Page - 389 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Pre-emption 389 the detainment measures after all, and only allowed for those Italians to be detained whose disloyalty could be proven by halfway solid evidence.920 However, lists had been prepared in advance as a precautionary measure, and attempts had been made to keep them up to date. The sword of Damocles of expulsion and detainment hung over tens of thousands of Italians living in the Habsburg Monarchy. The issue of the preparatory decree had already sufficed as an alarm signal. However, the matter also had a military dimension, since if the Italians were treated with suspicion by the Monarchy in general and they were to be forcibly evacuated, what was to be done with the Italians serving in the Imperial and Royal Army and Navy ? Until that point, tens of thousands had loyally fought side-by-side with the Austro-Hungarian troops, and in fact there were no signs that they would not continue to do so. Equally, however, the fact had to be taken into account that even before the Italian declaration of war, hundreds of Italians had fled from the Habsburg Monarchy and that, finally, around 1,000 people living in Trieste (Triest), just as many from the Adriatic coast and 700 from the county of Tyrol had reported as voluntary soldiers to the Italian Army.921 It was, therefore, quite clear that a cautious approach was needed. The shock generated by the rumours of the threat of war from Italy was also suffi- cient to intensify the attempts that had already been underway since the autumn of 1914 to create voluntary formations, and particularly to reinforce the members of the Tyrolean Standschützen (members of rifle companies). As early as 1913, the Tyrolean rifle associations had already been declared to be a body that was required to serve in the Landsturm (reserve forces), thus creating a new regulatory framework for incorpo- rating this institution into the national defence forces. This was all the more important when the Landsturm took on the form of march battalions, making it available for use outside of the respective reinforcement areas. This meant that Landsturm formations from Tyrol and Vorarlberg could also be deployed in the Balkans and in Galicia.922 This led to a long and fierce controversy between the governors of Tyrol and Vorarlberg, Kathrein and Rhomberg, and the National Ministry of Defence of the Austrian half of the Empire. The use  – which was in formal terms almost entirely incontestable  – of the Tyrolean and Vorarlberg Landsturm troops and, therefore,also of the Standschützen somewhere in the east and south-east, combined with the rapidly increasing losses among the Tyrolean troop bodies in those theatres of war had almost immediately caused the enthusiasm for the war on the Inn and Etsch Rivers and on the shores of Lake Constance to disappear. Even so, the Standschützen continued to enjoy a high influx of new recruits, and the threat of Italy entering the war again led to a mood of thrilled enthusiasm among the people. Here, the issue was not to find a justification for going to war, but simply to avenge the decision taken by Italy, which was regarded as treason and perfidy, and above all to prevent the secession of the territory demanded by Italy. An imperial order on 18 May 1915 decreed that the Standschützen divisions