the end of 1920. Their nation dearly missed them, especially when Be´la Kun’s Hungary invaded the territory in April 1919. This Siberian epic was a fundamental dimension to explain the popularity of the Czechoslovak legionaries. As the 1920s progressed, the new state further established its very existence on the grounds of a combined fight of both the politicians in exile and the soldiers in the allied armies, and the Republic rewarded the legionaries with a privileged place in society. The project of an Unknown Soldier coming from the major battle of Zborov emerged.31 Once the decision was made to go ahead, the actual procedure started with the ceremony of choosing the remains, which allowed for the national image to be projected. In Romania, ten bodies were exhumed on 11 –13 May 1923, in the presence of Orthodox priests, and were transferred to Ma˘ra˘s¸ti. The next day, the designation ceremony took place in the Adormirea Maicii Domnului Church (Dormition of the Mother of God) under the chairmanship of the War Minister. A 12-yearold orphan, also a pupil at the military school, chose a coffin, in front of which he knelt down saying: ‘Here is my father’. The Romanian Unknown Soldier was brought to Bucharest in an open wagon with the escort of officers. The nine other bodies were buried at the military cemetery of Ma˘ra˘s¸ti. During his journey, a local delegation welcomed the Unknown Soldier at each stop with flowers, songs, speeches of reverence, until he reached Bucharest station where the King awaited him to cross the capital to the Mihai Voda˘ Church (St Michael the Brave). Here, the Bucharest population converged for two days. On 17 May, a new cortege escorted the soldier to the Carol Park, and the day, which also marked the Feast of the Ascension, became Heroes Day (the Soviets later changed that day to 9 May). The ceremony of re-burial underscored the fact that the Unknown Soldier symbolised the union of all the national members of Romania. The presence of the King, the Queen, the whole government, as well as the the numerous Christian clergy, academic authorities and army regiments, produced the retroactive ideology

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mentioned earlier. Thus, the hero, while obviously hailing from Ferdinand I’s army, represented every province of Great Romania. His function gave, by proxy, identification to the people from Transylvania, Bukovina, Banat and Bessarabia, which used to be – due to a historical mistake – in the enemy camp. Awarding the hero with the highest medals, Prime Minister Bra˘tianu – who had led the Romanian government during the war – pronounced that the Unknown Soldier belonged to everyone, a principle literally set in stone by the dedication: ‘Blissful near the Lord, here lies the Unknown Soldier who offered himself in sacrifice for the unity of the Romanian nation; on his bones rests the soil of unified Romania, 1916– 1919.’ This embodiment of Great Romania with its national-orthodox self-image constituted a place of pilgrimage for personalities and ordinary people.32 In Poland, the choice of the digging place had to be made from 15 battlefields, including 14 spots from the Polish–Soviet war. On 4 April 1924, a random draw conveniently selected the battlefield of Lwo´w, where both a victory against the Ukrainians in 1918 and a decisive fight that stopped the Red Army in the summer of 1920 took place. Lwo´w/Lemberg is a very strategic place regarding the integration of Polish territories. Eastern Galicia, corresponding more or less with Lemberg’s area of jurisdiction, had been granted autonomy by the Habsburgs, a status which permitted the development of Ukrainian nationalism. A constituent assembly had been constituted there under the chairmanship of Ievhen Petrushevych on the 18 October, shortly before a Western Ukrainian Republic was founded. The November Uprising in Lwo´w/Lviv started the Polish– Ukrainian War in Galicia, which was mainly fought around Lwo´w.33 In June 1919, the Paris Peace Conference recognised Poland’s right to take over the whole of Eastern Galicia, a territory Warsaw considered as a part of its historical frontiers. In this district lived the major part of the Ukrainian minority: 14.3 per cent of the Polish population according to the 1921 official census.34 Earth from the 14 other places was to be put in the grave. Once three anonymous bodies had been exhumed, the final choice was left to a Polish mother of uniate faith whose son had been killed by the Bolsheviks in August 1920 and was never found. A private volunteer thus became the Polish Unknown Soldier, and a forensic examination revealed that he was only 14 years old, a fact that deeply touched public opinion.

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In the aftermath of World War I, European societies entered a hesitant process of secularisation. Of course, this process made more or less progress according to regions, and the Church still strongly influenced a rite providing comfort and promising an eternal life. Religious influences, mainly the Christian ones, were thus called to play some part in the ceremonies and the discourses that went with them. The Church had to adapt its speech to the patriotic themes while celebrating the dead heroes; religious speeches glorified supreme sacrifice and sanctified the memory of the dead ones. Therefore, depending on countries, the clergy’s participation could be marginal or central from the moment when the soldier was chosen until the ceremony of the re-burial. As a comparison, the French excluded the Catholic Church from the ceremony in order to guarantee secularism. In the Yugoslav case, the Church was tightly linked to the 1922 ceremony; an open-air Orthodox mass was celebrated for the temporary move. Ten years later, however, when the court priest suggested putting a text referring to the New Testament inside the final monument, the proposal was declined to spare the secularists, even if the Gospel was mutually referred to by both Catholics and Orthodox. In Czechoslovakia, the Church was removed from the ceremonies, as in France, in order to guaranty secularism.35 Without religious support, the remains of the ‘second soldier from the left’, as it was reported later, were exhumed in Zborov, which was at that time Polish, on 22 June 1922 to be accompanied to Prague by the National Guard on a special train. For a short period, the coffin lay in state at the Na´rodnı´ Muzeum’s Pantheon (National Museum) with three coffins of Czech and Slovak soldiers from the Italian Legion (the French legionaries had their own place in France), and the Czech press testified that a flow of personalities, common citizens, members of the military and the Sokols paid their respects to the dead soldiers.36 The solemn transfer of the body to the Old Town Hall took place on 1 July. Led by Prague’s mayor, the funeral cortege walked across the Old Town where the members of the government – among whom were Benesˇ, of the parliament, the Sokols, the diplomatic corps and the highest-ranking military officers. In 1928, 2 July became a ‘state holiday’ commemorating the Czechoslovakian Army, a national feast likely to ‘provide [the] citizens with well-choreographed productions teaching the civics of Czechoslovak nationalism.’37

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Debates also focused on the appropriate kind of monument to receive the remains. It had to be a building dedicated to the glorification of the dead, a public sepulchre able to bring comfort to grieving individuals. In some cases, like in Poland, some soil was removed from the battlefields and left inside the tomb; after all, blood and soil were mixed to form the mud of the trenches. The question of the place where to build the monuments also led to debates. In Warsaw, the Saxon Square (Piłsudski Square in the 1930s) was chosen to shelter the Unknown Soldier’s grave, near the military headquarters in the Saxon Palace, and Foreign Affairs. In that place, there used to be a monument dedicated to the Polish loyalist generals who fell for Tsar Nicholas I in 1830 – which had been destroyed by Warsaw inhabitants in 1915 – and a huge Orthodox church was under construction in 1925 when the decision was made. The Unknown Soldier’s monument would erase the marks of the Russian occupation and the ‘crime’ of loyalty. In Czechoslovakia, the transfer to the Old Town Hall was considered a temporary solution, leaving time to choose a more appropriate spot. Several places were suggested in the following years for what should have been the Czechoslovak Unknown Soldier’s final resting place: Wenceslas square, Vysˇehrad, the Castle, or even Mount Rˇı´p close to Prague since the heights were essential places of military memory all through EastCentral Europe 38 The final choice settled upon Vı´tkov Hill where a monument dedicated to the legionaries was to be inaugurated on 28 October 1938. In the end, this project happened to be invalidated by the Munich Agreement. The tendency to summon the Unknown Soldier as a symbol for many different conflicts has led French writer Jean Gue´henno to refer to him as the ‘the idol that always says yes’,39 since his silence can be filled with political or social claims, or can be interpreted as violent opposition by aggressive authorities. As a first example, from the very beginning the official visits to the grave provide a stage for political support. We can understand, for instance, why in the Yugoslav case the presence of foreign delegations became even more valuable to the government after the change of regime that followed the royal dictatorship established in 1929. In this context of personal power, the Unknown Soldier gained more and more importance in the eyes of foreign countries, as a proof of the people’s support of the King.

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Acknowledging that this figure underpinned the ancient regime, the occupying Nazis tried to get rid of it during World War II. Thus, the Czechoslovakian Unknown Soldier lived the fate of a resistance fighter. In retaliation to the anti-Nazi protest which took place in Prague on 28 October 1939, the honorary decorations were removed from the chapel where the hero lay.40 After Rheinardt Heydrich’s appointment as Acting Reich-Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, the coffin was ‘cleared’ and carried to the Petschkov Palace where the Gestapo headquarters were located, in the night of 22 October 1941. In April 1945, the Unknown Soldier was interned in the ‘small fortress’ of Theresienstadt, 500 meters away from the concentration camp, where he was never to be found again.41 Just after World War II, there was a brief period when the figure of the Unknown Soldier, if still in place, had the possibility of representing the casualties of that huge conflict. In Bucharest for instance, homage was paid in 1946 in front of the Unknown Hero’s grave for those who had recently died. But throughout East-Central Europe, the beginning of the Cold War marked a turning point in the destiny of the Unknown Soldier, for the communist governments considered that this legacy of the former regime as too troublesome. In post-1948 Prague, the Czechoslovakian legionaries from World War I were officially considered counter-revolutionary enemies and reactionaries. The new authorities thus decided to establish a new grave for their own World War II Hero, on Vı´tkov Hill.42 In Yugoslavia, the turning point was less about the instrumentalisation of the Unknown Soldier, since he had always had a political representative function, than the values he was summoned to represent. Tito tried to seize upon the heroic figure; he visited the tomb as early as 13 May 1945. Unlike the Kingdom in 1938, he organised a huge ceremony with a big audience that included a Soviet delegation, intellectuals and so on in order to impose a communist perspective on Serb farmers of Avala, who had given their support to the monarchist side during the war.43 The dedication to King Alexander, which used to be carved on the side of the pyramid, was erased: the ‘age-old aspirations of the South-Slavs’ to freedom became the symbol of the communist regime. The gravestone, as a symbol of these heroic struggles, was therefore a required stop for visiting dignitaries of the non-aligned committees. In Romania, the soldier was exhumed in December 1958 to undertake his second ‘final’ journey, from the renamed Freedom Park

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to the Ma˘ra˘s¸ti Mausoleum. He was replaced by a monument dedicated to communist heroes. Even at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Unknown Soldier was such a major symbol that the newest European states felt the urge to bury, or re-bury, an Unknown Soldier of World War I, as in Slovenia and in Czech Republic. And this is now an embodiment of democratic values and of the Western anchoring of this part of Europe. In Bucharest, the Romanians claimed the return of their Unknown Soldier, and the return to a 17 May Day of Heroes, in the aftermath of the events that took place in December 1989. The Romanian Unknown Hero thus undertook his third final journey on 26 October 1991 (the day of St Demetrios, one of the main Orthodox holy figures). Welcoming him back once again to Carol Park, President Ion Iliescu was surrounded by the whole post-communist government and religious authorities who provided a prayer service. His speech highlighted the link between the different historical periods: ‘The return of the hero is a tribute that we unanimously pay to all those who have fought for Romania through the ages against all his enemies.’ Earth coming from every part of Romania was put into the grave, even including dirt from Bessarabia, a region that the USSR annexed in 1940. A young orphan, as a memory of the ‘Unknown Soldier’s son’, rekindled the flame; the rite revived the ties once broken by the communists. At present, the gravestone commemorates the victims of World War II and those of more recent NATO peace-keeping missions.44 In Belgrade, these twenty-first-century issues were illustrated by the fact that, on 11 September 2010, the United States National Guard laid wreaths on the grave as a reminder that ‘Serbian soldiers were strong allies of the United States during the First and the Second World Wars’. In the Czech Republic,45 a new monument was inaugurated on 8 May 2010 on Vı´tkov Hill. The remains were again exhumed in nowUkrainian Zborov, but were then blessed by the Orthodox clergy before embarking for a journey by plane. Welcoming him on Prague’s tarmac on the evening of 23 October 2009, Prime Minister Jan Fischer, surrounded by civil, military and religious leaders, paid a ‘symbolical tribute to all those who fought, have fought, and will fight not only for freedom and independence, but also for peace and safety in our uncertain world.’46 And during the 2010 ceremony, the Minister of Defense

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Martin Barta´k mentioned Czech participation in the military operations of the twenty-first century in the ‘most exposed regions in the planet’, thus underscoring the diplomatic and strategic importance of the Czech Army in the service of democracy.47 We can acknowledge that the figure of the Unknown Soldier challenges East-Central Europe’s construction of memory as well as its legacy to European history. Throughout the twentieth century, this symbol questions national identity in this part of the continent, and hence the legitimacy of these nations. In the end, Belgrade’s Unknown Hero does not really represent Croatia nor Slovenia, whose soldiers died for the Austro-Hungarian Empire – killed by Serbs – neither does it embody former Montenegro. In Bucharest, the figure does not match with the war experience of Transylvania, Banat, Bukovina or Bessarabia. In Czechoslovakia, the Unknown Soldier pays tribute to a very small part of the combatants; the volunteers of the Czech and Slovak legions raised in France, Russia and Italy. Throughout EastCentral Europe, there were many who remained unrepresented by this unifying symbol of victory. Yet, being a ’nationally neutral’ symbol, he belongs to everyone who wants to make him endorse their cause being a ‘nationally neutral’ symbol, he belongs to everyone who wants to fill his silence. Regarding the multi-national states such as Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Poland this acculturation of a Western practice ends up at a failure. If it did emphasise their identities as a ‘victor state’ of World War I, it did not, as a consequence, federate national categories around a common civic. As soon as 1914, the Entente Powers had proclaimed that they were fighting a ‘war for victory’, a ‘total war’; not only did such a stated aim prevent any compromise peace agreement, but it also established that there were two irreconcilable camps and at the end people who fought in the Austro-Hungarian Army could not feel liberated by the war but only vanquished; this question thus provides another perspective on the divisions of the successor states. All studies of the various categories of this culture of victory in East-Central Europe lead to a statement of an early hindrance; ‘fatal disillusionment’, ‘deepened divisions’, ‘huge obstacle’ are words used to describe relations between the new states and the largest part of their veterans and the national groups to which they belonged. Indifference, disdain or even hostility accompany commemorations which eventually feature the dominant nationality.

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And not surprisingly the symbol of the Unknown Soldier has been living a second life since the end of the Cold War in countries where the frontiers moved and the multinational profile was reduced, such as the Czech Republic, where a new monument to the Unknown Soldier was inaugurated in 2010.

CHAPTER 14 MEMORY OF WORLD WAR I AND VETERANS' ORGANISATIONS IN POLAND, 1918—26 Joanna Urbanek

During World War I, Polish attitudes to the meaning of the war changed; at the beginning of the conflict, most people did not believe that its result would be the emergence of Poland as an independent state. When the first all-Polish troops (the First Cadre Company, then part of the Polish Legions), established by Austro-Hungarian authorities in August 1914, set out from Cracow and crossed the Russian border, Polish subjects of Tsar Nicholas II paid little attention to their activity. Russia, Germany and Austria –Hungary drafted Poles, and as a consequence they were often fighting against each other. It is estimated that there were between two and three million Polish soldiers engaged in the fighting, with 450,000– 800,000 killed.1 These figures are far from precise, partly because it is often difficult to identify the nationality of the dead. As the war went on, Russia and the Central Powers needed to replenish their armies’ ranks, so they tried to find as many draftees and volunteers as possible. Both sides played the card of independence for Poland. They did not encounter great enthusiasm for their political declarations on the Polish side, but they managed to form additional

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forces. The Russian revolution of 1917 brought about changes that allowed General Jo´zef Dowbor-Mus´nicki to become commander of the Polish 1st Corps in Russia. On the territories occupied by Germans, a regular Polish Army was formed in 1918 and it laid the foundation for the structure of the armed forces of independent Poland. Polish military units were also formed on the Wesern Front, the biggest being in France under the command of Jo´zef Haller. At its peak in 1919, the so-called Blue Army consisted of 68,000 soldiers, usually ex-prisoners of war from camps in France and Italy, as well as volunteers of Polish origin from France, the USA, Canada and even Brazil. These numerous and wellequipped forces were transported to Poland and fought in the Polish– Soviet War (February 1919– March 1921). The new conflict again engaged a large number of men, who were drafted or volunteered. Others took part in the three armed uprisings in Silesia (1919, 1929, 1921), in the Greater Poland Uprising (1918–19) and in fighting against Ukrainian (1918–19) and Lithuanian national movements (1920). This huge military effort was the result of the growing belief that Poland as a fully independent state had its future on the map of Europe. But not surprisingly, Polish soldiers, officers and guerrilla fighters left the ranks with various, often contradictory, experiences of war.2 This led to a divided postwar society with divided memory. Demobilisation started in autumn of 1920. Most ex-soldiers did not find new career opportunities in the army, 800,000 of them had to go back to civilian life.3 As they had spent several years on the front lines, unable to complete their education, many became unemployed, facing poverty and social marginalisation. Those officers who decided to become professionals had to undergo screening. The process of creating a Polish Army after the partitions lasted from 1919 to 1923. 19,000 officers (out of 30,000 who applied) obtained the position.4 The situation – especially for young officers – was difficult; their pay was extremely low, the majority did not receive any help from their families and could hardly earn their living. Many young people, even if they previously had seen their future in the army, decided to quit and turn to civilian occupations, not always with success. The veterans found it difficult to reintegrate into society. Many of them returned from the front line with mental problems or with disabilities. The long absence of men during the war changed the structure of the traditional family. Last but not least, the profound political changes in the whole social system

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which they had known before the war collapsed. Arthur Marwick writes about the end of whole sets of social customs.5 Although feelings of happiness at being citizens of independent Poland were commonplace, nothing seemed stable. Freedom proved to be not only a privilege but also a burden. The common experience of brotherhood and friendship in the trenches and common economic and social problems resulted in an even stronger identification within groups of ex-soldiers who had fought in the past under the same command, in the same troops or/and battles. The organisations of ex-combatants in independent Poland began to form as soon as in 1918, but during the Polish– Soviet War authorities were reluctant to give permission for ex-combatants’ organisations to be established. They made an exception for numerous disabled veterans who were systematically returning home without financial and psychological support from the state. One of the first such associations was established in September 1919 in Poznan´; it aimed to offer financial help and promote the ‘moral rights’ of war victims. Interestingly, at the beginning half of the members were German.6 Such transnational organisations of war victims were short-lived. The majority of nonPolish members left Poznan´ in the first years of the Polish Republic, as they had opted for German citizenship. Poznan´, an important city in western Poland, remained the bastion of the Right during the whole inter-war period, and so its veterans’ organisation was the most influential, uniting the veterans of the Greater Poland Uprising (Towarzystwo Powstan´co´w i Wojako´w Ziem Zachodnich RP) until 1927. The association was established in 1922, and its main aim was to remain ready to fight against German forces and paramilitary in case of attempts to reclaim the region.7 As more and more disabled veterans came back home, the veterans’ organisations proliferated, and numerous bodies formed the Polish War Invalids’ Association (Zwia˛zek Inwalido´w Wojennych RP). Before Piłsudski’s coup d’e´tat in 1926, the association had no direct political ambitions, but it tried to influence the parliament and foster regulations benefitting their group. The indifference of the politicians, who were unable to respond to their demands, led to frequent, often violent demonstrations, involving casualities, including dead as well as wounded.8 The Polish War Invalids’ Association’ tried to attract disabled veterans from various military formations and accepted as members

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Poles, but also – although not without discussions – Jews and Ukrainians, who were often excluded from veterans’ organisations in Poland at that time. Jewish organisations of war veterans and invalids developed mostly in the 1930s, but the first one, the Jewish Association of War Invalids, Widows and Orphans (Z˙ydowski Zwia˛zek Inwalido´w, Wdo´w i Sierot Wojennych RP), was established already in 1920 in Cracow and published its own periodical (‘Inwalida Z˙ydowski’). As Christhardt Henschel points out: charity and charity organisations had a long tradition in the Jewish culture. Although this group of veterans was clearly inspired by the general trend to unite for the cause of self-help, and fund-raising, it was also a natural continuation and evolution of already-existing initiatives.9 Ex-soldiers from the same formations, after returning from the army, organised their reunions to meet their comrades and plan their future activity.10 It is estimated that about one-third of them in the 1920s and 1930s joined various veterans’ associations.11 In the army, they developed their own symbols, customs and language (for example, special greetings) which they used to communicate with each other, underlining and strengthening their sense of belonging. They started to form a collective memory, organising ceremonies related to important events of their own history on such occasions as Polish national and religious holiday: All Souls’ Day, May 3rd Constitution Day and Independence Day on 11 November (officially established in 1937).12 A characteristic feature of the Polish veterans’ movement was that the majority of the organisations were founded by former volunteers. With the exception of associations of reserve officers and massive organisation of disabled war veterans, a great mass of ex-soldiers who had experienced the war serving in German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Armies, generally did not have representation and, as a consequence, were excluded from the circle of war heroes. Both Poland as a state and its citizens started to create a collective memory. Their narrative soon started to concentrate on the path towards independence, and the stories about wars and battles for different objectives in the ranks of the Russian, German or Austro-Hungarian Armies did not fit this perspective of national history.13 In other words, after 123 years of partitioned Poland, individual military experiences of those who became its citizens in 1918 were so complicated and contradictory, and the desire for unification of the nation so great, that the diversity proved to be too

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difficult to handle. On the other hand, the years between 1918 and 1926 are extremely important as a time when there was yet no official memory and in which various visions of the recent past were in play. After 1926, the group close to Jo´zef Piłsudski made great effort to inculcate Polish citizens with their version of World War I. Poland gained independence in the aftermath of World War I and the collapse of its former partitioning powers. Not surprisingly, the time of mourning was soon replaced by the narrative of the heroic sacrifice of Polish soldiers.14 This triumphalist trend in depicting the fights of Poles between 1914 and 1921, unlike the narrative about the Western Front developed by pacifists in such countries like France and Great Britain, is characteristic of Poland during the entire inter-war period. There was no place for reflection on the cruelty of the war for independence. For many, it seemed that God had answered the prayer of the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz, who in 1832 wrote: ‘Give us, Lord, universal war for freedom of peoples’.15 Mickiewicz represented a very prominent tradition of Polish romanticism in literature, which deeply influenced the collective imagination of the subsequent generations. All the groups of socially and politically active veterans shared the belief that it was their military effort that had been the main or even the only factor which had brought Poland’s independence. The true patriotism of the Polish nation was demonstrated in a fight against the partitioning powers (even though the first all-Polish troops were formed within the enemies’ armies). The politicians who represented Poland at Versailles would have been powerless, the veterans claimed, if there had been no fait accompli: the victories of Polish soldiers.16 The claim that Poland had regained its independence thanks to a favourable international situation– revolutions in Russia and Germany, and the collapse of Austria –Hungary– was seen as disrespectful of their effort.17 The ex-combatants referred to history to show that true patriotism meant above all military virtues. One of the most important romantic symbols of such virtues were uprisings against Russia, especially the January Uprising of 1863. Jo´zef Piłsudski, speaking to the army in 1919, recollected: ‘fifty years ago your fathers started the fight for independence [. . .] they remain to us a model of military virtues which we are going to emulate’.18 From the very beginning the newly established organisations balanced between their declared apolitical character and the belief that

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being a war hero also meant responsibility for the future of the country, and therefore involvement in politics.19 Even within one organisation there was often no unanimity about their goals and means. The members of the Polish Legionary Union (Zwia˛zek Legionisto´w Polskich), an association of ex-legionaries who fought under Jo´zef Piłsudski, at its first congress in August 1922 in Cracow declared as the main objective help for poor and unemployed veterans and the disabled and care for the graves of fallen comrades. It soon turned out that part of the leaders in Warsaw sought above all to establish a strong organisation which would take part in the political life of Poland. Piłsudski’s close associates used the Union as a platform for political propaganda.20 He probably saw the organisation as a possible tool to take control of the country in the event of insufficient support from the army. In 1924, the year Piłsudski started to seriously think about a coup d’e´tat, he sent Walery Sławek and Jerzy Je˛drzejewski, his most trusted aides, to become the leaders of the Union.21 A decision had been taken to foster the circulation of information from the newly established political department of the Union, from the centre in Warsaw to the local branches.22 The circle of ex-soldiers who fought under General Jo´zef Haller formed a big organisation – the Hallerczycy Union (Zwia˛zek Hallerczyko´w) – which was, from the very beginning, right-wing, despite its declared apolitical character. The Union did not accept nonCatholics in its ranks.23 It perceived Haller not only as a military leader, but a person of the highest moral values, who had dared to fight against all the three partitioners of Poland.24 Conflict with the Polish Legionary Union was just a matter of time, Piłsudski and Haller were political enemies (their conflict dated back to 1916). After 1920, Piłsudski managed to maintain his strong position in the army, where more than 20 per cent of officers were his former legionaries,25 and ex-soldiers of Haller’s troops felt discriminated against with respect to promotion. They accused Piłsudski of having acted in favour of his collaborators and against members of other formations.26 The conflict between the two associations exacerbated further after the death of the first president of Poland Gabriel Narutowicz, who had been elected thanks to the votes of the left and the national minorities, and then assassinated by a fanatic supporter of the far-right. General Jo´zef Haller openly criticised the president and contributed to the atmosphere of a fierce political fight. He tried to build his political capital on anti-Semitic and nationalistic

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slogans. This situation led to a deterioration of this conflict with Piłsudski.27 Ex-soldiers of Polish Legions and the Blue Army became the instruments of this political competition. The organisations which grouped together reserve officers of various formations tried to embrace as many members as possible, and tried to be apolitical – their aim was to help their members and organise contacts with the regular army, exercises, lectures and other forms of military training for reservists. The members of the Association of Reserve Officers often felt underestimated by the authorities, but from 1924 they obtained the support of general Władysław Sikorski, another political enemy of Jo´zef Piłsudski, former prime minister and at that time minister of military affairs. Sikorski tried to gain more and more influence on the association, which resulted in a conflict and division within this organisation in 1925.28 A wasted opportunity to reach an agreement proved to be the elections to the Federation Interalliee des Anciens Combattants (FIDAC) an international federation of veterans from the countries of the former Entente. Ex-soldiers who fought under Jo´zef Haller, partly because the Blue Army was formed in France, developed contacts with veterans from Western countries. They managed to dominate in Polish representation to FIDAC and the Polish Legionaries Union decided not to join the delegation to the Federation.29 In the files of the Association of the Defenders of Lwo´w (Zwia˛zek Obron´co´w Lwowa) we find a letter from the president of FIDAC, Colonel Fred Abbot, to Polish veterans’ organisations in which he expresses his concern about lack of agreement between them, and stresses that they should cooperate if they want to send their representation to the congress in Geneva in 1926.30 The fragmentation of the associations of ex-combatants in Poland and the competition between them is one of the factors which makes the Polish veterans’ movement different from French, Italian or British ones, which were able to speak with one voice on behalf of their members, and thus represent effectively their affairs before the authorities and the international community. The situation changed in the 1930s, when Piłsudski’s regime took control over the movement of excombatants, unifying them in one big organisation (FPZOO: Federacja Polskich Zwia˛zko´w Obron´co´w Ojczyzny), which also joined FIDAC.31 The associations undertook many economic initiatives. Unfortunately, most of them failed due to the inexperience of the participants.

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The other important problem was the lack of sufficient capital. The leaders of the Polish Legionary Union in the 1920s tried, without success, to establish a cooperative bank to raise funds for the association, and also help its members to save and invest. The Reserve Officers Organisation established a fund to build a rest home for their members and collected contribution for this investment among members.32 Not only did the associations develop their own activities, but they also tried to speak on behalf of ex-soldiers, who demanded privileges from the government. The main points of interest were reducing unemployment in the ranks of veterans. One of the important discussions was (as in other European countries, for example in Italy) the question of women who occupied positions in public administration and private offices. In the press, ex-soldiers postulated dismissal of young women who did not yet have their families, in order to provide unemployed veterans and the disabled with jobs.33 The Polish authorities could not meet all the demands of ex-soldiers, and the situation deteriorated further as a result of government budget deficit and inflation whose rate turned out to be extremely high in 1923. Moreover, in the process of unification between 1918 and 1921, Poland had embraced territories which strongly differed in the field of economy, culture and even language. Not surprisingly, the political scene of the 1920s and 1930s proved to be very complicated. Many parties fought for supremacy, many of them were short-lived, as were the 15 governments of the Second Polish Republic during its democratic period from 1918–26. This situation led to an ever more critical attitude towards the authorities and democracy itself. The Poland (the authorities and also society) that veterans had been fighting for seemed ungrateful to them. They expressed their disappointment in a dramatic way, employing the memory of the combatants killed on the front lines: ‘[the ghosts of soldiers] came and saw their comrades as invalids, selling cigarettes in the snow and rain, they saw wives, widows, children and orphans begging, they saw their families thrown out on the street in the Name of the Holy Polish State, they saw their countrymen starving to death while waiting in front of the factories. They saw it and asked in a newspaper for reservists, whether it was worth dying for.’34 The ex-soldiers, too, considered themselves the voice of the army. Active members of the army could not manifest their attitude

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towards political issues, Article 12 of the Polish Constitution forbade them to vote and to be members of the lower house of Parliament. The newspaper for reservists paid close attention to the problems of the pensions for retired officers, which were considered extremely low and shameful.35 The military experience of veterans played a vital role in their vision of the political scene. For people who were used to discipline and hierarchy, democracy with its multi-party system seemed inefficient and wrong because of the intrigues and constant changes on the political scene. In a newspaper of former legionaries who had fought under Jo´zef Piłsudski – Droga – we find the strongest criticism of parliamentarism. All great formations of the Polish political scene, the socialists, peasant parties and nationalists, were considered to be relics of a different age when compromise and pacts with the partitioning powers were the only way to function in the politics of Russia, Prussia and Austria–Hungary. The programmes of these parties were only rhetorical declarations without any chance of being put into practice. The parties were accused of demagogy to gain votes and of not fulfilling their promises after victory in elections.36 This tendency was presented as characteristic of democracy as such and contrasted with a vision of the ‘new man’ of high moral standards, whose main principle should be the welfare of the state.37 The authors were decidedly elitist, believing that most citizens were incapable of taking the right decisions about ruling the country.38 Only a strong leader could develop a clear and effective approach to foreign affairs and domestic policy.39 Typical of members of the Polish Legionaries Union was their exclusive way of thinking about society. Established in 1914, the First Brigade of Polish Legions did not attract mass support and remained rather an elite formation. Their memories led its members to the conclusion that most of the nation did not share or even understand the idea of Polish independence. As the consequence, only those who had displayed national consciousness and passed the test when it came to fighting in Polish voluntary military units had proved their high moral standards and were deemed worthy of seizing power.40 The former legionaries tried to influence political life through the elections: during the congress of the Polish Legionaries Union in August 1924 Marian Zydram-Kos´ciałkowski (the chairman of the Polish People’s Party, ‘Wyzwolenie’) claimed that only a sizable presence of its ex-legionaries in the Parliament could lead to the formation of a

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good government.41 But the supporters of Jo´zef Piłsudski, who adhered to many different but generally left-wing parties, never won an election. A different attitude towards democracy was evident in the organisation which stemmed from the Blue Army of General Haller and the milieu of former insurgents of the Greater Poland uprising of 1918. They claimed that a ‘society that had not learned to look on itself with objectivity searches for the evil in ill governance, in the Parliament, in state offices but does not recognise its own faults [. . .] the condition of government reflects in fact the state of society.’42 In the face of crisis of democracy, when it became evident that Piłsudski was planning to seize power ex-insurgents appealed for the respect for the constitution, as for them a coup d’e´tat meant that ‘the blood of all uprisings [. . .] all the Polish soldiers would prove to have been shed in vain.’43 Another problem that merits investigation is the attitude of Polish veterans to other anti-democratic movements in Europe, and especially, as far as the 1920s are concerned, Italian fascism. When Benito Mussolini became prime minister in 1922, his methods and ideology were often commented on in the Polish press. Generally, ex-soldiers of all formations did not approve of violent methods of the fascists but, at the same time, they were fascinated by their success. The previously mentioned newspaper for the reservists, Głos oficera rezerwy, in May 1925 devoted half of the issue to the phenomenon of Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale. The author approved of the system of extensive civil defence training in Italy, and discussed projects of creating a similar formation of volunteers in Poland, which could easily be mobilised in case of emergency.44 A similar idea was present in the press published by the organisation of ex-soldiers from the army of General Jo´zef Haller, which we could define as more right-wing. However, explicit references to fascist movements were absent. The veterans from that formation organised special meetings with young people, not only to speak about their memories but also to educate them and, in the future, form voluntary military corps. 45 Similar opinions were often presented in the pages of former legionaries of the Jo´zef Piłsudski press organ – Droga: military virtues like toughness and discipline were thought to be essential in the society, so the program of military training seemed important.46

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The activisation of the former legionaries was one of the steps on the path to reinstating Piłsudski in power. However, apart from his most trusted collaborators, most of his ex-combatants were surprised by the events of 12 May 1926. The relative weakness of the Polish Legionary Union resulted, probably, in the decision to use the regular army rather than veterans. They became witnesses of rather than actors in the coup d’e´tat, but accepted it with great enthusiasm. One of the ideologists of the movement claimed that: ‘in the history of our nation, May 1926 will be as important as August 1914’ when the First Cadre Company, the foundation of Polish Legions in World War I, set off from Cracow to start combat.47

Conclusion The difficult economic situation of Poland after its reunification in 1920 and its unstable democracy and fierce political conflicts meant that the authorities could not meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of veterans. As in many other European countries the frustration of this group led to its political radicalisation. The Polish situation, to some extent, was different because the organisations of ex-soldiers never spoke with one voice, commenting on the landscape of the Polish political scene instead of forming their own identity. That was the result of the military career of many politicians who became popular during World War I and the period 1919– 20. They regularly referred to their past activity and legitimised their demands by referring to the military virtues they had proven on the front. The most prominent of them developed their political careers, and were helped by ex-soldiers from the same formations. After the coup d’e´tat of May 1926, this tendency became not only more visible but was also openly supported by Jo´zef Piłsudski and his circle. The period of his supremacy and after his death in 1935 until 1939 is called the ‘reign of the colonels’. In the governments between 1926 and 1939, 18 ministers and deputy ministers entered politics from the Polish Legions, especially from the 1st Brigade commanded by Piłsudski. Only two prime ministers during 1926–39 were not high-ranking officers, and all of them had served in the 1st Brigade. Twenty-two other members of governments were highranking officers, the vast majority (over 90 per cent) also started their career in the Polish Legions.48

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The authoritarian regime installed in Poland after 1926 concentrated on creating a collective memory to be shared by all the citizens of Poland. The cult of Jo´zef Piłsudski was the most important means of its legitimisation, and it became the basis of education and public celebrations.49 The authorities tried to win the support of most of the veterans. In 1928, the Federation of Polish Unions of the Defenders of the Homeland (Federacja Polskich Zwia˛zko´w Obron´co´w Ojczyzny) was founded. Its aim was to gather all the organisations of ex-combatants, but their members had to accept the fact that the myth of the Polish Legions dominated the discourse. On the other hand, the state paid great attention to the situation of the ‘official’ veterans. Thanks to a more stable economy in the last years of independence, the authorities were able, to some extent, quietly to silence some opponents in their ranks. The result of this policy is also visible in today’s Polish memory of the complicated and complex history of the years 1914–21.

