Page - 353 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Under Surveillance 353 for an increasing number of Czechs, Romanians, Poles, as well as southern Slavs and Italians, what was at issue was disentanglement from the imperial federation that had been in existence to date, or at least wide-ranging concessions. This is also what made this war so ambiguous for Austria-Hungary : to a certain extent, the Imperial and Royal Army was fighting to realise uniform foreign policy war aims, while the peoples of the Empire each fought for themselves and, ultimately, against each other. Many factors played a role in the respective attitudes, or at least in the general mood. The most important of these was not nationalism, however, but a far more banal motive : if the troops were successful, if they were well led and provided with everything they needed and that was indispensable to success, they almost uniformly showed a willing- ness to fight and to a large extent remained calm. If there were defeats, severe losses and a lack of all manner of items, and if on top of that, their leaders were incompetent, resignation spread and the inclination to give up everything, to desert and to end the war in such a way rose dramatically. It was then directly noticeable that among the troops, and in the respective crown lands, the mood improved significantly from May 1915, after the Russians had been forced back further and further. This would later also be the case with Serbia. As a result, the mistrust among the command authorities dis- solved, and it was no longer assumed à priori that the troop bodies from entire crown lands were unreliable. Still, it took a long time for the mistrust to break down, and in fact, it was not until the end of 1915 that one or another premature judgement was revised and greater differentiation was made. The Evidenzbüro of the Imperial and Royal General Staff noted no significant change in mood and behaviour of the popu- lation in Bohemia and Moravia. With some regiments, such as Infantry Regiment No. 18 (‘Königgrätz’) and 74 (‘Gitschin’), no manner of ‘patriotic sentiment, no willing to make sacrifices’ was identified, while by contrast, efforts to avoid field service using all possible means were certainly observed. This notwithstanding, it was emphasised that the Czech soldiers by all means ‘create an impression of reliability’. That was not all : the troops assigned to Imperial and Royal Infantry Regiment No. 83 in Szombathely reported voluntarily in larger numbers in order to go to the front with the XVI March Battalion. From the censored post received from prisoners of war who wrote to their relatives in Bohemia and Moravia from the Russian camps, it had emerged that the blame for the mass desertions was to be laid primarily at the door of a few individual officers and NCOs, instead of the soldiers of Czech origin being regarded in general with suspicion. From Imperial and Royal Uhlan Regiment No. 11 (‘Theresienstadt’), from which there had also been a notable case of mass desertion, it was reported that the troops had not even considered the option of defecting. However, their command- ing officer had suddenly ordered ‘Cease fire !’ and had even had the command blown from a trumpet. The soldiers were then taken prisoner and led away by the Russians. A similar occurrence had taken place with Infantry Regiment No. 28. The tendency in the