Page - 1021 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Acknowledgements and Dedication 1021 were added to by means of further research in the Vojenský historický archiv (Military History Archives) of the Czech Republic in Prague. I am also grateful for the re- search conducted in the most important documents at the Orszàgos Leveltàr (National Archives) and Synodal Archives of the Reformed Church in Budapest. The primary sources of these archives were supplemented by files from the Schweizerisches Bunde- sarchiv (Swiss Federal Archives) in Bern and smaller archives, of which the Albanian National Archives in Tirana should be given particular mention, the use of which was made possible as part of a visit to the archives by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Recently, I was also given the opportunity to examine the Academy’s volume of statis- tics on the First World War, which is currently in press, and to compare data. For this, I am very indebted to Dr Anatol Schmied-Kowarzik. Finally, I wish to thank my wife Marianne, as so often in the past, for her quite extraordinary help in procuring the necessary literature, and in particular in reading and re-reading the manuscript. The fact that over many, many years, she accepted and helped realise the perhaps rather eccentric idea of visiting most of the theatres of Aus- tria-Hungary’s final war also deserves a particular mention. After all, who else has put up for the night on the Kolubara and in Andrijevica, in Rzeszòw or Berati ? Who else has been attacked at the Čakor Pass, or has examined not only the lodgings but also the theatres of war in  – to name but a few  – Prezmyśl, Medzilaborce or, far less problemat- ically, in Kotor, Folgaria, Duino, as well as in many, many other places ? Finally, my publisher, the Böhlau Verlag, informed me from the very beginning that this book about the First World War is of particular importance to them, and Dr Peter Rauch and in particular also Dr Eva Reinhold-Weisz, have consistently given me a feeling of being a favourite author. For this I express my heartfelt thanks to both, as well as to all the staff at the publisher who have given me advice and who have been a great support. At the end of a work, the issue always arises of a personal dedication, and I would also like to make one here. Many years ago, my wife and I came to the realisation that our fathers, who had probably never known each other, but who were both born in 1898, served in the same regiment, namely the Imperial and Royal Infantry Regiment No. 7 ‘Graf von Khevenhüller’, and fought on the Italian front during the last two years of the World War. They came from Vienna and Carinthia. They never spoke of their war experiences. These could only be imagined on the basis of a few photographs and a verbal account given by other people. Nonetheless, I wish to dedicate this book to the two regimental comrades who have long since died, Hermann Rauchensteiner and Otto Strakosch. Perhaps they would have enjoyed reading it. Vienna, spring 2013