Page - 839 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Siberian Clarity 839 Offensive then arrived in their entirety and dwarfed everything that had gone before : depending on the method used to count or estimate, between 266,000 and 400,000 members of the Imperial and Royal Army were regarded as ‘captive and missing’.2003 Most of them had fallen into prisoner of war captivity. In Darnytsia, the camp lead- ership was at this point largely in the hands of members of the Czech Legion and Serbian volunteers. The essentials of the selection process remained the same : German Austrians and Hungarians were to be chiefly evacuated to Siberia. The Governor of Siberia, Suchomlinov, had long since reported that he no longer had the capacity to take in any more prisoners and urgently requested the expansion of the camps in Omsk, Tomsk and Novo Nikolaevsk.2004 But the expansion was still not enough to keep up. The camps grew and grew. In total, it was to be almost 300. The Austrians had often been captured in their summer uniforms and frequently did not receive any warmer clothing. Between 1915 and 1918, the Imperial and Royal War Ministry sent 43 trains with relief supplies to Russia via Sweden, including 375,000 uniforms, 150,000 pairs of shoes, 300,000 blankets, and many other items.2005 In view of the perhaps two million prisoners of war, however, this could only suffice for the needs of a small number. The comparison with the consignments that reached the Ger- man prisoners of war provoked feelings of envy and could be depressing. How the prisoners were housed, which reprisals they were occasionally subjected to, as well as how the discord between nationalities spread to the camps, were all the sub- ject of reports that so-called ‘sister delegations’ of the International Red Cross compiled. The initiative to tour the prisoner of war camps had not been taken by the Central Pow- ers but instead by the mother of the Tsar, Maria Fedorovna, a Danish princess by birth. Indirectly via Denmark, a corresponding agreement came into effect that guaranteed mutual tours. Siberia was accessible for sisters such as Countess Nora Kinsky, Princess Cunigunde Croÿ-Dülmen or Andorine von Huszár, whilst it remained inaccessible for the German sister delegations. First and foremost, it was hoped that the aristocratic sisters in the service of the Red Cross were able to convey. The view that Austro-Hun- garian prisoners of war should also be asked about the conditions of their captivity is likely to have provoked little joy among the sisters. This was perhaps desirable from the perspective of the Imperial and Royal War Ministry, but from the viewpoint of the sister delegations it was quite an imposition. They did not provide aid as informers but rather as ambassadors of a life after the war, who were above suspicion, and doubtlessly contributed significantly to the improvement of the treatment of the prisoners of war after 1916. It also contributed to the humanisation of the fate of the prisoners that Russian delegations were able to tour the Austro-Hungarian camps and, on the basis of what they had seen, correct the rumours about the poor, or even inhumane, treatment of Russian prisoners of war.2006 There were hardly any lasting improvements, however, since exchanged invalids continued to report on the conditions in the Siberian camps