CONCLUSION WARTIME EXPERIENCES AND ENSUING TRANSFORMATIONS John Paul Newman and Maria Falina

George Kennan famously called World War I the ‘great seminal catastrophe’ of the twentieth century (‘great seminal event’ might have been more accurate) and, indeed, our perspectives on the conflict and its legacies are shaped – and misshaped – by the intervening years. Historians Antoine Prost and Jay Winter have traced the historiographical evolution of World War I in the French and British cases.1 What would a corresponding survey for the East-Central European and Russian cases look like? There would be departures from the very beginning: national historiographies of the successor states of the Austro-Hungarian, German and Russian empires explained the identical events with widely divergent terms: triumphant in the case of the ‘victor states’ (that is, Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Romania), tragic for the defeated parties (Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria). In Russia, the Armistice had not even been called before a new conflict, the Civil War, eclipsed the historical and political significance of World War I, an elision that, as preceding chapters have shown, has only recently been addressed. The Bolshevik triumph established a foundational culture of victory that overshadowed World War I and that remained in place for another 70 years. A similar, if slightly diluted, process of instrumentalising the past was brought back into East-Central Europe after World War II, with the introduction (or imposition) of the

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communist regimes and the creation of the Eastern Bloc during 1944–9. The communists fitted World War I and the history of the Bolshevik revolution into a newly schematised interpretation of the past; if the national states of the inter-war period presented 1918 and the Wilsonian revolution as their telos, the communists shifted the emphasis back onto 1917 and Lenin. That was an internationalist perspective sometimes at odds with the local circumstances, as in Czechoslovakia during its periods of liberalisation in the 1960s and 1980s. Meanwhile, in the Balkans, Yugoslavia and Albania, World War II itself and the communist guerrillas’ victory in it served as ground zero for the new regimes. In the long period since the end of communism, World War I is once again being seen through the national prism, but this too is often to look through a glass darkly, and many of the chapters in this book have shown how institutional, imperial, local and regional factors were likely more important to contemporary actors than retrospectively applied nationalism. In some cases, the old wounds have not healed, but have rather been re-opened, as in the political ‘trauma’ of Hungary’s Trianon, played to maximum effect by the country’s nationalist right, or in Serbia and Bosnia, where figures such as Gavrilo Princip remain deeply divisive. Further afield, similar present-day territorial and political grievances, for example, in the Middle East, can be traced back to the decisions taken at the end of World War I. So where to begin? 1918, the cessation of hostilities, is an ostensibly logical point of departure. But a closer examination reveals this to be an ambiguous pivot, because, as we now understand well, the hostilities did not end in 1918. Churchill’s ‘wars of the pygmies’, the postwar conflicts that raged well into the 1920s, were in many cases as important – or more important – to the parties involved than those that preceded them. 1918 is also ambiguous because the traces of the old order persisted well into the inter-war period. Revolutions only claim to have created a clean break with the past; in reality, they remain at least partially indebted to the regimes they overthrow. Imperial institutions such as the bureaucracy, welfare state and taxation were re-purposed after 1918 and recycled. Credentials and experience from the prewar period still had their uses in the new era; in the various institutions of the new state, its civil service, its professions and, controversially, in its armies, where former adversaries and soldiers of supposedly ‘defeated states’ were now called upon to participate in the patriotic duties of state-forming and

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state-building. This would not be the last time in the history of the region that important continuities existed beneath apparent breaks with the past; James Mark has referred to the transformation of postcommunist East-Central Europe as the ‘unfinished revolution’ in which a proper account and reckoning with the communist heritage was abjured in favour of reconciliation and moving forwards into the new era.2 So too did the unfinished business of the past linger on into the Old-New Europe of the inter-war period, with all the associated resentments and suspicions. This ambiguity begins to speak to the complexity of the war’s various legacies in the inter-war period, a complexity that was often not acknowledged at the national, state level. We have already mentioned how the Soviet Union emphasised the Civil War as its foundational moment, at the expense of World War I and also at the expense of Soviet citizens who fought on the ‘wrong side’ in those conflicts. Alexandre Sumpf’s chapter in this volume presents a case study of a group of men who needed support from their state but who lacked the patriotic credentials with which to request it. Similar phenomena are observable throughout East Central Europe. The peacemakers at Paris recognised four ‘victor states’: Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia and Poland, and three defeated ones: Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria. These designations had real political and diplomatic consequences, in terms of participation in the peace conferences themselves, territorial gains, reparations (received and paid), diplomatic alliances. In many cases they also belied the complex experiences of the societies in question. It was simply not the case, as several chapters in this book have shown, that a sense of victory and triumph was shared throughout the national populations of the victor states; this was true also of countries like Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania, where significant portions of the population had fought against the Entente during the war and were thus not invested in the cultures of victory that were promoted as an intrinsic part of the new national cultures. Symbols and narratives of victory are undoubtedly always contested in postwar societies; one need only look at the many rejections or reinterpretations of victory in French and British societies after World War I for evidence of this. But in East Central Europe and Russia, we are perhaps talking about societies that are even more essentially divided over the legacies of the war years. We are in many respects talking about societies that closely resemble

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those emerging from a period of civil conflict, and we should be posing the same kind of questions that have been asked of such societies. Does defeat, then, and perhaps paradoxically, serve as a better binding force in postwar societies? Countries such as Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria, as losers of the war, did not receive any of the territorial spoils from the fall of Austria– Hungary. That may have had a two-fold effect of sparing those societies from the larger problems of diverse territories and ethnic composition and of rallying large parts (although by no means all) of the population around the cause of territorial revisionism. We could contrast the fates of Romania and Hungary after 1918, the first a winner of the war, the second a defeated party. Romania was in a sense the victim of its own ‘success’, a country that gained mightily at the end of the war, only to find its self-defined tasks of consolidating ‘Greater Romania’ all the harder due to the large numbers of national and ethnic minorities now within its borders. Such challenges resurrected problems from the past and suggest yet more continuities. The problems of managing national difference, ethnic heterogeneity, of balancing diverse territories with diverse historical and cultural traditions into one single, functioning state, was hardly new. Pieter Judson has gone so far as to describe the successor states of Austria – Hungary as ‘Little Empires’ whose organising political principles had important parallels in the imperial past.3 Perhaps, in this sense, the contrasts between empire and nation, posed so starkly by state builders in the inter-war period, are less useful than previously thought. The same can be said of the Soviet Union, whose territories approximated those of the Russian Empire itself, and whose policies of concession and coercion have been compared to those of the great empires.4 But as Mark Mazower and others have noted, the terms of citizenship, the lines between inclusion and exclusion, were less permeable after 1918, and despite the pretentions to civic political culture in many of the states in question, the reality was that they thought ‘nationally’ and tended to perceive nonnationals as potential adversaries and threats, even if they were supposedly citizens or subjects of the nation state in question. The increasingly fractious and contested international order of the inter-war period hindered rather than helped internal reconciliation and international harmony, often pitting revisionist states against those committed to the status quo. These domestic and international problems could be traced back to the war years and to the creation of a ‘shatterzone’ at war’s end.

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With these fragilities in mind we can perhaps begin to understand the political problems of the inter-war period, problems partially discussed in many of the chapters of this volume. Small states in a disputed and dangerous international arena, the liberal cultures of the countries in question were almost uniformly short-lived, giving way to some variation of authoritarianism. Very often, the dictator who replaced them drew significant support from the ranks of World War I veterans, either within the national armies or as part of the ‘paramilitary’ associations that were an important feature of the inter-war political landscape. Jo´sef Piłsudski, for example, could rely on his wartime ‘legionaries’ to support his coup d’e´tat, and Aleksandar Karadjordjevic´ of Yugoslavia had significant support, in Serbia, at least, from a range of armed groups. Those veterans were in many cases despairing of the perceived failures of liberal politics since the end of World War I, feeling they lacked the single-minded purpose and cohesion that had typified the war years. But elsewhere, disgruntled officers of the AustroHungarian Army, dispossessed, unemployed, in many cases disenfranchised at the end of World War I, leaned towards radical right formations in the 1920s and the 1930s, even if their attitudes towards the various strains of native fascism in Central Europe were often ambiguous. As the chapters published in this volume clearly demonstrate by addressing a number of themes under the general umbrella of ‘wartime experiences’, World War I had a profound transformative effect on those who participated in it, willingly and unwillingly alike. The war’s outcome, thus, was not limited to victory and defeat and the changes in Europe’s political map, with the appearance of new countries and of newly enlarged or diminished (in territory and population) states, however important those transformations were. We could, perhaps, argue that the new countries’ postwar focus on national cohesion was a reflection of the sense of precariousness and vulnerability that consumed their political elites. The establishment of the ‘New Europe of small nations’ for which the population of East Central Europe paid such a heavy price in many senses remained wishful thinking. Many sources of this existential insecurity grew out of wartime experience. The effect of the war could be observed as much in the changed fabric of social and political institutions that (re)emerged in the postwar period

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as it was present in the lasting memories and commemorative celebrations and monuments. In one way or another, the contributors to the volume dealt with the question ‘How did it feel to be part of World War I in East Central Europe?’ And although their answers inevitably vary by location, timeframe and analytical perspective, one of the main themes that structured the volume was the uprooting of a large number of people. Forced by the course of events, arrival of foreign armies or the decision of their own governments, people left their homes en masse and relocated to other, sometimes far away, areas. The experiences of those who fled the areas of active combat having seen their homes and sources of livelihood destroyed; and the not very successful management of the ensuing refugee crisis informs the studies of Densford and Frizzera; the fate of the POWs who were often moved around and in the process had their cultural and political identities altered is discussed by Belezza and Salvador; while Agocs, Balbirnie and Grote explore the effects cultural encounters, exposure to foreign landscapes and people, and simply being away from home had on the vast armies of soldiers moving in all directions. While this domestic and international movement of large groups of people obviously was not limited to East Central Europe, as the wellresearched cases of Belgian refugees or the British and French cultural histories of warfare clearly demonstrate, one could argue that due to the more mobile nature of the front lines in the East and the increased levels of brutality against the civilian population, East Central Europe saw relatively higher levels of ‘uprootedness’. The two Russian revolutions of 1917, the ensuing Civil War and the ongoing conflict in Poland and Ukraine drove tens of thousands more to flee in search for a better life. This effect of population movements found a legal codification in the 1923 Lausanne Agreement on the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, which post-factum established a legal framework justifying voluntary and forced movement of sometimes entire villages between the two countries in the name of establishing stronger national communities and avoiding future conflict. It is important to note that this ‘great migration’ did not begin in 1914, but that World War I was instead the final chapter in this story. Once the war was over, the displaced people became the problem and responsibility of the new nation-states, who were less than sympathetic

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to the groups whom they often regarded as untrustworthy and not necessarily very helpful for nation-building. Although many were repatriated back to their home regions before the war ended, others sought ways to stay. To complicate the picture further, what was domestic migration from Galicia to Austria in 1915 became international migration in 1919, making both repatriation and resettlement in a new home more difficult. What we need to remember is that for many, especially for those who were members of national or religious minorities, the war and the collapse of the multinational continental European empires took away their homes for good. Nationstates that came to replace the imperial order were eager to establish themselves as strong national communities in line with the principle of national self-determination, regardless of how many ethnic and religious division lines cut across their societies. Accommodation of a multitude of identities among their old and new citizens was not very high on the priorities list. The ethnic and religious minority groups of East Central Europe occupy a special place among the affected civilian population, not only because they were often the first targets of mass violence, but also due to the impact the war had on them. The most infamous case is, of course, the destruction of the Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire, which falls outside the scope of this volume. In East Central Europe, the Jewish community was strongly affected, as World War I saw rising levels of anti-Jewish violence as a direct result of military operations and the breakdown of traditional political and social institutions. Thus, East Central European minorities had to endure and find ways to deal with both singling out during the war and the extra difficulties of settling in a more restrictive and soon more exclusionary national framework in the inter-war period. Paradoxically, even though the inter-war period would be known for the oppression of ethnic and religious minorities culminating in the horrors of World War II, we could regard the theoretical and conceptual emphasis put at the time on the legal protection of minority groups and renewed interest in the protection of individual and collective rights as a consequence of the combat and civilian experiences of World War I. Legislation surrounding the status and protection of minorities was designed in the wake of the memories of World War I. These issues emerged during the peace talks and were continuously debated in and

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around the activities of the League of Nations resulting in the adoption of a number of Minorities Treaties. These were primarily directed at the minorities that now found themselves citizens of the new nation-states of East Central Europe, as the ‘established countries’ of Western Europe were exempt from adopting new legislation. It would soon transpire that the aim of national consolidation and the desire to achieve national cohesion often ran counter to the wish to protect minorities. Although ultimately fruitless and unable to implement any significant protection, the Treaties were nevertheless the beginning of the process that would eventually lead legal thinkers such as Lauterpacht and Lemkin to develop and lobby for key concepts of twentieth-century international law – ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘genocide’. It would take another world war for the change to materialise. Another theme running through many of the chapters of the volume is the experience and effect of physical violence and death. Here again, we are faced with an ambivalent effect – on the one hand, World War I created the possibility of national and social transformation precisely because it removed old empires and imperial political structures; but on the other hand the violence, which we may add in many parts of the region began before 1914 and continued long after 1918, left deep scars on people and communities. Chapters by Tasic´ and Szkudlin´ski explore the nature of violence and make tentative suggestions about its longterm patterns; Sumpf and Brady deal with the direct result of violence seen in mutilation and war invalids; and finally Urbanek and Davion focus on the memories of the fallen and the war veterans. While none of the chapters suggest that there is a direct link between World War I and World War II, we are confronted with an emerging picture that something very significant took place in the years of World War I. The two decades of the inter-war period could be seen as trying to find answers to the questions raised by the war: what kind of community and state response is necessary to deal with the unprecedented levels of violence that seemed to linger long after 1918? Social transformations that we can observe in East Central Europe in the 1920s and 1930s with the emphasis on social welfare, the wellbeing of orphans, widows and other vulnerable members of society were a direct result of wartime experience. Here, state and private initiatives aimed at compensating the damage done by the war, including that of physical and mental violence, are in direct contradiction with the rise of paramilitary movements and

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radical street politics. At the same time, and as suggested by Lewis in his chapter in this volume, the levels of state repression and state-exercised control over its own citizens rose during the war and did not go back to the prewar levels. Coupled with the sense of vulnerability and uncertainty in the near and distant future that we have already discussed, it may help us begin to understand that contradictory effect Word War I had on societies in East Central Europe – it opened up new and literally amazing opportunities of national and social transformation, and even of revolution, and at the same time undermined some of the foundations on which this future could be built.

NOTES

Foreword 1. Gerhard P. Gross (ed.), Die vergessene Front: Der Osten 1914/15: Ereignis, Wirkung, Nachwirkung (Paderborn, 2009).

Introduction 1. Norman Stone, The Eastern Front, 1914– 1917 (London, 1975). More recent approaches that focus on Russia include Peter Gatrell, Russia’s First World War: a Social and Economic History (London, New York, 2005); Alexander Atashov, Russkii front v 1914 – nachale 1917: voennyi opyt i sovremennost’ (Moscow, 2014); David R. Stone, The Russian Army in the Great War: the Eastern Front 1914– 1917 (Lawrence, KS, 2015). For an overview of the state of historical research on the war in Russia and the Habsburg Empires, see Peter Gatrell, ‘The Tsarist Empire at War: the View from Above’, Journal of Modern History, vol. 87, no. 2 (September 2015), pp. 668– 700; John Deak, ‘The Great War and the Forgotten Realm: the Habsburg Monarchy and the First World War’, Journal of Modern History, vol. 86, no. 2 (June 2014), pp. 336– 80. For a general review of the historiography of the war, Alan Kramer, ‘Recent Historiography of the First World War (Part 1)’, Journal of Modern European History, vol. 12, no. 1 (2014) pp. 5 – 28; ‘(Part 2)’, JMEH, vol. 12, no. 2 (2014), pp. 155– 74. 2. A. Sumpf, La Grande Guerre Oublie´e (Paris, 2014), an outstanding account of the war as it affected Russia. 3. An instance of this amnesia is cited by J. Kauffman in his review of W. Borodziej and M. Go´rny, Nasza Wojna. T. 1 Imperia (Warsaw, 2014), where he points to a series of battles fought outside Warsaw in late 1914 and early 1915 which cost hundreds of thousands of casualties but which have been largely forgotten: ‘The Unquiet Eastern Front: New Work on the Great War’, Contemporary European History, vol 26, no. 3 (2017), pp. 509– 10.

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4. For exceptions which have attempted to address this imbalance, see John Horne, A Companion to World War I (Oxford, 2010), which includes essays on the war in the East and in the Balkans, Russia and German-occupied Eastern Europe, pp. 66 – 81, 447– 63. G. Krumreich, G. Hirschfeld and I. Renz (eds), Enzyklopa¨die Erster Weltkrieg (Paderborn, 2009), Brill’s Encyclopedia of World War I (Leiden, 2012) for the English edition also offers some coverage of the war beyond the Western Front. Winston Churchill, The Unknown War: the Eastern Front 1914– 1917 ( London, 1931) was an early offering, with a telling title. 5. Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keane, Alan Kramer (eds), 1914– 1918 Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War (Berlin, 2014 ongoing), available at www.1914-1918 online.net. The site makes available numerous articles on the war in all theatres and themes, including several historiographical essays which include reference to research in German. The project on Russia’s War and Revolution has published several edited thematic volumes. 6. For a critique of the term ‘identity’ and its indiscriminate use in the human sciences, see Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, ‘Beyond Identity’, Theory and Society, 29 (2000), pp. 1 – 47. In this volume, the term ‘identity’ refers to communities of culture, region and ethnicity as ascribed in official state policies and as experienced and registered in subjects’ self-understanding. 7. On the violent postwar consequences, see Julia Eichenberg and John Paul Newman (eds), Aftershocks: Violence in Dissolving Empires after the First World War: Special Issue of Contemporary European History, vol. 19, no. 3 (2010), pp. 183– 94; Robert Gerwarth and John Horne (eds), War in Peace: Paramilitary Violence in Europe after the Great War (Oxford, 2012). 8. For example, Peter Holquist, ‘Violent Russia, Deadly Marxism? Russia in the Epoch of Violence 1905– 1921’, Kritika, vol. 4, no. 3 (2003), pp. 627– 52; Joshua Sanborn, Imperial Collapse. The Great War and the Destruction of the Russian Empire (Oxford, 2014); Piotr Wro´bel, ‘The Seeds of Violence: the Brutalization of an East European Region’, Journal of Modern European History, vol. 1, no. 1. (2003), pp. 125– 49. For a classic statement of the brutalising effects of the war, see George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World War (Oxford, 1990), pp. 159–81; and a recent challenge, which distinguishes between the effects of wartime violence and the impact of defeat and imperial collapse: Robert Gerwarth, The Vanquished; Why the First World War Failed to End (London, 2016); Mark Edele and Robert Gerwarth, ‘The Limits of Demobilization: Global Perspectives on the Aftermath of the Great War’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 50, no. 1 (2015), pp. 3 – 14. 9. Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers is a notable for paying unusual attention to the role of Serbia and the Balkans in the outbreak of war: Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to War in 1914 (London, 2012). 10. Alexander Watson, Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War 1914– 1918 (London, 2014), pp. 205 – 6. This view is proposed briefly also by

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12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

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Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin (London, 2010), pp. 1 – 3. See Annette Becker, ‘Captive Civilians’ in Jay Winter (ed.), The Cambridge History of the First World War, vol. 3, pp. 257– 81. Jonathan Gumz, The Resurrection and Collapse of Empire in Habsburg Serbia 1914– 1918 (Cambridge, 2009) is an exception to this trend, pp. 1 – 3, 243– 8. Jay Winter (ed.), The Cambridge History of the First World War, 3 vols (Cambridge, 2014). Heather Jones, ‘Prisoners of War’ in Winter (ed.), Cambridge History, vol. 2, pp. 266– 90; Peter Gatrell and Philippe Nivet, ‘Refugees and Exiles’ in ibid., vol. 3, pp. 186– 215; Sophie de Schaepdrijver, ‘Populations under Occupation’ in ibid., vol. 3, pp. 242– 56. Heather Jones and Laurence van Ypersele ‘Populations at Risk’ in Winter (ed.), Cambridge History, vol. 3 pp. 181– 5. Annette Becker, ‘Captive Civilians’ in Winter (ed.), Cambridge History, vol. 3, p. 257. For a summary of the war as it affected Russia and of these policies in the Empire and its borderlands, see Mark von Hagen, ‘The First World War’ in Ronald J. Suny (ed.), The Cambridge History of Russia (Cambridge, 2006), vol. 3, pp. 94 –113. Karen Petrone, The Great War in Russian Memory (Bloomington, IN, 2011), pp. 107 – 108; William Fuller, The Foe Within: Fantasies of Treason and the End of Imperial Russia (Ithaca, NY, London, 2006), pp. 172 – 83, 260 – 2. In the second volume of the centennial series on the war and revolution in Russia, The Empire and Nationalism at War, Mark von Hagen offers ‘entangled histories’ and Joshua Sanborn decolonisation as conceptual frames within which to consider the effect of the war in the borderlands of empire and ultimately on the imperial order: Mark Von Hagen, ‘The Entangled Eastern Front in the First World War’, in Eric Lohr, Vera Tolz, Alexander Semyonov and Mark von Hagen (eds), The Empire and Nationalism at War (Bloomington, IN, 2014), pp. 21 – 47; Joshua Sanborn, ‘War of Decolonisation: The Russian Empire in the Great War’ in ibid., pp. 49– 71. In the Russian Empire, these multiple dislocations and disruption of social life and norms led, Joshua Sanborn has argued, to an increasingly fractured and uprooted society and exacerbated ethnic tensions, ultimately undermining of the imperial state: Joshua Sanborn, ‘Unsettling the Empire: Violent Migrations and Social Disaster in Russia during World War I’, Journal of Modern History, vol. 77, no. 2 (June 2005), pp. 290– 324. Pieter M. Judson, The Habsburg Empire: a New History (Cambridge, MA, 2016), pp. 385– 441. For the impact of shortages, see Maureen Healy, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I (Cambridge, 2004). See Judson, The Habsburg Empire, pp. 391– 3.

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21. An estimated 200,000 ethnic Germans were deported from Russian Poland to Siberia in 1914 and further deportations from Ukraine and the Baltics followed in 1915 and 1916: Peter Gatrell, Russia’s First World War: a Social and Economic History (Harlow, 2005), p. 179. 22. Alan Kramer notes the deportation of about 300,000 Lithuanians, 250,000 Latvians, 743,000 Poles and over half-a-million Jews in 1915: Kramer, Dynamic of Destruction: Mass Killing in the First World War (Oxford, 2007), p. 151. 23. Ultimately, it is estimated that from 500,000 to 1 million Jews were deported. For the policies as a whole, see Eric Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire: the Campaign against Enemy Aliens during World War I (Cambridge, MA, 2003), pp. 121 – 65; Eric Lohr, ‘The Russian Army and the Jews: Mass Deportation, Hostages and Violence during World War I’, Russian Review, 60 (July 2001), pp. 404– 19; Joshua Sanborn, ‘The Genesis of Russian Warlordism: Violence and Governance during the First World War and the Civil War’, Contemporary European History, vol. 19, no. 3, (August, 2010), pp. 196 – 203; Joshua Sanborn, ‘Unsettling the Empire’, pp. 290 – 324. 24. Alexander Watson, Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria Hungary at War (London, 2015), pp. 142– 55, 162– 3, 170– 9, 190– 7; Mark von Hagen, War in a European Borderland: Occupations and Occupation Plans in Galicia and Ukraine 1914– 1918 (Seattle, London, 2007), pp. 28 – 37; von Hagen, ‘The Entangled Eastern Front’, pp. 22 – 31; C. Westerhoff, ‘”A kind of Siberia”: German labour and occupation policies in Poland and Lithuania during the First World War’, First World War Studies, vol. 4, no. 1 (2013) pp. 51 – 63. See also Jens Thiel and Christian Westerhoff, ‘Forced Labour’ in Ute Daniel et al. (eds), 1914– 1918 Online (Berlin 2014-10-08), who suggest that Ober Ost was a ‘laboratory for forced labour and total war’ but that it was the site of some of the most extreme occupation policies adopted by the generals on the Eastern Front. 25. V. G. Liulevicius, War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity and German Occupation in World War I (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 89 – 150; Watson, Ring of Steel, pp. 270 – 1; von Hagen, War in a European Borderland, pp. 10 – 71. 26. Peter Gatrell and Philippe Nivet, ‘Refugees and Exiles’ in Winter (ed.), Cambridge History, vol. 3, p. 203; Peter Gatrell, A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia during World War I (Bloomington, IN, 1999) for his in depth study of the topic. 27. Peter Gatrell and Philippe Nivet, ‘Refugees and Exiles’ in Winter (ed.), Cambridge History, vol. 3, pp. 201 – 16; Watson, Ring of Steel, pp. 199 – 204. Watson estimates that there were over a million refugees in the Austrian heartlands already by 2015. For a transnational treatment of the problem of interned civilians, see Matthew Stibbe, ‘Civilian Internment and Civilian Internees in Europe 1914– 1920’, Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 26, no. 1 – 2, pp. 49 – 81.

268

NOTES TO PAGES 9 –12

28. The standard work on this subject in English is Alon Rachamimov, POWs and the Great War: Captivity on the Eastern Front (Oxford, New York, 2002). 29. Rachamimov, POWs, pp. 1 – 4;, Mark von Hagen gives the figure of 3.4 million Russian POWs: ‘The Entangled Eastern Front’, p. 36; Heather Jones, ‘Prisoners of War’ in Winter (ed.), Cambridge History, vol. 2, p. 269 gives much lower figures for Austro – Hungarian POWs than Rachamimov or von Hagen (1.2 – 1.86 million). 30. Reinhard Nachtigal has emphasised the harshness of conditions in Russia, in particular on the Murmansk railway, and has argued for seeing POW camps in Russia as prototypes for those of Stalin and Hitler. See Nachtigal, Kriegsgefangenschaft an der Ostfront 1914 bis 1918: Literaturbericht zu einem Forschungsfeld (Frankfurt-am-Main, 2005), pp. 131 – 5; idem, ‘Seuchen unter milita¨rischer Aufsicht in Russland: Das Lager Totskoe als Beispiel fu¨r die Behandlung der Kriegsgefangenen’, Jahrbu¨cher fu¨r Geschichte Osteuropas, vol. 48 (2000), pp. 363 – 87; idem, Die Murmanbahn 1915– 1919: Kriegsnotwendigkeit und Wissenschaftsinteressen (Grunbach, 2001), pp. 82 – 95, 107– 23, 176 – 8; idem, ‘The Repatriation and Reception of returning Prisoners of War 1918– 1922’, Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 26, no. 1– 2 (2008), pp. 157– 84. For a more benevolent view, see Rachamimov, POWs, pp. 78–82, 106–107, 123–5. 31. Heather Jones, ‘Prisoners of War’ in Winter (ed.), Cambridge History, vol. 2, pp. 266 –70, 278– 9. 32. Von Hagen, ‘Entangled Eastern Front’, pp. 36 – 42. 33. Rachimimov, POWs, pp. 133– 53, 194– 6, esp. 212 – 13. 34. Deak, ‘The [. . .] Habsburg Monarchy and the First World War’, JMH, vol. 86, no. 2 (June 1914), pp. 336–80; Pieter Judson, Habsburg Empire, esp. pp. 1–15. For national indifference, see Tara Zahra, ‘Imagined Non-Communities: National Indifference as a Category of Analysis’, Slavic Review, vol. 69, no. 1 (Spring, 2010), pp. 93–119. Maureen Healy, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I (Cambridge, 2004) argues that national minorities’ growing alienation and soldiers’ war weariness were not the only factors undermining the empire, pointing instead to the disintegration of the home front under the pressure of the acute food crisis. 35. Antoine Prost, ‘The Dead’, in Winter (ed.), Cambridge History, vol. 3, p. 587, who points to the difficulty of ascertaining entirely accurate figures, a point emphasised by Gatrell in relation to Russia, Russia’s First World War, pp. 245– 6; S.A. Smith, Russia in Revolution: an Empire in Crisis: 1880 –1928 (Oxford, 2017), pp. 81, 88. 36. Maria Bucur, Heroes and Victims: Remembering War in Twentieth Century Romania (Bloomington, IN, 2009), p. 51. 37. With the exception of Transylvania and Yugoslavia, where villagers tended to erect more intimate local memorials: see Olga Manojlovic Pintar, ‘Bereavement and Mourning (South Eastern Europe)’ in Ute Daniel et al. (eds), 1914– 1918 Online (Berlin 2014-10-08).

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38. See Anita Magorska, ‘The Unwanted Heroes: War Invalids in Poland after World War I’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, vol. 69, no. 2 (04/2014), pp. 185 – 220. 39. See Svetlana Malysheva, ‘Bereavement and Mourning (Russian Empire)’ in Ute Daniel et al. (eds), 1914– 1918 Online (Berlin 2014-10-08); Aaron Cohen, ‘Commemoration and the Cult of the Fallen (Russian Empire)’, in Ute Daniel et al. (eds), 1914– 1918 Online (Berlin 2014-10-08); Christoph Mick, ‘Der Vergessene Krieg. Die Schwierige Erinnerung an den Ersten Weltkrieg in Osteuropa’ in R. Rother (ed.), Der Weltkrieg: 1914– 1918. Ereignis und Erinnerung (Berlin, 2004), pp. 74– 82. 40. For an overview, see Joy Damousi, ‘Mourning Practices’ in Winter (ed.) Cambridge History, vol. 3, pp. 358– 84. 41. For the culture of defeat, see Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Culture of Defeat: on National Trauma, Mourning and Recovery (London, 2003). 42. Petrone, The Great War in Russian Memory. 43. Bucur, Heroes and Victims, pp. 69– 72, 142– 3; John Paul Newman, Yugoslavia in the Shadow of War (Cambridge, 2015), pp. 37 – 8, 54 – 60. Von Hagen, ‘Entangled Eastern Front’, p. 35. 44. Kramer, Dynamic of Destruction, pp. 328– 38.

Chapter 1 The Failed Quest for Total Surveillance: The Internal Security Service in Austria-Hungary During World War I 1. Robert A. Kann, A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1526– 1918, 2nd ed. (Berkeley, 1977 [1974]), pp. 518– 19; Robin Okey, The Habsburg Monarchy: From Enlightenment to Eclipse (New York, 2001), pp. 395– 401; Ivan T. Berend, History Derailed: Central and Eastern Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century (Berkeley, 2003), pp. 142 –51, 206 –208, 212– 15. 2. Manfried Rauchensteiner, Der Tod des Doppeladlers. O¨sterreich-Ungarn und der Erste Weltkrieg (Graz, 1993), pp. 67– 85. 3. Ibid., pp. 183 – 8, 190– 1, 200– 201, 229– 34. 4. Maureen Healy, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I (New York, 2004), pp. 61, 64, 72. 5. Ibid., pp. 14 – 15. 6. Okey, The Habsburg Monarchy, pp. 391– 3. 7. Article 43 of the Police’s Instructions from 1850, in Anton Walitschek, ‘Die Entwicklung der Polizei-Organisation und des Polizeirechtes in O¨ sterreich von 1850 bis 1930,’ in Hermann Oberhummer, Die Wiener Polizei: Neue Beitra¨ge zur Geschichte des Sicherheitswesens in den La¨ndern der Ehemaligen O¨sterreichisch – Ungarischen Monarchie (Wien, 1937), 2: 274 – 5. 8. Walitschek, ‘Die Entwicklung,’ 2: p. 261.

270

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9. Jonathan E. Gumz, The Resurrection and Collapse of Empire in Habsburg Serbia, 1914– 1918 (New York, 2009), pp. 1 – 23, 64 – 89. 10. Just as I am suggesting here that the civilian police may have been softer, Tamara Scheer casts doubt on the thesis of Gumz and others that the K.u.K. Army in occupied Serbia and Montenegro pursued a uniform policy of extreme repression against the civilian population. She notes that local commanders had authority whether to impose death sentences, and some commuted them. She also notes that the military treated the Serbian Orthodox population suspiciously but the Muslim population favourably (a viewpoint held by officers who had served in Bosnia and the Sandjak before 1908). Additionally, the officers in the area were not only Austrian; Hungarian officers were sent there, too, since Hungary wanted to exert on influence on the region. There were also reserve Croatian and Czech staff officers who may have held panSlavic views or were not interested in hunting down guerrilla fighters, preferring instead to finish the war in a safe location and collect their salaries. See Tamara Scheer, ‘Mikrokosmos und Perso¨nlichkeitsprinzip: O¨sterreichUngarns Besatzungsregime in Serbien und Montenegro im Ersten Weltkrieg (1915 – 1918),’ in M. Christian Ortner and Hans-Hubertus Mack (eds), Die Mittelma¨chte und der Erste Weltkrieg (Wien, 2016), pp. 279– 91. 11. For the military’s view of impending revolutions, see Austrian State Archives, Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv, Ministerium des Innern, Pra¨sidale (AT/OeStA/ AVA/MdI), K. 2076, 22, Pra¨s. No. 7084 ex 1918/M.I. 12. Peter Holquist, ‘“Information Is the Alpha and Omega of Our Work”: Bolshevik Surveillance in Its Pan-European Context,’ The Journal of Modern History 69 (Sept. 1997): pp. 420– 1, pp. 426– 32. 13. Nancy M. Wingfield, The World of Prostitution in Late Imperial Austria (Oxford, 2017), pp. 209– 42. 14. Donald E. Emerson, Metternich and the Political Police. Security and Subversion in the Habsburg Monarchy (1815 –1830) (The Hague, 1968), pp. 46 – 51, 57– 71, 126, 131–3. 15. Gerhard Jagschitz, ‘Die politische Zentralevidenzstelle der Bundespolizeidirektion Wien. Ein Beitrag zur Rolle der Politischen Polizei in der Ersten Republik,’ Jahrbuch fu¨r Zeitgeschichte (1978), pp. 49 – 95 at pp. 50 – 3. On the language decrees and the riots, see Nancy M. Wingfield, Flag Wars and Stone Saints: How the Bohemian Lands Became Czech (Cambridge, MA, 2007), pp. 48 – 78. 16. Jagschitz, ‘Die politische Zentralevidenzstelle,’ pp. 53 – 4; Verena Moritz, Hannes Leidinger and Gerhard Jagschitz, Im Zentrum der Macht: die vielen Gesichter des Geheimdienstchefs Maximilian Ronge (St Po¨lten, 2007), pp. 100– 10. 17. Hrvatski Drzˇavni Arhiv (Zagreb), Fond 79 [HR-HDA-79], Odjel za Unutarnje Poslove- Sredisˇnja defenzivna dojavna sluzˇba [UOZV-SDDS], Kut. 5687 (1), 9/1914, K.u.K. Chef des Generalstabes. K.Nr. 4444 von 1914, Protokoll u¨ber die Konferenz: ‘Schaffung der Zentral- und Hauptstellen fu¨r den defensiven Kundschaftdienst’ im Mai 1914, pp. 2–3. Hereafter, Protokoll 1914.

