1 The following paper has been written as part of the “Beyond the Trenches. War Memories of German-speaking Soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian Army on the Eastern Front of the First World War” project, funded by the Austrian Science Fund (P 23070-G15). The project is led by the author of this paper, and will run at the Ludwig Boltzmann-Institute for Research on the Consequences of War until 2014.

2 See for example: Hermann J. W. Kuprian, and Oswald Überegger, eds., Der Erste Weltkrieg im Alpenraum: Erfahrung, Deutung, Erinnerung (Innsbruck: Universitätsverlag Wagner, 2006); Daniela Schanes, Serbien im Ersten Weltkrieg: Feind-und Kriegsdarstellungen in österreichisch-ungarischen, deutschen und serbischen Selbstzeugnissen (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang Verlag, 2011); Oswald Überegger, Der andere Krieg: Die Tiroler Militärgerichtsbarkeit im Ersten Weltkrieg (Innsbruck: Universitätsverlag Wagner, 2002); etc.

3 Some of the following books refer to the war experience on the Eastern Front: Wolfram Dornik et al., Die Ukraine zwischen Selbstbestimmung und Fremdherrschaft 1917 – 1922 (Graz: Leykam Verlag, 2011); Richard Lein, Pflichterfüllung oder Hochverrat? Die tschechischen Soldaten Österreich-Ungarns im Ersten Weltkrieg (Münster: LIT-Verlag, 2011). In terms of the German experience in the Baltics, the following book is still a benchmark: Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius, Kriegsland im Osten: Eroberung, Kolonisierung und Militärherrschaft im Ersten Weltkrieg (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2002).

4 See for this: Jerzy Borzęcki, The Soviet-Polish Peace of 1921 and the Creation of Interwar Europe (New Haven: Harvard University Press, 2008). See also the unpublished paper of the author: Wolfram Dornik, “A Question of Nation, Territory and Ideology: Intervention and Occupation in Eastern Europe 1914-22,” in Russia’s Great War and Revolution, 1914-1922: The Centennial Reappraisal. Vol. 1/2: The Russian Civil War (in preparation).

5 See especially: Peter Broucek, ed., Theodor Ritter von Zeynek: Ein Offizier im Generalstabskorps erinnert sich (Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2009); István Deák, Der K.(u.) K. Offizier 1848-1918 (Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 1991); Georg Reichlin-Meldegg, Der Löwe von Limanowa: Josef Roth Freiherr von Limanova-Lapanów – Ein Leben zwischen den Epochen (Graz: Ares Verlag, 2005); Gergely Romsics, Myth and Remembrance: The Dissolution of the Habsburg Empire in the Memoir Literatur of the Austro-Hungarian Political Elite (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006); Albert Pethö, ed., Belagerung und Gefangenschaft: Von Przemyśl bis Russisch-Turkestan; Das Kriegstagebuch des Dr. Richard Ritter von Stenitzer 1914-1917 (Graz: Ares-Verlag, 2010); Ursula Prutsch, and Klaus Zeyringer, eds., Leopold von Andrian (1875-1951): Korrespondenzen, Notizen, Essays, Berichte (Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2003); etc.

6 For this, see for example: Hannes Leidinger, and Verena Moritz, eds., In russischer Gefangenschaft: Erlebnisse österreichischer Soldaten im Ersten Weltkrieg (Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2008); Angelique Leszczawski-Schwerk, “‘Amazonen, emanzipierte Frauen, Töchter des Volkes’: Polnische und ukrainische Legionärinnen in der österreichisch-ungarischen Armee im Ersten Weltkrieg,” Glanz – Gewalt – Gehorsam: Militär und Gesellschaft in der Habsburgermonarchie (1800 bis 1918), eds. Laurence Cole, Christa Hämmerle, and Martin Scheutz (Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2011), 55-76; Alon Rachamimov, “Normalität als Travestie: Das Theaterleben der k. u. k. Kriegsgefangenenoffiziere in Russland, 1914-1920,” in Glanz – Gewalt – Gehorsam, eds. Cole, Hämmerle, and Scheutz, 101-126; Martin Scheutz, “‘Frontangst,’ Frontrisiko’ und ‘Frontdrang’: Die Korrespondenz der Historiker Heinrich Ritter von Srbik, Wilhelm Bauer und Hans Hirsch im Ersten Weltkrieg,” in Glanz – Gewalt – Gehorsam, eds. Cole, Hämmerle, and Scheutz, 77-99; Oskar Dohle, ed., Constantin Schneider: Die Kriegserinnerungen 1914-1919 (Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2003); etc.

7 Here I draw on the concept of a group/collective biography, which gives us the opportunity to explore a small group of persons who define themselves as a group, at least for a short period of time. See for group/collective biography and prosopography: Levke Hardes, Hanns Schweiger, “Kollektivbiographische Ansätze,” in Handbuch Biographie: Methoden, Traditionen, Theorien, ed. Christian Klein (Stuttgart: Verlag J. B. Melzer, 2009), 194-98.

