Seite - 265 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

In the Shadow of the Gallows 265 own accord to a certain extent. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, parts of the Serbian popu- lation took a stand against the Austrians after they had recovered from the first shock, and above all were emboldened by Serbian successes. The Imperial and Royal Army had to make every effort to choke off the unrest at an early stage.633 In Bohemia and Moravia, radical Czechs called for a railway strike. Others joined the radical Czech and pro-Russian agitation. As a result, within the space of a few months 121 Czechs were arrested, of whom 18 were sentenced to death.634 The waves of nationalist sentiment may not have been an accurate reflection of the attitude of the population as a whole, but it became clear that the ‘redemption through war’ could also be understood in a nationalist sense. For this reason, the military authorities in particular were to show no leniency. It emerged from the investigations into breaches of military duty after the war that in some cases, those commanders who had failed to act according to the expectations of their superiors and had shown leniency or had even merely respected the not-guilty verdicts of the military courts were occasionally harassed and treated with contempt.635 The Austro-Hungarian Army however wished to show harshness and to make emphatic threats on its own territory and above all in the country of its enemy. Already by mid-August, the Balkan High Command ordered the conscription of Serbian hostages. If action was taken against members of the Austro-Hungarian Army in the localities in which the hostages were conscripted, the hostages’ houses were to be set alight. After fighting began, and at critical points, there were even real massacres. In Šabac, for example, the 29th Infantry Division had 80 civilian prisoners slaughtered on the church square who were suspected of being involved in fighting against the Austro-Hungarian troops.636 In large circles in Budapest, there was a clear sense of satisfaction that in order to suppress pro-Serb activities, thousands of arrest warrants were issued and hundreds of executions were carried out.637 However, Count Tisza immediately presented a complaint to the Emperor, referring to flagrant abuses of power. In response, the Military Chancellery of the Emperor argued to the contrary by presenting this approach as a necessary measure. Franz Joseph decided in favour of Tisza.638 He did not want to see a barbarisation of the war. In his view, the strict dif- ferentiation between ‘Kriegsraison’ (military necessity) and ‘Kriegssitte’ (the customs of war), was entirely in conformance with the legal doctrine that also applied to the Im- perial and Royal Army, which demanded ‘rigour in the implementation of the purpose of the war, yet coupled with clemency wherever possible’.639 In the long term, however, it was of course difficult to maintain this argument and to curb the ruthlessness of the war measures when it became known that hostages were also taken by the enemy dur- ing the war, and that the harshest reprisals were inflicted. Thus the Commander of the Gendarmerie for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brigadier Lukas Šnjarić, reported that Austrian medical patrols had been fired at, and the prisoners and wounded had been ‘bestially tortured and mutilated ; their noses and ears had been cut off, and their eyes had then