Page - 946 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

946 An Empire Resigns The relocation of replacement personnel had also not been the solution. In June 1915, the replacement battalion of Infantry Regiment No. 35 (Pilsen, 60 per cent Czech) was transferred to Székesfehérvár ; it was substituted by the replacement personnel of Infantry Regiment No. 69, who came from Székesfehérvár to Pilsen. The Hungarians grumbled because they did not understand why they were transferred to Pilsen, and the Czechs grumbled that the officers only spoke Hungarian and do not take any consider- ation for the Czech soldiers. Every minor incident inflamed the mood. The replacement personnel were thus brought as soon as possible, often after not even eight weeks of training, to the rear areas of the front in the hope that the nationalist tensions would end there. They were sent into combat immediately afterwards, desertions occurred  – and the loop began anew. After several years of war, only one thing was clear : blanket judgements were non- sense. The Commander of the 93rd Infantry Division, Brigadier Adolf von Boog, was full of praise for the replacement personnel for Prague Infantry Regiment No. 28, which had been reduced to one march battalion. He had witnessed them at Monte San Michele in the vicinity of Gorizia (Görz) and was impressed by the soldiers, who had fought with courage and endurance. Boog stated that one only had to ‘enlighten [the soldiers] as to the thoroughly personal and selfish interests of some Czech dep- uties’. Finally, the hatred for the German language would have to be eradicated. ‘It is well-known that the Czech soldiers in Hungary, where the conduct of the Czech peo- ple  – like everywhere during this war  – is assessed in no way favourably, are not very esteemed and hear some rather unpleasant remarks. The same applies to the individual distribution of Czechs among the regiments of other languages. The “Deutschmeister” [Infantry Regiment No. 4] is already accustomed in general from Vienna to dealing with Czechs, though it does not exactly foster […] deferential thoughts about them. Even if I have not heard any complaints that the Czechs who are assigned to Infantry Regiments 4 and 84 are treated badly, no-one can doubt that the Czech […] must hear some hurtful remarks. That fills one with bitterness. One can tell from the peo- ple’s faces and must put oneself in their shoes : such a man has no-one he can talk to, he feels lonely, outcast and the severity of war service must hit him doubly hard […].’ They were again to be collected in subdivisions, he continued, and Czech-speaking officers and NCOs assigned to them. If that was all to be of no avail, brute force would be appropriate : ‘The Czech must, like, I believe, all Slav peoples, constantly feel the lash. He is either a domestique or an anarchist.’ The Army High Command indeed gave Boog the possibility to pull together individual subdivisions in the period be- tween the Italian offensives and to train them in accordance with his argumentation. The success was to prove him right. The analysis of the General, who was to become the first Commander of the German-Austrian People’s Militia after the war, wisely did not do the rounds.