Page - 842 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

842 Camps neva Convention. Prisoners were to be detained, fed, clothed and medically supervised. They were to receive the necessary commodities and a few lira in order to be able to buy themselves something, and indeed until the restoration of peace and their release. Initially, this system functioned to some extent because the number of prisoners of war stayed within manageable limits. Fortresses far from the front were filled, such as the Sforza Castle of Novara, barracks and monasteries. Not entirely surprisingly, the availa- ble buildings were not sufficient, since the war dragged on and the number of prisoners increased. They no longer received uniforms but instead grey and khaki overalls, were accommodated for a time in tent camps until barracks were built, and  – in harmony with the prisoners in other countries  – required to work. They were decimated by dis- eases and epidemics and could only hope that it would at some point come to an end. Until January 1917, that is until after the Ninth Battle of the Isonzo, almost 80,000 prisoners were counted. The approximately 12,000 members of the Imperial and Royal Army who had survived the deadly marches from Serbia to the Albanian coast as well as the subsequent transportation by ship were apparently no longer counted. As men- tioned above, they had been transported to France in summer 1916. With the exception of more than 300 prisoners of war who were accommodated in the corps area of Verona, most of the prisoners were transported far into central and southern Italy to the region south of Rome, to Naples and Sicily or to prison is- lands such as the island of Asinara, located off the north-west coast of Sardinia.2012 At the point of time in question, 111 prisoner of war camps existed in Italy, the largest of which, Padua, in the area of the Italian X Army Corps (‘Napoli’), housed 13,000 prisoners.2013 There were many camps, however, where only a few hundred prisoners were accommodated. The longer the war lasted and the more the number of prisoners increased, however, the bigger camps became. The Avezzano camp in Abruzzo, for ex- ample, was expanded in such a way that it could hold 15,000 prisoners, although at the beginning of 1917 not even 7,000 prisoners were housed there. It was assumed, how- ever, that the additional space would be needed. In April 1918, twice as many prisoners were counted in Italy as one year previously. The members of the Imperial and Royal Army were increasingly deployed for work until around half toiled in agriculture, 30,000 in coalmining and in the extraction of fuel, and others in the construction of roads and the drainage of swamps. The period of internment in the Pontine Marshes south-east of Rome had resulted in many prison- ers contracting malaria, which accompanied them for the rest of their lives. Prisoners were deployed in the areas to the rear of the front and had to contribute to the removal of corpses and the re-establishment of trenches and positions. As previously in Rus- sia, recruiters went through the camps and attempted to persuade above all Czechs, Slovaks and Serbs to enter the legions. The success was not overwhelming, until in October 1918 the floodgates opened and as many as 3,000 prisoners volunteered for