Seite - 951 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Army Disintegrates 951 Ultimately, within the Imperial and Royal Army during the course of the entire war 753 death sentences were passed in summary proceedings, of which 737 were carried out.2291 Breach of subordination 26 Mutiny 20 Insurrection 42 Desertion 345 Conspiracy to desert 19 Dereliction of duty whilst on guard 1 Self-mutilation 129 Breach of discipline and order  3 These statistics, compiled by Georg Lelewer, a former military judge, admittedly suffer from many things, since aside from the summary courts-martial there were also the military tribunals, which constituted a category in their own right and whose proceed- ings often ended very much more quickly in a death sentence. Other figures also raise doubts. Thus, during the entire war, among the soldiers sub- jected to military jurisdiction, only 1,950 military crimes are supposed to have occurred in the aforementioned categories as well as 2,517 common crimes, ranging from theft via robbery, rape and disturbance of the peace to lèse-majesté.2292 If this were true, the soldiers would have come into contact with criminality, crimes and delinquency of all kinds to an incomparably lesser degree than the civilian population. The lawyer Franz Exner proved, however, that criminality generally declined in Aus- tria during the war  – not uniformly but noticeably, and remained until the end of 1916 clearly below the number of crimes and offences in peacetime. He attributed this to the absence of such and such a number of criminals, because  – as soldiers  – they were under special watch and able least of all to act out their criminal inclinations, and also to the fact that non-locals had returned to their homelands. Consequently, criminal tourism was no longer an issue. From 1917, i.e. with the growing adversity, the criminal cases increased again and ultimately soared. Lelewer also described by way of example the methods used in order to evade serv- ing at the front or military service in general. These ranged from feigning infirmity via constant changes of abode, artificially induced eczema, eye infections and chemical burning of the external auditory canal to pretence of gonorrhoea with soapy water and, above all, gunshot wounds, which were inflicted on oneself or brought about by con- sciously sticking extremities out from under cover in order to be hit by an enemy bullet. The death penalty threatened for each of these offences.2293 The leading Austrian psychiatrist, Julius Wagner-Jauregg, established that psychoses among soldiers were rare, neuroses on the other hand very common. Towards the end