Page - 269 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

In the Shadow of the Gallows 269 renewed advance of the Imperial and Royal troops in October, Austrian troops seized a Russian dossier in which the names of confidential informants working for the Rus- sians were listed. Their task was to smooth the path of the Russians through Austrian Galicia. Furthermore, a large number of cases had come to light in which Ruthenians in particular had given direct help to the Russians and had attempted to convey mes- sages across the front lines.648 It goes without saying that Conrad gave the order to proceed immediately against collaborators and informants. However, the Army High Command wanted to see even more extensive measures taken, and made a request for the appointment of a military governor. Its justification for this was a report presented to the Emperor on 14 October, according to which the Imperial and Royal armies were suffering greatly in their own country from the betrayal and espionage perpetrated by the Russophile population, while the enemy was being hailed as a ‘liberator’. The report claimed that as well as the uncompromising suppression of attempts to undermine the state, the mass of the population must be won over by impartial treatment and material support. However, the trust of all could only be gained through the armed forces which had for decades embodied the principle of the equal treatment of all nations. Since political officials were not up to such a task, a military governor would be required. Repeated attempts were made by the Army High Command to extend the area of validity of military jurisdiction and to impose martial law. The eastern counties in Hungary were not to be exempted from these measures. Detailed accounts were given of the fact that some provincial governors had refused to recruit the civilian population to build roads, that identity checks were not being conducted sufficiently thoroughly, that military telephone calls were not given priority over civilian ones, and that it was not even understood why for example the station waiting rooms at Bardejov (Bártfalva) were used to house ‘interim stations for the wounded’. In order to make the full seri- ousness of the military situation clear to the authorities and to the population, martial law should be declared.649 However, once again, the argumentation of the Army High Command failed to convince. Even so, this did not prevent the apparent proclamation of nearly 5,000 death sentences in the region of Galicia close to the front during the course of the following years, most of which were due to ‘treasonable activities’. A pro- portion of the sentences was also carried out.650 What began to emerge in September, October and in the months until the end of 1914 in the Bohemian crown lands, in Galicia and in Bukovina  – and finally also in Hungary  – was however merely a foretaste of far more extensive measures and endeav- ours by the Army High Command, which then culminated in attempts to overthrow the Austrian Prime Minister and impose a full military dictatorship. What was re- markable here was that this was generated by an Army High Command that had Con- rad as its driving force, and in him, a man who also demonstrated an uncompromising attitude in domestic matters ; yet at the same time, everything that was presented from