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830 Camps
were to receive better quarters according to the Hague Convention. This was at the ex-
pense of the subalterns. The conditions of the barracks for the enlisted men frequently
defied description. There were no longer any plank beds, nothing with which to heat,
nothing to eat, no straw mattresses and no blankets. The barracks – in which around
400 men were housed – often had only three ovens, in winter ! The sick barracks were
bursting at the seams. Of the approximately 140,000 additional Italian prisoners of war
who had to be accommodated in the winter of 1917/18, around 35,000 were wounded,
sick or at least not capable of working. The mortality rate among the captive Italians
shot up. They wrote home, seeking to give expression to their misery. The censors, how-
ever, intercepted most of the letters and did not forward them. Italy furthermore dis-
played an attitude that was not dissimilar to that of Austro-Hungarian authorities to-
wards the Czechs in the first year of the war (and subsequently) : they doubted that the
soldiers had surrendered in hopeless situations and regarded them instead as deserters
or agitators, who had gone on strike against the war and were not, therefore, entitled to
any aid.1974 At this point the Apostolic Nunciature in Vienna stepped in with the in-
tention of determining to which camps Italian prisoners of war had been sent, but they
were often only able to send the message to Rome that someone had succumbed to his
wounds or had died in captivity. Nuncio Valfrè di Bonzo, who represented the Holy
See in Austria from the end of 1916 until 1920, also visited the prison camps but was
unable to detect any abuses and – to the satisfaction of the Austrian authorities – sent
positive reports to Italy. The Nuncio was also unable to do anything about the starva-
tion. Finally, captive Italian generals took action. However, the Imperial and Royal War
Ministry reacted to the complaints of the highest-ranking Italian officers with the ob-
servation that the food shortages were a consequence of the Allied blockade measures,
whilst the lack of clothing and equipment was down to the vandalism of the prisoners
themselves. Nonetheless, there was no way to counter the alarming increase in mortal-
ity and diseases.1975 The fact that the Italian prisoners had been veritably robbed before
they even reached the predetermined camps and that they had been divested not only
of their valuables but, above all, also their overcoats, capes and items of warm clothing
was a scandal, which then became the subject of an army order issued by the Command
of the 11th Army in February 1918, the clarity of which left nothing to be desired : it
could be established, the order read, ‘that a not inconsiderable percentage of the newly
accrued Italian prisoners of war has arrived in the prisoner of war camps without these
items of clothing, so that the War Ministry felt compelled to contribute uniforms and
underwear from its own stores even to the officers. […] In regard to the captive Italian
enlisted men, the circumstance was added that they often have to be left behind in the
camp and cannot be sent out to work due to inadequate clothing, as a result of which
vital economic and military interests appear to be endangered. […] Without exception,
the troops are to be strictly prohibited from removing items of clothing of any kind.’1976
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