Page - 348 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

348 Under Surveillance public, were certainly shocking, however. The subsequent investigation of the incident, which took months, brought to light the fact that there had been an overreaction, and that many factors, not least a dismal leadership style, had caused the regiment to sur- render and at least not make efforts to sacrifice itself in a difficult situation. Clearly, chaotic conditions had already reigned in the replacement battalion of the regiment in September and October 1914. People had deserted, thrown their weapons away while marching out and had to be recaptured with brute force. The battalion commander made no effort to do his duty, but instead degenerated in various taverns with his drink- ing companions. He ignored the fact that the soldiers were waving flags in the Czech national colours of red, white and blue. In January 1915, the replacement battalion had to be relocated to Szeged. There, proceedings happily continued as before. The capit- ulation of the Austro-Hungarian garrison in Przemyśl was celebrated in taverns. Now, however, one consequence of the enormous loss of officers during the first months of the war made itself felt : there were far too few good officers, and literally every active and reserve officer had to be taken in order to be able to fill the intended posts even only nominally. This could certainly serve as an explanation. Equally, it had apparently been discovered that ultimately, it had been a single man, a sergeant called Lehecka, who had exerted great influence on his subordinates, had successfully agitated and had first led his own detachment to the Russians, and then subsequently encouraged other units to desert.815 The disbanding of the regiment, which was confirmed by Emperor Franz Joseph on 17 April, related primarily and perhaps even unjustly to the failure of the regiment in the Beskid Mountains, although for a troop body that had already been under surveil- lance anyway, the Emperor clearly felt that such a drastic measure was appropriate. In Paris, Masaryk expressed the view that the defection to the Russians by Regiment No. 28 was a sign of an ‘uprising’ in Bohemia. This was of course not the case. However, the matter was presented in the Czech newspapers in such a way that Infantry Regiment No. 28 had been abandoned by the other troops, had been driven forward by German machine guns, and was thus forced to surrender.816 This version was clearly designed to remove the taint of cowardice from the troops who had surrendered or defected. How- ever, the judgers and condemners became entangled when some regarded the cause of the mass desertions as being glaring leadership errors, while others claimed that the Czechs were simply unwilling to fight against Slavs, and only had to refer to the Czech emigration to draw support for their argument.817 In this regard, it was at any rate incorrect to assume that the Czech soldiers from Bo- hemia and Moravia had not accomplished similar military achievements to those of the Hungarians or Germans. They were deployed to an equal degree to the focal points of the war, and suffered similarly high losses to the other regiments, brigades and divisions of the Imperial and Royal Army. However, when it came to the number of soldiers