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18. HR-HDA-79/UOZV-SDDS, Kut. 5687 (1), 9/1914, K.k. Minister des Innern to all Landeschefs, Schaffung einer Zentralstelle fu¨r den defensiven Kundschaftdienst, 5319/M.I., 25 May 1914. 19. Protokoll 1914, Beilage 2, U¨bersicht u¨ber die Z.St. und H.St., sowie u¨ber die betreffenden Haupt K.Stellen. Kundschaft-Stellen were military intelligence bureaus. 20. Biserka Stanisˇic´, ‘Odsjek IV-B Res. za pogranicˇna redarstevna satnisˇtva odjela za Unutarnje poslove Kraljevske hrvatsko-slavonsko-dalmatinske zemaljske vlade u Zagrebu,’ Arhivski Vjesnik 36 (1993): pp. 181 – 206. 21. Austrian State Archives, War Archive (OeStA/KA [Kriegsarchiv]), AOKEvidenzbu¨ro, K. 3576/1917, Evb.Nr. 6630, 1917. 22. The Austrian Interior Minister used this phrase to describe the Zentralstellen. Protokoll 1914, p. 13. 23. Protokoll 1914, p. 23. 24. Rauchensteiner, Der Tod des Doppeladlers, pp. 107– 109. 25. A course to be held in Vienna was announced in 1914, and in 1917, the Army High Command said it planned to create a training school for intelligence officers. HR-HDA-79/UOZV-SDDS, Kut. 5687 (1), 9/1914, K.k. Minister des Innern to all Landeschefs, Schaffung einer Zentralstelle fu¨r den defensiven Kundschaftdienst, 5319/M.I., 25 May 1914, p. 6, and HR-HDA-79, UOZVSDDS, Kut. 5717 (31), 596/1917, Nachrichtenabteilung des k. und k. Armeeoberkommandos. Evb.Nro. 2306 res., Protokoll zu der am 20. und 21. Ma¨rz 1917 stattgefundenen Besprechung mit den Leitern der vier Zentralstellen fu¨r den defensiven Nachrichtendienst in Evidenzbu¨ro des K.u.K. Generalstabes, p. 2. 26. Appeals for release from Johann Notarosch (a Serbian businessman from Vojvodina) and from Marie Sikorczyk, a Ruthenian teacher, were unsuccessful. In the SDDS files, I found one case where the secret police agreed to release a Serbian woman, who was interned in Hungary with her family, to a town where she had lived before the war. The file does not state why she was originally interned. See Draga Zˇivkovic´ in HR-HDA, Odsjek IV-B res. za Pogranicˇna Redarstvena Satnisˇtva Odjela za Unutarne Poslove Hrvatsko-SlavenskoDalmatinske Zemaljske Vlade u Zagrebu, Kut. 5411, 6472 res/1917. 27. A 23 September 1914 police report, just for Vienna, states that since the outbreak of the war, 526 house searches were carried out, 337 people were arrested and sent to court for high treason, le`se-majeste´, insults to members of the Kaiser’s family, disturbing public order, espionage, offering illegal business deals and spreading disturbing rumours. See Landespolizeidirektion Wien Archiv (LPDW), Krieg-Tagesereignisse 1914, Sch. 1914, November, Pr.Z.1038K. Mark Cornwall, citing Karl Platzer, states approximately 1,900 people were executed in court-martial proceedings for political crimes, but these were in war zones. See Mark Cornwall, ‘Traitors and the Meaning of Treason in Austria – Hungary’s Great War,’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 25 (2015), p. 120.

272

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28. Cornwall argues that the repression of nationalists through high-profile treason trials, beginning in the decade before the war, indicates the monarchy’s instability. Ibid., pp. 123 – 4. 29. Case of Adam Kragujevic´, a Serbian machinist from Slavonia accused of working for Serbian intelligence and traveling illegally to Bosnia to spy or scout; military prosecutors were unable to build a legitimate case against him, but the police interned him in Croatia. HR-HDA-79, UOZV-SDDS, Kut. 5687 (1), 1/1914. 30. Case of Johann Notarosch (Notarosˇ), a Serbian businessman from the Vojvodina, living in Vienna during the tense period of the Austrian ultimatum and Serbian rejection in July 1914. Police determined he was ‘politically unrealiable’ and interned him in Austria and Hungary because of one postcard he had written and because of minor comments that his wife and his grandson had made in their letters. LPDW, 1914, Scha. V/7, 433/914/K. 31. File of Dmitrije Vranic´ from Bosnian Gradisˇka, whose information helped police locate two Croatians named Petar Dobric´ and Milutin Basrak. The former had allegedly deserted the K.u.K. military and joined the Serbian army; the latter was taken prisoner by German forces as a so-called guerrilla fighter (komitadji) and was sentenced by a district court in Zagreb for ‘crimes against the military power of the state.’ HR-HDA-79, UOZV-SDDS, Kut. 5714 (28), 4282/1916. This crime was defined in Para. 327 of the Military Penal Code from 1855. Persons who committed an act that disadvantaged the Austrian military or gave an advantage to the enemy were guilty, whether or not they had actually entered into an agreement with the enemy. Milita¨rStrafgesetz u¨ber Verbrechen und Vergehen vom 15. Ja¨nner 1855 fu¨r das Kaiserthum Oesterreich (Wien, 1855), ,http://data.onb.ac.at/ABO/% 2BZ222811700. , pp. 132– 3. 32. Gumz, Resurrection, pp. 34 – 43. 33. See the doctors’ cases in HR-HDA-79, UOZV-SDDS, Kut. 5715 (29), 4548/1916, and the prosecution of Aleksa Ivic´, a Serbian historian who worked for the National Archives in Zagreb, in HR-HDA-79, UOZV-SDDS, Kut. 5716 (30), 4759/1916. 34. Statements of ten Vienna policemen sent to Prerau (Perov) Moravia in November 1914 to guard the train station while Galician refugees and wounded soldiers were transported by rail (LPDW, 1914, Scha. V/7, Minister des Innern, 18558/M.I., Verhalten der o¨sterreichisch-ungarischen Slaven im Auslande gegenu¨ber den Kriegsereignissen, 30 December 1914). The Interior Ministry asked the Vienna police for these statements after the policemen’s leader, Ludwig Sidor, wrote a report on the town’s ‘Russophile’ Gesinnung. Ibid., K.k. Sicherheitswache-Abteilung 26, Wahrnehmungen wa¨hrend der Dienstleistung in Prerau, 18 November 1914. 35. LPDW, 1914, Scha. St/9, K.k. Statthalter Thun to Minister des Innern, 4514ZSt./1, ‘Zˇivnostenska Banka,’ angebliche Verbindung mit russischen Spionen, 7 July 1914; Pr.Z. 14047/K./4, Zˇivnostenska Banka-Erhebungen, 20

NOTES

36.

37. 38. 39.

40.

41.

TO PAGES

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August 1915. The bank case eventually went before a military court in Vienna; see prosecutor’s indictment in OeStA/KA, MfLV (Ministerium fuer Landesverteidigung) Pra¨sidial, 1917, K. 565, Pra¨s. Nr. 3196/V. The bank directors were found guilty and sentenced to death, but their sentence was commuted. Okey, The Habsburg Monarchy, pp. 237– 8, 379. Case of Dr Alexander Sawiuk, a Ruthenian lawyer from Galicia who was arrested with other lawyers and priests for ‘Russophile’ agitation and espionage. In April 1915, police interviewed former Galician Bezirkshauptma¨nner, mostly Poles who had been relocated to Vienna as refugees, about whether they could provide any evidence of espionage. They could not, though they stated that they had ordered the arrest of several Ruthenians right when war was declared. The military prosecutor dropped the case in April 1916, but a group of other Ruthenians, including lawyers and a teacher named Marie Sikorcyzk, was kept under arrest. Sikorcyzk appealed to police on the ground that the military prosecutor had found her innocent and because she had sick parents, but this apparently had no effect. LPDW, 1915, Scha. St-13, 9593/914/15/K. Case of Jan Zamorski, OeStA/AVA/MdI, Pra¨sidale, K. 2076, Pra¨s. No. 8567 ex 1918/M.I.; case of Friedrich Skarbek, Pra¨s. No. 8905 ex 1918/M.I. Ibid., Pra¨s. No. 7355 ex 1918/M.I. (inside No. 8905), k.k. Ministerpra¨sident (Seidler) to Hochgeborner Graf, 28 March 1919. Censorship rules from 1917 forbid discussing the war, the domestic economic situation, strikes, or the peace question. See the pamphlets ‘ZensurGrundsa¨tze’ and ‘Zensurbehelf,’ which were issued to censors, in OeStA/KA, AOK-Evidenzbu¨ro, K. 3575, 1917, Evb.Nr. 3361. Case of Heddy Edle von Ettner, investigated as a possible spy because she was seen speaking to an Austrian officer on board a Dutch steamer travelling from New York to Brest in September 1914. It turned out that she had agreed to take passports and documents from the officer when a French battleship had stopped the steamer. She ripped up half of them, threw the shreds in a toilet and agreed to deliver a letter to one of the officer’s friends in Vienna. The officer tried to avoid being discovered, but the French interned him anyway. Von Ettner continued her travels to Austria by train but was stopped at the border at Passau. Apparently, police decided to investigate her because of her expensive clothing and luggage, and because of rumours spread by passengers on the steamer. After Passau border police investigated her and had railway police in Vienna search her luggage, they ended up complimenting her actions. Their report stated, ‘Through her unquestionable good heartedness she placed herself in the greatest danger, which was justified by the French.’ The Vienna state police may not have been so sure, as they filed the case for future reference. LPDW, 1914, Scha. St/9, 803/K/1914. Case of Emma Bernolak, who posed as a Hungarian general’s wife, and tried to defraud the Kriegsfu¨rsorgeamt, the Austrian office of Lloyd’s and possibly the War Ministry out of money. LPDW, Scha. St./27, 41375/K.

274

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42. Case of Franka Mijatovic´, arrested in a ‘Freudenhaus’ in Sarajevo in 1918. When interrogated, she explained that she had formed relationships with men in several European countries and accepted their offers to spy for them. This occurred in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Austria. HR-HDA-79, UOVZSDDS, Kut. 5725 (39), 618/1918. 43. Case of Mathilda Albachari, who was travelling to various cities in Bosnia and Croatia. During the war, her family had evacuated Sarajevo and went to a town in Croatia, where her father opened a shoe-making business. Her husband, who had been a business manager in a ‘Jewish’ iron firm, was an infantryman in the Landsturm. Croatian police determined she had the proper travel papers and there was nothing suspicious about her family. HR-HDA-79, UOZVSDDS, Kut. 5715 (29), 4619/1916. 44. See the case of Helene (Ilona) Pauer von Budahegy, who taught at a Hungarian Staatsbu¨rgerschule in Fiume. Salzburg police found her suspicious because she did not continue travelling from Salzburg to Bavaria as planned. SDDS in Zagreb investigated, but a local police station could not find anything suspicious. HR-HDA-79, UOZV-SDDS, Kut. 5712 (26), 3706/1916. 45. Case of Lenka Trbuchovic´, who had also been interned in Mitrovica in Croatia. Her brother, a Hungarian subject of Croatian nationality, was charged with treason before a military court in Graz in 1917; he was allegedly the secretary of the ‘National Defense’ organisation in Gary, Indiana. HR-HDA-79, UOZVSDDS, Kut. 5711 (25), 3120/1916. 46. OeStA/AVA/MdI, Pra¨sidium 22, K. 2049, Protokoll Nr. 3294, Z. 3832, Memo to Minister President, 3.832/15, 16 February 1915, p. 28. The author seems to be from the Justice Ministry. 47. OeStA/AVA/MdI, Pra¨sidium 22, K. 2049, Protokoll Nr. 3294, Z. 3832, Erzherzog Friedrich (Feldmarschall) K.u.K. Armeeoberkommando to Standort des AOK, 23 December 1914, Op.Nr. 5581, Tschechische Legion. 48. Memo to Minister President, 3.832/15, pp. 31 –2. 49. Ibid., p. 31. 50. Rauchensteiner, Der Tod des Doppeladlers, pp. 237– 8. 51. Memo to Minister President, 3.832/15, p. 30. 52. OeStA/AVA/MdI Pra¨sidium, K. 1931, 20, Protokoll N. ad 5338 ex 1915, PolDion-Wien to Pra¨sidium des k.k. Ministeriums des Innern, Pr.Z.968. Z. St./2, 22 March 1915. See passage after ‘ad IV.’ 53. OeStA/AVA/MdI Pra¨sidium, K. 1931, 20, Protokoll Nr. 13708 ex1915, Polizei Direktion in Wien to Pra¨sidium des k.k. Ministeriums des Innern, ‘Defensiver Kundschaftdienst. Vereinfachung des Meldewesens. Einfu¨hrung der Daktyloslopie,’ Pr.Z.2395 Z.St./1, 10 June 1915, pp. 1 –3 (pages unnumbered). 54. OeStA/AVA, K. 2088, Protokoll Nr. 44343 ex 1913, Undated typed memo, 28963/13. Schober’s signature is at the bottom of the final page, but it is not clear if he wrote the text.

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30 –34

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55. OeStA/AVA, K. 2088, Protokoll Nr. 44343 ex 1913, K.K. Polizei Direktion in Wien, Erkennungsamt, Z.EA. 3279, 31 October 1912; MdI., Protokoll, 28 February 1913, z.Zl.28.963/ex 1913. 56. Pr.Z.2395 Z.St./1, pp. 5– 7. 57. Pr.Z.2395 Z.St./1, p. 8. 58. OeStA/AVA/MdI, Allgem., K. 2089, 20, Protokoll Nr. 22276/18, Sicherheitsbericht fu¨r das Jahr 1915, 31 July 1916. 59. OeStA/AVA/MdI, Allgemeines, K. 2089, S.B. 53811, Sicherheitsbericht fu¨r das Jahr 1916, 11 February 1918, Ausweis IVa., Siebentes und Achtes Hauptstu¨cke. 60. OeStA/AVA/MdI, Allgemeines, K. 2089, 32229/18, K.K. niedero¨sterreichische Statthalterei, Z. VII-a-121, Zustand der o¨ffentlichen Sicherheit im Jahre 1916, 25 May 1918. 61. Cornwall, ‘Traitors,’ p. 125. 62. Andrej Mitrovic´, Serbia’s Great War 1914– 1918 (West Lafayette, 2007), pp. 5 – 6, 24; Cornwall, ‘Traitors,’ pp. 127 – 8. 63. OeStA/KA/AOK-Evidenzbu¨ro, K. 3575 (1917), Evb.Nr. 2532, 3 February 1917, p. 9. 64. Ibid., p. 21. 65. Ibid., pp. 21 –2. On the trial of the 53 Serbs on flimsy evidence, and the libel case against the historian Friedjung, see C.A. Macartney, The Habsburg Empire 1790– 1918 (New York, 1969), pp. 785 –6. 66. HR-HDA-79, UOZV-SDDS, Kut. 5713 (27), 3805/1916. 67. Austrian military prosecutors tried to link Klofacˇ to a Serbian middle-school professor named Mile Pavlovic´ who allegedly wrote reports about Austro – Hungarian political and military matters for Serbian intelligence for a decade. OeStA/KA/AOK-Evidenzbu¨ro, K. 3575 (1917), Evb.Nr. 2484-1917, 3 February 1917. 68. Cornwall, ‘Traitors,’ pp. 129 – 32. 69. OeStA/KA/AOK-Evidenzbu¨ro, K. 3575, 1917, Evb. Nr. 2063-1917, Referat u¨ber die am 5 February 1917 bei der 4. Abteilung des KM stattgefundene Besprechung u¨ber die Konzentrierung der politischen- und Spionageprozesse. 70. Case of Jacob Bocina, April 1917, LPDW, Scha. St./27, 38248/K. 71. HR-HDA-79, UOZV-SDDS, Kut. 5726 (40), 623/1918, K.u.k. Milita¨rkommando (Zagreb) to SDDS, 30 March 1917. 72. The Zagreb chief, who was ill, did not attend. 73. Protokoll 1917, p. 12. 74. Ibid. 75. Ibid. 76. Ibid., p. 1. 77. Ibid., p. 14. 78. Ibid., p. 2. 79. OeStA/AVA/MdI, Pra¨sidale, K. 2074, Protokoll Nr. 2414 ex 1918/M.I., Memo, 2 April 1918.

276

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80. Ibid., Folder I, PD-Wien, Pr.52350/4K. Arbeitseinstellung in Wien. 16 January 1918. 81. Ibid., Folder II, Staatspolizeiliches Bureau (Flatau), Memo 3- 14 January, 5:15 p.m.; Folder I, PD-Wien, Pr.52350/4K; PD-Wien, Pr.Z.52356/8 K, 17 January 1918; Folder II, No. 3, Gayer meldet, 16 January, 5 p.m. 82. Ibid., Folder I, PD-Wien, Pr.Z.52356/22 K., 21 January 1918. 83. Ibid., PD-Wien, Pr.Z.52356/22 K. and Pr.Z.52356/23 K., 21 January 1918. 84. OeStA/AVA/MdI, Pra¨sidale, K. 2974, Protokoll Nr. 2396/M.I. 85. LPDW, 1918, Scha. St./17, Pra¨sidial-Akte. Staatspol. u. Sicherheitspol. Agenden. 1917 (Kriegsjahr), K.k.n.o¨. Statthalterei- Pra¨sidium, Pr.Zl. 721/8 P, Bolschewikische Agitation, 21 February 1918. 86. HR-HDA-79, UOZV-SDDS, Kut. 5717 (31), 596/1917, K.u.k. Armeeoberkommando. Nachrichtenabteilung. Evb. Nr. 5125/I, Protokoll zu der am 21. und 22. Mai l.J. stattgefundenen Besprechung mit den Leitern der vier Zentralstellen fu¨r den Spionageabwehrdienst im k.u.k. Kriegsministerium (Evb. d. Gstbs.), 22 May 1918. Hereafter Protokoll 1918. 87. Protokoll 1918, p. 8 (pages unnumbered). 88. LPDW, 1918, Scha. St./17, Verschiedenes aus dem Jahr 1918, Letter of Elise Ja¨ger, 15 January 1918, 52380/K. 89. LPDW, 1918, Scha. St./17, Pra¨sidial-Akte. Staatspol. u.Sicherheitspol. Agenden. 1917 (Kriegsjahr), Anonymous letter, 21 July 1918, No. 58975/K. The letter was originally sent to the Viennese mayor and was then forwarded to a magistrate, to the Interior Minister and finally to the Vienna police. 90. LPDW, 1918, Scha. St/16, Staats-u.sicherheitspol.Agenden. Jhrg.1918 (Kriegsjahr). Kriminell: Droh- u. Schma¨briefe, Majesta¨sbeleidigung, Letter of Josef Tuttnauer, 14 April 1918, No. 56376/18. 91. HR-HDA-79, UOZV-SDDS, Kut. 5726 (40), 879/1918. 92. LPDW, 1918, Scha. St/16, Staats.-u.sicherheitspol.Agenden. Jahrgang: 1918 (Kriegsjahr). Diebstahl, Veruntreuung, Betrug, Ko¨rperverletzung, K.k. Polizei Kommissariat Wr. Neustadt, Z. 331 Res., 18 September 1918, Wo¨llersdorf k.u.k. Munitionsfabrik Brandkatastrophe. 93. HR-HDA-79, UOZV-SDDS, Kut. 5726 (40), 623/1918. 94. Jagschitz, ‘Die politische Zentralevidenzstelle,’ p. 56. 95. LPDW, Interpol/1925, Schober’s speech at New York international police conference, Schober to Enright, 9 August 1925. 96. Jagschitz, ‘Die politische Zentralevidenzstelle,’ pp. 63 –5 97. Barbara Jelavich, Modern Austria: Empire and Republic, 1815– 1986 (New York, 1987), pp. 165. 98. Jagschitz, ‘Die politische Zentralevidenzstelle’, pp. 75, 80 – 5. 99. Ibid., pp. 85– 7; Gerhard Botz, Nationalsozialismus in Wien. Machtu¨bernahme, Herrschaftssicherung, Radikalisierung, 1938/39 (Wien, 2008), p. 73. 100. Walitschek, ‘Die Entwicklung,’ 2: 291, 304– 305, 307– 308. 101. Winfried R. Garscha and Barry McLoughlin, Wien 1927. Menetekel fu¨r die Republik (Berlin [German Democratic Republic], 1987), pp. 109– 48.

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277

102. C. Earl Edmondson, The Heimwehr and Austrian Politics, 1918– 1936 (Athens, GA, 1978), pp. 47, 52, 83 – 90.

Chapter 2 Fellow Citizens, Unwanted Foreigners: The Refugee Crisis in Wartime Moravia 1. This paper employs place names in German and provides alternate names at the first mention because German was most often used in state correspondence. Where there is a standard English name, such as Vienna, I use that instead. 2. Julie Thorpe has demonstrated in her overview of the refugee crisis in Austria-Hungary that the Habsburg state’s use of national categories fuelled nationalist sentiment. See Thorpe, ‘Displacing Empire: Refugee Welfare, National Activism and State Legitimacy in Austria-Hungary in the First World War’ in Panikos Panayi and Pippa Virdee (eds), Refugees and the End of Empire: Imperial Collapse and Forced Migration in the 20th Century (Basingstoke, 2011), p. 102. It should be noted that the Habsburg Empire already classified its population according to language of everyday use in census data from 1880. 3. Peter Gatrell, A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia During World War I (Bloomington, IN, 1999), pp. 3, 13. 4. On the crisis in Vienna and the social tension refugees caused as well as the subsequent increase in antisemitism, see Beatrix Hoffmann-Holter, ‘Abreisendmachung’: Ju¨dische Kriegsflu¨chtlinge in Wien 1914 bis 1923 (Vienna, 1995), p. 1419; and David Rechter, ‘Galicia in Vienna: Jewish Refugees in the First World War’, Austrian History Yearbook 28 (1997), pp. 113, 120, 125– 7. For an account of aid efforts in Prague, see Jiri Kudela, ‘Die Emigration galizischer und oesteuropa¨ischer Juden nach Bo¨hmen und Prag zwischen 1914– 1916/17’ Studia Rosenthaliana 12 (1989), pp. 119–34. On gender and aid work as well as Jewish identity, see Rozenblit, ‘For Fatherland and Jewish People: Jewish Women in Austria during the First World War’, in Frans Coetzee and Marilyn Shevin-Coetzee (eds), Authority, Identity, and the Social History of the Great War. (Providence, RI, 1995), pp. 200, 207; and Marsha L. Rozenblit, Reconstructing A National Identity: The Jews of Habsburg Austria during World War I (Oxford, 2001), pp. 60 – 3. For a recent overview of the refugees in Cisleithania, see Martina Hermann ‘“Cities of barracks”: Refugees in the Austrian part of the Habsburg Empire during the First World War’ in Peter Gatrell and Liubov Zhvanko (eds), Europe on the Move: Refugees in the era of the Great War (Manchester, 2017), pp. 108 – 28. On the differing experiences of Jewish refugees in the Hungarian half of the Empire in comparison to those in Cisleithania, see Rebekah Klein-Pejsˇova´, ‘Between refugees and the state: Hungarian Jewry and the wartime Jewish refugee crisis in Austria-Hungary’ in Peter Gatrell and Liubov Zhvanko (eds), Europe on the Move: Refugees in the era of the Great War (Manchester, 2017), pp. 156– 76.

278

NOTES

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43 – 46

5. Michal Frankl, ‘Exhibiting Refugeedom. Orient in Bohemia? Jewish Refugees during the First World War’, Judaica Bohemia 50, no. 1 (2015), pp. 117– 29. 6. Robert Nemes, ‘Refugees and Antisemitism in Hungary During the First World War’ in Robert Nemes and Daniel Unowsky (eds), Sites of European Antisemitism in the Age of Mass Politics 1880 – 1918 (Waltham, MA, 2014), pp. 237 –8. 7. Maureen Healy, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 3 – 4. 8. Pieter Judson, The Habsburg Empire: A New History (Cambridge, MA, 2016), p. 415. 9. Alexander Victor Prusin, Nationalizing a Borderland: War Ethnicity, and AntiJewish Violence in East Galicia, 1914– 1920 (Tuscaloosa, 2005), p. 245. 10. Walter Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge in Cisleithanien im Ersten Weltkrieg’ (PhD diss., University of Vienna, 1997), p. 1, 11. K.k. Ministerium des Innern (MdI), Staatliche Flu¨chtlingsfu¨rsorge im Kriege 1914/15 (Vienna, 1915), pp. 3 –4. 12. Nancy M. Wingfield, Flag Wars and Stone Saints: How the Bohemian Lands Became Czech (Cambridge, MA, 2007), see Chapter 3. 13. By the end of 1915, 385,645 non-combatants had left Galicia and Bukovina for the interior, among them 157,630 Jews. See Marsha L. Rozenblit, ‘For Fatherland and Jewish People: Jewish Women in Austria during the First World War’ in Frans Coetzee and Marilyn Shevin-Coetzee (eds), Authority, Identity, and the Social History of the Great War (Province, RI, 1995), p. 205. 14. On the refugee situation in Italy, see Matteo Ermacora, ‘Assistance and Surveillance: War Refugees in Italy, 1914– 1918’, Contemporary European History 16, vol. 4 (2007), pp. 445– 59. 15. K.k. MdI, Staatliche Flu¨chtlingsfu¨rsorge, pp. 44, 46. As of 1 October 1915, the Ministry of the Interior categorised the refugee population in Moravia as follows: 188 German, 9,158 Polish, 1,471 Ruthenian, 11 Romanian, 18,429 Jewish, 20,125 Italian, 16 Croatian, 6,458 Slovenian and eight ‘others’. The Empire’s Jews who could afford to do so had long visited western Bohemia’s spa towns. These refugees, however, were not on holiday, and many of them were not wealthy. This marked somewhat of a break in the previous pattern; however, some of these refugees managed to blend into the local landscape. See Mirjam Triendl-Zadoff, Na¨chstes Jahr in Marienbad: Gegenwelten ju¨dischen Kulturen der Moderne (Go¨ttigen, 2007), pp. 14 –16, 122. 16. Judson, The Habsburg Empire, pp. 408– 9. 17. K.k. MdI, Staatliche Flu¨chtlingsfu¨rsorge, p. 46. 18. Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, p. 4. 19. Judson, The Habsburg Empire, pp. 409– 10; Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, p. 298; see also the chapter by Francesco Frizzera in this volume. 20. Znaimer Wochenblatt, 18 November 1914, p. 7. 21. K.k. MdI, Staatliche Flu¨chtlingefu¨rsorge, pp. 10 – 11, 44. 22. Niedero¨sterreichische Landesarchiv (NO¨LA), Pra¨s P, Karton 691, 384, Band I.

NOTES 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

44. 45.

46. 47.

48. 49. 50.

TO PAGES

46 –53

279

K.k. MdI, Staatliche Flu¨chtlingsfu¨rsorge, pp. 6 –7. Rozenblit, Reconstructing a National Identity, pp. 65 – 73. Znaimer Wochenblatt, 23 September 1914, p. 8. Tagesbote aus Ma¨hren und Schlesien (TMS), 12 October 1914, p. 4. Znaimer Wochenblatt, 2 December 1914, p. 9. TMS, Evening Ed., 8 January 1915, p. 5. TMS, Evening Ed., 19 January 1915, 6. K.k. MdI, Staatliche Flu¨chtlingsfu¨rsorge, p. 45. TMS, Evening Ed., 6 November 1915, p. 5. Deutsches Nordma¨hrenblatt, 13 September 1915, p. 4. See also 8 October 1915, p. 5 and 21 October 1915, p. 4. TMS, Evening Ed., 26 July 1916, p. 5. TMS, Evening Ed., 1 August 1916, p. 6. TMS, Evening Ed., 4 August 1916, p. 5. Znaimer Wochenblatt, 1 September 1915, p. 4. Znaimer Tagblatt, 2 February 1918, p. 2. TMS, Evening Ed., 14 January 1916, p. 6. TMS, 13 April 1916, p. 6. TMS, 29 March 1917, p. 5. Deutsches Nordma¨hrenblatt, 7 March 1915, p. 4. Znaimer Wochenblatt, 2 October 1915, p. 7. Michal Frankl, ‘From Boycott to Riot: The Moravian Anti-Jewish Violence of 1899 and its Background’ in Robert Nemes and Daniel Unowsky (eds), Sites of European Antisemitism in the Age of Mass Politics 1880– 1918 (Waltham, MA, 2014), pp. 94 – 114. Moravsky´ zemsky´ archive (MZA), B13, Kart. 409, no. 5324, Praes. No. 371, 17 March 1918, Kojetein, antisemitische Bewegung. Hillel J. Kieval, ‘Death and the Nation: Ritual Murder as Political Discourse in the Czech Lands’, Jewish History 10, no. 1 (Spring 1996), pp. 75, 80. Furthermore, as Kieval has noted elsewhere, like other modern instances of alleged ritual murder, this case is removed from religious elements and instead provides more commentary on race or ethnicity. See Kieval, ‘Representation and Knowledge in Medieval and Modern Accounts of Jewish Ritual Murder’, Jewish Social Studies 1, No.1 (Autumn, 1994), p. 68. Kieval, ‘Death and the Nation’, pp. 75 – 6. While the examples here come from Bru¨nn, the housing shortage was not confined to this city, as Olmu¨tz also experienced a housing crisis as more and more refugees moved to the area. See Deutsches Nordma¨hrenblatt, 17 November 1914, p. 3. MZA, B26, Kart. 2181 Posˇkozenı´ bytu˚ va´lecˇny´ch uprchliku˚, Svoboda to Polizei-Direktion in Bru¨nn, 31 May 1918. MZA, B26, Kart. 2181, praes. 3726, 30 July 1918. MZA, B26, Kart. 2181, K.k. Polizei-Direktion, Bru¨nn, No. 3726, 1 August 1918.

280

NOTES

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53 –60

51. MZA, B26 Kart. 2181, K.k. Statthalterei-Pra¨sidium fu¨r Ma¨hren, praes. 14816, 31 August 1918. 52. MZA, B26, Kart. 2181, K.k. Polizei-Direaktion to Svoboda, 11 September 1918. 53. MZA, B26, Kart. 2181, Ptacˇnı´k to Polizei-Direktion Bru¨nn, 17 August 1918. 54. MZA, B26, Kart. 2181, K.k. Polizei-Direktion, praes. 5548, 14 October 1918. 55. MZA, B26, Kart. 2181, Statthalterei-Pra¨sisidum fu¨r Ma¨hren, praes. 19486, 28 October 1918. 56. MZA, B26, Kart. 2181, Letter from Marie Fu¨rsatz and associate to K.k. Polizei-Direktion, 13 June 1918. 57. MZA, B26, Kart. 2181, Moravske´ mı´stodrzˇitelstvı´, no. 3598, 26 January 1919. 58. Znaimer Wochenblatt, 30 June 1917, p. 2. 59. MZA, B26, Kart. 2180, Repatrice va´lecˇny´ch uprchliku˚, Praes. 64.948, 24 November 1918. 60. MZA, B26, Kart. 2180, K.k. Statthalterei-Prasidium fu¨r Ma¨hren, Praes. 16666, 5 September 1917. 61. MZA, B26, Kart. 2180, praes. 10780, K.k. Statthalterei-Pra¨sidium fu¨r Ma¨hren, 17 June 1918. 62. Michael R. Marrus, The Unwanted: European Refugees from the First World War Through the Cold War, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia, 2002), p. 51. 63. Efforts were made to return refugees to some areas of Galicia and Bukovina in November 1915 after the Russian retreat, and in September 1917, efforts were made to return refugees to districts in Tyrol, the Austrian Littoral, Carinthia, and Dalmatia in part due to the increasing difficulty of providing food and accommodation in the hinterland and due to the needs for labour in these areas. See MZA, B26, Kart. 2180, Repatrice va´lecˇny´ch uprchliku˚, Praes. 64.948, 24 November 1918 and MZA, B26, Kart. 2180, K.k. StatthaltereiPrasidium fu¨r Ma¨hren, Praes. 16666, 5 September 1917. 64. Marrus, The Unwanted, pp. 61 – 8. 65. Ju¨discher Korrespondenz, 28 November 1918, p. 2.

