Page - 954 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

than the success of the patrols.2307 Of course, doing nothing was not regarded as a solution, either. Thus, attempts were made to intensify blandishments of the troops. Patriotic instruction was expanded, bans were imposed on taking leave and promises were made about an imminent end to the war. It was all to no avail. Two Hungarian soldiers who were sent from Italy to the German western front, recounted to the French after their desertion in August 1918 that their troop body had mutinied at the end of the Piave Offensive and refused to advance anymore. Instead of restoring discipline and motivating the soldiers, they had been disarmed and sent to the Germans in order to dig trenches there. However, the Germans, who needed every man they could get, had re-armed them and assigned them to a particularly dangerous section of the front. They would only have been cannon fodder. The desertion of the Hungarians was then also addressed in the Hungarian Reichstag, and the discussion ended with the regiment being stripped of all decorations.2308 The Army High Command naturally did everything to play down the fact of the desertions, but the Italians described at all the more length how ever more members of the Imperial and Royal Army were changing sides. Czechs and Hungarians claimed, like Poles, that they and their comrades were completely demoralised and that they only waited for an Italian attack in order to then surrender. A German Austrian stated that his comrades would not desert for the simple reason that they did not want to abandon their starving families, whom they still wanted to send something. For them, even the substitute bread and the 100 g of horsemeat that was provided at the front appeared to be a feast. One Tyrolean was said to have claimed after his capture that the morale of some troop bodies had sunk so low that they did not even shy away from murdering unpopular officers. He mentioned the concrete example of Imperial and Royal Infantry Regiment No. 17 (‘Laibach’).2309 The disintegration of the army was palpable. The news from the interior of the Dual Monarchy did its part in contributing to the increase in agitation. Bohemia, Galicia and Hungary but also Upper Austria dis- continued their deliveries of foodstuffs to other parts of the Monarchy. Each national group made the others responsible for the looming catastrophe. In August, as many as 100,000 soldiers fled. During the first week of October, the Imperial and Royal Infan- try Regiment No. 65 (‘Munkács’) alone reported no fewer than 1,451 predominantly Hungarian deserters.2310 One Polish rifle regiment mutinied and was to be disbanded as punishment and divided up among other troop bodies.2311 Slovenes mutinied. Hun- garians and Romanians from Infantry Regiment No. 31 (‘Hermannstadt’) related that their officers had attempted to keep them in line with promises to the effect that per- manent, warm winter positions were being prepared and they would not have to spend another winter in the trenches. Only a very few believed this. Around 5 per cent of the Austro-Hungarian soldiers resolved during the final weeks of the war not to witness the end of the conflict in the ranks of the Imperial and Royal Army.