Page - 147 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

An Empire Mobilises 147 reservists each, as well as hundreds of horses. The men had to be briefed after showing their yellow call-up card, medically examined, assigned to units in accordance with their military service book, clothed, equipped and armed. Then drill and battle exercises began, lessons and instruction came thick and fast, in which the provisions of martial law and the use of dressing material were recalled. All of this happened not in the least in an organised sequence, but rather in a more or less wild confusion that processed within a few days the 415,000 men of the current army as well as the 1.5 million who were mobilised. The officers, whose families lived in garrison towns close to the front, received the order to bring their relatives to safety. In a very short space of time households were dissolved and furniture was loaded up and sent away.348At the railway stations endless farewell scenes occurred, repeated over and over. Josef Redlich wrote : ‘To Vienna this morning’ (he came from Hodonin [Göding]). ‘In all stations there are touching scenes, the people are great, brave, willing, good Austrians.’349 One of the numerous Russian emigrés who had given himself the alias Leon Trotsky, described what he had seen in Austria in an admittedly sarcastic manner, but he noticed the spontaneity and the en- thusiasm for war.350 Three and a half years later he would negotiate the peace between Austria-Hungary and Russia. If another piece of evidence were required to demonstrate that the mood in Austria differed in no way from that in Germany, then it would be sufficient to follow the journey of the 30.5 cm mortar division that departed for Belgium and France in order to strengthen the artillery on the German western front. ‘Our journey was everywhere a triumphal procession and a foray, but in colourful intensity’, wrote Lieutenant Franz Geyer of the Imperial and Royal 30.5 cm Mortar Division No. 2 in his diary.351 ‘In Saxony this turned into warmth, particularly on the part of the females donating gifts. ‘We Saxons and Austrians have always stood together, even in 1866. All of us have our heart in the right place. You can see that our lasses are not prudish, the Austrian women neither.’ The Saxon women really weren’t. Some of them immediately occupied our carriage, wanted and had to see everything, and know everything and would pref- erably have gone to war with us, ‘there you’d surely need us’. If we were fed till we burst in Silesia, here in Saxony we were showered with flowers and confection (but not till we burst). In my train compartment I set up one luggage rack for cigars and cigarettes and a second for the flowers. […] The Saxons have a passionate, open warmth, as far as I could tell. They remind me of children where we’re from, when they were still honest, carefree, without pretence and genuinely obliging, but also without fear of venial sins. […] The lasses had already prepared business cards or scraps of paper with their name and address on and all of them wanted to be promised a postcard from Paris or Belfort. […] Of course, we promised them all everything under the sun, because we hoped to be in Paris and Belfort in 14 days.’