Chapter 3 Population Displacement in the Habsburg Empire During World War I 1. Manfried Rauchensteiner, Der Tod des Doppeladlers. O¨sterreich-Ungarn und der Erste Weltkrieg (Graz – Wien – Ko¨ln, 1993); Manfried Rauchensteiner, Der Erste Weltkrieg und das Ende der Habsburgermonarchie (Ko¨ln-Weimar, 2014). This point of view characterises the great part of the military reconstructions of World War I in Austrian literature, as observed by Hermann Kuprian, ‘Flu¨chtlinge, Evakuierte und die staatliche Fu¨rsorge’, in Klaus Eisterer and Rolf Steiniger (eds), Tirol und der Erste Weltkrieg (Innsbruck-Wien, 1995),

NOTES

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281

pp. 277– 305. An exception is Pieter Judson, The Habsburg Empire. A New History (Cambridge, London, 2016). 2. Until the 1990s, this issue was only superficially discussed. For a long time, only Polish, Italian and Ukrainian literature has dealt with this theme. Postwar reports: Alcide Degasperi, ‘I Profughi in Austria’, in Gino Marzani (ed.), Il Martirio del Trentino (Milano, 1919), pp. 169 – 72; Guido Gentili, La Deputazione Trentina al Parlamento di Vienna durante la Guerra (Trento, 1920); Zygmunt Lasocki, Polacy w austrjackich Obozach Barokowych dla Ochodzco´w i Internowanych (Krako´w, 1929); Thalerhof Almanach: Talergofskij Al’manax. Propamjatnaja Kkniga Avstrijskix zˇestokostej, izuverstvi Nasilij nad KarpatoRusskim Narodom vo Vremja Vsemirnoj Vojny 1914– 1917 gg. (L’vov, 1925 –32). Recent studies: Diego Leoni and Camillo Zadra, La Citta` di Legno. Profughi Trentini in Austria 1915– 1918 (Trento, 1981); Paolo Malni, ‘Profughi Italiani in Austria: Una storia dei vinti, una storia del novecento’, in Bruna Bianchi (ed.), La Violenza Contro la Popolazione Civile nella Grande Guerra. Deportati, Profughi, Internati (Milano, 2006), pp. 233– 58; Jirˇı´ Kudela, ‘Die Emigration Galizischer Juden und Osteuropa¨ischer Juden nach Bo¨hmen und Prag Zwischen 19141916/17’, in Studia Rosenthaliana 12, no. 2 (1989), pp. 119– 34. As a consequence, the analysis is often limited to a single national experience. Austrian literature began to study this issue only in the mid1990s, when cultural analysis of the conflict became more popular in the French, English and German historiography, while the fate of civilians during the war became a subject for research. See Jay Winter and Antoine Prost, The Great War in History. Debates and Controversies, 1914 to the Present (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 6– 25; Jay Winter, Remembering War. The Great War between Memory and History in the Twentieth Century (New Haven, CT, London, 2006), p. 30. A monograph on refugees during World War I in Austria –Hungary has yet to be written. However, Austrian historians have written several articles and studies, which provide us with a good description of the matter, even though they are often restricted to single aspects of the general topic. The most original element of these studies lies in the fact that they discuss the reasons for evacuations and the role of the military authorities in the border areas. Walter Mentzel, ‘Welkriegsflu¨chtlinge in Cisleithanien 1914 – 1918’, in Gernot Heiss and Oliver Rathkolb (eds), Asylland wider Willen. Flu¨chtlinge in O¨sterreich im Europa¨ischer Kontext seit 1914 (Wien, 1996), pp. 17 – 44; Hermann Kuprian, ‘Flu¨chtlinge und Vertriebene aus den O¨sterreichisch – Iitalienischen Grenzgebieten wa¨hrend des Ersten Weltkrieges’, in Brigitte Mazohl-Wallnig and Marco Meriggi (eds), O¨sterreichisches Italien – Italienisches O¨sterreich? Interkulturelle Gemeinsamkeiten und Nationale Differenzen vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges (Wien, 1999), pp. 737–52; Beatrix Hoffmann-Holter, ‘Abreisendmachung’. Ju¨dische Kriegsflu¨chtlinge in Wien 1914 bis 1923 (Wien-Ko¨ln-Weimar, 1995); Rebekah Klein-Pejsˇova´, ‘Beyond the “Infamous Concentration Camps of the Old Monarchy”: Jewish Refugee Policy from Wartime AustriaHungary to Interwar Czechoslovakia’, in

282

3.

4.

5. 6. 7.

8.

NOTES

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60 – 62

Austrian History Yearbook 45 (2014), pp. 150 – 66; Claire Morelon, ‘L’arrive´e des re´fugie´s de Galicie en Boheˆme pendant la premie`re guerre mondiale: rencontre proble´matique et limites du patriotisme autrichien’, in Histoire@Politique 28 (2016) 1, pp. 518; Walter Mentzel, Kriegsflu¨chtlinge in Cisleithanien im Ersten Weltkrieg (PhD Diss, University of Wien, 1997); Hermann Kuprian, ‘Frondienst redivivus im XX. Jahrhundert. Arbeitszwang ¨ sterreich Wa¨hrend am Beispiel von Flucht, Vertreibung und Internierung in O des Ersten Weltkrieges’, Geschichte und Region – Storia e Regione 12, no.1 (2013), pp. 15 – 38. Christoph Fuhr, Das K.u.K. Armeeoberkommando und die Innenpolitik in O¨sterreich. 1914– 1917 (Graz-Wien-Ko¨ln, 1968); Gerd Pircher, Militari, Amministrazione e Politica in Tirolo durante la Prima Guerra Mondiale (Trento, 2005). Julie Thorpe, ‘Displacing Empire: Refugee Welfare, National Activism and State Legitimacy in Austria-Hungary in the First World War’, in Panikos Panayi and Pippa Virdee (eds), Refugees and the End of Empire. Imperial Collapse and Forced Migration in the Twentieth Century (New York, 2011), pp. 102 – 26. Brief reference to the subject also in Peter Gatrell, Philippe Nivet, ‘Refugees and exiles’, in Jay Winter (ed.), The Cambridge History of the First World War, III, Civil Society (Cambridge, 2014), pp. 186 – 216; Rebekah Klein-Pejsˇova´, ‘Between refugees and the state: Hungarian Jewry and the wartime Jewish crisis in AustriaHungary’, in Peter Gatrell and Liubov Zhvanko (eds), Europe on the Move. Refugees in the Era of the Great War (Manchester 2017), pp. 165 – 76; Martina Hermann, ‘“Cities of barracks”: refugees in the Austrian part of the Habsburg Empire during the First World War’, in Gatrell and Zhvanko, Europe on the Move, pp. 129 – 55. Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, pp. 191 – 206. For refugees in Hungary: Robert Nemes, ‘Refugees and Antisemitism in Hungary during the First World War’, in R. Nemes and D. Unowsky (eds), Sites of European Antisemitism in the Age of Mass Politics 1880– 1918 (Waltham, MA 2014), pp. 236 –54. See for example the statistics reported in K.u.K. Ministerium des Innern, Staatliche Flu¨chtlingsfu¨rsorge im Kriege 1914/15 (Wien, 1915), pp. 29– 47. Friedrich Wieser, ‘Staatliche Kulturarbeit fu¨r Flu¨chtlinge’, O¨sterreich Rundschau, 45, no. 5 (1915), p. 203. OeSTA (O¨sterreichisches Staatsarchiv), KA (Kriegsarchiv), KU¨A (Kriegsu¨berwachungsamt), Zl. 29.173/1915, estimates the number of refugees in ‘more than a million people‘. The same in Karl Stu¨rgkh, Denkschrift u¨ber die von der k. k. Regierung aus Anlass des Krieges getroffenen Maßnahmen (Wien, 1915), p. 294; the same data in Kuprian, ‘Flu¨chtlinge, Evakuierte’, p. 286, who reports the evaluations of the Home Ministry, regarding about 600,000 indigent refugees and 300,000 –400,000 well-to-do refugees in Hinterland in 1915. OeSTA, AVA (Allgemeine Verwaltungsarchiv), MdI (Ministerium des Innern), Allg., Sign. 19, Zl. 12.829, Bericht des Reichsabgeordneten Lasocki u¨ber die Flu¨chtlingsfu¨rsorge Ausstellung, 9 March 1916.

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62 –63

283

9. Cfr. Gesetz vom 31 December 1917 betreffend den Schutz der Kriegsflu¨chtlinge. RGBl. 15/1918. 10. OeSTA, AVA, Pra¨s. Varia (Pra¨sidium Varia), Zl. 61.735/17; only 121.436 on a total amount of 441,285 refugees were hailing from the southern front, but the regions of Tyrol, Krain and Ku¨stenland were still part of the ’war zone’ and the refugees living there were not counted in the statistics. 11. OeSTA, AVA, Pra¨s. Varia, Zl. 11.174/18; 198,880 of 488,974 refugees were coming from the Southern Front, and after the new refugees law of the December 1917 also the refugees living in the ‘war zone’ were annotated in the statistics. 12. OeSTA, AVA, Pra¨s. Varia, Zl. 53.103/18; 183,178 of 326,841 refugees were coming from the Southern Front. 13. In the Home Ministry statistics there are accounts of about 77,000 Ukrainians evacuated during autumn 1914 (40,000 in Lower Austria, 17,000 in Vienna, 7,000 in Ka¨rnten, 5,000 in Salzburg, 4,000 in Upper Austria, 4,000 in Tyrol). 157,000 Polish were evacuated during winter 1914–15 (15,000 in Lower Austria, 50,000 in Vienna, 50,000 in Bohemia, 10,000 in Moravia, 22,000 in Styria, 10,000 in Galicia). 309,000 Jews were evacuated or fled during the Russian invasion of 1914–15 (147,000 in Vienna, 50,000 in Bohemia, 25,000 in Moravia, 4,000 in Styria, 40,000 in Hungary, about 50,000 in Galicia); i.e., about 543,000 refugees evacuated until spring 1915 from the Eastern Front. It is to point out that during summer 1916 a new invasion of the Bukovina – called the Brusilov offensive – caused a new evacuation of about 260,000 refugees, all Jews and Ukrainians, some of them already repatriated after the first evacuation. Sources: Hoffmann-Holter, ‘Abreisendmachung’, p. 240; Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, pp. 266–70; OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg., Sign. 19, Zl. 44160/14, Unterbringung von Flu¨chtlingen,Sicherstellung von Unterku¨nften, 19 November 1914; OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg., Sign. 19, Zl. 43.882, Zusammenstellung der in den einzelnen La¨ndern aus Anlass des Kriegszustandes untergebrachten Flu¨chtlinge, 18 November 1914. 14. OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg., Sign. 19, Zl. 26.050, Evakuierung von Sarajevo, 28 May 1915; OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg., Sign. 19, Zl. 25.220, Evakuierung von Sarajevo, 27 May 1915; OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg., Sign. 19, Evakuierung von Sarajevo, 19 June 1915; OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg., Sign. 19, Zl. 59.561, Evakuierung von Su¨ddalmatiens, 31 October 1915. It is to point out that they were not considered refugees from the Austrian Home Ministry since they were not Austrian citizens. 15. About 114,000 Italians, 70,000 Slovenians, 10,000 Croatians and 7,000 Germans from South Tyrol, Ku¨stenland, Istria and Ka¨rnten. Cfr. OeSTA, AVA, Pra¨s. Varia, Karton 31, Zl. 61.735/17 and OeSTA, AVA, Pra¨s. Varia, Karton 31, Zl. 11.174/18. 16. OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Pra¨sVaria, Zl. 8914, 29 July 1914, Direktiven fu¨r den Vorgang bei der Entfernung von Zivilpersonen aus permanenten festen

284

17. 18.

19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24.

25.

NOTES

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63 –64

Pla¨tzen. See also OESTA, AVA, MdI, Pra¨s. 3/gen., Zl. 6193/1913, Protokoll vom 8 April 1913. All the city names are quoted in the German version, according to the archival documentation. All the indigent inhabitants of Lemberg and the refugees from eastern Galicia fled there until the 2 September 1914 (OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Pra¨s, Sign. 19/3, Zl. 435, 8 January 1915). 40,000 people from Czernowitz (OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Pra¨s, Sign. 19/3, Zl. 17.651, 7 December 1914). 20,000 people from Przemysl (OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Pra¨s, Sign. 19/3, Zl. 9495, Entfernung von Zivilpersonen aus der Festung Przemysl, 6.08.1914). 40,000 people evacuated in September 1914 from Krakau (OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Pra¨s, Sign. 19/3, Zl. 13.021, Evakuierung von Krakau, Flu¨chtlingstransporte, 27 September 1914) and another 90,000 people expelled in November from Krakau and the surrounding villages (OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg. Sign. 19, Zl 45.676, Evakuierung von Krakau, 4 December 1914). 23,000 people living in Riva and Trento (Tiroler Landesarchiv, Statth.-Pra¨s.,1915, 1193/1 – XII 76e, liegt bei 1916, 19 – XII 76e, Toggenburg an Karl Freiherr, Minister des Innern, 15 March 1915) and 6,000 people from Pola (OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Pra¨s, Sign. 19/3, Zl. 10.255, Evakuierung der Festung Pola, 14. December 1914). The total amount of refugees expelled from garrison cities is about 250,000 – 280,000 people. Pircher, Militari, pp. 14 – 17; Fuhr, Das K.u.K, pp. 21 – 7. OeSTA, KA, Armeeoberkommando (AOK), Q.Op. 87528, 19 August 1916, in Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, pp. 69 – 70. Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, pp. 95 – 8. OeSTA, KA, KU¨A, Zl. 4479, Eintreffen der Galizianer in Thalerhof, 12 September 1914, where the Home Ministry explains the existence of a relationship between espionage and ethnic belonging. The same opinions regarding the Italian case could be found in OeSTA, KA, KM (Kriegsministerium), Pra¨s, 1915, 53 – 2/18; OESTA, KA, MKSM, 1915, 28-3/15– 1, Memoriale dal fronte sudoccidentale, novembre 1915.TLA, Statth.-Pra¨s, 1916, 891 – XII 76 c; OESTA, KA, KM, Pra¨s, 1916, 62 – 7/5; OESTA, KA, MKSM, 1916, 28 –3/3 – 3; OESTA, AVA, MdI, 1916, Zl. 8597, Memoriale dal fronte sudoccidentale, febbraio 1916. Fritz Fellner, Schicksalsjahre O¨sterreichs 1908– 1919. Das politische Tagebuch Joseph Redlichs, Bd. 2, 1915– 1919 (Graz-Ko¨ln, 1953), pp. 262– 5. Georg Hoffmann, Nicole-Melanie Goll and Philipp Lesiak, Thalerhof 1914– 1936. Die Geschichte eine vergessenen Lagers und seiner Opfer (Herne, 2010), p. 114. Hans Hautmann, ‘Die o¨sterreichisch-ungarisch Armee auf dem Balkan’, in Franz W. Seidler and Alfred M. de Zayas (eds), Kriegsverbrechen in Europa und im Nahen Osten im 20. Jahrhundert (Hamburg-Berlin-Bonn, 2002), pp. 36 – 41. Anton Holzer, Das La¨cheln der Henker. Der unbekannte Krieg gegen die Zivilbevo¨lkerung 1914–1918 (Darmstadt, 2008), p. 75. Hoffmann-Holter, ‘Abreisendmachung’, pp. 23 – 31.

NOTES

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64 –65

285

26. Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, pp. 81 – 2 reports that 46 villages in the district of Krakau were evacuated and burned to the ground (23,000 people), plus 16 villages in the district of Podgorze (11,000 people), 24 villages in the district of Wieliczka (17,000 people), mainly on economic reasons; see also OeSTA, AVA, Allg. Sign. 19, Zl. 12.304, Evakuierung von Krakau, 23 March 1915. The same happened in the villages surrounding Przemysl, where 105 villages were evacuated and 44 razed. See Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, p. 53. 27. OeSTA, KA, KU¨A, ZL. 79478, 11 June 1916, Evakuierung der Zivilbevo¨lkerung; OESTA, AVA, MdI, Allg, sign. 19, Zl, 16522, 01 April 1916, Evakuierten Transporte aus Ostgalizien; Unterbringung in Bo¨hmen; see also Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, pp. 113– 17, and Kuprian, ‘Frondienst redivivus’, p. 19. 28. OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Pra¨s, sign. 19/3, Zl. 10888, Lage in Su¨dtirol, 25 May 1915; OESTA, AVA, MdI, 1916, Zl. 13508, 9 May 1916, Comando del 178 Corpo al capo di Stato maggiore, in Pircher, Militari, p. 45. 29. Claudio Ambrosi, Vite internate. Katzenau 1915– 1917 (Trento, 2008) and Pircher, Militari, p. 40. 30. TLA, Statth. Pra¨s, 1916, XII, 76e, Ra¨umung von Su¨dtirol, Zl. 2459/86, Bezirkshauptmann Borgo an Statt. Tirol, Evakuierung: Auswahl von Arbeitern, 3 June 1915.OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Pra¨s, sign. 19/3, Zl. 2324, Note des K.u.K. Armeeoberkommandos an der k.k. Ministerpra¨sidenten, 21 January 1915. OeSTA, KA, KM, Abt. 10, Zl. 8223, Arbeiterabteilungen aus evakuierter Bevo¨lkerung Galiziens, 22 September 1914. 31. OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Pra¨s, sign. 19/3, Zl. 11199, 31 May 1915, Evakuierung su¨dlicher Grenzgebiete. 32. TLA, Statth.-Pra¨s., 1915, 1193 – XII 76 e, liegt bei 1012 – XII 76c2, Franz Rohr an Mil. Kdo Innsbruck, 7.4.1915; OESTA, AVA, MdI, Pra¨s, sign. 19/3, 1915, Zl. 7975, 19 April 1915, Evakuierung von Pola, Triest und Su¨dtirol. 33. Leoni and Zadra, La Citta` di Legno, p. 19; OESTA, AVA, MdI, Pra¨s, sign. 19/3, 1915, Zl. 10888/1915, 24 May 1915, Statth. Innsbruck an Min. des Innern. This documents reports that the evacuation reached ‘infolge neuerlicher Verfu¨gungen der Milita¨rbeho¨rde eine den urspru¨nglichen Plan u¨berschreitende Ausdehnung’. 34. Haus der Abgeordneten, Stenographische Protokolle, XXII Session am 12. Juli 1917, Degasperi’s speech. 35. OeSTA, AVA, Pra¨s, Sign. 19/3, Zl. 16.053, 11 November 1914, and Mentzel, ‘Weltkriegsflu¨chtlinge’, p. 22. 36. Mentzel, ‘Weltkriegsflu¨chtlinge’, p. 22; Fuhr, Das K.u.K, p. 110. 37. OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Pra¨s, Sign. 19/3, Zl. 12.240, Ergebnis der Beratung in Angelegenheit der Fu¨rsorge fu¨r galizische Flu¨chtlinge, 13 September 1914; NOeLA (Niedero¨sterreich Landesarchiv), Sign. 9, XII, Zl. 874/K, Sitzung im o¨sterreichischen Innenministerium am 13 September 1914.

286

NOTES

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65 –67

38. Haus der Abgeordneten, Stenographische Protokolle, XXIX Session am 10. Oktober 1917, Halban’s speech; Mentzel, ‘Weltkriegsflu¨chtlinge’, p. 25; 39. Train stations where a commission examined the refugees trains, dividing the refugees in groups on the base of their nationality, religion and income. 40. Mentzel, ‘Weltkriegsflu¨chtlinge’, p. 27. 41. Kuprian, ‘Frondienst redivivusi’, p. 34. For example, in the concentration camp of Mitterndorf, of 10,581 refugees, 4,351 were women and 4,002 children under 14 years, as reported by Leoni and Zadra, La Citta` di Legno, p. 81. 42. See Mentzel, ’Welkriegsflu¨chtlinge’, p. 30; in four months in 1915, about 725 of 10,000 refugees perished in Chotzen; in Gmu¨nd 90 refugees died every day in November 1914, of a total of 25,000 refugees; in Steinklamm, in two months at the end of 1915, of 6,000 refugees 504 children under ten years died. The statistical data of the other concentration camps describes a similar situation until the Summer 1916. 43. Kaiserliche Verordnung vom 11 August 1914, RGBl. 1914 Nr. 213, betreffend den Schutz der zu Zwecken der Kriegsfu¨hrung aus ihrem Aufenthaltsorte zwangsweise entfernten Zivilpersonen, § 6. 44. OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Pra¨s., sign. 19/3, Zl. 10256, 20 May 1915, Statth.-Pra¨s Mahren an Min. des Innern, Staats- und Sicherheitspolizeiliche Sondernmaßnahmen wegen der galizischen Flu¨chtlinge. 45. Kuprian, ‘Frondienst redivivus’, p. 22. 46. OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg. Sign. 19, Zl. 5754/15, 16 February 1915, Erlass des MdI.OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg., sign. 19. Zl. 6360/16, 17 February 1916, Erlass des MdI. 47. Mentzel, ‘Weltkriegsflu¨chtlinge’, p. 30; Kuprian, ‘Frondienst redivivus’, p. 21. 48. NO¨LA (Niedero¨sterreich Landesarchiv), Sign. P, XII a, Zl. 3004/1915, Italienische Flu¨chtlinge aus Su¨dtirol, Go¨rz und Gradisca; Unterbringung. 49. OeSTA, AVA, MdI, All. 19, ZL. 56085/15, Bezirkshauptmann Braunau an Statth. Pra¨s. Linz, (Zl. 15503, 5 October 1915), Betreff: Flu¨chtlingsfu¨rsorge. 50. Haus der Abgeordneten, Stenographische Protokolle, XXII Session am 12. Juli 1917, Degasperi’s speech. 51. OeSTA, KA, Ministerialkommision (MK), Zl. 7429, 13 December 1917, Hintanhaltung von Zeitungsangriffen gegen die Flu¨chtlingfu¨rsorge. 52. OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg., sign. 19, Zl. 6268/18, 28 January 1918, Ta¨tigkeitsbericht der Niedero¨sterreichischen Statthalterei; Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, pp. 326– 33; Kuprian, ‘Frondienst redivivus’, p. 35. For example, in the concentration camp of Mitterndorf 3,271 of 11,677 inmates were employed in 1917. NOLA, Statt. Pra¨s, Sign. P, XIIb, 1917, Nr. 707– 5, Organisation der Verpflegungsdienstes in n.o¨ Flu¨chtlingslagern, Besprechung, Tabelle II, Verpflegung. 53. See, for example, OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Pra¨s, sign. 19/3, Zl. 9056, 1 May 1915, Evakuierung von Pola, Triest und Ku¨stengebiet sowie Su¨dtirol.

NOTES

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67 –69

287

54. Haus der Abgeordneten, Stenographische Protokolle, XXII Session am 12. July 1917, Degasperi’s speech. 55. OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg., Sign. 19, Zl. 12.829/16, Bericht des Reichsabgeordneten Lasocki u¨ber die Flu¨chtlingsfu¨rsorgeausstellung, 9 March 1916, where the Home Ministry declared that keeping the refugees in concentration camps cost the State much more than subsidising the refugees displaced in villages (about 2.5 times more expensive). 56. Mentzel, ‘Weltkriegsflu¨tlinge’, p. 29. OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg. Sign. 19, Zl. 45.164/14, 30 November 1914, Erweiterung der Fu¨rsorgeaktion fu¨r die Flu¨ chtlinge aus Galizien und der Bukowina; Hinthalutung einer nachteiligen Beeinflussung der Stimmung der Bevo¨lkerung durch die Flu¨chtlinge. 57. OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg., sign. 19, Zl. 11.854/14, 15 September 1914, Instruktion betreffend die Befo¨rderung und Unterbringung von Flu¨chtlingen aus Galizien und der Bukowina. 58. OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg., sign. 19, Zl. 6268/18, 28 January 1918, Ta¨tigkeitsbericht der Niedero¨sterreichischen Statthalterei; Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, pp. 326– 33; Kuprian, ‘Frondienst redivivus’, p. 35. 59. Friedrich Ritter von Wiser, ‘Staatliche Kulturarbeit fu¨r Flu¨chtlinge’, O¨sterreichische Rundschau, 45, no. 5 (1915), pp. 203 –11, says that during 1915 about 135,000 refugees were recruited as workers in concentration camps. 60. Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, pp. 211 – 12. 61. Ibid. 62. Hofmann-Holter, ‘Abreisendmachung’, p. 49, reports for the assistance of the war refugees during the war total costs of 2,243 million kroner, i.e., about 2 per cent of the Austrian war costs, according to Wilhelm Winkler, Die Einkommenverschiebungen in O¨sterreich wa¨hrend des Weltkrieges (Wien, 1930), p. 273. 63. Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, pp. 347– 55; see OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg., Sign. 19, Zl. 6900, Flu¨chtlingsfu¨rsorge, Evidenz der lokalen Hilfskomitees, 22 February 1915, which describes the existence of hundreds of private welfare associations. 64. NO¨LA, Sign. P, XII a, Zl. 3004/1915, Italienische Flu¨chtlinge aus Su¨dtirol, Go¨rz und Gradisca; Unterbringung. 65. Mentzel, ’Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, pp. 234 –53. Quinto Antonelli, Scritture di guerra, 4 (Trento, 1996), p. 117; Quinto Antonelli, I dimenticati della Grande guerra. La Mmemoria dei CcombattentiT trentini 1914– 1920 (Trento, 2008), p. 29. 66. Mentzel, ’Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, p. 305. 67. Quinto Antonelli, Scritture di guerra 4 (Trento, 1996); Quinto Antonelli, Scritture di guerra 5 (Trento, 1997). 68. OeSTA, KA, (MK) Ministerialkommision, Zl. 7429, 13 December 1917, Hintanhaltung von Zeitungsangriffen gegen die Flu¨chtlingfu¨rsorge.

288

NOTES

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69 –71

69. Hoffmann-Holter, ‘Abreisendmachung’ pp. 123– 38. 70. NO¨LA, Sign. P, Zl. 968/315, 21 October 1914; Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, p. 273. 71. Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, pp. 310 – 11. 72. Mentzel, ‘Weltkriegsflu¨chtlinge’, p. 38. 73. See Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, p. 409. OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg., Sign. 19, Zl. 19.384, Flu¨chtlinge aus Galizien in Wien, Zwangsweise Repatrierung, 14 May 1917. OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg., Sign. 19, Zl. 53.038, Flu¨chtlingsfu¨rsorge, Unterbringung in Schlesien, 09 August 1917. 74. Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, pp. 391 – 2. 75. Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, p. 400. 76. OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Allg., Sign. 19, Zl. 37.216, Erlass des Ministerium des ¨ A, Zl. 115.862, Innern, 11 July 1915; the same rules in OeSTA, KA, KU 6 August 1917. 77. Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, pp. 388 – 412. 78. For example, OeSTA, KA, ZTL (Zentraltransportleitung), Zl. 15.093, Heimkehr der Flu¨chtlinge in die Bukowina. Generelle Regelung, 19 April 1918. 79. Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, p. 406. 80. Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, pp. 413 – 19. 81. OeSTA, AVA, MdI, Pra¨s. Varia, Zl. 59.921/18. 82. ADR (Archiv der Republik), BKA (Bundeskanzleramt), SdI (Staatsamt des Innern), Sign. 19, Zl. 79/1918, Aufnahmeschrift u¨ber die am 19. November 1918 im Sitzungsaal des Staatsamtes des Inneren abgehaltenen Besprechung betreffend die Flu¨chtlingsfu¨rsorge in Deutscho¨sterreich. 83. For the Italian refugees see for example the documentation of FMST (Fondazione Museo Storico in Trento), Arch. NN, b. 1, f. 1, Relazione sull’opera svolta dal Governatorato di Trento dall’11 febbraio al 30 aprile 1919; Francesco Frizzera, ‘Il rimpatrio dei profughi trentini dalle regioni interne dell’Austria-Ungheria. Un processo pluriennale, specchio delle difficolta` economiche di un Impero’, in Studi Trentini. Storia 94 (2015) n. 2, pp. 413–47. 84. Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, pp. 434– 5; Ulriche von Hischhausen, ‘From imperial inclusion to national exclusion: citizenship in the Habsburg monarchy and in Austria 1867– 1923’, in European Review of History: Revue europe´enne d’histoire 16 (1009), n. 4, p. 559; Margarete Grandner, ‘Staatsbu¨rger ¨ sterreichs mit den ju¨dischen Flu¨chtlingen und Ausla¨nder, Zum Umgang O nach 1918’, in Gernot Heiss and Oliver Rathkolb (eds), Asylland wider Willen. Flu¨chtlinge in O¨sterreich im europa¨ischer Kontext seit 1914 (Wien – Mu¨nchen, 1995), pp. 60 – 85 85. Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflu¨chtlinge’, p. 429; Marsha Rozenblit, Reconstructing a National Identity: The Jews of Habsburg Austria During World War I (Oxford, 2001).

NOTES

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73 –77

289

Chapter 4 Italian –Austrian Prisoners of War and Italian Political and Military Involvement in the Eastern Front During World War I 1. The research for this article would have not been possible without the contribution of the Fondazione Caritro in Trento that granted me a postdoctoral scholarship. To them and the University of Trento goes my appreciation. 2. On this topic see: Leonardo Malatesta, La Guerra dei Forti (Chiari (Brescia), 2003). 3. Estimates change between 80,000 and 100,000 Italian-speaking soldiers. The figures are still not clear and further information as well as hints on how estimates were built can be found in: Hans Heiss, ‘I Soldati Trentini nella Prima Guerra Mondiale. Un Metodo di Determinazione Numerica’ in Gianluigi Fait (ed.) Sui Campi di Galizia (1914 – 1917). Gli Italiani d’Austria e il Fronte Orientale: Uomini Popoli Culture nella Guerra Europea (Rovereto, 1997). 4. Reinhard Nachtigal, Kriegsgefangenschaft an Der Ostfront 1914 Bis 1918: Literaturbericht zu Einem Neuen Forschungsfeld (Frankfurt am Main, 2005), pp. 79 – 80. 5. Ibid., p. 41. 6. Alon Rachamimov, POWs and the Great War (Oxford, 2002), p. 89. 7. Ibid., pp. 57 – 8. 8. Reinhard Nachtigal, Rußland und Seine O¨sterreichisch – Ungarischen Kriegsgefangenen (1914 – 1918) (Remshalden, 2003), p. 30. On the history of the Czech Legion see: Joan McGuire Mohr, The Czech and Slovak Legion in Siberia, 1917– 1922 (Jefferson, NC, 2012). 9. Luisa Pachera, La Marchesa Gemma Guerrieri Gonzaga Nata de Gresti di San. Leonardo (Rovereto, 2008), pp. 59 – 64. 10. Marina Rossi, I Prigionieri dello Zar (Milano, 1997), p. 45; Quinto Antonelli, I Dimenticati della Grande Guerra. La Memoria dei Soldati Trentini (1914 – 1920) (Trento, 2008), p. 186. 11. Archivio Centrale dello Stato – Central State Archive (ACS), Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri – Chief of Government (PCM), Ufficio Nuove Province – Office for the new provinces (NP) 142, Letter of Ministero Affari Esteri (MAE) to Presidente del Consiglio (PdC), Rome, 8 September 1916. 12. Pachera, La Marchesa Gemma Guerrieri Gonzaga Nata de Gresti di San Leonardo, pp. 77 – 9. See also: Antonelli, I Dimenticati della Grande Guerra. La Memoria Dei Soldati Trentini (1914 – 1920), pp. 186– 90. 13. ACS PCM NP 142, Letter of MAE to PdC, Rome, 8 September 1916. 14. Antonelli, I Dimenticati della Grande Guerra, pp. 187– 90. Rossi, I Prigionieri dello Zar, pp. 84 – 8. On October 1915, however, 1,100 prisoners manifested their will to fight for Italy: ACS PCM NP 98, Letter of the Italian ambassador in Russia to MAE, St Petersburg, 20 October 1915.

290

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78 – 81

15. Pachera, La Marchesa Gemma Guerrieri Gonzaga Nata de Gresti Di San Leonardo, p. 102. 16. Antonelli, I Dimenticati Della Grande Guerra. La Memoria Dei Soldati Trentini (1914 – 1920), p. 94. 17. ACS PCM NP 98, Letter of MAE to PdC, 4August 1916; ACS PCM NP 98, Letter of MAE to PdC, 8 September 1916. 18. Pachera, La Marchesa Gemma Guerrieri Gonzaga Nata de Gresti di San Leonardo, p. 113. ACS PCM NP 98, Letter of the Italian ambassador in Russia to MAE, St Petersburg, 2 February 1916 ACS PCM NP 98, Letter of MAE to PdC, Roma, 26 April 1916. 19. Rossi, I Prigionieri Dello Zar, pp. 54–7; Antonelli, I Dimenticati Della Grande Guerra, pp. 209– 12. 20. ACS PCM NP 98, Letter of the Economic Union for the new provinces to PdC, Rome, 7 December 1917 21. Rachamimov, POWs and the Great War, p. 5. 22. Nachtigal, Kriegsgefangenschaft an der Ostfront 1914 Bis 1918, pp. 24 –5. 23. Clifford Kinvig, Churchill’s Crusade: The British Invasion of Russia, 1918– 1920 (London, 2006), pp. 5– 11. 24. Ibid., p. 57. 25. Francesco Randazzo, Alle Origini dello Stato Sovietico: Missioni Militari e Corpi di Spedizione Italiani in Russia (1917 – 1921), Documenti per La Storia dell’Europa (Roma, 2008), pp. 72 – 6. 26. Ibid., pp. 76 – 7. ACS PCM NP 98, Memorandum of MAE, no date: besides reporting the presence of former prisoners in China that will be repatriated through the USA, the memorandum stressed that only a few may be considered unfit for repatriation and that volunteers may be conscripted in the Expeditionary Corps of the Far East. 27. ACS PCM NP 141, Report of Manera to Ministero della Guerra (MDG), Vladivostok 1 September 1919. 28. Kinvig, Churchill’s Crusade, pp. 57 – 9. For an overview on the different expeditions operating in Siberia, see also: Benjamin Isitt, From Victoria to Vladivostok: Canada’s Siberian Expedition, 1917 – 19, Studies in Canadian Military History (Vancouver [u.a.], 2010); Robert L. Willett, Russian Sideshow: America’s Undeclared War 1918 – 1920 (Washington, DC, 2003); Victor Miroslav Fic, The Collapse of American Policy in Russia and Siberia, 1918: Wilson’s Decision Not to Intervene (March – October, 1918), East European Monographs. Boulder, CO: Social Science Monographs, 1971 – 411 (Boulder, 1995); Mohr, The Czech and Slovak Legion in Siberia, 1917 – 1922. 29. ACS PCM NP 141, Report of Manera to MDG, Vladivostok 1 September 1919. 30. Rachamimov, POWs and the Great War, pp. 152– 3 and 193. 31. ACS PCM NP 98, Undated memorandum about the political situation in Austria following the return of war prisoners from Russia.

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81 –82

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32. ACS PCM NP 141, Report of Manera to MDG, Vladivostok 1 September 1919. The Legione Redenta included several groups and companies in Cornostai, Krasnoiarsk, Blagoviescenek, Novo Nikolaievsk, Irkutsk, Omsk, Tomskand Harbin. A detailed description is in: ACS PCM NP 141, Report on the structure and equipment of the Legione, by Cosma Manera, undated. 33. About the political and economic situation of the new Italian provinces, see: Ester Capuzzo, ’Dall’amministrazione Militare All’ordinamento Italiano. Trento e Trieste Tra il 1919 e il 1922’, Clio 2 (1987), pp. 231 – 70; Angelo Visintin, ’Occupazione Militare e Accelerazione delle DinamichePolitiche nella Venezia Giulia del Primo Dopoguerra’, Acta Histriae, no. 20 (2012), pp. 445 – 58; Angelo Moioli, Ricostruzione Post-Bellica e Interventi dello Stato Nell’economia della Venezia Tridentina (Trento, 1987). 34. This differentiation in the administration of demobilisation can be seen by generally looking at the sources of the civilian commissioner for the Venezia Giulia and the archival records of the Legione Trentina. It must be observed, however, that the archival records of the military and civilian administration in Trento are lost. Some analysis has been done thanks to some reports and correspondence found in the Central State Archive in the collection of the office for the new provinces (PCM NP). On the other hand, the records of veterans’ and patriotic organisations in Venezia Giulia are widely incomplete. However, we can indirectly argue that they did not play an important role in the repatriation and demobilisation for two reasons: first, there are several requests for information from families of prisoners originating from the Venezia Giulia addressed to the organisations in Trentino (Legione Trentina and Associazione Reduci di Russia); second, unlike the subjects in Trentino, who corresponded constantly with the central government, there is no evidence of similar exchanges in Venezia Giulia in the records of the State Archive in Rome. 35. This happened, for instance, to a group of former Austrian soldiers who surrendered to the Italian Army in the Balkans after the end of the war: Fondazione Museo Storico di Trento – Historical Museum of Trento (FMST), Fondo Legione Trentina (LT) 8, Letter of a group of prisoners to Cesare Berti, the official responsible for assistance to veterans, Isernia, 3 January 1919. 36. ACS PCM NP 141, Letter of Cosma Manera to Italian high command (office for civilian affairs), Vladivostok, 1 October 1919; attached a list ‘A’ including prisoners to be repatriated soon and a list ‘B’ including those who had to stay in Russia (list B is missing). This list refers to the period 15 July – 30 September. Other lists referring to other periods may be found in the same archival unit. 37. ACS PCM NP 141, Letter of the high command (office for civilian affairs) to the Italian mission in Vladivostok, Padua, 11 December 1919; the letter reports a list of names sent by the governor of Trieste the high command; ACS PCM NP 141, Letter from the command of the inter-allied occupational force

292

38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47.

