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836 Camps
sians also had to accustom themselves to this element of waging war. However, they
had not entirely forgotten their experiences of the Russo-Japanese War.
At the time of the first fighting in Galicia, the Command of the Russian South-West-
ern Front decreed the transfer of Austro-Hungarian prisoners to Kiev. Collection points
at the front were assigned and, ultimately, Penza in the Volga region was designated
as the place to which prisoners were to be transported. On 11 September, Moscow
was also named.1990 A few days later, the point of overload had already been reached.
The commander of the fortress in Kiev reported that since the end of August, as many
as 3,000 Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war had passed through his collection point.
To ‘pass through’ was a curiously incorrect turn of phrase, since the prisoners had to
march on foot for days and even weeks before they were transported further by railway.
The sick and the lightly to moderately wounded often failed to survive these exertions.
Diseases similar to dysentery further decimated the columns.1991 The evacuation of the
prisoners caused ever greater problems until, on 15 November, the main administration
of the General Staff gave clearance to use Siberia for holding the prisoners. From then
on, the members of the Slav nationalities, as well as Romanians and Italians, were to
be accommodated in the European districts of Russia and not further eastwards than
Omsk, whilst the Siberian military districts were expressly assigned to the Germans
and Hungarians, but also Jews and Turks. The better treatment of the prisoners of war
of Slav nationalities had been worthy of a separate ukaz by the Russian General Staff
on 22 October 1914.1992
The overcrowding in the Russian reception areas was enormous. Time and again, cit-
ies such as Moscow refused to accept more prisoners of war. Thousands had to remain
temporarily in freight cars. The hospitals in the base zone had been overstretched since
September. At the beginning of 1915, the flood of prisoners diminished somewhat,
but then the winter war in the Carpathians began and again between 4,000 and 5,000
prisoners of the Imperial and Royal Army arrived in Kiev on a daily basis. A tenth of
these were sick and in need of hospital treatment.1993
The Austro-Hungarian Army High Command instrumentalised the well-known
overextension of the Russians in the supervision of prisoners of war by composing a
two-page report on the conditions in an attempt to put a stop to desertions ; the report
was to be brought to the attention of the troops. The report mentioned the inhumane
treatment of prisoners of war in Siberia, the Caucasus and in the Don region. The
report was to be read to the regiments of the 3rd Infantry Division, above all Infantry
Regiment No. 28, expressly in their mother tongue, Czech.1994
Przemyśl surrendered on 22 March. Around 120,000 members of the Imperial and
Royal Army multiplied the flood of prisoners. They were first of all taken to Kiev by
train. Only the sick and the wounded remained for weeks in the ruins of the fortress
before they were also evacuated at the beginning of May.1995
THE FIRST WORLD WAR
and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
- Title
- THE FIRST WORLD WAR
- Subtitle
- and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
- Author
- Manfried Rauchensteiner
- Publisher
- Böhlau Verlag
- Location
- Wien
- Date
- 2014
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-205-79588-9
- Size
- 17.0 x 24.0 cm
- Pages
- 1192
- Categories
- Geschichte Vor 1918
Table of contents
- 1 On the Eve 11
- 2 Two Million Men for the War 49
- 3 Bloody Sundays 81
- 4 Unleashing the War 117
- 5 ‘Thank God, this is the Great War!’ 157
- 6 Adjusting to a Longer War 197
- 7 The End of the Euphoria 239
- 8 The First Winter of the War 283
- 9 Under Surveillance 317
- 10 ‘The King of Italy has declared war on Me’ 355
- 11 The Third Front 383
- 12 Factory War and Domestic Front, 1915 413
- 13 Summer Battle and ‘Autumn Swine’ 441
- 14 War Aims and Central Europe 469
- 15 South Tyrol : The End of an Illusion (I) 497
- 16 Lutsk :The End of an Illusion (II) 521
- 17 How is a War Financed ? 555
- 18 The Nameless 583
- 19 The Death of the Old Emperor 607
- 20 Emperor Karl 641
- 21 The Writing on the Wall 657
- 22 The Consequences of the Russian February Revolution 691
- 23 Summer 1917 713
- 24 Kerensky Offensive and Peace Efforts 743
- 25 The Pyrrhic Victory : The Breakthrough Battle of Flitsch-Tolmein 769
- 26 Camps 803
- 27 Peace Feelers in the Shadow of Brest-Litovsk 845
- 28 The Inner Front 869
- 29 The June Battle in Veneto 895
- 30 An Empire Resigns 927
- 31 The Twilight Empire 955
- 32 The War becomes History 983
- Epilogue 1011
- Afterword 1013
- Acknowledgements and Dedication 1019
- Notes 1023
- Selected Printed Sources and Literature 1115
- Index of People and Places 1155