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938 An Empire Resigns
that which represented the image of the soldier towards the end of the war. The ‘soldier
by inclination’ gradually transitioned into the storm trooper, who was then understood
by Ernst Jünger to be the ‘epitome of the frontline soldier’.2259 It emerged from pris-
oner interrogations conducted by the British that Boroević divided up his army into
two parts : the shock masses, into which he allotted primarily troop bodies from the
German and Hungarian territories of the Dual Monarchy, and the very much larger
resistive masses. In the latter were above all Slavs and Romanians.2260 Perhaps this
corresponded deliberately or unwittingly to the categories observed by psychologists.
Injuries, sickness and death on a mass scale had a levelling effect. There was no more
depressing image than that offered in the course of and after the Piave Offensive. The
22 normal and six improvised medical transports were not enough to take away the
wounded. Between 15 and 24 June, almost 64,000 wounded and sick in Army Group
Boroević alone had to be transported to the rear.2261 The ratio was as a rule 10 :1. All
the following injuries occurred : vascular injuries, injuries to soft tissue, the nerves, limb
bones, joints, skull, upper and lower halves of the face, auditory canals, larynx and
windpipe, oesophagus, lungs, heart, stomach, kidneys, urinary bladder, urethra, genitals,
spine and spinal marrow, shoulder blade, collarbone, upper and lower arms, hand, pel-
vic bones, hip joint, upper and lower legs, and the feet. It made a difference whether it
was a case of gunshot or shrapnel wounds or injuries from edged weapons. No body
part was spared. ‘Facies Hippocratica’ was the name given by doctors for the pre-death
facial expressions of those suffering from a shot to the stomach. The surgeons often
decided beforehand on the possible continuation of life or on death. If, for example,
four soldiers with bullet wounds to the stomach were in a critical condition and two
dozen seriously wounded were brought in with other injuries, they frequently decided
against those suffering from shots to the stomach, since a single operation required two
to three hours, the result was uncertain and in the meantime others might die whose
salvation would have been possible in the event of an immediate operation. Soldiers
with kidney or bladder injuries could often not be salvaged due to the unspeakable pain.
They were, therefore, handed over to the enemy, according to the ‘War Surgery Man-
ual’.2262 Since 1915, at least the tetanus bacteria had been brought more or less under
control, so that cases of lockjaw became rarer. Added to the wounded, however, were
those injured by gas, those who were suffering from ‘normal’ illnesses such as typhus,
dysentery or malaria, and not forgetting those who were in a state of severe shock, were
described as ‘shell-shock sufferers’ and were frequently destined for the torture of ‘far-
adisation’. After a major military event, they were as a rule only statistical material and
thereafter became part of the account of the Great War.
Naturally, individual observations can be assembled in such a way that in the end
doubts arise as to whether the subject is the same time, the same war, the same military
or the same Austrian soldiers, or whether it is not rather a report ‘from another land’.
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