48.

NOTES

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in Fiume to the Italian high command (office for civilian affairs), Fiume, 11 July 1919. ACS PCM NP 142, Letter of MAE to PdC, Rome, 8 September1916. ACS PCM NP 141, Letter of Cosma Manera to MDG SM, Trieste, 24 April 1920; attached are lists of repatriated prisoners. ACS PCM NP 142, Letter of the Foreign Minister to the NP office, Rome, 27 January 1921. ACS PCM NP 98, Undated memorandum about the political situation in Austria following the return of war prisoners from Russia. It was a civilian organisation born after a project of marchioness Gemma Guerrieri Gonzaga, a noblewoman from Trentino who from 1914 was active in providing help and assistance to Italian prisoners in Russia and in promoting actions by the government for their release. For a general history of this organisation, see: Pachera, La Marchesa Gemma Guerrieri Gonzaga Nata de Gresti Di San Leonardo. ACS PCM NP 142, Letter of Manera to NP, Rome, 24 July 1921. ACS PCM NP 141, Letter of Bruno Bonfioli, counsellor by provincial office for veterans’ affairs to Foreign Minister, Trento, 8 September 1920. ACS PCM NP 141, Letter of MDG to NP, Rome, 25 November 1920; ACS PCM NP 142, Letter of Manera to NP, 16 August 1920; ACS PCM NP 141, Letter of NP to provincial office for veterans’ affairs, Rome, 15 October 1920. ACS PCM NP 141, Letter of NP to the civilian governor of the Venezia Giulia, Rome, 14 June 1921; ACS PCM NP 142, Letter of Manera to NP, Rome, 24 July 1921. ACS PCM NP 141, Letter of the provincial office for veterans’ affairs to NP, Trento, 31 March 1921; ACS PCM NP 141, Letter of the Russian commercial delegation in Italy to the Italian Red Cross committee, Rome, 28 April 1921; ACS PCM NP 141, Letter of the Italian Red Cross committee to the Foreign Minister, Rome, 19 April 1921. The Russian delegation accused the Italian government of illegal surveillance and detention of Russian citizens on the suspicion of being revolutionary elements. In the same period the Italian authorities proved to be very negligent in fighting anti-socialist violence and even supporting it. See, for example: Angelo Ventrone, La Seduzione Totalitaria. Guerra, Modernita` e Violenza Politica (1914–1918) (Roma, 2001); Fabio Fabbri, Le Origini Della Guerra Civile. L’Italia Dalla Grande Guerra al Fascismo (Torino, 2009). ACS PCM NP 141, Letter of the provincial office for veterans’ affairs to the Foreign Minister, Trento, 30 September 1920; ACS PCM NP 141, Letter of the civil governor of Trento, Credaro, to MDG, Trento, 7 November 1920; ACS PCM NP 141, Letter of the provincial office for veterans’ affairs to the Foreign Minister, Trento, 22 October 1920. ACS PCM NP 141, Letter of the provincial office for veterans’ affairs to the Foreign Minister, Trento, 15 July 1921; ACS PCM NP 141, Letter of Manera to NP, Turin, 21 August 1921; ACS PCM NP 142, Letter of the Foreign Minister to NP, Rome, 20 May 1922; ACS PCM NP 142, Letter of NP to the Foreign Minister, Rome, 30 May 1922.

NOTES

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49. FMST LT 5, Communication of Mussolini to the prefect of Trento, Rome, 16 November 1922. 50. See: Verena Moritz, ‘Prigionieri Russi, Prigionieri in Russia: Detenzione, Tradimento e Spionaggio nella Percezione e nelle Strategie dei Servizi Segreti Austroungarici (1914 – 1918)’, in Diacronie 4 (2016). (Translated from the original German by Alessandro Salvador) http://www.studistorici.com/2016/ 12/29/moritz_numero_28/.

Chapter 5 Violence, Destruction and Resistance: Serbia’s and Montenegro’s Experiences of the Great War 1. For a detailed account, see: Alan Kramer, Dynamics of Destruction, Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War (The Making of Modern World) (New York, 2007). Although Kramer does not focus on the events in the Balkans, his interpretation of the violent nature of World War I helps understand the destructive nature of contemporary warfare. 2. Petar Opacˇic´, ‘Ratni plan austrougarskog generalsˇtaba za rat protiv Srbije i ratni plan srpskog generalsˇtaba za odbranu zemlje od austrougarske agresije’, in Vasa Cˇubrilovic´ (ed.), Velike sile i Srbija pred Prvi svetski rat, Zbornik radova prikazanih na medunarodnom naucˇnom skupu Srpske akademije nauka u umetnosti odrzˇanom 13 – 15. septembra 1974. u Beogradu, Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti (Beograd, 1976), p. 517. 3. John Schindler, ‘Disaster on the Drina: The Austro – Hungarian army in Serbia, 1914’, War in History 9/2 (2002), pp. 159– 95, here 166. 4. Chetniks is the colloquial name for members of Serbian irregular units that were active in all conflicts during the twentieth century. Chetnik means a member of a cheta which comes from Serbian word cˇetovanje which means guerrillla activities, or fighting in small units. For more on chetniks, see: Dmitar Tasic´, ‘Chetniks’, in 1914– 1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universita¨t Berlin, Berlin 2014-10-08. DOI: 10.15463/ie1418.10012. 5. The last war Austro – Hungarian military had been involved in prior to 1914 was against Prussia in 1866 when at Ko¨niggra¨tz they fought the last great battle prior to World War I. 6. Kristijan Mario Ortner, ‘Rat protiv Srbije 1914. i 1915. (Pogled iz Austrije)’, in Vojnoistorijski glasnik 1 (2010), pp. 111– 32, here 119. 7. K. Ortner, ‘Rat protiv Srbije 1914. i 1915. (Pogled iz Austrije)’ pp. 114– 15. The Serbian Army was divided into three so-called lines according to the age of its conscripts: first line, age 21 to 31; second line, age 31 to 38; third line, age 39 to 45. 8. Kramer, Dynamics of Destruction, Appendix – Hague Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land (1907), p. 347. 9. K. Ortner, ‘Rat protiv Srbije 1914. i 1915. (Pogled iz Austrije)’ p. 118.

294

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91 – 95

10. Ferenz Pollmann, ‘Austro– Hungarian atrocities against Serbians during the WWI (Sˇabac, 17th of August, 1914)’, in Milan Terzic´ (ed.), Prvi svetski rat i Balkan – 90 godina kasnije, Institut za strategijska istrazˇivanja (Beograd, 2011), pp. 133– 41. Although the actual event was the cause for official investigation, the main goal of the inquiry and process itself resulted from the contemporary Austrian regime’s wish to capitalise on the widespread feelings of anti-militarism and to discredit the ancien re´gime. A legally authorised Commission of Inquiry had been established in order to investigate cases in which military (read: high-ranking army officers) were suspected of violating laws of war during World War I. 11. Rodolphe Archibald Reiss, Report upon the Atrocities committed by the Austro– Hungarian Army during the first Invasion of Serbia, Simpkin (London, 1916), pp. 141–6. 12. R. A. Reiss, Report upon the Atrocities committed by the Austro – Hungarian Army, p. 144. 13. The practice of taking hostages among the population of occupied territories was widespread throughout the history. The main goal was to secure obedience and loyalty of the locals; however, according to the Hague Conventions (Section 3, On Military Authority over Hostile Territory) ‘No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, can be inflicted on the population on account of the acts of individuals for which it cannot be regarded as collectively responsible.’ 14. R. A. Reiss, Report upon the Atrocities committed by the Austro – Hungarian Army, pp. 141 –6. 15. Reiss, Report upon the Atrocities committed by the Austro – Hungarian Army, p. 145. 16. Ibid., p. 33. 17. Ibid., p. 147. 18. Ðorde Stankovic´, ‘Kako je Jugoslavija pocˇela’, in Milan Terzic´ (ed.), Prvi svetski rat i Balkan – 90 godina kasnije, Institut za strategijska istrazˇivanja (Beograd, 2011), pp. 232– 46, here 236. 19. Dusˇica Bojic´, ‘Srpske izbeglice u Prvom svetskom ratu’, in Milan Terzic´ (ed.), Prvi svetski rat i Balkan – 90 godina kasnije, Institut za strategijska istrazˇivanja (Beograd, 2011), pp. 148 – 60, here 150. 20. Andrej Mitrovic´, Serbia’s Great War 1914– 1918 (London, 2007). p. 111. 21. Slobodan Ðukic´, ‘Austrougarski ratni zarobljenici u Srbiji 1914– 1915. godine’, in Milan Terzic´ (ed.), Prvi svetski rat i Balkan – 90 godina kasnije, Institut za strategijska istrazˇivanja (Beograd, 2011), pp. 142– 7, here 145 – 6. 22. Dmitar Tasic´, ‘Warfare 1914– 1918 (South East Europe)’, in Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer and Bill Nasson (eds), 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, issued by Freie Universita¨t Berlin, Berlin 2014-10-08. DOI: http://dx. doi.org/10.15463/ie1418.10366. 23. D. Bojic´, ‘Srpske izbeglice u Prvom svetskom ratu’, p. 149. 24. A. Mitrovic´, Serbia’s Great War, pp. 64 – 6. 25. Ð. Stankovic´, ‘Kako je Jugoslavija pocˇela’, pp. 232 – 3.

NOTES

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26. Ð. Stankovic´, ‘Kako je Jugoslavija pocˇela’, p. 237. 27. Andrej Mitrovic´, Ustanicˇke borbe u Srbiji 1916– 1918, Srpska knjizˇevna zadruga (Beograd, 1987). pp. 34 –40. 28. Tamara Scheer, ‘Forces and force; Austria – Hungary’s occupation regime in Serbia during the First World War’, in Milan Terzic´ (ed.), Prvi svetski rat i Balkan – 90 godina kasnije, Institut za strategijska istrazˇivanja (Beograd, 2011), pp. 161– 79, here 163. 29. Bogdan Trifunovic´, ‘Prisoners of War and Internees (South East Europe)’, in Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer and Bill Nasson (eds), 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, issued by Freie Universita¨t Berlin, Berlin 2014-10-08. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15463/ie1418.10132. 30. Milan Ristovic´, ‘Occupation during and after the War (South East Europe)’, in Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer and Bill Nasson (eds), 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, issued by Freie Universita¨t Berlin, Berlin 2014-10-08. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15463/ie1418.10481. 31. M. Ristovic´, ‘Occupation during and after the War (South East Europe)’. 32. Arhiv Jugoslavije, Ministarstvo unutrasˇnjih poslova Kraljevine Jugoslavije 14, fascikla 2, Izvesˇtaj o bugarskim zlocˇinima u Surdulici 07/20 December 1918. 33. B. Trifunovic´, ‘Prisoners of War and Internees (South East Europe)’. 34. Ð. Stankovic´, ‘Kako je Jugoslavija pocˇela’, p. 236. 35. M. Ristovic´, ‘Occupation during and after the War (South East Europe)’. 36. Ibid. 37. Ð. Stankovic´, ‘Kako je Jugoslavija pocˇela’, p. 236. 38. Ðorde Borozan, ‘Crna Gora u Prvom svjetskom ratu – sudbina jednog saveznisˇtva’, in Milan Terzic´ (ed.), Prvi svetski rat i Balkan – 90 godina kasnije, Institut za strategijska istrazˇivanja (Beograd, 2011), pp. 224– 31, here 230. 39. ‘Naredba Vrhovnog komandanta vojske’, Politika, no. 4359 from 3 April 1920, p. 2; the official proclamation of demobilisation was made on 31 March 1920, when Prince Regent Alexander Karadordevic´, as Supreme Commander of the newly created armed forces, expressed his gratitude to his ‘comrades in arms’, allowing them to return to their houses and families, thus ending their war engagement. 40. Robert Gerwarth, The Vanquished; Why the First World War Failed to End 1917– 1923, Allen Lane (London, 2016), pp. 4 – 5

Chapter 6 ‘We’re Half-way to Asia Here’: The Conduct of the German Army Units on the Eastern Front in 1914 and 1939 1. The following text is a revised and supplemented version of my article Armia niemiecka za granica˛ wschodnia˛ w 1914 i 1939 r. – podobien´stwa i ro´z˙nice, in:

296

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

NOTES

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A. Olejko, J. S´lipiec, P. Korzeniowski and K. Mroczkowski (eds), Kresy, granice i pogranicza w polskiej historii wojskowej (Os´wie˛cim 2014), pp. 501– 8. W. Bortnowski, Ziemia Ło´dzka w ogniu: 1 VIII – 6 XII 1914 rok (Ło´dz´, 1969). L. Engelstein, ‘“A Belgium of Our Own”. The Sack of Russian Kalisz, August 1914’, Kritika. Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 10/3 (2009), pp. 441 –73. N. Stone, The Eastern Front 1914– 1917 (London, 1998). See M. Wrzosek, Polski czyn zbrojny podczas pierwszej wojny s´wiatowej 1914– 1918 (Warszawa, 1990). J. Bo¨hler, Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu w Polsce (Krako´w, 2009); the original title of the German edition is Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg: Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939 (Bonn, 2006). Mu¨lmann, Mohs, Geschichte des Lehr-Infanterie-Regiments und seiner Stammformationen (Zeulenroda, 1935), p. 69. M. von Gallwitz, Meine Fu¨hrerta¨tigkeit im Weltkriege 1914/1916. Belgien-OstenBalkan (Berlin, 1929), p. 47 ‘Half-Asia’ – Halbasien – was a term coined by a popular Austrian author writing about his travels in the borderlands of Russia, Austria – Hungary and Romania. K. E. Franzos, Aus Halb-Asien. Culturbilder aus Galizien, der Bukowina, Su¨drußland und Rumanien, Bd. 1-2 (Leipzig, 1876). J. Steuer, Das Infanterie-Regiment Generalfeldmarschall von Mackensen (3. Westpreussisches) Nr. 129 im Weltkriege (Oldenburg-Berlin, 1925), p. 50. H. Plickert, Das 2. Ermla¨ndische Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 151 im Weltkriege (Oldenburg-Berlin, 1929), p. 74. H. von Selle and W. Gru¨ndel, Das 6. Westpreußische Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 149 im Weltkriege (Berlin, 1929), p. 72; W. Meyer, Das Infanterie-Regiment von Grolman (1. Posensches) Nr. 18 im Weltkriege (Oldenburg-Berlin, 1929), p. 33. von Gallwitz, Meine Fu¨hrerta¨tigkeit, p. 47. A. Richter, Das 2. Thu¨ring. Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 32 (Zeulenroda, 1928), p. 37. Geschichte des 1. Ermla¨ndischen Infanterie-Regiments Nr. 150, Teil 1 (Zeulenroda, 1932), p. 347. Ibid., p. 348. V. G. Liulevicius, Kriegsland im Osten. Eroberung, Kolonisierung und Milita¨rherrschaft im Ersten Weltkrieg (Hamburg, 2002), pp. 23 – 4. W. Preusser, Das 9. Westpreußische Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 176 im Weltkrieg (Berlin, 1931), p. 59. Bundesarchiv-Milita¨rarchiv, Freiburg (BA-MA), N710/54, Nachlaß Gallwitz, Garde-Reserve-Korps, Tagesbefehl, 20 September, 1914. T. von Brederlow, Geschichte des 1. Garde-Reserve-Regiments (Oldenburg-Berlin, 1929), p. 43. H. Riemann, and W. Wernick, Geschichte des 1. Thu¨r. Feldartillerie-Regts. Nr. 19 wa¨hrend des Weltkrieges 1914– 1918 (Erfurt, 1930), p. 75. Ibid. Ibid., p. 77.

NOTES

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297

23. For comprehensive description of the events in Kalisz, see: Laura Engelstein, ‘“A Belgium of Our Own”. The Sack of Russian Kalisz, August 1914’, Kritika. Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 10/3 (2009), pp. 441 – 73. 24. M. Eckert, Historia Polski 1914 – 1989 (Warszawa, 1990), p. 17; W. Bortnowski, Ziemia Ło´dzka w ogniu, p. 64. 25. See J. Horne and A. Kramer, German Atrocities, 1914. A History of Denial (New Haven, CT, London, 2001), p. 106. 26. T. Weber, Hitler’s First War (Oxford, 2010), pp. 35 – 41. 27. H. Reichert, Der schwarze Lord. Unter Woyrsch durch Polen und Galizien (Zeulenroda, 1929), p. 16. 28. Engelstein, ‘A Belgium of our Own’, p. 457. 29. H. Reichert, ‘Der schwarze Lord’, p. 27. 30. BA-MA, PH 5 II 279, 9 Armee - Kriegstagebuch 19 September 1914 – 31 December 1914, p. 27. 31. BA-MA, N 710/54, Nachlaß Gallwitz, Garde-Reserve-Korps, Tagesbefehl, 20 September 1914. 32. W. Meyer, Das Infanterie-Regiment von Grolman, p. 55. 33. H.Nebe, Das Kgl. preuß. Landwehr-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 47 im Weltkriege (Oldenburg-Berlin-Ratzeburg, 1926), p. 41; the translation of the second quote is from John 6:9 (King James Version). 34. E. Ludendorff, Meine Kriegserinnerungen (Berlin, 1919), p. 58. 35. von Gallwitz, Meine Fu¨hrerta¨tigkeit, p. 49. 36. W. Jahn, Das Kgl. Sa¨chs. Karabinier-Regiment (Dresden, 1924), p. 82. 37. von Gallwitz, Meine Fu¨hrerta¨tigkeit, p. 48. 38. W. Richter, Das Danziger Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 128 (Zeulenroda, undated), p. 67. 39. A. Scho¨ning, Unser Regiment im Weltkriege. Kriegsgeschichte des 3. Thu¨ringischen Infanterie-Regiments Nr. 71 (Erfurt, 1925), p. 68. 40. Geschichte des 1. Ermla¨ndischen Infanterie-Regiments Nr. 150, Teil 1 (Zeulenroda, 1932), p. 80. 41. BA-MA, N 710/54, Nachlaß Gallwitz, 9. Armee – Tagesbefehl, 23 September 1914. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 44. Geschichte des 1. Ermla¨ndischen, p. 77. 45. Richter, Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 128, p. 57. 46. BA-MA, PH 8 V/33, Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg, Kleine Geschichten aus Grossem Reiterskrieg, pp. 21 – 2. 47. A. Marylski, Niemcy przed Warszawa˛ (Warszawa, 1921), pp. 39–40. 48. Oxana Nagornaja and Jeffrey Mankoff , ‘United by Barbed Wire. Russian POWs in Germany, National Stereotypes, and International Relations, 1914–22’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History10/3 (2009), pp. 475–98. 49. H. von Luck, Byłem dowo´dca˛ pancernym (Warszawa, 2006), p. 39. 50. quoted in: Bo¨hler, Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu, pp. 50 – 1.

298

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113 –120

51. BA-MA, RM 8/1925, p. 80, Kapita¨n zur See Rhein to Mr Gu¨nther, 25 October 1939. 52. Bo¨hler, Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu, pp. 52 – 7. 53. Ibid., p. 205 – 16. 54. BA-MA, RM 8/1844 – OKW an OKH, Nr. 2340/39 g.Kd. WFA/L II. 55. BA-MA, RM 8/1925, pp. 79 and 82, Kapita¨n zur See Rhein to Mr Gu¨nther, 25 October 1939. 56. BA-MA, N 567/1, Nachlaß Gartmayr, Tagebuchaufzeichnungen, pp. 17 – 18, quote p. 18. 57. Quoted in. Bo¨hler, Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu, p. 173. 58. Ibid., pp. 259 – 60. 59. S. Datner: Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu na jen´cach wojennych w II wojnie s´wiatowej (Warszawa, 1961), pp. 50– 1. 60. Bo¨hler, Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu, p. 259. 61. Ibid., p. 50.

Chapter 7 Choosing Their Own Nation: National and Political Identities of the Italian POWs in Russia, 1914–21 1. Antonio Gibelli, L’officina della Guerra. La Grande Guerra e le Trasformazioni del Mondo Mentale (Torino, 2009), pp. 99 – 103 and Antonio Gibelli, La Grande Guerra degli Italiani 1915 – 1918 (Milano 1998), pp. 10 – 11. 2. See, for example, the worldwide-known Marina Rossi, I Prigionieri dello Zar: Soldati Italiani dell’esercito Austro – Ungarico nei Lager della Russia (1914 – 1918) (Milano, 1997). 3. The best studies of popular culture in Trentino during World War I are Quinto Antonelli, I Dimenticati della Grande Guerra: La Memoria dei Combattenti Trentini (1914 – 1920) (Trento, 2008) and Federico Mazzini, ‘Cose de Laltro Mondo’: Una Cultura di Guerra Attraverso la Scrittura Popolare Trentina 1914– 1918 (Pisa, 2013). For a thorough examination of the Italian and foreign historiography on this subject, see Simone A. Bellezza, ‘I Prigionieri Trentini in Russia durante la Prima Guerra Mondiale: Linee e Prospettive di Ricerca’, Quale Storia 42/1 –2 (2014), pp. 41 – 51. 4. The main source used will be the diaries and memoirs written by Trentine soldiers and preserved in the Archive of Popular Writing at the Foundation of the Historical Museum of Trentino (hereafter FMST, ASP). Currently the archive houses more than 80 autobiographical writings by former prisoners, but the collection is constantly growing. In addition I have used writings published by Trentine veterans, such as books or articles, as well as materials printed later in scientific publications. 5. A good comparative study of captivity on the Western Front is Heather Jones, Violence Against Prinsoners in the First World War: Britain, France and Germany, 1914– 1920 (Cambridge, 2011).Wartime captivity is instead one of the yet most ill-treated subjects of study for the Eastern Front; the best approaches to

NOTES

6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

TO PAGES

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299

the theme are Alon Rachamimov, POWs and the Great War: Captivity on the Eastern Front (Oxford, New York, 2002); Reinhard Nachtigal, Rußland und Seine O¨sterreichisch-Ungarischen Kriegsgefangenen (1914 – 1918) (Remshalden, 2003); Natal’ia Surzhikova, Voennyi Plen v Rossiiskoi Provintsii (1914– 1922 gg.) (Moscow, 2014). John Deak, ‘The Great War and the Forgotten Realm: The Habsburg Monarchy and the First World War’, Journal of Modern History 86/2 (2014), pp. 336–80. The theoretical premise of these reflections is Rogers Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups (Cambridge, MA, 2006). The concept of national indifference has been skillfully described by Tara Zahra, ‘Imagined Non-Communities: National Indifference as a Category of Analysis’, Slavic Review 69/1 (2010), pp. 93 – 119. For a definition of territoriality, see Laurence Cole, ‘Differentation or Indifference? Changing Perspectives on National Identification in the Austrian Half of the Habsburg Monarchy’, in Maarten van Ginderachten and Marnix Beyern (eds), Nationhood from Below: Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century (Basingstoke, 2012), 96 –119. F. Rasera and C. Zadra, ‘Patrie Lontane. La Coscienza Nazionale negli Scritti dei Soldati Trentini 1914– 1918’, Passato e Presente 14 – 15 (1987), pp. 37 – 73. See Gianluigi Fait (ed.), Sui Campi di Galizia (1914 – 1917). Gli Italiani d’Austria e il Fronte Orientale: Uomini Popoli Culture nella Guerra Europea (Rovereto, 1997). Rok Stergar, ‘L’esercito Asburgico come Scuola della Nazione. Illusione o Realta`?’, in Brigitte Mazohl and Paolo Pombeni (eds), Minoranze negli Imperi: Popoli fra Identita` Nazionale e Ideologia Imperiale (Bologna, 2012), 279– 94. A thorough discussion of Italian propaganda towards the Austrian Army is Mark Cornwall, The Undermining of Austria-Hungary: The Battle for Hearts and Minds (New York, 2000). As reported by Nikolai Matov, ‘Evviva l’Italia!’, Utro Rossii, 23 May 1915. Ermete Bonapace, ‘I Trentini Prigionieri in Russia’, in Il Martirio del Trentino (Milano, 1919), p. 131. Ermete Bonapace, ‘Un Diario di un Irredento Trentino nell’esercito Austriaco e Prigioniero in Russia – 1914– 1916’, Bollettino del Museo Trentino del Risorgimento 1960/1, p. 20. FMST, ASP, memoir by Guido Biasi, A Cinquant’anni dalla Prima Guerra Mondiale, 15. Biasi wrote this account in the 1960s, ‘Brancaleone’ is a clear reference to the 1966 Mario Monicelli film The Incredible Army of Brancaleone. FMST, ASP, Ricordi e Memorie by Alfonso Cazzolli, pp. 51– 2. FMST, ASP, memoir by Guido Biasi, A cinquant’anni dalla Prima Guerra Mondiale, p. 23. Eric Lohr, Nationalising the Russian Empire: The Campaign against Enemy Aliens during World War I (Cambridge, MA, 2003). The correspondence is preserved in Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi VoennoIstoricheskii Arkhiv (RGVIA) see in particular f. 1759, op. 3, d. 433, ll. 179, pp. 189 and 223.

300

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20. ‘Rossiia i Italiia. Otvet Ital’ianskogo Pravitel’stvo na Russkoe Predlozhenie’, in Utro Rossii, 16 October 1914, p. 2. 21. Giuseppe de Manincor, Dalla Galizia al Piave (Trento, 1926), p. 91. 22. FMST, ASP, Battista Ciocchetti, Memorie della Guerra Austro– Russa 1914, pp. 43 – 4, 62. 23. FMST, ASP, Battista Ciocchetti, Memorie, p. 79. 24. Ibid., p. 84. 25. FMST, ASP, memoir by Guido Biasi, A Cinquant’Anni dalla Prima Guerra Mondiale, p. 25. 26. Ibid., p. 36. 27. Think of the above-mentioned case of Sergeant Burlanda for Austria; among the Italian patriots the best-known example is Giuseppe Bresciani, a socialist barber from Riva del Garda whose writings have been collected and studied by Gianluigi Fait: Giuseppe Bresciani, Una Generazione di Confine: Cultura Nazionale e Grande Guerra negli Scritti di un Barbiere Rivano (Trento, 1991). 28. Both quotes from Fioravante Gottardi, ‘Ricordi della Guerra Mondiale’ in Quinto Antonelli (ed.), Scritture di Guerra 3 (Trento-Rovereto, 1995), pp. 161, 165. 29. Rachamimov, POWs and the Great War. 30. Some documents from Ceccato’s dossier and of his correspondence with the Italian Delegation to St Petersburg are preserved in the Historical-Diplomatic Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE), in Rappresentanza Italiana in Russia, Legazione d’Italia a Pietroburgo e Consolato Italiano a Mosca, busta no. 25 (1915). 31. Isidoro Simonetti’s notebook in Quinto Antonelli and Giorgia Pontalti (eds), Scritture di Guerra 7 (Trento-Rovereto, 1997), p. 178. 32. Ibid., p. 190. 33. I am here reformulating an expression used by Fabrizio Rasera and Camillo Zadra, ‘Storie ontane’, p. 71, who urged historians to study the experience of prison camps in Russia as ‘laboratories of national education’. 34. A physical description of the camp is provided by Giuseppe de Manincor, Dalla Galizia al Piave, p. 120. 35. Letter written by Annibale Molignoni to ‘Dear Sirs Officers’, no date, FMST, Fondo Associazione Reduci dalla Russia, busta no. 1, fascicolo no. 8 ‘Corrispondenza di, a Guido Stringari 1915– 1916 (Ufficiali Volontari in Russia)’, pp. 27 – 8. 36. Still a student when the war broke out, Molignoni would become a teacher and was a nationalist (but not a fascist) involved in Catholic associations; see Annibale Molignoni, Trentini prigionieri in Russia: Agosto 1915– Settembre 1916 (Torino, 1920). 37. No author, ‘Ai lettori’, La nostra fede I/1, 20 February 1916, p. 1. 38. Explicative article in La nostra fede I/7, 8 April 1916, p. 8.

NOTES

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301

39. See Antonello Biagini, ‘La Missione Militare Italiana in Russia e il Rimpatrio dei Prigionieri di Guerra e degli Irredenti Trentini (1915 –1918)’, in Sergio Benvenuti (ed.), La Prima Guerra Mondiale e il Trentino. Convegno Internazionale Promosso dal Comprensorio della Vallagarina. Rovereto 25 – 29 giugno 1978 (Rovereto, 1980), pp. 579– 97. 40. This is how an Italian officer described the mood of the former prisoners who were moved to the Far East; Gaetano Bazzani, Soldati Italiani nella Russia in Fiamme 1915– 1920 (Trento, 1933), p. 227. 41. Fioravante Gottardi, ‘Ricordi della Guerra Mondiale’, pp. 189 – 90. 42. Valentino Maestranzi, ‘La Mia Autobiografia’, in Quinto Antonelli et al. (eds), Scritture di Guerra 8 (Trento-Rovereto, 1998), pp. 182– 3. 43. FMST, ASP, Arturo Dellai’s memoir-diary, pp. 109– 10. 44. Examples of this use are found in the writings of Guido Biasi and Giorgio Bugna preserved at the FMST, ASP. 45. Fioravante Gottardi, ‘Ricordi della Guerra Mondiale’, p. 151. 46. FMST, ASP, Agostino Dellagiovanna’s Diary, pages U and V. 47. FMST, ASP, Giorgio Bugna’s Diary, p. 25. 48. FMST, ASP, Battista Ciocchetti, Memorie della Guerra Austro Russa 1914, p. 53. 49. FMST, ASP, Luigi Cazzanelli, Memoria del Campo e Prigionia pp. 36 – 7; Cazzanelli was another Austrophile prisoner; after the Brest – Litovsk treaty, he went to look for the Austrian consul in Moscow and went home through Eastern Europe as a Habsburg soldier. 50. FMST, ASP, Francesco Matteotti, Le Mie Avventure nella Guerra Austro-Russa 1914– 1915, p. 20. 51. FMST, ASP, Luciano Bertoluzza’s Diary, p. 64.

Chapter 8 Red Peril or Yellow Peril? British Attitudes Towards the Russian Other: Northern Russia, 1918 –19 1. Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford, 1994), pp. 67, 15. 2. Ezequiel. Adamovsky, ‘Euro-Orientalism and the Making of the Concept of Eastern Europe in France, 1810-1880’, The Journal of Modern History, vol. 77, no. 3 (September 2005), p. 592. 3. Ibid., p. 60. 4. Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford, 1997), p. 116. 5. Diana Preston, A Brief History of The Boxer Rebellion: China’s War on Foreigners, 1900 (London, 1999), pp. xxv –xxvi. 6. Alexander Morrison, ‘Russian Rule in Turkestan and the Example of British India, c.1860 – 1917’, The Slavonic and East European Review, vol. 84, no.4 (October 2006), pp. 677– 8.

302

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7. Vladimir Bobrovnikov, ‘Islam in the Russian Empire’, in Dominic Lieven (ed.), The Cambridge History of Russia Volume II: Imperial Russia, 1689 – 1917, (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 211– 12, 220. 8. Marina Mogilner, Homo Imperii: A History of Physical Anthropology in Russia (Lincoln, 2013), pp. 3– 4. 9. Iver B. Neumann, Uses of the Other: ‘The East’ in European Identity Formation (Manchester, 1999), p. 90. 10. Morrison, ‘Russian Rule in Turkestan’ p. 671. 11. H.J. Mackinder, ‘The Geographical Pivot of History’, The Geographical Journal, vol. 23, no. 4 (April 1904), p. 436. 12. Spencer Wilkinson, Thomas Holdich, Amery, Hogarth and H.J. Mackinder, ‘The Geographical Pivot of History: Discussion’, The Geographical Journal, vol. 23, no. 4 (April 1904), p. 440. 13. Bernard Semmel, ‘Karl Pearson: Socialist and Darwinist’, The British Journal of Sociology, vol. 9, no. 2 (June 1958), p. 115. 14. Francis Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development (London, 1907), p. 55. 15. Michael Hughes, ‘Every Picture Tells Some Stories: Photographic Illustrations in British Travel Accounts of Russia on the Eve of World War One’, The Slavonic and East European Review, vol. 92, no. 4 (October 2014), pp. 674– 6. 16. Ibid., pp. 679 – 80. 17. Ibid., p. 689. 18. Andrew Hammond, ‘The Uses of Balkanism: Representation and Power in British Travel Writing, 1850– 1914’, The Slavonic and East European Review, vol. 82, no. 3 (July 2004), p. 602. 19. J.A. Mangan, ‘Images for Confident Control: Stereotypes in Imperial Discourse’, in J.A. Mangan (ed.), The Imperial Curriculum: Racial Images and Education in the British Colonial Experience (London, 1993) p. 15. 20. Imperial War Museum (IWM): J. Scott, A Diary of Events which happened between the Months of June 1918 and October 1919 during my Visit to Arctic Russia, pp. 13 – 14. 21. Ibid., p. 63. 22. IWM: A.G. Burn, The Jottings of a Dugout in North Russia, p. 18. 23. Ibid., p. 21. 24. Richard H. Ullman, Anglo –Soviet Relations, 1917– 1921 Volume I. Intervention and the War (Princeton, NJ, 1961), p. 241. 25. Ullman, Intervention, p. 241. 26. Leonid Strakhovsky, Intervention at Archangel: The Story of Allied Intervention and Russian Counter-Revolution in North Russia 1918– 1920 (Princeton, NJ, 1944), pp. 185 –6. 27. David Cannadine, Ornamentalism: How the British saw their Empire (London, 2001), p. 5. 28. Ibid., p. 123. 29. Edward W. Said, Orientalism (London, 1978), p. 227.

