Page - 826 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

826 Camps it. The Russians are hardly likely to have known that until the winter war in the Car- pathians bonuses had been paid for the capture of Russian soldiers and even later real bounties were offered. In order to gather accurate information on strength, structure and troop division, bonuses of 25 kronen were paid in March 1916 for bringing in a Russian prisoner, for example. When this still did not yield the desired success, the patrols were promised silver and, allegedly, even gold bravery medals for the capture of Russians.1959 After the construction of the prisoner of war camps had become established and the first problems brought under control, a type of normality also ensued here. Towards the end of 1915, the number of prisoners of war in Austria-Hungary exceeded the one-million mark. Russians and Serbs received scarcely any food parcels from their homelands, which had a catastrophic effect from winter 1916/17, since at this point in time the food crisis was breaking out in Austria. The number of dead again soared. Charitable donations of another kind, which came from ‘Russian committees’ in the Netherlands, France and Great Britain, as well as from American and other organisa- tions, ensured, however, that camp libraries were established in the larger camps.1960 The approximately 50 camp libraries were equipped with around 20,000 books by means of donations of money and in kind. Admittedly, intellectual sustenance could not com- pensate for the hunger. Camp life was diversified when members of the Phonogram Archives of the Imperial Academy of Sciences made an approach and admitted songs of Russian prisoners of war, or when artists such as Egon Schiele, Wilhelm Thöny and other particularly distinguished prisoners drew and painted. Theatre groups, orchestras and above all educational establishments and presentations served the same purpose of making camp life more bearable. The fact that in the process literacy was achieved for some of the prisoners and several of them were even brought up to university level was a by no means planned but certainly welcome side effect. A special position is occupied by the Russian prisoner of war newspaper Nedelya. It was modelled on the newspaper Russkie Izvestia, which had been issued for Russian prisoners of war in Germany since 1915. It took until June 1916, though, for the first issue to appear. 180 were to follow it.1961 The newspaper had to be purchased, however. It is not really surprising that an Austrian perspective on matters was the only editorial policy. Lead articles, comments and reports of any kind withstood examination by the censors. The fact that, as co-ed- itor Ernst von Streeruwitz wrote in his memoirs, ‘in the lead articles of this newspaper it was endeavoured to make especially our enemies on the western front unpopular among the Russians’ was almost self-evident.1962 In 1917 and 1918, Austria-Hungary was not entirely satisfied with Nedelya, however, since something could be read in the newspaper about the rights of the prisoners of war, and then the Imperial and Royal Army High Command felt it could accuse the editorial team of raising false hopes with its account of revolutionary events in Russia and furthermore that the cause of the increase in escapes from prison camps was the