Page - 936 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

936 An Empire Resigns For some general officers the observation could be made that they had barely pro- gressed during the war. They were, however, to be left in their functions. Brigadier Bolzano was one of them. Others were retired from public life out of ‘consideration for the superior numbers’.2255 Emperor Karl demonstrated considerable consistency in this clearance of the most senior ranks, which he otherwise frequently lacked. He could above all say, however, that the retirements of high-ranking, old and poorly assessed officers did no harm to his almost unbroken popularity, above all among the enlisted men. The abolition of corporal punishments, the consideration for long-serving or especially sorely afflicted soldiers  – this is what the troops gave him credit for. The countless visits of the Em- peror to the troops were rated by most of them as devotion and care, or at least as a special occasion. When did a soldier get to see an  – his  – Emperor ?! Four Million Heroes The uniforms of the Imperial and Royal Army had become shabby. Ever more substitute materials had to serve for manufacturing coats, trousers and above all shoes. Rucksacks had replaced the calfskin kit bags. Instead of leather straps, woven shoulder straps and body belts were used. Hardly anything remained from what had been called before the war ‘shining misery’ and primarily characterised an officer’s social status. The officers still had their separate kitchens and better uniforms, accommodation and front or sick leave that was assessed differently to those of the enlisted men. Increasingly, however, these were hinterland phenomena. In the trenches and the mountain positions, ‘those up top’ and ‘those down below’ were assimilating ever more. Ultimately, their life depended on them not diverging in their conduct and being able to depend on each other. Whether or not they felt like ‘heroes’, as they had been called since the beginning of the war, was dependent on conditions on a given day and on military events. Completely burned out, distressed, wounded, sick, hungry officers and soldiers felt least of all like heroes. The struggle itself was heroic, however, as were the army, the officers, the soldiers and all the more so those who fell in battle, died or ended up in prisoner of war captiv- ity. However, it is necessary to differentiate here, and it was of course an endlessly big difference whether someone deserted in the Carpathians as a member of the Prague Infantry Regiment No. 28 and fell into captivity, or as one of the defenders of Premsył, whom Emperor Franz Joseph did not neglect to thank for their heroic struggle and to whom he sent his best wishes in prisoner of war captivity.2256 There were no heroes in defeat. Meanwhile, however, a struggle for remembrance had in any case long since set in. Speechlessness often spread here, though, since most of the dead had been buried in mass graves and only received a shaft stuck in the landscape.