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30. IWM Interview 7370. George John Giggins. 1984. Reel 3. 31. IWM Interview 15. Eric John Furlong. 1973. Reel 7. 32. Leeds University, Liddle Collection. RUS 24, pp. 10 – 11: C. Hunter, Transcript of an interview with C. Hunter, November, 1975. 33. Leeds University, Liddle Collection. RNMN DRAGE Vol. II p. 373 C. Drage, TS Diary Part 3 Chapter 3 The Arctic. 34. Leeds University, Liddle Collection. GS 1504, F.O. Soden, TS Diary 16 September 1919. 35. J.E.H. Neville, History of the 43rd and 52nd (Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire) Light Infantry in the Great War, 1914 –1919: Volume 1 The 43rd Light Infantry in Mesopotamia and North Russia (Aldershot, 1938), p. 337. 36. The National Archives, Kew, (TNA), War Office (WO) 32/5680 1, Bolshevik Strength and Weakness as Shown by Telegrams and Reports Recently Received, General Staff, 24 February, 1919. 37. TNA, War Office (WO) 95/5424 26 February 1919. Murmansk Area War Diary, General Staff G.H.Q. ‘Syren’. 38. Alfred Knox, With the Russian Army 1914– 1917 Volume I (London, 1921), pp. xxxi – xxxii. 39. Ibid., p. xxxi. 40. IWM Interview 9342. George William Green. 1986. Reel 4. 41. Jack Poole, Undiscovered Ends (London, 1957), p. 46. 42. IWM, A.G. Burn, The Jottings of a Dugout in North Russia, p. 45. 43. Memorandum by Major General F.C. Poole, 8 October, 1918. t 106/1163 p. 2. 44. TNA, War Office (WO) 32/5673 Report on Administration, Northern Russia, 6 November 1918, p. 1. 45. TNA, Air Office (AIR) 1/22/68/209/70/218 Resume of Event in N. Russia by Major-General Ironside, 4 August 1919, p. 2. 46. TNA, Air Office (AIR) 1/22/68/209/70/218 Resume of Event in N. Russia by Major-General Ironside, 4 August 1919, p. 3. 47. TNA, War Office (WO) 32/5700 G.O.C. in C. North Russia to Sir Henry Wilson, 3 October 1919, pp. 1 – 2. 48. TNA, War Office (WO) 32/5700 G.O.C. in C. North Russia to Sir Henry Wilson, 3 October 1919, p. 3. 49. Leeds University, Liddle Collection. ADD 043, Hubert Joseph Vale, The Frozen North: An Arctic Interlude. p. 9. 50. IWM, W.C.G. Crewe, North Russia 1919 Diary, 10 October 1919. 51. Leeds University, Liddle Collection. RNMN Kennedy W. Kennedy, A Trip to Northern Russia. 2 July 1918. 52. National Army Museum. 2000-09-153 51 23, Henry Selley, Commercial Postcards Collected and sent by Sgt Henry Selley. 53. It is unclear whether British soldiers held different attitudes towards the Orthodox and Old Believer communities present in Northern Russia as there is no evidence in the sources of a distinction having been drawn between these groups.

304 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

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IWM, A.G. Burn, The Jottings of a Dugout in North Russia, p. 54. Ibid., p. 76. Ibid., p. 4. Ibid., p. 42. Andrew Rothstein, When Britain Invaded Soviet Russia: The Consul Who Rebelled (London, 1979), p. 17. Paul A. Cohen, History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience and Myth (New York, 1997), p. 235. TNA, War Office (WO) 95/5423 G 1. Guidance to Officers and Men in their treatment of Russians, 25 July 1918. Ullman, Intervention, p. 242. IWM, J. Scott, A Diary of Events which happened between the Months of June 1918 and October 1919 during my Visit to Arctic Russia, p. 10. A. Chronicler, Archangel: The American War with Russia (Chicago, 1924), p. 73. Byron Farwell, The Great Boer War (London, 1976), p. 30. Robin Okey, Taming Balkan Nationalism: The Habsburg ‘Civilising Mission’ in Bosnia, 1878– 1914 (Oxford, 2007), pp. vii – ix. Ralph Albertson, Fighting Without a War: An Account of Military Intervention in North Russia (New York, 1920), p. 78.

Chapter 9 ‘I am Well and I Hope the Same of You. I Will Soon Change Location’: World War I Field Postcards to a Disappearing Homeland 1. Christa Ha¨mmerle and others have attempted to broaden this to include women’s letters from ‘the home front’ in an attempt to counter the male representations of the war experience. See, for example, C. Ha¨mmerle, ‘You Let a Weeping Woman Call You Home?: Private Correspondences during the First World War in Austria and Germany’, in R. Earle (ed.), Epistolary Selves: Letters and Letter-Writers, 1600 – 1945 (Aldershot, 1999), pp. 152 – 82. 2. There is also a growing body of work considering such correspondence during World War II. See, for example, Jenny Hartley, ‘“Letters are Everything These Days”: Mothers and Letters in the Second World War’, in Earle (ed.), Epistolary Selves, pp. 183– 95; R. Blythe (ed.), Private Words: Letters and Diaries from the Second World War (London, 1991). 3. B. Ulrich, ‘Die Perspektive “von unten” und ihre Instrumentalisierung am Beispiel des Ersten Weltkrieges’, Krieg und Literatur/War and Literature, 1:2 (1989), pp. 47 – 64; S. Audoin-Rouzeau, ‘The French Soldier in the Trenches’, in H. Cecil and P.H. Liddle (eds), Facing Armageddon: The Frist World War Experienced (London, 1996), pp. 221– 9. 4. For the French material, see M. Lyons, ‘French Soldiers and Their Correspondence: Towards a History of Writing Practices in the First World War’, French History, 17:1 (2003), pp. 79 – 95; M. Hanna, ‘A Republic of Letters: The Epistolary Tradition in France during World War I’, American

NOTES

5.

6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

TO PAGES

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Historical Review, 108:5 (2003), pp. 1338– 61. In the French language, see F. Maret, Lettres de la Guerre, ’14– ’18 (Nantes, 2001); R. Dorgele`s (ed.), Je t’e´cris de la Tranchee´: Correspondence de Guerre, 1914– 1917 (Paris, 2003); R. Cazals and N. Offenstadt (eds), Si Je Reviens comme je l’espe`re’: Lettres du Front et de l’Arrie`re, 1914-1918 (Paris, 2003); F. Rousseau, La Guerre Censure´e: Une Histoire des Combattants Europe´en de 14 – 18 (Paris, 1999 and 2002). The early work emerging from studies of Austrian and German correspondence emerged from 1989, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the outbreak of World War I. See F. Fellner, ‘Der Krieg in Tagebu¨chern and Briefen. U¨berlegungen zu einer wenig genu¨tzten Quellenart’, in K. Almann and H. Lengauer (eds), Die andere Seite der Geschichte (Vienna, 1989); J. Gatterer and W. Lukan (eds), Studien und Dokumente zur O¨sterreichisch-Ungarischen Feldpost im Ersten Weltkrieg (Vienna, 1989); F. Schuhmann, (ed.), ‘Zieh dich Warm an!’ Soldatenpost und Heimatbriefe aus zwei Weltkriegen, Chronik einer Familie (Berlin, 1989). See also A Reimann, ‘Die heile Welt im Stahlgewitter: Deutsche und Englische Feldpost aus dem Ersten Weltkrieg’, in G. Krumeich, D. Langewiesche und H. Ullmann (eds), Kriegserfahrungen. Studien zur Sozialund Mentalita¨tsgeschichte des Ersten Weltkriegs (Essen, 1997). M. Lyons, The Writing Culture of Ordinary People in Europe, c.1860– 1920 (Cambridge, 2013); M. Lyons, ‘“Ordinary writings” or How the “Illiterate” Speak to Historians’, in Martyn Lyons (ed.), Ordinary Writings, Personal Narratives: Writing Practices in 19th and Early 20th-Century Europe (New York, 2007), pp. 13 – 32. Lyons, The Writing Culture of Ordinary People In Europe, pp. 134– 52. Ibid., p. 133. Ibid., p. 144. Italian troops advanced in to South Tyrol in November 1918 and the area was formally incorporated into the Italian Empire in October 1920. G. Grote, “I Bin a Su¨dtiroler!” Kollektive Identita¨t zwischen Nation und Region (Bozen, 2009). M. Lyons, ‘“Ordinary writings” or How the “Illiterate” Speak to Historians’, pp. 18 – 20. ‘Vielleicht kommen wir jetzt zur Marsch [sic] und zum Welschen hinein.’ Meraner DSC0032. ‘Regiment Fu¨rchterlich, Comp. Grausam.’ Meraner DSC0053. ‘Die herzlichsten Gru¨sse aus Bozen sendet dir Bruder Florian und wie du siehst ist mir noch alles luganiga wegen den [sic] Krieg.’ Meraner DSC0053. ‘Hier haben wir uns photografieren lassen, aber es ist nicht gut getroffen. Sehr kriegerisch schauts aus und man kann nichts machen.’ Meraner DSC0024. ‘Lieber Alois, ich mo¨chte gern die Feiertage in Sarnthein sein, aber es geht nicht. Aber einmal wird’s wohl anders werden.’ Meraner DSC0024. ‘Bin hier glu¨cklich angekommen und werde bald wieder zuru¨ckkommen.’ Meraner DSC0027. ‘Danke fu¨r das Geld, dass ich erhalten habe / ich schicke dir etwas Tabak, die Ha¨lfte davon kannst du behalten und die Ha¨lfte ich.’ Meraner DSC0012.

306

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164 –168

19. ‘Mir geht es gut und ich hoffe dasselbe von dir sagen zu ko¨nnen.’ Meraner DSC0019. 20. ‘Mir geht es gut und das Wetter ist scho¨n.’ Meraner DSC0009. 21. ‘Es ist gar nicht so arg wie man oft ho¨rt.’ Meraner DSC0009. 22. Ha¨mmerle, ‘You Let a Weeping Woman Call You Home?’, p. 153. 23. Hanna argues that French war letters served ‘affective and emotional functions’. Hanna, ‘A Republic of Letters: The Epistolary Tradition in France during World War I’, p. 1342. 24. ‘. . . wegen der Gemeinde hast du mir schon besorgt.’ Meraner DSC0021. 25. ‘Sonst geht es uns ganz gut, nur die Menasch, darum wu¨nsch ich mir o¨fters ein Paket.’ Meraner DSC0047. 26. Lyons, The Writing Culture of Ordinary People in Europe, p. 84f. 27. ‘Ich muss dir eine Karte senden und berichte dass es mir gut [geht], dasselbe auch von dir hofe [sic] und wu¨nsche dir gute Osterfeiertage [. . .] Lebe wohl aufs wiedersehen [sic] in der Heimat.’ Meraner DSC0050. 28. Ha¨mmerle, ‘You Let a Weeping Woman Call You Home?’, p. 155. 29. Ibid., p. 154. 30. M. Hanna, ‘A Republic of Letters: The Epistolary Tradition in France during World War I’, American Historical Review, 108:5 (2003), pp. 1338– 61, p. 1348. 31. See the example of Luis Wenzer in his letters from Russia later on in this article. 32. ‘Werde meinen jetzigen Standort sehr bald wieder wechseln.’ Hanspeter DCSN4062. 33. Ha¨mmerle, ‘You Let a Weeping Woman Call You Home?’, p. 153. 34. Lyons, The Writing Culture of Ordinary People in Europe, p. 127. 35. ‘Dem Schmied von Blumau sind wirs schon noch schuldig 76K und den Bo¨hler Flor kannst du auch zahlen. Der Zimmerlehnerin den Zins wa¨hre auch noch, den Honig habe ich aber bezahlt. Der Dasioler Moidl die beim Roam drunten ist wa¨ren wir auch noch den Zins wieviel weis ich nicht auswendig im Kauf Brief ist schon drin wieviel wir schuldig sind es ist halt 4% Zins. Den Veit in Ums, was du noch gar nicht wissen wirst, sind wir auch 85 Fl schuldig. Du must mir halt verzeihen liebs Weibele Das ichs dir nicht ich hab mir oft und oft gedacht das muss ich dir einmal sagen, aber das eine mal hab ich mch nicht besonnen das andere mal hab ichs wieder nicht ko¨nnen sagen Du weist wohl lbs Weibele wie ich habs gebt und in Musch wa¨hren wir auch noch 185 Fl denen wa¨hrt halt der Zins zu geben. Es wird Dich wohl recht verdriesen Weibel wen Du das ließt aber mir ist selbst recht schwer das ich Dir das nicht fru¨her gesagt habe ich bitt Dich halt recht liebs Weibele das mirs Verzeihen gebt [. . .] [sics].’ Heubad DOC1043ff. 36. Ha¨mmerle, ‘You Let a Weeping Woman Call You Home?, p. 157. 37. Hanna, ‘A Republic of Letters: The Epistolary Tradition in France during World War I’, p. 1342. 38. ‘Ich bin gesund und hab genug zum essen.’ DOC405/13 February 1915.

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307

39. ‘Das kann man auch nicht verlangen.’ DOC405/13 February 1915. 40. DOC401/1 July 1915, however, strangely the stamp on the front bears the date ‘13 May 1915’. 41. Lyons, The Writing Culture of Ordinary People, p. 76; Hanna, ‘A Republic of Letters: The Epistolary Tradition in France during World War I’, p. 1339. 42. Letters were also subject to censorship on the Russian and Austrian side, and Wenzer’s letters were obviously opened by both censors. 43. ‘Ihr schreibt mir aber nie etwas neues zum “Beispiel” wehm Ihr zu hause habt zum Arbeiten oder wieviel Ku¨he, Ochsen, Pferde Ihr noch habt, wie die Ernte und die Trauben heuer ausgefallen ist und was mit Oberhuberhof ist, u¨ber das alles bin ich sehr neugirig, das ko¨nt Ihr mir ja alles schreiben und wie es den Bru¨dern geht auch von Verwandte und Bekante und wer von den Vo¨lsern in ein besseres Jenseits hinu¨ber ist, ko¨nnt mir ja auf jede Karte etwas drauf schreiben und mir sehr viele solche senden, last auch manchmal eine Ansichtskarte nach Sibirien wandern und schreibt mir die Wahrheit ich bin auf alles gefasst. Was mich anbelangt fehlt nichts, bin immer gesund und mehr brauch ich gegenwertig nicht, im Sommer hab ich auf Strassenbau gearbeitet, der Winter ist hier sehr kalt und viel Schnee. Hoffe das Ihr alle gesund seit und es Euch soweit gut geht.’ DOCS1211-14/6 July 1915. 44. ‘Liebe Mutter Ihr habt jetzt wohl viel zu ertragen, es la¨st sich leicht denken wie schwer das fu¨r eine Mutter ist alle Ihre lieben So¨hne in der Gefahr der Feinde zu sehen, mo¨ge euch Gott wa¨hrend dieser schweren Zeit Kraft und Mut geben auch das Schwerste zu ertragen. Ich hab jetzt wohl die Jahre um nicht mehr Kindisch zu sein aber desto mehr begreife ich was eine gute Mutter ist und werde stets and Euch denken.’ DOC1213. 45. ‘mir geht es gut, was ich auch von euch hoffe’, DOC141/23 July 1915; DOC389/29 September 1915; DOC189/1 October 1915. 46. ‘wu¨nsche dass der kleine Go¨the recht gesund, lustig und widell, seinen Lebenswandel beginnt, damit er seine angeho¨rigen Krieger bei der Ru¨ckkehr stramm begru¨ssen kann.’ DOC 327/15 September 1915. 47. ‘Karte erhalten aber nicht den Brief und das Photo von Euch, schade drum.’ DOC157/16 December 1915. 48. ‘Es ist eigentlich leicht zu begreifen das die Post nicht immer den richtigen Weg findet, denn es mus jedes Ka¨rtchen eine hu¨pfige Reise mit machen bis es die Endstation erreicht. Du hast gar keine Ahnung wie weit weg ich von Euch entfernd bin, ich hab eine grosse Weltreise gemacht wen ich das Glu¨ck hab zu einer gesunden Ru¨ckkehr. Von Galizien durch’s Europa¨ische Russland u¨ber den Wolgastrom ins Uhralgebirge dahin nach Sibirien und durch den chinesischen Manschurei bis ins Ku¨stenland vom weisen Meere. Die Transsibirischebahn welche uns befo¨rderte ist die la¨ngste Bahnstrecke der Welt, die wir ganz durch geradelt haben. Wir fuhren 6 Wochen ununterbrochen kannst Dir einen begrif machen wie weit man da kommt. Wenn ich nach Hause komm weis ich vieles zum erza¨hlen, wen wir nur alle das Glu¨ck ha¨tten uns wieder zu sehen [sics].’ DOC1214-15/10 December 1915.

308

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170 –172

49. ‘Liebe Schwester, bitte vom neuen Jahr an jede Karte numeriren [sic].’ DOC209/15 November 1915. 50. Lyons has argued soldiers wrote ‘to construct order out of chaos and to organize the confusing experience of exceptional upheavals like the war’. Martyn Lyons, ‘“Ordinary writings” or How the “Illiterate” Speak to Historians’, in Martyn Lyons (ed.), Ordinary Writings, Personal Narratives: Writing Practices in 19th and Early 20th-Century Europe (New York, 2007), pp. 13 – 32, p. 20. 51. ‘Sonst geht mir’s hier ganz gut, Ihr braucht euch wegen meiner gar keine Sorgen zu machen. [. . .] Schon acht Tage schlecht Wetter.’ DOC695, 4 June 1916. 52. Ha¨mmerle, ‘You Let a Weeping Woman Call You Home?’, p. 165. Isa Schikorsky, ‘Kommunikation u¨ber das Unbeschreibbare. Beobachtungen zum Sprachstil von Kriegsbriefen’, in Wirkendes Wort. Deutsche Sprache und Literatur in Forschung und Lehre, Vol. 42/1, 1992, pp. 300ff. 53. ‘heute Kirchweihsonntag, aber nur in Gedanken wo wir immer mit unseren Familien waren, jetzt ist die Sache anders gekommen, machen ko¨nnen wir nichts dagegen, doch eines ist in unseren Herzen, das ist die Hoffnung auf ein Wiedersehen. Vor einem Jahr marschierte ich durch die scho¨ne Stadt Lemberg, welchen in Feindesha¨nden war, da gab’s vieles zum sehen und zu fielen [sics].’ DOC161/17 October 1915. 54. ‘Es ist hier manchmal ein wunderscho¨ner blauer Himmel, aber darunter ist ist nicht herlich [sic].’ DOC513/ 12 April 1916. 55. ‘Wir werden verlegt, wissen aber nicht wohin, werdet wohl la¨nger keine Post von mir bekommen, aber macht euch keine Sorgen, hier noch viel Eis und Schnee.’ 56. ‘Familienverha¨ltnisse ko¨nnt Ihr ja schreibe . . . Ich ha¨tte wohl vieles zu schreiben aber das missen wir auf spa¨ter aufbewaren und mu¨ndlich dariber Sprechen [sics].’ DOC1214-15/10 December 1915. 57. ‘Wir sind in Mukten wo die Russen und Japaner eine grosse Schlacht hatten.’ DOC513/ 12.4.16. 58. ‘Wir haben scho¨ne Freiheit, pra¨chtiges Wetter,’ DOC651/8. May 1916. 59. ‘Alle Schrecken, alle schauderhaften Schilderungen u¨ber die Lage der Kriegsgefangenen in Russland werden u¨bertroffen durch einwandfreie Berichte, die von wenigen, glu¨cklich den Orten des Grauens entflohenen Gefangenen erstattet und erst unla¨ngst zur Kenntnis der deutschen Regierung gelangt sind. [. . .] Preisgegeben scha¨ndlichen Blutsaugern [. . .] [und] als Sklaven geknechtet von unkultivierten Horden von Tscherkessen und Kosaken, gehen in den Distrikten an der Olonetz-Murman Eisenbahn und im Gouvernement Wjatka Tausenden von deutschen und o¨sterreichischen Kriegsund Zivilgefangenen unter so grauenhaften Umstanden dem sicheren Tode entgegen, dass der menschliche Geist sich stra¨ubt, von diesem Elend sich eine Vorstellung zu machen. [. . .] Dort ist die Ho¨lle! Oft barfuss, im Winter bei strengster Ka¨lte, mu¨ssen sie [die Kriegsgefangenen] in den Su¨mpfen arbeiten. [. . .] Alles wird durchna¨sst, und die

NOTES

60.

61. 62.

63.

64. 65.

66. 67. 68. 69.

TO PAGES

172 –174

309

frierenden Leute sind den schwersten Erkrankungen preisgegeben. [. . .] So liegen die an schwerem Rheumatismus und Lungenschwindsucht leidenden und mit Wunden bedeckten Menschen monatelang auf nackten Brettern, ohne Hilfe! Menschen, deren Lippen und Gaumen zerplatzt sind und bluten – bei manchen ko¨nnen sogar die gesunden Za¨hne mit den Fingern leicht herausgenommen werden – erhalten keine andere Kost als hartes Schwarzbrot und Kohlsuppe, bis sie der Tod aus ihrer schrecklichen Lage erlo¨st.’ ‘Mit Geschwu¨ren bedeckte und kranke Gefangene werden [. . .] mit Peitschenhieben zur Arbeit getrieben. [. . .] Einer der Landesvorsteher hat den Tscherkessen befohlen, die Kriegsgefangenen soviel als mo¨glich zu pru¨geln. [. . .] Die grundlos verha¨ngten Strafen sind so barbarisch, dass selbst die russischen Landsturmleute es eher vorziehen, an die Front geschickt zu werden, als die Henkersknechte [. . .] zu spielen.’ ‘Dante’s Ho¨lle in Russland’ in Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 30 August 1915, Vol. 2, No. 240, quoted from Georg Wurzer, ‘Die Kriegsgefangenen der Mittelma¨chte in Russland im Ersten Weltkrieg’, PhD Thesis Tu¨bingen 2000, p. 549– 50. http://tobias-lib. uni-tuebingen.de/volltexte/2001/207/pdf/diss_wurzer.pdf accessed 10 March– 30 April 2014. Wurzer, ‘Kriegsgefangene der Mittelma¨chte’, p. 490. ‘Wir haben uns im Winter Zeit vertrieben und manche haben Instrumente gebaut, sodass wir jetzt Zither, Geige, Gitarre und Flo¨te usw. Wir haben jetzt eine fabulose Musik zusammen, ich bin nicht dabei, meistens Regimentsmusiker.’ DOC621/24 February 1916. ‘Du hast mir einmal geschrieben ich schreib scho¨ne Karten und jetzt kan ich balt gar nicht mer vor lauter wenig Schreiben und hart Arbeiten, aber das macht nicht, ich weis, das Ihr noch mehr Arbeiten mu¨st als ich [sics].’ DOC633/October 1916. ‘Hab genug zum Essen und verdiene etwas Geld.’ DOC633/October 1916. ‘und das gro¨ste Geschenk wu¨rde fu¨r Dich und mich und die meisten Eueropa¨ischen Menschenkinder sein wen uns das lb. Christkind den baldigen Frieden bringen mo¨chte. Drum lb. Schwester und Ihr alle inn der Heimat haret aus mit frohen Mut und festen Fertrauen ich werde es auch thun das grosse Geschenk wird uns nicht mehr Fehrn sein und wir werden uns Wiedersehen [sics].’ DOC505/25December 1916. ‘nur gesund bleiben und richtig u¨berleben, alles andere wenn ich nach hause komme.’ DOC731/March 1917. ‘keine Nachricht erhalten, schreibe o¨fters, Schnee weg, zarte Blu¨mlein, die an Heimat erinnern, im Wald arbeiten ist ok, auch Verdienst gut, nur mit den Lebensmittel ists a bisl schwierig.’ DOC793/May 1917. ‘Heute feiere ich den 3. Namenstage in Russland, wer ha¨tte das gedacht? Schreibt oft, vielleicht geht die eine oder andere Karte durch zu mir. [. . .] Mir gehts sonst soweit gut, arbeite viel.’ DOC827/June 1917. ‘Habe unschuldigerweise fast das Ko¨pfchen verloren [. . .] es gibt hier noch so halb Wilde und sie sind gefa¨hrlich.’ DOC791/August 1917.

310

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70. ‘Was seitdem vergangen ist, ist unglaublich, an ein Ende ist noch gar nicht zu denken.’ DOC931/October 1917. 71. ‘dass Dinge bei euch streng heruntergehen, hier ist es auch so. Aber auf heimlichen Wege geht viel wenn man nur das Geld ha¨tte. Viele Gru¨sse, auf Wiedersehen.’ DOC879/November 1917. 72. ‘Viele Gru¨sse und viel Glu¨ck mit deinem kleinen Karl.’ DOC991/January 1918. 73. Lyons, ‘“Ordinary Writings” or How the “Illiterate” Speak to Historians’, p. 29. 74. Ibid.

Chapter 10 The Emperor’s Broken Bust: Representations of the Habsburg ‘Shatterzone’ in World War I 1. See Joseph Roth, ‘Die Bu¨ste des Kaisers’, in Die großen Erza¨hlungen (Munich, 2014), pp. 127– 54. 2. See Larry Wolff, The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture (Stanford, CA, 2010). 3. See Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin (New York, 2010). 4. O. Bartov and E. Weitz (eds), Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands (Bloomington, IN, 2013), p. 1. 5. O. Bartov and E. Weitz, Shatterzone of Empires, p. 8. 6. See, for example, Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (New York, 1975); Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge, 1995); Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (Boston, 1989). 7. See Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-Sie`cle Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York, 1980); Pe´ter Hana´k, The Garden and the Workshop: Essays on the Cultural History of Vienna and Budapest (Princeton, NJ, 1998). 8. Recent historiographical treatments of these themes can be found in Pieter M. Judson, The Habsburg Empire: A New History (Cambridge, MA, 2016); John Deak, Forging a Multinational State: State Making in Imperial Austria from the Enlightenment to the First World War (Stanford, Calif., 2015); Johannes Feichtinger and Gary B. Cohen (eds), Understanding Multiculturalism: The Habsburg Central European Experience (New York, 2014); L. Cole and D. Unowsky (eds), Limits of Loyalty: Imperial Symbolism, Popular Allegiances, and State Patriotism in the Late Habsburg Monarchy (New York, 2007). 9. See Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford, CA, 1994); see also Larry Wolff, ‘The Traveler’s View of Central Europe: Gradual Transitions and Degrees of Difference in European Borderlands’, in Bartov and Weitz (eds), Shatterzone, pp. 23 –41.

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311

10. Jo´sef Szujski, Die Vo¨lker O¨sterreich – Ungarns. Ethnographische und Kulturhistorische Schilderungen. Neunter Band: Die Polen und Ruthenen in Galizien (Vienna, 1882), p. 1. 11. August von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarshallsaus Krieg und Frieden (Leipzig, 1938), pp. 69 – 70. 12. Feldpost 632, 24 August 1917 in Hermann Kesten and Joseph Roth (eds), Briefe 1911– 1939 (Cologne, 1970), p. 35. See also Michael Hofmann (ed.), Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters (New York, 2012), p. 14. 13. For Austrian examples, see the essays in B. Bachinger and W. Dornik (eds), Jenseits des Schu¨tzengrabens: Der Erste Weltkrieg im Osten: Erfahrung – Wahrnehmung – Kontext (Innsbruck, 2013). 14. Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius, War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity, and German Occupation in World War I (Cambridge, 2000), p. 1. 15. Ibid., p. 42. 16. The classical account of the Eastern campaigns in World War I is Norman Stone, The Eastern Front, 1914– 1917 (London, 1975). 17. Mackensen, Briefe, p. 130. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid., p. 132. 20. See Roger Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914– 1918 (Cambridge, 1998), p. 49. 21. Ute Daniel, The War From Within: German Working-Class Women in the First World War (transl. Margaret Riess: Oxford, 1997), p. 23. 22. Mackensen, Briefe, p. 131. 23. Gregor Thum, ‘Megalomania and Angst: The Nineteenth-Century Mythicization of Germany’s Eastern Borderlands’, in Shatterzone of Empires, p. 42. 24. Mackensen, Briefe, p. 131. 25. See Wolfram Dornik, ‘“Ganz in den Rahmen dieses Bildes hinein past auch die Bevo¨lkerung.” Raumerfahrung und Raumwahrnehmung von o¨ sterreich-ungarischen Soldaten an der Ostfront des Ersten Weltkrieges’, in Bachinger and Dornik (eds), Jenseits des Schu¨tzengrabens, pp. 27 – 43. 26. See the discussion of Theofil Reiss’s diary in Dornik, ‘“Ganz in den Rahmen dieses Bildes hinein past auch die Bevo¨lkerung”’, p. 37. 27. Liulevicius, War Land on the Eastern Front, p. 42. 28. See Dornik, ‘“Ganz in den Rahmen dieses Bildes hinein past auch die Bevo¨lkerung’, p. 37. 29. See, for example, Max Weber, ‘The Nature of the City’, in R. Sennett (ed.), Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities (New York, 1969), pp. 23–46; Georg Simmel, ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’, in Georg Simmel. On Individuality and Social Forms: Selected Writings (Chicago, 1971). 30. The best example of course is Oswald Spengler. For a concise summary of Spengler’s critique of city life, see Oswald Spengler, ‘The Soul of the City’, in Sennett (ed.), Classic Essays, pp. 61 – 88.

312

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31. Diary of Josef Bruckner quoted in Dornik, ‘Ganz in den Rahmen dieses Bildes hinein past auch die Bevo¨lkerung’, p. 34. 32. Stanley Washburn, Field Notes from the Russian Front (London, n.d.), p. 154. 33. Ibid., p. 155. Similar observations by a Western correspondent can be found in Robert R. McCormick, With the Russian Army: Being the Experiences of a National Guardsman (New York, 1915). 34. Holger H. Herwig, The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary, 1914– 1918 (London, 1997), p. 148. 35. Stone, The Eastern Front, p. 113. 36. Mark Cornwall, ‘Morale and Patriotism in the Austro – Hungarian Army, 1914– 1918’, in J. Horne (ed.), State, Society, and Mobilization in Europe during the First World War (Cambridge, 1997) p. 176. 37. Herwig, The First World War, p. 148. Pieter Judson asserts that ‘stories about mass Czech desertions or refusals to fight were in fact myths – often propagated by German nationalists or military leaders – to help the military to deflect attention from its utter incompetence especially in the first years of the war.’ See Judson, The Habsburg Empire, p. 407. 38. Quoted in Cornwall, ‘Morale and Patriotism’, p. 176. 39. Herwig, The First World War, p. 130. 40. Diary of Gottfried Klein, 1916– 1917, quoted in Dornik, ‘Ganz in den Rahmen dieses Bildes hinein past auch die Bevo¨lkerung’, p. 38. 41. Hans von Seeckt quoted in Martin Schmitz, ‘“Tapfer, za¨h und schlecht gefu¨hrt”, Kriegserfahrungen O¨sterreichisch – Ungarischer Offiziere mit den Russischen Gegnern 1914 –1917’, in Bachinger and Dornik, (eds), Jenseits des Schu¨tzengrabens, p. 59. 42. Washburn, Field Notes, p. 144. 43. See Schmitz, ‘Tapfer, za¨h und schlecht gefu¨hrt’, p. 49. 44. Ibid., pp. 49 – 50. 45. Luiza Bialasiewicz, ‘Back to Galicia Felix?’, in C. Hann and P. Magocsi (eds), Galicia: A Multicultural Land (Toronto, 2005), p. 165. 46. See Schorske, Fin-de-Sie`cle Vienna; Robert Weldon Whalen, God and the Birth of Modernism in Fin-de-Sie`cle Vienna (Grand Rapids, MI, 2007). 47. Wolff, The Idea of Galicia, p. 297. 48. See Ibid., p. 332. 49. Be´la Zombory-Moldova´n, The Burning of the World: A Memoir of 1914 (transl. Peter Zombory-Moldovan; New York, 2014). 50. Ibid., p. 5. 51. Ibid., pp. 7/8. 52. Ibid., p. 12. 53. Hana´k, The Garden and the Workshop, p. 124. 54. Ibid., p. 127. For the political and cultural environment of turn-of-thecentury Budapest see also Judit Frigyesi, Be´la Barto´k and Turn-of the-Century Budapest (Berkeley, CA, 1998), pp. 70–85.

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55. Endre Ady, ‘Wessele´nyi’, Nagyva´radi Naplo´, 17. September 1902. Available at http://www.mek.iif.hu/porta/szint/human/szepirod/magyar/ady/adyproza/ html/ady29.htm (accessed December 29, 2016). 56. Zombory-Moldova´n, The Burning of the World, p. 127. 57. Ibid., p. 148n7. 58. Ibid., p. 63. 59. Ibid., p. 12. 60. Ibid., p. xviii. 61. Ibid., p. 73. 62. Ibid., p. 104. 63. Ibid., p. 109. 64. Ibid., p. 118. 65. Judson, The Habsburg Empire, p. 12. See also Deak, Forging a Multinational State, for the modern approach of Austrian state-building. Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (New York, 2013) also revises the assumption of an Austria – Hungary on the brink of collapse in 1914. 66. Judson, The Habsburg Empire, p. 4.

