Page - 707 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Workers of the world, unite! 707 then be sent home and serve to strengthen the other fronts ? The announcement of the Provisional Government that it intended to continue the war on the side of the Entente apparently relieved the Allies of the concern regarding this development, but Masaryk wanted to be certain. He travelled to Russia and ultimately received permis- sion to establish Czecho-Slovakian units. Masaryk himself was allowed to recruit in the prisoner of war camps. It turned out that initially only a tenth of the approximately 210,000 Czechs and Slovaks in captivity were prepared to join a Czech corps and fight against the Imperial and Royal and the German troops.1611 The circumstance that some of them had deserted did not mean that they already wanted to shoot at their compa- triots, and furthermore the revolution had not failed to have an impact on the Czechs and Slovaks. In April, most of the senior commands of the Imperial and Royal troops were in- structed to report to the Army High Command on ‘social democratic symptoms as well as the influence of the Russian Revolution on the spirit of our troops’.1612 The at- mospheric picture put together thereafter mostly called the spirit ‘very good’, but it was by all means more nuanced. It would be most expedient, claimed the Organisational Group of the Army High Command, to send all the Romanian, Ruthenian, Serbian and Czech troops to the south-western front and to substitute them with German, Hungarian, Polish and Italian troops. This had already been recommended before the Russian Revolution, however. The only army that had noticed anything at all was the Imperial and Royal 4th Army. The 2nd Infantry Division, which was subordinated to it, could not always be counted on ‘with confidence’ ; the Ruthenians of Infantry Regiment No. 40 in particular boasted several socialists, ‘who make themselves felt by their displeasure and reluctance to work’. The 13th Rifle Division was ‘not fit due to inferior big city material (lots of Czechs) and [a] less capable officer corps’. The Army High Command did not consider this all that tragic and said that overall, the Russian Revolution had only exerted an influence to the effect ‘that the hope of an imminent victorious peace was enhanced’. On 2 May 1917, the Provisional Government was reshuffled. The idea of a separate peace was scrapped and the new War and Navy Minister, Alexander Kerensky, wanted to make the armed forces ready for action again in the shortest time possible. Desertion, refusal to follow orders and mutiny were to be punished with forced labour. Everything was done to consolidate discipline again and to furnish the officers with prestige and authority. Kerensky visited the troops at the front for weeks and attempted to convince them. He was also able to inspire and accomplished the feat of actually making the armies fit for action again. Finally, General Brusilov, the almost legendary victor of summer 1916, was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army. Now at the latest, it was clear that it would not be possible to simply pry Russia out of the front of the Allies, that propaganda only had a limited effect and that it was evidently only a