Seite - 219 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Home Front Becomes a Fortress 219 cases, the burial was to be in mass graves. As can be imagined, the fallen enemy was in- itially dealt with in a rough manner. No attempts were made to identify the victims ; the vast majority was buried as ‘unknown’. Only following the realisation that the Russians afforded the fallen members of the Imperial and Royal Army far more care, buried the officers if possible in solitary graves and allowed the enlisted men to keep their proof of identity did it come to changes and to attentive burial services that extended also to the fallen enemy.526 Exhumations and repatriation were rarities during the war, but con- siderations began to gain ground as early as 1914 as to how to symbolise the death of countless numbers and, above all, enable the relatives to commemorate them. With this the moment had come to redefine the importance of war memorials and their erection was begun.527 The first projects for war memorials were initiated. In accordance with the enormity of the war, architects plagued themselves with drafts for gigantic fortresses for the dead on Kahlenburg near Vienna, in the Wachau and in other places. Since the war memorials were also regarded as substitute graves, it is no wonder that in 1914 the first smaller memorials for this war were already erected until the opinion prevailed that the construction of memorials should be postponed until after the war and that more care should be given instead to the war widows and orphans than for spending money on monuments. Emperor Franz Joseph was also of this opinion, and even without the fortresses for dead there was for the time being plenty to build. The Home Front Becomes a Fortress Whoever might still have believed in July 1914 that the fighting was taking place some- where far away was for other reasons overwhelmed by reality as early as August. The war also resulted in those structural measures being realised that had been planned well in advance for the defence of the country and served not only to secure the borders but also the home front. On 3 August Emperor Franz Joseph authorised the Army High Command to ready the Kraków Fortress and the Przemyśl Fortress, as well as the ‘forti- fied positions’ in Lviv (Lemberg), Jarosław (Jaroslau), Sieniawa, Mykolaiv (Mikolajów), Halych (Halytsch/Halicz) and Yezupil (Jezupol) for a war. Field fortifications were to be erected near Zalischyky (Salischtschyky) and near Martynów.528 In this way, the most important crossings over the San and Dniester Rivers were secured. The greatest efforts were made in Przemyśl (Premissel) in order to make the main bases of the de- fensive belt with or without armour, the intermediate bases of the defensive belt and the permanent main and inner sites of the core zone unassailable, furthermore to dig redoubts and sniper cover, to make the batteries ready to fire, to deforest the observa- tion areas and shooting ranges, to erect millions of metres of barbed wire obstacles and to lay minefields.529 Kraków (Krakau), with its partially obsolete fortifications, was far