Page - 952 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

952 An Empire Resigns of the war, he estimated the simulation of neuroses at 10,000 cases. It was the task of psychiatrists to cure them and make the men fit for combat again. It was no accident that Sigmund Freud called them ‘machine guns behind the front’.2294 Wagner-Jauregg treated in his clinic approximately 700 simulators, most of whom had been sent to him from other infirmaries. Nine-tenths of them were Czechs, followed by Poles and Ruthenians : there were hardly any soldiers from predominantly German regiments among them.2295 During the first years of the war, 145 cases of simulated insanity were also assigned to him. It was by no means the case, however, that simulators had to reckon with serious punishment. They were sent back to the front. For many of them, this was probably punishment enough. The military tribunals recognised no legal means for delaying the carrying out of sentences. They were valid for all troops assigned to the army in the field and had a spatial extension that consciously included large parts of the hinterland. From May 1915, military tribunals as a simplified form of criminal proceedings were also valid for Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, the Austrian Littoral, Tyrol and Vorarlberg. In a military tribunal, the death penalty could be applied to all crimes, and was thus less restricted in itself than summary court-martial proceedings. Military tribunals could also be applied against civilians. In the vicinity of the front, i.e. in those territories regarded as part of the war zone, most officers  – or, in any case, from the function of sub-divisional com- mander upwards  – but also Gendarmerie sergeants had the authority to have suspects executed without legal proceedings.2296 Caprice was the order of the day. The regular military courts constituted a strict contrast to the summary courts-mar- tial and the military tribunals, and generally passed extraordinarily mild sentences. We know that the Tyrolean military courts convicted 137 deserters, but amnestied 76 of them. During the war years until 1918, the Graz military courts addressed a total of 312 cases of unauthorised absence that ended with guilty verdicts, and 148 cases of desertion. In one case, the death penalty was imposed, but then commuted to a prison sentence. The vast majority of the cases concerned theft, dereliction of duty whilst on guard, breach of subordination, non-compliance with a call-up order (148 cases), public violence, insubordination and similar offences.2297 Only with the failure of the Piave Offensive did desertion again become a mass phe- nomenon. The Allies had hoped for this and ultimately regarded with satisfaction how their hopes had been fulfilled. As early as January 1918, the French General Staff had expressed the assumption that the Imperial and Royal Army would probably no longer be in a position after the withdrawal of the Germans to defend itself in the long term.2298 The British had also predicted at the beginning of the year that the Austrians were in the process of collapsing and would probably desert en masse.2299 The Allies did everything to promote the inclination to desert and were increasingly successful.2300 They paid attention to every deserter, asked him his reasons for deserting and his prognoses. Naturally, the