Page - 823 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

On Ivans, Serbs and Wops 823 and fell sick. The first epidemics broke out. The conditions became notorious. Prime Minster Tisza intervened and ultimately introduced an argument that could not simply be dismissed : humane treatment and corresponding care were desirable ‘in view of the fate of our own prisoners in enemy territory’.1947 Spain, which had volunteered to act as protecting power for the Russian prisoners in the Danube Monarchy, was engaged. Spanish delegates toured the first Austrian and Hungarian camps. They did not dis- cover anything unusual. It is possible, however, that they were led past the misery and did not notice that in Mauthausen and Milovice (Milowitz) in December 1914 the prisoners were sent into the surrounding area in order to beg, since the supply of the camps was not working. Evidently, they did not learn, either, of the large-scale deaths of Serbian prisoners of war in Mauthausen. In reality, Mauthausen was a ‘mortuary’.1948 Like so many things, the number of those who died here alone cannot be established exactly. It is said to have been between 7,000 and 12,000 people. But this is only one figure among many. Naturally, work on larger and better camps had already long since commenced, but away from the reception centres those responsible were very slow to get to work. Even when prisoners of war were deployed in building barrack camps, it was the accommo- dation of the Galician refugees that had priority. In searching for suitable pockets of land and also buildings, perhaps unexpectedly the notable willingness emerged of estate owners to offer their properties, though of course in return for a reimbursement of costs.1949 Guest houses and boarding houses, which  – as a result of the war  – no longer had any guests, were by all means prepared to rent their rooms out to prisoners of war, though naturally only to officers. Stables and sheds would suffice for captive soldiers. Members of veterans’ associations wanted to assume the responsibility of guarding the prisoners. It was clear that no-one had yet really given any thought to what the war would bring and, aside from Kenyérmezö, Arad, Mauthausen and Milovice, there was also no real concept of the reality of the prisoners’ misery. The prisoners were to be accommodated as far away as possible from the theatres of war, in order to impede their escape. That much was clear. The camps were to be erected for expedience close to railway lines, away from large wooded areas, since attention of course had to be given to visibility, and they needed space and the potential for an infrastructure to be built that was simply necessary. Unlike the refugee camps, the division into different nationalities was immaterial, provided that the camps could be constructed far enough away from the front. Prisoners of war were more welcome than refugees, since both Austria and Hungary intended a priori to employ them as workers and in this way wanted to offset those soldiers whom their own economy had lost. Thus, the prisoner of war camps sprang up like mushrooms. Some of them attained only the character of transit camps, since it was intended that the deployment of the prisoners