8 A copy of Theopil Reiss’ diary is stored at the Universität Wien, Institut für Wirtschaftsund Sozialgeschichte, Dokumentation Lebensgeschichtlicher Erinnerungen (DOKU). I would like to thank Mag. Günter Müller for his help during my research.

9 Alois Prokosch kept a diary throughout the war, which he drew on to produce seven handwritten booklets in the early 1950s (last one in 1955). They are stored in the Provincial Archives of Styria in Graz. I would like to thank Dr. Wolfgang Weiß for his support.

10 Karl Schovanez wrote handwritten memoirs of his entire life for his family under the title Im Zwielicht der Jahrzehnte between 1960 and 1969. For this paper, I have focused on the parts covering his childhood up to the early Interwar Period. A copy of this is stored in the DOKU. I would like to thank Günter Müller once again for his assistance.

11 Josef Bruckner left a couple of loose diary entries and notes, which were compiled by his widow with a couple of letters. A copy of this compilation is stored in DOKU, thanks to Günter Müller.

12 Karl Schaber wrote his reminiscences in a small booklet in 1922, which his son transferred from Gothic to modern script, and which was digitalized by his grandson in the 1990s. A copy of these memoirs has been handed over to me by a friend of the family, Johann Praßl, whom I am grateful for his support.

13 For more methodological and empirical questions on field post (especially the papers from Christian Heuer and Elke Scherstjanoi), see: Veit Didczuneit, Jens Elbert, and Thomas Jander, eds., Schreiben im Krieg. Schreiben vom Krieg: Feldpost im Zeitalter der Weltkriege (Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2011).

14 This fundamental loss of individuality has been described in detail: DOKU, Karl Schovanez, Im Zwielicht der Jahrzehnte, unpublished manuscript, 1969, 280-91.

15 This was also a common way of denying responsibility and guilt: Lawrence Sondhaus, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf: Architect of the Apocalypse (Boston: Humanities Press, 2000), 244.

16 See the introduction of Bernhard Fetz in this volume. In addition, see the following two comprehensive overviews on history and discourse, and on collective biography and prosopography: Wilhelm Heinz Schröder, “Kollektivbiographie: Spurensuche, Gegenstand, Forschungsstrategie,” in Historische Sozialforschung: Kollektivbiographie als interdisziplinäre Methode in der Historischen Sozialforschung; Eine persönliche Retrospektive, ed. Wilhelm Heinz Schröder, Supplement 23 (Cologne: Zentrum für Historische Sozialforschung, 2011), 74-152; Thomas Winkelbauer “Plutarch, Sueton und die Folgen: Konturen und Konjunkturen der historischen Biographie,” in Vom Lebenslauf zur Biographie: Geschichte, Quellen und Probleme der historischen Biographik und Autobiographik; Referate der Tagung “vom Lebenslauf zur Biographie” am 26. Oktober 1997 in Horn, ed. Thomas Winkelbauer (Horn: Waldviertler Heimatbund, 2000), 9-46.

17 Stephen Kern, The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003). On “movement” from a military perspective during the First and Second World War, see: Alexander Meschnig, Der Wille zur Bewegung: Militärischer Traum und totalitäres Programm; Eine Mentalitätsgeschichte vom Ersten Weltkrieg zum Nationalsozialismus (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2008).

18 On the occupation of the Ukraine by the Central Powers, see: Dornik et al., Die Ukraine:

19 DOKU, Kriegstagebuch meines lieben Mannes Sepp Brunner, entries from 26 Oct. 1915-6 Jan. 1916.

20 Steiermärkisches Landesarchiv (StmkLA), Sammlung 20. Jahrhundert, HS 1832, Tagebuch von Alois Prokosch, vol. 2, 146f. See a couple of other examples in volumes two and three, where he lost his sense of time.

21 Private collection of Dornik, Sammlung Ego-Dokumente, Karl Schaberl, 86.

22 StmkLA, Prokosch, vol. 4, 343-60.

23 This has recently been questioned by more and more scholars, although it seems that the war had been widely heralded in Austria-Hungary as a way of solving the inherent problems of the monarchy: Manfried Rauchensteiner, Der Tod des Doppeladlers: Österreich-Ungarn und der Erste Weltkrieg (Graz: Styria Verlag, 1994), 100-106; for a more nuanced view of this, see: Überegger, Der andere Krieg, 256-60. In terms of Germany, the Geist von 1914 was at least an urban bourgeois phenomenon, which also attracted leftist workers, and was instrumentalized by the propaganda at the time: Jeffrey Verhey, Der “Geist von 1914” und die Erfindung der Volksgemeinschaft (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2000); Meschnig, Der Wille zur Bewegung, 109-21.