Chapter 11 A Mutilated Society: Disabled Ex-Servicemen of the Tsarist Russian Army 1. Antoine Prost, Les Anciens Combattants et la Socie´te´ Francaise (Paris, 1977). 2. However, further research could show that blinded ex-servicemen entered the All-Russian Association of the Blind (VOS) created by the Bolshevik power in 1921 and influenced its agenda. 3. Alexandre Sumpf, ‘Politicheskaya mobilizatsiya i voennaya demobilizatsiya veteranov i lichnyi opyt Velikoi Voiny v Rossii (1914-1921)’, in Chelovek i lichnost’ v istorii Rossii, konets X – XX vek (St Petersburg, 2013) pp. 493 – 510. 4. Beate Fieseler, ‘Razvitie gosudarstvennoi pomoshi invalidam v Rossii ot pozdnei Imperii do Stalinskoj “Revoljutsii s verkhu”’, in I.V. Narskij, O.S. Nagornaja et al. (ed.), Opyt mirovykh voin v XX-om veke (Cheliabinsk, 2007), pp. 49 – 64. 5. Alexandre Sumpf, ‘Une Socie´te´ Ampute´e. Le Retour des Invalides Russes de la Grande Guerre, 1914 – 1929’, Cahiers du Monde Russe, 51/1, January– March 2010, pp. 35 – 64. 6. There have been no book publications on the topic since 1918. France also lacks serious investigation of this theme. Great Britain, Germany, the USA and Belgium have developed a rich field of research. See, for instance, Julie Anderson, War, Disability and Rehabilitation in Britain. ’Soul of a Nation’ (Manchester, 2011). Sabine Kienitz, Bescha¨digte Helden. Kriegsinvalidita¨t und Ko¨rperbilder 1914 – 1923 (Paderborn, 2008). Beth Linker, War’s Waste. Rehabilitation in World War I America (Chicago, 2014). Christine Van

314

7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

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Everbroeck and Pieter Verstraete, Le Silence Mutile´: Les Soldats Invalides Belges de la Grande Guerre (Namur, 2015). N.N. Golovin, Voennye usiliya Rossii v mirovoi voine, I (Moscow, 2001; Paris, 1939), p. 137. V. Rozanov, ‘Pomogite uvechnym’, Izvestiya Vserossiiskogo Soyuza Gorodov Pomoshi Bol’nym i Ranenym Voinam, 9, 1 August 1915, pp. 7 – 8. See, for example, the double experience of Dr Vasilii Kravkov, field surgeon in 1904 and sanitary inspector in 1914. Russian State Library, fond 140. Vozrozhdaemye k zhizni, Drankov, 1916: Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Kinofotodoknmentov (RGAKFD), film n8786. Laurent Ve´ray, ‘La Repre´sentation au Cine´ma du Traumatisme Provoque´ par la Guerre de 14 – 18’, in C. Gauthier, D. Lescot and L. Ve´ray (eds), Une Guerre qui n’en Finit Pas: 1914 – 2008 a` l’e´cran et sur sce`ne (Paris, Toulouse, 2008), pp. 22 – 7. Paul Lerner, Hysterical Men. War, Psychiatry and the Politics of Trauma, 1890– 1930 (Ithaca, NY, 2003). I.E. Sirotkina, ‘Rossiiskie psikhiatryi Pervoi Mirovoi Voine’, Nauka,tehnika i obshchtvo Rossii i Germanii vo vremya Pervoi Mirovoi Voiny (St Petersburg, 2007), pp. 326 –44. Gosudarstvennyi arkhive Rossiiskoi Federatsii (GARF), f. 4347 (Vserokompom), op. 1, d. 853, l. 6.: S. A. Preobrazhenskii, ‘О pomoshi nervno-psikhicheskim Iivalidam’, Report at All-Russian Congress for Psycho-Neurologists, Petrograd, 3 January 1924., I.O. Sviontetskii, ‘Iks (X) – Obraz’, Voenno-Meditsiinskii Zhurnal, 4, 1915, pp. 450 –4. Ludmila Bulgakova (ed.), Blagotvoritelnost’ v Istorii Rossii. Novye dokumenty Issledovaniya (St Petersburg, 2008). Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voenno-istoricheskii arkhiv (RGVIA), f. 13836, op. 1, d. 44, l. 131-131 ob. Joanna Bourke, Dismembering the Male. Men’s Bodies. Britain and the Great War (London, 1996). See, for example, the Physiotherapeutic Institute under the City Soviet of Petrograd or the Petrograd Institute of Experimental Medicine. Tsentralnyi Gosudarstvennyi archkiv Sankt Peterburga (TsGIASPb), f. 399, op. 1, d. 20, l. 355: Letter to the Chief of Barracks for war disabled ex-servicemen of the Military Hospital in Petrograd, 27 April, 1916. Vserossiiskii S’ezd Delegatov Uvechnykh Voinov. Otchet o trudakh (15– 27 June 1917), CK Vserossiiskogo Soyuza Uvechnykh Voinov, 1917, pp. 62– 5. Smeta dokhodov i raskhodov invalidnogo kapitala na 1916 g., Aleksandrovskii Komitet o Ranenykh, 1916, p. 21. ‘Pensionnyi vopros’, Golos Invalida, 3, 4 July 1917, p. 4. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv (RGIA), f. 23, op. 5, d. 62, l. 19 ob. RGIA, f. 23, op. 5, d. 62, l. 12.

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26. A.L. Sidorov (ed.), Revoliutsonnoe dvizhenie v Armii i na Flote, 1914- fevral’ 1917 (Moscow, 1966), p. 95. 27. Martina Salvante, ‘Italian Disabled Veterans between Representation and Experience’, in Stephen McVey and Nicola Cooper (eds), Men after War (London, 2013), pp. 111 –29. 28. Sophie Delaporte, Les Gueules casse´es. Les Blesse´s de la Face de la Grande Guerre (Paris, 1996). 29. GARF, f. 3333, op. 5, d. 62, l. 18. 30. ‘Zapiski Invalida’, Golos Invalida, n81, 15 June 1917, p. 3.

Chapter 12 Keeping Up Appearances: The Aims of the Anglo-Russian Hospital in Petrograd, 1915 –18 1. Lord Cheylesmore, introduction to The Work of the Anglo – Russian Hospital from September 1915 to June 1917, by Andrew M. Fleming and Geoffrey Jefferson (1917), p. 3, Geoffrey Jefferson Papers, JEF 1/4/2/2, The John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester (hereafter cited as Jefferson Papers). 2. ‘Hospital Unit for Russia’, The Times (London), 6 August 1915, p. 8, col. C. 3. For the hospital’s origins, see: Michael Harmer, The Forgotten Hospital: An Essay (Chichester, 1982), prologue and Chapter 3; Wilfrid Blunt, Lady Muriel: Lady Muriel Paget, her Husband, and her Philanthropic Work in Central and Eastern Europe (London, 1962), pp. 59 – 60. 4. ‘Anglo-Russian Field Hospital’, The Times (London), 18 August 1915, p. 7, col. C. 5. However, the hospital did receive attention from the Russian press as the ARH staff’s descendants visited Russia to celebrate the hospital’s centenary: ‘Stoletie Anglo-Russkogo Gospitalı̑ a Pervoı˘ Mirvoı˘ Voı˘ny Otmetı̑ at v Peterburge’, Informatsionnoe Agentstvo Rossii – TASS, 30 January 2016, tass.ru/ obschestvo/2626694 (accessed 23 October 2016); Keith Allan, ‘Stoletie Anglo-Russkogo Gospitalı̑ a v C – Peterburge’, Foreign Office Blogs, 5 February 2016 http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/ru/keithallan/2016/02/05/the100th-anniversary-of-the-anglo-russian-hospital-in-st-petersburg-russia-rus/ (accessed 23 October 2016); Anastasia Proshchenko, ‘Kak Professor Polina Monro Izmenila Sud’by Bal’nykh Insul’tom v Rossii’, Miloserdie, 23 June 2016, https://www.miloserdie.ru/article/professor-polina-monro-glavnoe-vmedsestre-uvazhenie-k-bolnomu/ (accessed 23 October 2016); Aleksandra Podervı̑ anskaı̑ a, ‘Potomki Sotrudnikov Anglo– Russkogo Gospitali͡a Sobralis’ v Peterburge v chest’ ego Stoletiı̑ a’, Informatsionnoe Agentstvo Rossii – TASS, 30 January 2016, tass.ru/obschestvo/2627415 (accessed 23 October 2016); ‘V Peterburge Otmetili Stoletie Anglo – Rysskogo Gospitali͡a’, Nat͡sional’nai͡a Sluzhba Novosteı˘, 30 January 2016, http://nsn.fm/hots/ v-peterburge-otmetili-stoletie-anglo-russkogo-gospitalya.php (accessed

316

6. 7. 8.

9. 10.

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209 –210

23 October 2016); ‘V Londone Otmetili Stoletie Anglo-Russkogo Gospitalı̑ a’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, N.D., www.rus.rusemb. org.uk/photogal/479 (accessed 23 October 2016); ‘100 let Ispolnilos’ Anglo – Russkomy Gospitalı̑ u,’, Telegraf, 30 January 2016, http://rustelegraph.ru/ news/2016-01-30/100-let-ispolnilos-Anglo-russkomu-gospitalyu-47910/ (accessed 23 October 2016). Harmer, The Forgotten Hospital. Irina V. Kupstova, ‘Anglo – Russkiı˘ Gospital’ v Petrograde’, Klio 5, no. 56 (2011), pp. 89 – 93; Blunt, Lady Muriel, pp. 57 – 115. Anthony Cross, ‘A Corner of a Foreign Field: The British Embassy in St. Petersburg, 1863 –1918’, The Slavonic and Eastern European Review 88, no. 1/2 (2010), p. 358; Anthony Cross, ‘Exhibiting Russia: The Two London Russian Exhibitions of 1917 and 1935’, Slavonica 16, no. 1 (2010), pp. 32 – 5; Anthony Cross, ‘Forgotten British Places in Petrograd/Leningrad’, in Antonella d’Amelia (ed.), Pietroburgo Capitale della Cultura Russa (Salerno, 2004), pp. 136 –40; Peter Waldron, ‘Health and Hospitals in Russia During World War I’, in Christopher Bonfield, Jonathan Reinarz and Teresa HuguetTermes (eds), Hospitals and Communities, 1100 – 1960 (Oxford, 2013), pp. 363 – 86; M.N. Velichenko and A.N. Chistikov, ‘Dvorets Velikogo Kniazia Vladimira Aleksandrovicha i ego obitateli v gody Pervoi Mirovoi Voiny i Revoliutsii’, Nemtsy v Sankt-Peterburge 5 (2008), p. 265; Jennifer Aline Melanson, ‘The Poutiatine Women: War, Revolution, and Exile, 1898– 1922’ (MA thesis, The University of Texas at Austin, 2012), pp. 18, 40 – 4, 70; Laurie Stoff, Russia’s Sisters of Mercy and the Great War: More than Binding Men’s Wounds (Lawrence), p. 91; Cynthia Toman, Sister Soldiers of the Great War: The Nurses of the Canadian Army Medical Corps (Vancouver, 2016), pp. 60, 91 – 2. Joshua A. Sanborn, Imperial Apocalypse: The Great War and the Destruction of the Russian Empire (Oxford, 2016), pp. 154– 7. The 17th Russian Supplement, ‘The Anglo –Russian Hospital’, The Times (London), 26 February 1916. The hospital as a gift and sign of friendship and sympathy towards Russia was also pointed out in The Anglo –Russian Hospital (1915), pp. 1 – 3, Lady Muriel Paget Collection, MS 1405, Leeds Russian Archive, Leeds University Library (hereafter cited as Paget Collection); ‘British Hospital Unit for Russia’, The British Medical Journal 2, no. 2850 (14 August 1915), pp. 271; ‘Anglo –Russian Field Hospital’, The Times (London), 18 August 1915, p. 7, col. C; ‘Anglo – Russian Hospital’, The British Medical Journal 2, no. 2862 (6 November 1915), pp. 689 – 90; ‘Gifts to the Anglo – Russian Hospital’, The Times (London), 24 November 1915, p. 5, col. A; ‘Care of the Wounded’, The British Journal of Nursing (11 December 1915), p. 485; ‘Anglo – Russian Hospital’, The British Medical Journal 1, no. 2876 (12 February 1916), pp. 252–3; ‘Russia in Peace and War’, The Times (London), 1 May 1917, p. 9, col. C; Charles Watney and Albert Lidgett, ‘Russia’s Wounded Soldiers’, The Dundee Advertiser, 26 March 1917; Watney and Lidgett, ‘The Russian Wounded’, The Midland (Coventry) Daily Telegraph,

NOTES

11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

TO PAGES

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317

26 March 1917; Watney and Lidgett, ‘Russian Flag Day’, Liverpool Courier, 26 March 1917; Watney and Lidgett, ‘Russia’s Wounded: Flag Day for AngloRussian Hospitals’, Leeds Mercury, 26 March 1917, Paget Collection; Fleming and Jefferson, The Work of the Anglo–Russian Hospital (1917), pp. 3, 5, 17, 20, 21, Jefferson Papers. Sir George Buchanan publically supported the hospital in The Anglo – Russian Hospital (1915), pp. 1 – 2, Paget Collection; Though it is difficult to tell what kind of relationship the ARH had with the Foreign Office, both Harmer and Blunt believe the hospital had the backing of the Foreign Office; see Harmer, The Forgotten Hospital, pp. 2 – 3; Blunt, Lady Muriel, pp. 59 – 60. For his belief of the Allies’ poor reputation in Russia, see: Keith Neilson, ‘‘Joy Rides?’: British Intelligence and Propaganda in Russia, 1914 – 1917’, The Historical Journal 24, no. 4 (1981), p. 891. The Anglo – Russian Hospital (1915), p. 1, Paget Collection. For a brief outline of Lady Sybil’s background, see: Harmer, The Forgotten Hospital, pp. 19 – 23. Grey, Report to the Executive Committee, October 11/24, 1915, copy in Paget Collection. Fleming and Jefferson, The Work of the Anglo – Russian Hospital (1917), p. 20, Jefferson Papers. Peter Gatrell, Russia’s First World War: A Social and Economic History (Harlow, 2005), p. 20. Grey, Report to the Executive Committee in London, 11/24 October 1915, copy in Paget Collection. This point also made retrospectively: Fleming and Jefferson, The Work of the Anglo-Russian Hospital (1917), pp. 6 –7, Jefferson Papers. For a biography of Lady Muriel Paget’s life, see: Blunt, Lady Muriel. Undated correspondence from Paget to Grey, Paget Collection. Gatrell, Russia’s First World War, p. 43; John F. Hutchinson, Politics and Public Health in Revolutionary Russia, 1890– 1918 (Baltimore, MD, 1999), p. 112; Stoff, Russia’s Sisters of Mercy and the Great War, pp. 48 – 9. Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv (RGIA), f. 1542, op. 1, d. 25, l. 1 no. 19595: Rossiiskoe Obshchestvo Krasnago Kresta k KniagineMarie Anatolievne Shakhovskoi, Dekabria 15, 1915. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. RGIA f. 1542, op. 1 d. 25, l. 2, no. 124076: Rossiiskoe Obshchesto Krasnago Kresta k Kniagine Marii Anatolievne Shakhovskoi, marta 10, 1916. However, the help the hospital received from the Russian authorities was outlined in Fleming and Jefferson, The Work of the Anglo-Russian Hospital (1917), p. 8, Jefferson Papers. Ibid.

318

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28. However, this did change in 1917 to some extent when the assistance that the RRC gave the hospital was outlined, which highlighted the hospitals cooperative and fraternal nature. 29. Lady Muriel Paget Diary, 6/19 July 1917, Paget Collection. 30. Ibid. 31. Lady Sybil Grey, Report to Lady Muriel Paget, 18/31 January 1917, Paget Collection. The idea of the Russian peasant as wild was not unique to Lady Sybil but a popular perception which had permeated Britain in previous decades; see: Louise Hardiman, ‘“Infantine Smudges of Paint . . . Infantine Rudeness of Soul”: British Reception of Russian Art at the Exhibitions of the Allied Artists’ Association, 1908 –1911’, in Anthony Cross (ed.), A People Passing Rude (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 138– 9, 142– 7. 32. For a discussion on a similar sentiment where British nurses in Serbia believed they represented Britain during World War I, see: Angela K. Smith, ‘“Beacon of Britishness”: British Nurses and Female Doctors as Prisoners of War’, in Alison S. Fell and Christine E. Hallett (eds), First World War Nursing: New Perspectives (New York, 2013), pp. 35 – 50. 33. This point is noted in: Frank Prochaska, The Voluntary Impulse: Philanthropy in Modern Britain (London, 1988), p. 31. 34. Lady Muriel Paget Diary, 25 August 1917, Paget Collection. Not clear if date old or new style. 35. Lady Muriel Paget Diary, 25 August 1917. Not clear if date old or new style; Annoyance with the committee is also noted in: Lady Muriel Paget Diary, 27 August/9 September, Paget Collection. 36. Paget to Unidentified Recipient, 2/15 July 1916, copy in Paget Collection. 37. Lady Muriel Paget to Husband, 12 August 1916, in Anne Powell, Women in the War Zone: Hospital Service in the First World War (Gloucestershire, 2009), p. 299. Not clear if date old or new style. 38. Lady Muriel Paget Diary, 12 August 1917. Not clear if date old or new style. Similar points about natchalnicks made in: Lady Muriel Paget Diary, 6/19 July 1917; Lady Sybil Grey, Report to Lady Muriel Paget, 12/25 January [1917?], Paget Collection. 39. Michael Hughes, ‘Searching for the Soul of Russia: British Perceptions of Russia During the First World War’, Twentieth Century British History 20, no. 2 (2009), pp. 203, 205, 208; Anthony Cross, ‘By way of Introduction’, in Cross, A People Passing Rude, p. 19; Svetlana Klimova, ‘“A Gaul who has Chosen Impeccable Russian as his Medium”: Ivan Bunin and the British Myth of Russia in the Early 20th Century’, in Cross, A People Passing Rude, pp. 215– 17. 40. Paul Ward, ‘“Women of Britain Say Go”: Women’s Patriotism in the First World War’, Twentieth Century British History 12, no. 1 (2001), p. 34. 41. Lady Muriel makes this point in: Lady Muriel Paget Diary, 25 August 1917, Paget Collection. Not clear if date in old or new style; Point also made in entries from 27 August/9 September 1917; Paget to Lord Cheylesmore,

NOTES

42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

TO PAGES

216 –220

319

27 August/9 September 1917, copy in Paget Collection; ‘Imperial and Foreign News Items’, The Times (London), 25 September 1917, col. F, p. 7. Stoff, Russia’s Sisters of Mercy and the Great War, p. 67. However, these issues did improve as the war progressed; see: Stoff, Russia’s Sisters of Mercy and the Great War, pp. 60–5; Sanborn, Imperial Apocalypse, pp. 154–7. Grey, Report to Paget, 15/28 December [1916?], Paget Collection. Ibid. Grey, Report to Paget, 12/27 January [1917?], Paget Collection. Ibid. Ibid. The Anglo – Russian Hospital (1915), p. 3, Paget Collection. Lady Sybil Grey, Report to Lady Muriel Paget, 12/25 January [1917?]. The same point is made in her reports to Lady Paget of 6/19 January 1917 and 18/31 January 1917, Paget Collection. Fleming and Jefferson, The Work of the Anglo – Russian Hospital (1917), pp. 3, 21, Jefferson Papers. Lady Muriel Paget, Undated report to Lady Sybil Grey, Paget Collection. Ibid. Lady Sybil Grey, Report to Lady Muriel Paget, 18/31 January 1917, Paget Collection. Russian Exhibition-Rysskaia Vystavka, Descriptive of the Industries, Art, Literature and Customs of Russia (May, 1917), p. 18, Paget Collection. Lady Muriel Paget Diary, 23 – 26 June /6 – 9July 1917, Paget Collection. Lady Muriel Paget Diary, 6/19 July 1917, Paget Collection. Ibid. Lady Muriel Paget Diary, 25 August 1917, Paget Collection. Not clear if date in old or new style. Lady Muriel Paget to Lord Cheylesmore, 27 August /9 September 1917, copy in Paget Collection. Lady Muriel Paget, 1/14 September and 9/22 Spetember 1917, Paget Collection. Lady Muriel Paget, 1/14 September 1917, Paget Collection. Transcript, ‘ARH Activity in Kiev and Military Propaganda’, n.d., Paget Collection. Ibid. For a discussion on the Russian Revolution, see Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891 – 1924 (London, 1997); Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, 3rd ed., (Oxford, 2008). These exact words were used in Watney and Lidgett, ‘Russia’s Wounded Soldiers’, The Dundee Advertiser, 26 March 1917; Watney and Lidgett, ‘The Russian Wounded’, The Midland (Coventry) Daily Telegraph, 26 March 1917; Watney and Lidgett, ‘Russian Flag Day’, Liverpool Courier, 26 March 1917; Watney and Lidgett, ‘Russia’s Wounded: Flag Day for Anglo– Russian Hospitals’, Leeds Mercury, 26 March 1917, Paget Collection.

320

NOTES

TO PAGES

220 –221

67. For a brief discussion concerning the exhibition, see: Cross, ‘Exhibiting Russia’, pp. 29–39; For advertisements for the exhibition, see: The Morning Post, 26 March 1917; Yorkishire (Leeds) Post, 27 March 1917, Paget Collection; The Times (London), 4 May 1917, p. 9, col. C; Winifred Stephens, ‘Russia in London. An Interview with Lady Muriel Paget’, The Daily News, 18 April 1917, Rus 1/32, Imperial War Museum Online, http://www.tlemea.com/waw.asp? view¼norm&MaxFiles¼10&autoTermWeight¼yes&fuzzy¼Yes&fuzziness¼ 1&cmd¼search&zoom¼default&iquality¼10&docid¼§ion¼All&request ¼(SUBTITLE þ contains(Russia))&nPage¼1 (accessed 5 May 2013) (hereafter cited as IWM Online). 68. Minutes of Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Russian Exhibition, 22 March 1917, Paget Collection. This sentence, among others, was crossed out in the minutes. 69. The Daily Telegraph, 27 March 1917, Paget Collection. This same sentiment is also expressed in: Stephens, ‘Russia in London’, The Daily News, 18 April 1917, IWM Online. 70. Hughes, ‘Searching for the Soul of Russia’, pp. 198 – 226. 71. ‘Russia in Peace and War’, The Times (London), 1 May 1917, p. 9, col. C. 72. Hughes, ‘Searching for the Soul of Russia’, p. 207; This theme of the war being one ‘for civilization’ did not just emerge in 1917 but was a narrative from the beginning of the war in Russia; see: Sanborn, Imperial Apocalypse, pp. 19, 250 –1. 73. Russian Exhibition-Rysskaia Vystavka, Descriptive of the Industries, Art, Literature and Customs of Russia (May, 1917), pp. 36 – 7, Paget Collection. 74. Ibid. 75. War and Revolution: Excerpts from the Letters and Diaries of the Countess Olga Poutiatine, Edited and translated by George Lensen (Tallahassee, 1971), pp. 57 – 8. Square brackets in the original. 76. Ibid., pp. 61 – 2. 77. Orlando Figes and Boris Kolonitskii, Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917 (London, 1999), pp. 31 – 3 and Chapter 2. 78. Lensen, War and Revolution, p. 58; Lord Cheylesmore, introduction to The Work of the Anglo-Russian Hospital, by Fleming and Jefferson (1917), p. 3, Jefferson Papers. 79. Lady Muriel Paget Diary, 21 June 1917; Lady Muriel Paget Diary, 25 August 1917, Paget Collection; Dorothy Cotton to Elsie, 4 March 1917, Library and Archive Canada, http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/nursing-sisters/0250132203.01-e.php?isn_nbr¼97730 (accessed 5 May 2013); L.C. Pocock Diary, 27 February/12 March 1917, GM and LC Pocock Papers, 3648, Imperial War Museum; Lensen, War and Revolution, 66 – 8; Dorothy Seymour to Mother, 15 March 1917, Dorothy N. Seymour Papers, 3210, IWM. Not clear if dates old style or new style. A similar view of the Revolution as positive can be found in the women who worked in the Scottish Women’s Hospital in Russia during World War I; see: Jane McDermid, ‘A Very Polite and Considerate Revolution:

NOTES

80. 81. 82. 83.

84. 85.

TO PAGES

221 – 228

321

The Scottish Women’s Hospital and the Russian Revolution, 1916– 1917’, Revolutionary Russia 21, no. 2 (2008), pp. 135– 51. ‘Otkrytyı̑ a List’, Rossiı˘skoe Posol’stvo v’ London’, 26 Maı̑ a / 8Iı̑ un’ 1917, Paget Collection. B.F. Dodonov, E.D. Grin’ko and O.V. Lavinska, (eds), Zhurnaly Zasedaniı˘ Vremennogo Pravitel’stva: Seniabr’-Oktiabr’ 1917 goda (Moscow, 2001), p. 166. ‘The Anglo– Russian Hospital’, The Times (London), 20 February 1918, p. 5, col B. ‘The Anglo– Russian Hospital’, The Times (London), 20 February 1918, p. 5, col B. Leaving in the correct fashion was also recognised in: Reports by the Joint War Committee and the Joint War Finance Committee of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St. John of Jerusalem on Voluntary Aid Rendered to the Sick and Wounded at Home and Abroad and to British Prisoners of War, 1914– 1919 (London, 1921), p. 455. Lady Muriel Paget Diary, 25 August 1917, Paget Collection. Not clear if date old style or new style. Lyon Blease to Mother, 8/21 December 1916, Lyon Blease Collection, D/55/26/3, Special Collections Archive, University of Liverpool.

Chapter 13 ‘Who Died for the Homeland?’ Celebrating Victory in East-Central Europe After World War I: An Overview of the Unknown Soldiers 1. Maureen Healy, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire. Total War and Everyday Life in World War I (Cambridge, 2004). 2. E´va Fisli, ‘Le Prisme de la Perte. La Hongrie et ses Soldats Inconnus’, in Francois Cochet and Jean-Noe¨l Grandhomme (eds), Les Soldats Inconnus de la Grande Guerre. La Mort, le Deuil, la Me´moire, (Paris, 2012), pp. 241 – 59. 3. John Paul Newman, ‘Croats and Croatia in the Wake of the World War’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 24 (2014). 4. Antoine Prost, ‘Le Poids de la Mort’, in Francois Cochet and Jean-Noe¨l Grandhomme (eds), Les Soldats Inconnus de la Grande Guerre. La Mort, le Deuil, la De´moire, pp. 19 – 42. 5. Sites of memory, Sites of Mourning, the Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge, 1995). 6. Prost, ‘Le Poids de la Mort’. 7. There were actually war memorials in Prague’s outskirts such as Kolovraty or Vinorˇ, proclaiming ‘To the far-off graves’, but that was insufficient solace. 8. Julia Eichenberg, ‘Polish Eagles and Peaces Doves: Polish Veterans between Nationalism and Internationalism’, in Julia Eichenberg and John Paul Newman (eds), The Great War and Veterans’ Internationalism (London, 2013), pp. 77 – 96, here p. 78.

322

NOTES

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228 –234

9. Guerres Mondiales et Conflits Contemporains, ‘Me´moire de la Premie`re Guerre Mondiale en Europe Me´diane’, PUF, Octobre 2007/228, p. 158. 10. Antoine Mare`s, Edvard Benesˇ. Un drame entre Hitler et Staline (Paris, 2015), pp. 502, 159. 11. Jean-Noe¨l Grandhomme, ‘Le ‘He´ros Inconnu’ de Bucarest, Fondateur Symbolique de la Grande Roumanie’, in Cochet et Grandhomme (eds), Les Soldats Inconnus de la Grande Guerre, pp. 271 –86. 12. ‘and the crux of the veterans’ movement throughout the inter-war period’: John Paul Newman, ‘Allied Yugoslavia: Serbian Great War Veterans and their Internationalist Ties’, in Eichenberg and Newman (eds), The Great War and Veterans’ Internationalism, pp. 97 – 117, here p. 105. 13. Jan Galandauer, 2 July 1917 Bitva u Zborova. Cˇeska´ Legenda, Praha, Havran, 2002, Chapter 3: ‘Zborovska´ tradice’, pp. 79 – 116. 14. ‘Pama´tce Zborovsky´ch Hrdinu˚’, Cˇesky´ sveˇt, 20 July 1922, p. 2 – 3. 15. Nancy M. Wingfield, ‘National Sacrifice and Regeneration: Commemorations of the Battle of Zborov in Multinational Czechoslovakia’, in M. Cornwall and J.P. Newman (eds), Sacrifice and Rebirth. The Legacy of the Last Habsburg War, Austrian and Habsburg Studies, vol. 18 (New York-Oxford-Berghahn, 2016), pp. 129 –50, here p. 129. 16. Aleksandar Ignjatovic´, ‘From Constructed Memory to Imagined National Tradition: the Tomb of the Unknown Yugoslav Soldier (1934– 38)’, Slavonic and East European Review, vol. 88, No. 4, October 2010, pp. 624 – 51. 17. Stanislav Sretenovic´, ‘Les Enjeux Politiques et Me´moriels du Soldat Inconnu Serbe’, in Cochet and Grandhomme (eds), Les Soldats Inconnus de la Grande Guerre, pp. 207– 39. 18. Sretenovic´, ‘Les enjeux politiques et me´moriels du Soldat inconnu serbe’, in Cochet and Grandhomme (eds), Les Soldats Inconnus de la Grande Guerre. 19. Newman, ‘Allied Yugoslavia: Serbian Great War Veterans and their Internationalist Ties’, in Eichenberg and Newman (eds), The Great War and Veterans’ Internationalism, pp. 97 – 117, here p. 98. 20. Yugoslavia Archives (AJ), 74, 399, 591 – 592, quoted by S. Sretenovic´. 21. John Paul Newman, ‘Silent Liquidation? Croatian Veterans and the Margins of War Memory in Interwar Yugoslavia’, in Cornwall and Newman (eds), Sacrifice and Rebirth. The Legacy of the Last Habsburg War, Austrian and Habsburg Studies, vol. 18, pp. 197 – 215, here p. 198. 22. Andrzej Nieuwasny, ‘La Tombe du Soldat Inconnu. Le Cas Polonais’, in Cochet and Grandhomme (eds), Les Soldats Inconnus de la Grande Guerre, pp. 399– 408. 23. Jean-Noe¨l Grandhomme, ‘Le ‘He´ros Inconnu’ de Bucarest, Fondateur Symbolique de la Grande Roumanie’, in Cochet and Grandhomme (eds), Les Soldats Inconnus de la Grande Guerre, pp. 271 –86. 24. Zdejneˇk Hojda, Jı´rˇ´ı Pokorny´, Pomnı´ky a Zapomı´ky (Prague, 1996). 25. Karel Cˇapek, Entretiens avec Masaryk, La Tour d’Aigues (1991). 26. Pavel Beˇlina, Petr Cˇornej and Jı´rˇı´ Pokorny´, Histoire des Pays Tche`ques (Paris, 1995), p. 348.

NOTES TO PAGES 234 –239

323

27. Nancy M. Wingfield, ‘National Sacrifice and Regeneration: Commemorations of the Battle of Zborov in Multinational Czechoslovakia’, in Cornwall and Newman (eds), Sacrifice and Rebirth. The Legacy of the Last Habsburg War, Austrian and Habsburg Studies, vol. 18 pp. 129– 50, here p. 130. 28. Antoine Mare`s, Edvard Benesˇ. Un Drame Dntre Hitler et Staline (Paris, 2015), pp. 502, 159. 29. Julia Eichenberg, ‘Polish Eagles and Peaces Doves: Polish Veterans between Nationalism and Internationalism’, in Eichenberg and Newman (eds), The Great War and Veterans’ Internationalism, pp. 77 – 96, here p. 81. 30. Martin Zu¨ckert, ‘Landesverteidigung und Staatliche Integration? Die Tschechoslowakische Armee nach 1918’, in L. Kostrbova´, J. Malı´nska´ et al. (eds), 1918. Model Komplexnı´ho Transformacˇnı´ho Procesu? (Prague, 2010), pp. 299, 117–30. 31. E´douard Benesˇ, Souvenirs de Guerre et de Re´volution (1914 – 1918). La Lutte pour l’inde´pendance des Peuples, 1929, Paris, Ernest Leroux, 2 vol. 32. Jean-Noe¨l Grandhomme, ‘Le ‘He´ros Inconnu’ de Bucarest, Fondateur Symbolique de la Grande Roumanie’, in Cochet and Grandhomme (eds), Les Soldats Inconnus de la Grande Guerre. 33. Paul R. Magocsi, A History of Ukraine. The Land and its Peoples (2nd edition), (Toronto, 2010), pp. 894, 547– 61. 34. These statistics (Ukrainians and Ruthenians were not still distinguished in 1921 census) are challenged by the Polish Historian Jerzy Tomaszewski, who reckons the Ukrainians were 16 per cent: Mniejszosci narodowe w Polsce XX wieku, Warszawa, ed. Spotkania, 1991, p. 23. Also: Jadwiga Wala, La France et les Minorite´s Nationales et Religieuses dans la Pologne Restaure´e (1918 – 1923), (the`se de doctorat sous la direction d’Albert Broder, Universite´ Paris XII, 2003), pp. 632, 225– 51. 35. Jan Galandauer, ‘Hrob Nezna´me´ho vojı´na v promeˇna´ch cˇasu’, Historie a vojenstvı´, 2/1999, pp. 251 – 73. 36. ‘Pocta zborovsky´ch hrdinu˚ v Praze’, [In Memory of Zborov Heroes, in Prague]. Na´rodnı´ Listy, 2 July 1922, front page. 37. Nancy M. Wingfield, ‘National Sacrifice and Regeneration: Commemorations of the Battle of Zborov in Multinational Czechoslovakia’, in Cornwall and Newman (eds), Sacrifice and Rebirth. The Legacy of the Last Habsburg War, Austrian and Habsburg Studies, vol. 18, pp. 129 – 50, here p. 134. 38. E´douard Maur, ‘La Me´moire des Montagnes’, in Antoine Mare`s (ed.), Lieux de Me´moire en Europe Centrale (Paris, 2009). 39. ‘Au milieu de la Place de l’E´toile de Paris, de la France, ils ont fait de ce pauvre mort le grand ordonnateur de la ce´re´monie sociale, telle qu’ils veulent qu’elle soit re´gle´e, l’idole qui dit toujours oui, charge´ de justifier le monde comme il va, comme ils veulent qu’il aille’, Jean Gue´henno, Journal d’un Homme de Quarante ans, Paris, E´d. Grasset, 1967 (1934), p. 241. 40. Jan Galandauer, ‘Hrob Nezna´me´ho vojı´na v promeˇna´ch cˇasu’.

324

NOTES

TO PAGES

239 –245

41. Tomas Hejda, ‘Terezı´n, un lieu de Me´moire Proble´matique sous le Communisme’, in Mare`s (ed.), Lieux de Me´moire en Europe Centrale, pp. 5970. 42. Jan Galandauer, 2 July 1917 Bitva u Zborova, Chapter 4: ‘Od Mnichova do Soucˇasnosti’, [From Munich to Nowadays], pp. 119– 49. 43. Stanislav Sretenovic´, ‘Les Enjeux Politiques and Me´moriels du Soldat Inconnu Serbe’, in Cochet and Grandhomme (eds), Les Soldats Inconnus de la Grande Guerre. 44. Jean-Noe¨l Grandhomme, ‘Le ‘He´ros Inconnu’ de Bucarest, Fondateur Symbolique de la Grande Roumanie’, in Cochet and Grandhomme (eds), Les Soldats Inconnus de la Grande Guerre. 45. In Slovakia, the recent rediscovery of the history of World War I has not (yet?) led to the adoption of an Unknown Soldier’s figure: Vojensky´ historicky´ u´stav, Bratislava, note n8524/2010, redactor: P. Chorva´t (PhDr.): ‘Nezna´my cˇs. Vojak pocˇas 1. Svetovej vojny’. 46. ‘Obnovenı´ tradice Nezna´me´ho vojı´na od Zborova’ [The Unknown Soldier from Zborov, a renewed tradition], Historie a vojenstvı´, 4/2009, pp. 112 – 15. 47. ‘Spolu s odkazem odporu proti komunisticke´ totaliteˇ a s pama´tkou jejı´ch obeˇtı´ se tı´m zcela za´sadneˇ obohacujı´ a posilujı´ demokraticke´ tradice nasˇı´ spolecˇnosti a Arma´dy Cˇeske´ republiky. Jejich za´vazˇnost na´s tak vy´znamneˇ inspiruje pro dalsˇı´ prˇı´nos Cˇeske´ republiky v mezina´rodnı´ spolupra´ci s nasˇimi partnery formou zahranicˇnı´ch misı´. Podle aliancˇnı´ch za´vazku˚ nasˇı´ vlasti tı´m prˇispı´va´me k upevnˇova´nı´ a k obraneˇ tradicˇnı´ch hodnot demokracie u na´s i v exponovany´ch cˇa´stech sveˇta’. Speech given by the Minister of Defence on 8 May 2010, National Monument on Vı´tkov, Prague.

