Seite - 330 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

330 Under Surveillance or elsewhere among the dirt and vermin’. Here, a further problem was addressed : the Ruthenians who had fled, together with those who had been deliberately evacuated from the hinterland of the front, were brought to refugee camps, of which Graz-Thaler- hof was the most notable (see Chapter 26). Certainly, at least at times, it was more like a concentration camp. The memorandum of the Ukrainian National Assembly contin- ued : the Imperial and Royal Army bore responsibility for the entire situation, not least because it was taken in by the ‘highly treasonous Polish informants’, whose aim was to ‘present all Ruthenians as a treacherous mob’. There were several other similar memoranda. Aside from the Poles, the Jews were also the subject of serious accusations.771 For this form of assignment of blame and justification, nationalistic attitudes and prejudice naturally played at least as important a role as the facts, however. The Poles, who were not regarded by the Ruthenians with much sympathy, were for their part in a contradictory situation : as Poles, they fought to overcome the division of their country that had lasted for over a hundred years ; as Austrian Poles, their task was to fight the Russian ‘hereditary enemy’. Both bordered on the incompatible. The Poles represented the majority of the troops in the Imperial and Royal Infantry Regiments No. 13, 20, 40, 56, 57 and 90. They constituted the major part of the Uhlan Regiments 1, 2, 3 and 6 and the Landwehr Infantry Regiments No. 16, 32 and 34. They were also distributed around numerous other regiments and all branches of the military. They had created a further trump card with the establishment of legions, or voluntary formations. The legionnaires under Piłsudski took the Landsturm oath and certainly proved their worth. This was not altered by the fact that the Russians also established legions and gave them the task of participating in the ‘expulsion of the Prussians’.772 Those who were inclined to support the Russians went over to their side during the months of occupation of large parts of Galicia. In May 1915, the troops suddenly departed, usually in haste. Ultimately, there was undoubtedly relief among the Army High Command that the Russophile Poles in Galicia had fled and perhaps also joined the legionnaires under Roman Dmowski, since this meant the evaporation of at least one insecurity factor. And there was just as little doubt as to the willingness of Piłsudski’s legionnaires to fight as to the competence of the ‘Polish’ regiments. The pic- ture only changed, albeit not dramatically, with the march formations. The replacement reservists tended to shirk from their duties in the Imperial and Royal regiments and the Imperial-Royal Landwehr, and instead sought to join the legions. They regarded themselves as freedom fighters and occasionally decided to fight for Austria more to protect their interests than from emotional ties. This explained their behaviour in the war for several reasons simultaneously. The Austrian Poles regarded the Russians as the great obstacle to gaining at least partial state independence. In this contest between the powers, Germany as an ally of the Habsburg Monarchy was accepted as a necessary evil