Seite - 389 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
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The Pre-emption 389
the detainment measures after all, and only allowed for those Italians to be detained
whose disloyalty could be proven by halfway solid evidence.920 However, lists had been
prepared in advance as a precautionary measure, and attempts had been made to keep
them up to date. The sword of Damocles of expulsion and detainment hung over tens
of thousands of Italians living in the Habsburg Monarchy. The issue of the preparatory
decree had already sufficed as an alarm signal.
However, the matter also had a military dimension, since if the Italians were treated
with suspicion by the Monarchy in general and they were to be forcibly evacuated,
what was to be done with the Italians serving in the Imperial and Royal Army and
Navy ? Until that point, tens of thousands had loyally fought side-by-side with the
Austro-Hungarian troops, and in fact there were no signs that they would not continue
to do so. Equally, however, the fact had to be taken into account that even before the
Italian declaration of war, hundreds of Italians had fled from the Habsburg Monarchy
and that, finally, around 1,000 people living in Trieste (Triest), just as many from the
Adriatic coast and 700 from the county of Tyrol had reported as voluntary soldiers to
the Italian Army.921 It was, therefore, quite clear that a cautious approach was needed.
The shock generated by the rumours of the threat of war from Italy was also suffi-
cient to intensify the attempts that had already been underway since the autumn of
1914 to create voluntary formations, and particularly to reinforce the members of the
Tyrolean Standschützen (members of rifle companies). As early as 1913, the Tyrolean
rifle associations had already been declared to be a body that was required to serve in
the Landsturm (reserve forces), thus creating a new regulatory framework for incorpo-
rating this institution into the national defence forces. This was all the more important
when the Landsturm took on the form of march battalions, making it available for use
outside of the respective reinforcement areas. This meant that Landsturm formations
from Tyrol and Vorarlberg could also be deployed in the Balkans and in Galicia.922
This led to a long and fierce controversy between the governors of Tyrol and Vorarlberg,
Kathrein and Rhomberg, and the National Ministry of Defence of the Austrian half of
the Empire. The use
– which was in formal terms almost entirely incontestable
– of the
Tyrolean and Vorarlberg Landsturm troops and, therefore,also of the Standschützen
somewhere in the east and south-east, combined with the rapidly increasing losses
among the Tyrolean troop bodies in those theatres of war had almost immediately
caused the enthusiasm for the war on the Inn and Etsch Rivers and on the shores of
Lake Constance to disappear. Even so, the Standschützen continued to enjoy a high
influx of new recruits, and the threat of Italy entering the war again led to a mood of
thrilled enthusiasm among the people. Here, the issue was not to find a justification
for going to war, but simply to avenge the decision taken by Italy, which was regarded
as treason and perfidy, and above all to prevent the secession of the territory demanded
by Italy. An imperial order on 18 May 1915 decreed that the Standschützen divisions
THE FIRST WORLD WAR
and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
- Titel
- THE FIRST WORLD WAR
- Untertitel
- and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
- Autor
- Manfried Rauchensteiner
- Verlag
- Böhlau Verlag
- Ort
- Wien
- Datum
- 2014
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-205-79588-9
- Abmessungen
- 17.0 x 24.0 cm
- Seiten
- 1192
- Kategorien
- Geschichte Vor 1918
Inhaltsverzeichnis
- 1 On the Eve 11
- 2 Two Million Men for the War 49
- 3 Bloody Sundays 81
- 4 Unleashing the War 117
- 5 ‘Thank God, this is the Great War!’ 157
- 6 Adjusting to a Longer War 197
- 7 The End of the Euphoria 239
- 8 The First Winter of the War 283
- 9 Under Surveillance 317
- 10 ‘The King of Italy has declared war on Me’ 355
- 11 The Third Front 383
- 12 Factory War and Domestic Front, 1915 413
- 13 Summer Battle and ‘Autumn Swine’ 441
- 14 War Aims and Central Europe 469
- 15 South Tyrol : The End of an Illusion (I) 497
- 16 Lutsk :The End of an Illusion (II) 521
- 17 How is a War Financed ? 555
- 18 The Nameless 583
- 19 The Death of the Old Emperor 607
- 20 Emperor Karl 641
- 21 The Writing on the Wall 657
- 22 The Consequences of the Russian February Revolution 691
- 23 Summer 1917 713
- 24 Kerensky Offensive and Peace Efforts 743
- 25 The Pyrrhic Victory : The Breakthrough Battle of Flitsch-Tolmein 769
- 26 Camps 803
- 27 Peace Feelers in the Shadow of Brest-Litovsk 845
- 28 The Inner Front 869
- 29 The June Battle in Veneto 895
- 30 An Empire Resigns 927
- 31 The Twilight Empire 955
- 32 The War becomes History 983
- Epilogue 1011
- Afterword 1013
- Acknowledgements and Dedication 1019
- Notes 1023
- Selected Printed Sources and Literature 1115
- Index of People and Places 1155