Chapter 14 Memory of World War I and Veterans’ Organisations in Poland, 1918 –26 1. E. Kozłowski and M. Wrzosek, Dzieje ore˛z˙a polskiego 1794– 1939 (Warszawa, 1973), pp. 348 – 9, M. Jabłonowski, Polityczne aspekty ruchu byłych wojskowych w Polsce 1918– 1939 (Warszawa, 1989), p. 14. 2. N. Davies, God’s Playground. A History of Poland, vol. 2: 1795 to the Present (Oxford, 1981). 3. P. Stawecki, Polityka wojskowa Polski 1921– 1926 (Warszawa, 1981), p. 61; M. Jabłonowski, Polityczne aspekty ruchu byłych wojskowych w Polsce 1918– 1939, (Warszawa, 1989), p. 19. 4. B. Kruszyn´ski, Kariery oficero´w w II Rzeczypospolitej (Poznan´, 2011), pp. 11 – 314. 5. A. Marwick, War and Social Change in the Twentieth Century: a Comparative Study of Britain, France, Russia and the United States (London, 1974), p. 50. 6. M. Jabłonowski, Polityczne aspekty ruchu byłych wojskowych w Polsce, op. cit., p. 32. 7. T. Salamon, ‘Stowarzyszenia kombatanckie powstan´co´w wielkopolskich w latach 1921– 1939’, Kronika Wielkopolski, vol. 4 (1978), pp. 182– 94.

NOTES

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245 –248

325

8. A. Magowska, ‘The Unwanted Heroes: War Invalids in Poland after World War I’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, vol. 69 (2012), no. 2, pp. 185 –220. 9. C. Henschel, ‘Idziemy nasza˛ własna˛ droga˛. Z˙ydowscy weterani wojenni mie˛dzy pan´stwem, s´rodowiskiem kombatanckim i mniejszos´cia˛ z˙ydowska˛ w Polsce mie˛dzywojennej’; article will be published in 2018. 10. P. Wro´bel, ‘Kombatanci kontra politycy. Narodziny i pocza˛tki działania Zwia˛zku Legionisto´w Polskich 1918– 1925’, Przegla˛d Historyczny, No. 76 (1985), pp. 77 – 111. 11. J. Eichenberg, ‘Polish Eagles and Peace Doves: Polish Veterans between Nationalism and Internationalism’, in J. Eichenberg, P. Newman (eds), The Great War and Veterans’ Internationalism (Basingstoke, 2013), p. 79. 12. Dziennik Ustaw, No. 33 (1937), poz. 255. 13. M. Jarza˛bek, ‘Pamie˛c´ zbiorowa kombatanto´w pierwszej wojny s´wiatowej w mie˛dzywojennej Polsce i Czechosłowacj’i’, Doctoral thesis written at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow (2014), p. 8. 14. J. Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge, 1998), P. Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (London. 2000). 15. ’O wojne˛ powszechna˛za wolnos´c´ ludo´w, Prosimy Cie˛, Panie’, Adam Mickiewicz, Ksie˛gi narodu polskiego i pielgrzymstwa polskiego, 1832. Julia Eichenberg, Ka¨mpfen fu¨r Frieden und Fu¨rsorge. Polnische Veterenanen des Ersten Weltkrieges und ihre internationalen Kontakte, 1918–1939 (Mu¨nchen, 2011), p. 23. 16. It must be added that the most important member of the Polish delegation to Versailles, Roman Dmowski, a prominent right-wing politician, created his own legend, in which he depicted the existence of the Polish Legionaries as an obstacle for his diplomatic efforts. Roman Dmowski, Polityka polska i odbudowanie pan´stwa (Warszawa, 1925). Marcin Jarza˛bek, ‘Pamie˛c´ zbiorowa kombatanto´w pierwszej wojny s´wiatowej w mie˛dzywojennej Polsce i Czechosłowacji’, Doctoral thesis written at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow (2014), pp. 114 – 15. 17. Anon., ‘Ksia˛z˙ki’, Droga, No. 6, pp. 33 – 4. 18. ‘Z˙ołnierze! Pie˛c´dziesia˛t lat temu ojcowie wasi rozpocze˛li walke˛ o niepodległos´c´ Ojczyzny [. . .] pozostana˛ wzorem wielu cno´t z˙ołnierskich, kto´re nas´ladowac´ be˛dziemy’, J. Piłsudski, ‘Rozkaz w rocznice˛ powstania styczniowego’, Pisma zebrane (Warszawa, 1937), p. 52. 19. Anon., ‘Polska – to wielka rzecz’, Hallerczyk, No. 2, 1924, p. 1. 20. P. Wro´bel, ‘“Kombatanci kontra politycy”. Narodziny i pocza˛tki działania Zwia˛zku Legionisto´w Polskich 1918-1925’, Przegla˛d Historyczny, No. 76, 1985, p. 90. 21. Archiwum Gło´wne Akt Nowych, Zwia˛zek Legionisto´w Polskich, t. 144, p. 32. 22. E. Kossewska, Zwia˛zek Legionisto´w Polskich 1922– 1939 (Warszawa, 2003), pp. 31 – 40.

326 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

NOTES

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248 –252

Statut i regulamin wewne˛trzny Zwia˛zku Hallerczyko´w (Bydgoszcz, 1924). Anon, ‘Generał Jo´zef Haller’, Hallerczyk, No. 1, 1924, pp. 1 – 2. B. Kruszyn´ski, Kariery oficero´w w II Rzeczypospolitej (Poznan´, 2011), p. 116. M. Jabłonowski, Polityczne aspekty ruchu byłych wojskowych w Polsce, p. 42. P. Wro´bel, ‘Kombatanci kontra politycy. Narodziny i pocza˛tki działania Zwia˛zku Legionisto´w Polskich 1918– 1925’, op. cit., p. 94. M. Jabłonowski, Polityczne aspekty ruchu byłych wojskowych w Polsce, p. 45. ‘Przed kongresem warszawskim Fidac’u’, Hallerczyk – Powstaniec – Wojak, 1926, nr 3 – 4, 1926, p. 5, E. Kossewska, Zwia˛zek Legionisto´w Polskich 1922– 1939, op. cit., p. 189. Державний архів Львівської області, Zwia˛zek Obron´co´w Lwowa, 266/1/4, k. 54– 8. J. Eichenberg, Ka¨mpfen fu¨r Frieden und Fu¨rsorge. Polnische Veterenanen des Ersten Weltkrieges und ihre internationalen Kontakte, 1918 – 1939 (Mu¨nchen, 2011), J. Eichenberg, ‘Polish Eagles and Peace Doves: Polish Veterans between Nationalism and Internationalism’, in J. Eichenberg and P. Newman (eds), The Great War and Veterans’ Internationalism, pp. 77 – 96. Anon., ‘Zjazd Okre˛gu Pomorskiego’, Głos Oficera Rezerwy, No. 18 (1925), p. 18. Anon. ‘Czuj duch!’, Powstaniec Wielkopolski, No. 3 – 4 (1926), p. 8. ‘Sunie korowo´d ducho´w [. . .] Zobaczyli swych kolego´w inwalido´w, sprzedaja˛cych na s´niegu i na deszczu papierosy – zobaczyli z˙ony, wdowy, dzieci i sieroty z˙ebrza˛ce na ulicach, widzieli swe rodziny wyrzucone na bruk w Imie˛ Najjas´niejszej Rzeczypospolitej – zobaczyli rodako´w konaja˛cych z głodu, stoja˛cych pod bramami fabryk. Zobaczyli i zapytali sie˛: 00 czy warto było zgina˛c´”’, Anon., ‘Na gro´b Nieznanego Z˙ołnierza’, Głos rezerwy, No. 1 (1926), p. 5. Anon. ‘Oficerowie emeryci’, Głos oficera rezerwy, No. 16 (1925), pp. 8– 9, ibid. p. 16. A. Plomien´czyk, ‘Partie – a z˙ycie narodowe Polski’, Droga, No. 2 (1922), pp. 21 – 3. J. Je˛drzejewicz, ‘O nowego człowieka’, Droga, nr 2 (1922), pp. 1 – 3. J. Rundbaken, ‘Zasady rozwaz˙ania zjawisk społecznych’, Droga, No. 6 –7 (1922), pp. 7 –12. Anon. ‘Przegla˛d polityki zagranicznej. Uwagi wste˛pne’, Droga, No. 1 (1923), pp. 41 – 4. Anon., ‘Przełom’, Droga, No. 2 – 3 (1923), pp. 1 – 2. Archiwum Gło´wne Akt Nowych, Zwia˛zek Legionisto´w Polskich, 2, 339/2, Walne Zjazdy Delegato´w, p. 78. ‘Społeczen´stwo, kto´re samo siebie nie nauczyło spogla˛dac´ na siebie obiektywnie, szuka przyczyny złego stanu w złych rza˛dach, w Sejmie, w urze˛dach pan´stwowych, ale nie spostrzega wad u siebie [. . .)] rza˛d jest odbiciem wartos´ci społeczen´stwa’, ‘Czuj Duch!’, Powstaniec wielkopolski, No. 1 (1926), p. 1.

NOTES

TO PAGES

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327

43. ‘Sumienie praworza˛dnego obywatela z tym sie˛ pogodzic´ nie moz˙e. Po´js´c´ ma oto na marne krew wszystkich powstan´ [. . .], krew tylu z˙ołnierzy polskich’, ‘W imie˛ praworza˛dnos´ci’, Hallerczyk – Powstaniec – Wojak, No. 3 – 4 (1926), p. 5. 44. Jerzy Biernacki, ‘Włoska ochotnicza milicja bezpieczen´stwa narodowego’, Głos oficera rezerwy, pp. 1 – 6. 45. Anon., ‘Dział sportowy i Druz˙yn Błe˛kitnych’, Hallerczyk, No. 1 (1924), p. 6. 46. Anon., ‘Tezy Marszałka Jo´zefa Piłsudskiego’, Droga, No. 2 – 3 (1923), pp. 3 – 6. 47. H. Jabłon´ski, ‘Z dziejo´w obozu legionowo-peowiackiego’, Dzieje Najnowsze, vol. 1 (1947), pp. 57 – 9; E. Kossewska, Zwia˛zek Legionisto´w Polskich 1922– 1939, p. 40. 48. B. Kruszyn´ski, Kariery oficero´w w II Rzeczypospolitej, pp. 414– 15; P. Stawecki, ‘O dominacji wojskowych w pan´stwowym aparacie cywilnym w Polsce w latach 1926– 1939’, Wojskowy Przegla˛d Historyczny, 1965, No. 10 (3). 49. H. Hein-Kircher, Der Piłsudski-Kult und seine Bedeutung fu¨r den polnischen Staat 1926– 1939 (Marburg, 2002).

Conclusion Wartime Experiences and Ensuing Transformations 1. Antoine Prost and Jay Winter, The Great War in History: Debates and Controversies, 1914 to the Present (Cambridge, 2005). 2. James Mark, Unfinished Revolution: Making Sense of Communism in East-Central Europe (New Haven, CT, 2011). 3. Pieter Judson, The Habsburg Empire: A New History (Cambridge, MA, 2016). 4. See, e.g., Serhii Plokhy, The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union (London, 2015).

SELECTED FURTHER READING

Bucur, Maria, Heroes and Victims: Remembering War in Twentieth-Century Romania (Bloomington, IN, 2009). Bucur, Maria and Nancy Wingfield, Staging the Past: The Politics of Commemoration in Habsburg Central Europe 1848 to the Present (West Lafayette, 2001). Clark, Christopher, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to War in 1914 (London, 2012). Cornwall, Mark, The Undermining of Austria-Hungary: The Battle for Hearts and Minds (New York, 2000). Cornwall, Mark and John Paul Newman (eds), Sacrifice and Rebirth. The Legacy of the Last Habsburg War (Austrian and Habsburg Studies vol. 18) (New York, Oxford, 2016). Daniel, Ute, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keane and Alan Kramer (eds), 1914– 1918 Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War (Berlin, 2014, ongoing), available at www.1914-1918online.net. Eichenberg, Julia and John Paul Newman (eds), The Great War and Veterans’ Internationalism (London, 2013). ——— (eds), Aftershocks: Violence in Dissolving Empires after the First World War: Special Issue of Contemporary European History, 19, 3 (2010). Gatrell, Peter, Russia’s First World War: a Social and Economic History (London, New York, 2005). ———, A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia during World War I (Bloomington, IN, 1999). Gerwarth, Robert, The Vanquished; Why the First World War Failed to End (London, 2016). Gerwarth, Robert and John Horne (eds), War in Peace: Paramilitary Violence in Europe after the Great War (Oxford, 2012). Gumz, Jonathan, The Resurrection and Collapse of Empire in Habsburg Serbia 1914– 1918 (Cambridge, 2009). Healy, Maureen, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I (Cambridge, 2004). Holquist, Peter, Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia’s Continuum of Crisis, 1914– 1921 (Cambridge, MA, 2002). Horne, John, A Companion to World War I (Oxford, 2010).

SELECTED FURTHER READING

329

Judson, Pieter M., The Habsburg Empire: a New History (Cambridge, MA, 2016). Kramer, Alan, Dynamic of Destruction: Mass Killing in the First World War (Oxford, 2007). Krumreich, Gerhard, Gerd Hirschfeld and Irina Renz (eds), Enzyklopa¨die Erster Weltkrieg (Paderborn, 2009), Brill’s Encyclopedia of World War I (Leiden, 2012). Kucˇera, Rudolf, Rationed Life: Science, Everyday Life and Working Class Politics in the Bohemian Lands 1914 – 1918 (Oxford, New York, 2016). Liulevicius, Vejas Gabriel, War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity and German Occupation in World War I (Cambridge, 2000). Lohr, Eric, Vera Tolz, Alexander Semyonov and Mark von Hagen (eds), The Empire and Nationalism at War (Bloomington, IN, 2014). ———, Nationalizing the Russian Empire: the Campaign against Enemy Aliens during World War I (Cambridge, MA, 2003). Luthar, Oto, The Great War and Memory in Central and South-Eastern Europe (Leiden, 2016). Mitrovic´, Andrej, Serbia’s Great War 1914– 1918 (London, 2007). Mulligan, William, The Great War for Peace (New Haven, CT, London, 2014). Petrone, Karen, The Great War in Russian Memory (Bloomington, IN, 2011). Rachamimov, Alon, POWs and the Great War: Captivity on the Eastern Front (Oxford, New York, 2002). Romsics, Gergely, Myth and Remembrance: The Dissolution of the Habsburg Empire in the Memoir Literature of the Austro-Hungarian Political Elite (New York, 2006). Sanborn, Joshua, Imperial Collapse. The Great War and the Destruction of the Russian Empire (Oxford, 2014). Stone, David R., The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front 1914– 1917 (Lawrence, KS, 2015). Stone, Norman, The Eastern Front, 1914– 1917 (London, 1975). Sumpf, Alexandre, La Grande Guerre Oublie´e (Paris, 2014).. Thompson, Mark, White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front (London, 2008). von Hagen, Mark, War in a European Borderland: Occupations and Occupation Plans in Galicia and Ukraine 1914 –1918 (Seattle, London, 2007). Watson, Alexander, Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War 1914– 1918 (London, 2014). Winter, Jay (ed.), The Cambridge History of the First World War, 3 vols (Cambridge, 2014).

INDEX

Abbot, Fred, 249 Ady, Endre, 189– 90, 191 Africa, 86 Agatonovic´, Radoslav, 230 aid, 126, 127, 203, 205– 6, 222, 248 see also Red Cross; refugees Albania, Albanians, 93, 98, 100, 256 Albertson, Ralph, 157 Alsace, 107 Amery, Leopold, 140 anarchism, anarchists, 24, 37 animals, 105, 135, 175, 185 anti-Semitism, 51– 2, 54, 65, 113, 184, 191, 248 see also pogrom Anton, Johan, Graf von Pergen, 22 Archangel, 78, 130, 140, 147, 154 Armenians, 9, 261 Armistice (November 1918), 80, 143, 144 Asia, 138, 139, 158 Central, 86, 124, 139, 142 Austria, Austrians, 9, 22, 23, 24, 30, 38 – 41, 47, 61 – 71, 75, 82, 85, 86, 122, 124, 128, 132, 136, 160, 161, 175, 181, 184–8, 224, 225, 255, 257, 258, 261 Austria-Hungary, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 19 – 41, 42 – 3, 44, 58 – 9,

60– 1, 71 – 2, 73 – 4, 76, 77, 79, 86, 87, 88 – 92, 93 –9, 119–23, 125–7, 157, 158, 162, 177– 94, 226, 228, 229, 241, 243, 246, 247 Balkans, 5, 7, 87, 88, 89, 100, 119 – 23, 139, 159, 255 Balkan Wars, 90, 93, 96, 100, 232 Baltics, 4, 7 Banat, 236, 241 Beijing, 131 Belgium, 88, 106, 107, 115, 116, 185, 220 Belgrade, 92 – 3, 95, 98, 228, 229 –30 Benesˇ, Edvard, 234, 237 Berlin, 183, 194 Bessarabia, 236, 241 Biasi, Guido, 122, 123, 125– 6 Boer War, 157 Bohemia, 45, 52, 64, 65, 69 see also Czechs Bolshevism, Bolsheviks, 21, 32 – 7, 79, 80, 83, 132, 140, 142– 9, 151, 196, 206, 227 see also revolution; Russian Civil War Bonapace, Ermete, 121, 126, 129, 130 Bosnia (Bosnia-Herzegovina), 31, 60, 62, 90, 92, 94 – 5, 157, 231, 256

INDEX Brandl, Franz, 38, 39 Braunau am Inn, 46, 66, 67 Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of, 34, 79, 80, 84, 140 Britain, British, 5, 9, 78, 79, 80, 83, 116, 139– 59, 208 – 23, 224, 232, 247, 249 Bruck an der Leitha, 46 Bru¨nn (Brno), 44, 48, 53, 64 Buchanan, George, 210, 217 Bucharest, 225, 234, 235 Budapest, 188 – 9, 191– 2, 194 Bugna, Giorgio, 135 Bukovina, 8, 44, 45, 48, 49, 56, 60, 61, 62, 65, 216, 236, 241 Bulgaria, 90, 95, 96, 97, 98, 255, 257, 258 Buria´n, Stephan, 29 Burn, A.G., 144, 151, 154 Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), 102 Byzantium, 140 camps, 4, 10, 11, 77, 80, 84, 89, 95, 97, 98, 123, 125– 6, 127– 9, 133, 173– 4 see also refugees Caporetto, battle of, 70 Carinthia, 61, 65, 66 casualties, 12, 93, 95, 98, 99, 116, 195, 197, 210, 226, 243 Caucasus, 79, 142 North, 9 Cazzoli, Alfonso, 122 Ceccato, Vigilio, 127– 8 censorship, censors, 24, 27, 29, 37, 40, 66, 161, 164, 171– 2, 173, 174, 175, 183, 201 Central Powers, 3, 74, 77, 79, 80, 89, 95, 140, 184, 227, 230 children, 48, 51, 67, 68, 92, 95, 99, 109, 187, 262 China, Chinese, 139, 148, 155 Chita, 127 Chotzen, 46, 66

331

Ciocchetti, Battista, 124– 5 civilians, 3, 4, 42, 62, 88, 91, 92, 95, 97, 98, 105, 106– 10, 114– 16, 153–8, 185, 261 Corfu, 95 crime, criminals, 50 crimes of war, 102, 107, 111, 115 Croatia, Croats, 25, 26, 31, 33, 60, 63, 64, 66, 67, 94, 189, 193, 231, 241 Czechoslovakia, Czechoslovaks, 53, 59, 75, 87, 94, 225, 227, 228, 229, 234–5, 237– 8, 239, 241, 255, 256–7 Czechs, 9, 26, 32, 44, 45, 52, 80, 132, 186, 228, 229, 240– 1 see also Bohemia; Moravia Czernowitz (Chernivtsi), 26, 51, 63 Cze˛stochowa, 107 Czvetasin Hranilovic´, Oskar von, 33 Dallagiovanna, Agostino, 134 Dalmatia, 60, 61, 94, 95, 119, 231 Darnytsia, 123, 125 Darwin, Charles, Darwinism, 141, 177 De˛bie, 109 Dellai, Arturo, 133 deportation, 1, 3, 6 – 8 Deutschbrod (Havlı´cˇku˚v Brod), 46, 66 Dietrichstein, Hugo von, 47 disability, disabled, 12, 13, 195– 207, 218–19, 244, 245, 246, 248, 250 disease, see health Dowbor-Mus´nicki, Jo´zef, 244 Drage, C., 147 Drina, 90 Druz˙bice, 109 education, 48, 166 see also school Entente, 75, 79, 96, 106, 124, 140, 161, 162, 209, 212, 218– 19, 222, 228 Eroshevich, 201– 202

332

WORLD WAR I IN CENTRAL

espionage, 23, 25, 27, 30, 31, 34, 35, 40 counter-espionage, 29, 37, 40 fascism, fascists, 120, 121, 124, 137, 252 see also Mussolini Fassini-Camossi, Edoardo, 80 film, 198, 201– 2, 204 France, French, 10, 74, 78, 80, 106, 107, 116, 160, 210, 224, 226, 227, 231, 232, 244, 247 Franchet d’Espe´rey, 229 Franz Ferdinand, 31, 32, 94 Franz Joseph, 177, 187 Furlong, Eric John, 146 Galicia, Galicians, 4, 6, 7, 8, 26, 27, 44, 45, 48, 49, 56, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 70, 73, 108, 119, 168, 170, 177– 81, 183– 5, 187– 8, 190, 192, 210, 224, 236, 261 Gallwitz, Max von, 103, 107, 108 Galsworthy, John, 221 Galton, Francis, 141 Gaya (Kyjov), 46, 47, 49, 66 Gayer, Edmund von, 22 Gazzurelli, Adelchi, 130 Gdynia, 113 genocide, 3, 106, 182, 262 Germany, Germans, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 44, 45, 52, 74, 75, 79, 88, 97, 101– 16, 122, 123, 127, 140, 143– 5, 158, 160, 161, 162, 178, 179, 181– 4, 185, 187, 191, 193, 220, 225, 229, 230, 243, 245– 6, 255 Giggins, George John, 146 Gmu¨nd, 46, 66 Gonzaga, Gemma Guerrieri, 76 Gottardi, Fioravante, 126 – 7, 129, 131 Greene, George William, 150 Grey, Sybil, 209, 210– 12, 214– 19, 222

AND EASTERN

EUROPE

Habsburg Empire, see Austria-Hungary Hague Conventions, 91, 92, 125 Haller, Jo´zef, 244, 248, 252 health, 165– 6, 172– 4, 175 public, 65, 68, 96, 104 see also medicine; sanitary conditions Heinold, Karl von, 47 Hitler, 3, 114, 178 Hofmannstahl, Hugo von, 188 Ho¨tzendorf, Franz Conrad von, 63, 96, 185 Hungary, Hungarians, 9, 13, 29, 35, 61, 75, 122, 123, 188– 92, 225, 229, 255, 257, 258 Hunter, Charles, 146 hygiene, see health; sanitary conditions Ilosvay, Gustav von, 33 intelligence, 22, 23, 24, 29, 80, 86, 187 counter-intelligence, 33 Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), 98, 100 invalid see disability Ironside, Edmund, 145, 151– 2 irredentism, irredentists, 76– 8, 86 Islam, Muslims, 75 Isonzo Valley, 60, 70 Istria, 60, 61, 64 Italy, Italians, 45, 46, 49, 60, 63, 64, 67, 70, 72, 73 – 87, 119– 37, 161, 162, 175, 186, 193, 249, 250, 252 Japan, 139 Russian–Japanese War, 195, 197, 205 Je˛drzejewski, Jerzy, 248 Jews, 6, 7, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 51– 2, 54, 59, 60, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69 –70, 104, 105, 109, 113, 115, 178, 181, 182, 184, 186, 191, 246, 261 see also anti-Semitism; pogrom Julian March, 119, 133

INDEX Kalisz, 5, 102, 106– 7, 115 Karadjordjevic´, Aleksandar, 231– 2, 259 Katzenau, 64 Kemp, Thomas, 155 Kiev, 123 Kikuzo, Otani, 80 Kirsanov, 77 – 8, 83, 126, 127, 129, 131, 133 Klofacˇ, Wenzel, 32 Knox, Alfred, 150 Kojetein (Kojetı´n), 51, 52 Kolin (Kolı´n), 50 Kolubara, 90 Kompatscher, Anton, 167 Kosovo, 98 Krain, 61 Krako´w (Cracow), 63, 64, 70, 243, 246, 248 Krama´r, Karel, 32, 59 Krasnoyarsk, 133 Krdzˇic´, Vic´entije, 98 Kretschmer, Paul, 47 Kros´niewice, 109 Kro¨ss, Franz, 165 Kro¨ss, Joseph, 166 Ku¨stenland, 61, 64 Kutno, battle of, 111 labour, forced, 10, 67 Leibnitz, 46 Lemberg (Lwo´w/Lviv), 27, 63, 168, 171, 177, 188, 236 letters, 160– 76, 181, 185, 186, Levico (Lo¨weneck), 57 Lipsko, 107 Locher, Johann, 166 Locher, Luis, 163 – 4 Ło´dz´, 182, 183 London, Treaty of, 86, 161 Ludendorf, Erich, 7, 108 Luis (Wenzer), Alois, 167– 75 Lutsk, 209 Lvov, Prince, 220

333

Mackensen, August von, 181 –4, 191 Mackinder, Halford, 140 Macˇva, 88 Maestranzi, Valentino, 132 Manera, Cosma, 79– 85 Manincor, Giuseppe de, 124, 129 Ma˘ra˘s¸ti, 233, 235 Maria Pavlovna, Great Princess of Russia, 198, 201 Mary, Queen of Romania, 233 Masaryk, Toma´sˇ Garrigue, 234 medicine, medical care, 55 – 6, 97, 197–9, 202, 208–23 Mickiewicz, Adam, 247 migration, forced, see deportation Milan, 78 minorities, ethnic (national), 6, 8, 10, 25, 39, 63, 64, 67, 79, 86, 186 – 7, 191, 225, 229, 261 Mitterndorf, 46, 66 Molignoni, Annibale, 129 Montenegro, 8, 89 – 90, 93, 94, 96, 98– 9, 241 Morava, 90 Moravia, Moravians, 9, 26, 44– 58, 64, 65, 69 mortality, rates of, 9 Murmansk, 140, 143, 148 Mussolini, 85, 252 Namur, siege of, 107 Narutowicz, Gabriel, 248 National Democratic Party (Poland), 27 Neville, J.E.H., 148 Nicholas II, 124 Niedersta¨tter, Alois and Florian, 163–4 Nikola, King of Montenegro, 96 Nikolsburg (Mikulov), 45– 6, 47, 51, 55, 66 occupation, 3, 7, 8, 21, 89, 95 –9, 102, 114, 153, 184 Olmu¨tz (Olomouc), 48

334

WORLD WAR I IN CENTRAL

Omsk, 124 Ottoman Empire, Ottomans, 75, 86, 90, 94, 157, 179, 261 see also Turkey Paget, Muriel, 208, 209, 212, 214– 19, 222 Paris Peace Conference, 99, 236, 257 Pearson, Karl, 141 Penza, 136 Petrograd, 13, 77, 85, 208– 23 Petruchevich, Ievhen, 236 Piłsudski, Jo´zef, 108, 233, 247, 248, 249, 252– 4, 259 Pocerina, 88 pogrom, 64, 71, 186 Pohrlitz (Pohorelice), 46, 66 Pola, 63 Poland, Poles, 5, 13, 27, 30, 46, 60, 64, 66, 67, 70, 71, 72, 101 – 9, 113– 16, 158, 178, 181– 2, 184– 8, 191, 210, 225, 227, 228, 232– 3, 236, 238, 241, 243– 54, 255, 257, 260 police, 19 – 41 Polish– Soviet War, 244, 245 Poole, F.C., 144, 151 Poole, Jack, 150 postcard, 11, 154, 161, 163, 175 see also letters Potocki, Andreas, 188 Pottendorf, 46, 66 Poutiatine, Olga, 221 POWs, 3, 4, 9 – 12, 28, 33, 36, 73– 87, 92, 97, 99, 111, 112– 13, 115, 116, 119– 37, 161, 167– 8, 172, 173– 4, 203, 244, 260 Prague, 64, 188, 237 Preobrazhenskii, S.A., 199 Prerau (Prˇerov), 26, 51 propaganda, 78, 83, 86, 90, 106, 112, 113, 116, 142, 147, 173, 218 – 19, 220, 248 Przmyl, 63

AND EASTERN

EUROPE

race, 5, 113, 116, 141, 145– 6, 148–56, 158, 182 Radom, 107, 181 Rapallo, conference, 85 Rava Ruska, battle of, 190 Rawlinson, 151 – 2 Red Cross, 126 – 7, 131, 171, 200, 201, 209–17, 222 –3 Redl, Alfred, 22 refugees, 1, 3, 4, 8, 8 – 9, 42 – 59, 60– 72, 147– 8, 200, 260 aid, 46 –7, 48, 49 –50 camps, 45 – 6, 47, 55 – 6 repatriation, 11 – 12, 56, 58, 59, 61, 62, 69, 70 – 1 Reiss, Archibald Rudolph, 91 – 2, 97 religion, 134, 135, 137, 153–4, 165, 202, 231, 232, 235, 237, 248 repatriation, 76 –87, 130 see also refugees revolution, revolutionaries, 37, 84, 85, 100, 189, 191, 247, 263 Russia, 1, 11, 13, 78, 87, 131, 136, 195, 197, 219, 221, 244, 255– 6, 260 see also Bolshevism Ribar, Ivan, 230 – 1 Riga, Treaty of, 228 Ritter von Gross, Ernst, 33 Riva, 63 Roma, 30 Romania, Romanians, 9, 13, 75, 96, 123, 225, 226, 228, 233– 4, 235–6, 239, 240, 255, 257, 258 Romanov Empire, see Russia Ronge, Maximilian, 22, 23, 36 Roth, Joseph, 177–80, 188, 192 Rozanov, 197 Russia, Russians, 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 21, 63, 64, 71, 74 – 87, 96, 105, 107, 109, 110– 13, 116, 120, 123– 36, 138 –59, 168, 170, 172, 178, 179, 181– 2,

INDEX

335

184– 7, 190, 195– 207, 208– 23, 243, 246, 255, 257, 258 Russian Civil War, 78 –81, 83– 6, 141, 147, 150, 158, 195, 205, 235, 255, 257, 260 Ruthenians, see Ukraine

strike, 34 –5 Styria, 61, 65, 69 St Andra¨, 66 Stalin, 3, 178 Surdulica, 97– 8 surveillance, 1, 19 –41, 45

Sˇabac, 88, 91, 96 Salzburg, 61 Sandzˇak, 98 sanitary conditions, 64, 65, 66, 67, 97, 104, 134, 184 see also health; medicine Schober, Johannes, 22, 38 – 9 school, 48, 68, 97, 134 see also education Schweppenburg, Leo Geyr von, 111 Scott, J., 143, 156 Sedlnitzky, Count, 22 Seeckt, Hans von, 186 Seidler, von, Ignaz, 27 Serbia, Serbs, Serbians, 8, 9, 12, 20, 21, 25, 31, 32, 76, 87, 88 –100, 182, 189, 226, 229–32, 241, 256, 259 Shakhovski, Maria Anatolievna, 213 shell-shock, 199 Siberia, 79, 80, 83, 86, 123, 125, 132, 133, 142, 173– 4 Sikorski, Władysław, 227, 233, 249 Silesia, 61, 69 Simonetti, Isidoro, 128– 9 Slavonia, 25, 231 Slavs, Slavic, 75, 84, 183, 184 South Slavs, 31, 34, 76, 87, 89, 94, 99 Sławek, Walery, 248 Slovakia, Slovaks, 191, 228, 229, 241 Slovenia, Slovenians, 46, 60, 63, 64, 66, 67, 70, 94, 231, 241 Soden, F.O., 147 spy, see espionage Srem, 95 Steinklamm, 46, 66

Tambov, 77, 125 Tannenberg, battle of, 116 Tbilisi, 85 Thalerhof, 63 Tien Tsin, 79, 80, 131, 132 Toplica Uprising, 96, 98 Trans-Siberian railway, 79, 83, 170 Transylvania, 236, 241 Trentino, 8, 65, 73, 75, 81 – 2, 83 –5, 119, 120– 2, 135, 136, 161 Trient (Trento), 63, 73, 75, 86, 132, 133, 160 Trieste, 73, 75, 86, 132, 133, 161 Turin, 78 Turkestan, 79, 84, 86 Turkey, Turks, 93 see also Ottoman Empire Tyrol, 65, 66 South, 48, 60, 61, 64, 75, 126, 160, 161– 3, 166, 175 Ukhtomskii, Esper, 139 Ukraine, Ukrainians, 6, 8, 26, 27, 46, 60, 63, 65, 66, 67, 70, 71, 72, 178, 184, 186– 7, 236, 246, 260 unknown soldier, 12, 224– 42 USA, Americans, 80, 132, 218– 19, 244 Valjevo, 93 Venezia Giulia, 73, 81 – 2, 84 veterans, 12, 13, 82, 84 – 5, 191, 195–207, 243–54, 259 Vienna, 34, 36, 64, 65, 69, 79, 184, 186, 188, 194 violence, 3, 5, 88, 108, 109, 122, 178, 186, 188, 261– 2

336

WORLD WAR I IN CENTRAL

Vistula, 110 Vittorio Emanuele III, 124 Vladivostok, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 131, 168, 235 Voit, Ervin, 190 Vojvodina, 25 Wagna, 64, 66 Warsaw, 112, 227, 238 Washburn, Stanley, 185– 6 Wessele´nyi, Miklo´s, 190 Western Front, 1, 4, 100, 110, 116, 185, 244, 247 Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany, 183 Willemnov, 215 Wilno (Vilnius), 228 Wilson, Woodrow, 37 Wilsonian principles, 3, 256

AND EASTERN

EUROPE

Wolfsberg, 66 Wolsburg, 46 women, 27 – 8, 37, 67, 68, 92, 109 – 10, 122, 133, 167, 207, 250 World War II, 1, 3, 98, 100, 101–2, 106, 113– 16, 182, 191, 207, 239, 256, 261, 262 Yanushkevich, 6 Yugoslavia, Yugoslavs, 13, 89, 94, 95, 99– 100, 225, 229– 32, 237, 238, 239, 241, 255, 256, 257, 259 see also Slavs Zborov, 229, 237 Znaim (Znojmo), 49 Zombory-Moldova´n, Be´la, 188– 92 Zydram-Kos´ciałkowski, Marian, 251