24 StmkLA, Prokosch, vol. 1, 12f. For similar experiences, see: private collection of Dornik, Schaberl, 9f.

25 DOKU, Schovanez, Im Zwielicht der Gezeiten, 276-79.

26 StmkLA, Prokosch, vol. 1, 27; DOKU, Schovanez, Im Zwielicht der Gezeiten, 302-309; private collection of Dornik, Schaberl, 13-15. In terms of their sense of helplessness in the face of artillery, see: StmkLA, Prokosch, vol. 2, 163.

27 StmkLA, Prokosch, vol. 2, 101-103.

28 Ibid., vol 3, 245-49, 273.

29 Ibid., vol. 3, 254-56.

30 Ibid., vol. 6, 468f.; DOKU, Schovanez, Im Zwielicht der Gezeiten, 343.

31 DOKU, Bruckner, entry from 2 Jan. 1917.

32 Ibid., entry from 7 Feb. 1917.

33 Private collection of Dornik, Schaberl, 22-77.

34 DOKU, Schovanez, Im Zwielicht der Jahrzehnte, 284-91.

35 StmkLA, Prokosch, vol. 1, 4; ibid., vol. 2, 3; DOKU, Reiss, 22 Feb. 1916, 7 Mar. 1916, 7 Apr. 1917, 22 Apr. 1917, 5-23 Dec. 1917, 29 Dec. 1917.

36 DOKU, Reiss, entries from 20 Jan. 1916, 25 Mar. 1916, 25 Mar. 1916; DOKU, Bruckner, entry from 27 Mar. 1917.

37 DOKU, Schovanez, Im Zwielicht der Gezeiten, 268-275, 300, 335; DOKU, Bruckner, entry from 27 Mar. 1917; private collection of Dornik, Schaberl, 78. Favorable entries on the Emperor were seldom: DOKU, Bruckner, 15 May 1917.

38 StmkLA, Prokosch, vol. 2, 112-114; ibid., vol. 3, 240f.; DOKU, Bruckner, entry from 20 Oct. 1915.

39 StmkLA, Prokosch, vol. 1, 13-18, 46-48; DOKU, Bruckner, entry from 5 Oct. 1915.

40 DOKU, Bruckner, entry from 29 June 1915.

41 Ibid., entry from 18 Oct. 1915.

42 DOKU, Bruckner, entries from 20 Oct. 1915; private collection of Dornik, Schaberl, 32, 81.

43 Private collection of Dornik, Schaberl, 73.

44 Ibid., 76-84.

45 See for example the magazines of the Austrian former POWs: Der Kriegsgefangene als Erzähler: Zeitschrift des Reichsverbandes ehemaliger Kriegsgefangener des Mannschaftsstandes Deutschösterreichs, November 1923 - July 1927.

46 DOKU, Reiss, entries from 15 Jan. 1916, 17 Apr. 1916, 7 Aug. 1916, 15/16 Feb. 1918.

47 However, concerning the “Asian” or “Mongolian” troops in the Russian army, large parts of his memoirs are dominated by pejorative terms (they were “brutal,” “stupid” and “war enthusiasts”): DOKU, Schovanez, Im Zwielicht der Gezeiten, 372. These remembrances may have been influenced by the National Socialist era and experiences he had during the Second World War, especially those in Eastern Austria in spring 1945.

48 DOKU, Bruckner, entry from 6 Jan. 1917.

49 StmkLA, Prokosch, vol. 4, 312f.

50 Private collection of Dornik, Schaberl, 24-74.

51 Ibid., 74.

52 StmkLA, Prokosch, vol. 3, 222f.

53 Ibid., vol. 3, 276-78.

54 DOKU, Schovanez, 372.

55 StmkLA, Prokosch, 85f.

56 DOKU, Bruckner, entry from 5 Oct. 1915.

57 See for example: Wiener Bilder, 11 Oct. 1914, 9; ibid., 18. April 1915, 5.

58 DOKU, Bruckner, entries from 30.12.1916-12.3.1917.

59 For more on captivity on the Eastern Front, see: Hannes Leidinger, and Verena Moritz, Gefangenschaft – Revolution – Heimkehr: Die Bedeutung der Kriegsgefangenenproblematik für die Geschichte des Kommunismus in Mittel-und Osteuropa 1917-1920 (Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2003); Alon Rachamimov, POWs and the Great War: Captivity on the Eastern Front (Oxford, New York: Berg, 2002); etc.

60 Private collection of Dornik, Schaberl, 19-21.

61 DOKU Reiss, entries from 13 Feb. 1915 and 6 Aug. 1915.

62 Ibid., entries from 21 Jan. 1915, 5 July 1915, 22 and 25 Feb. 1916, 21 Oct. 1916, 7 Apr. 1917.

63 StmkLA, Prokosch, vol. 2, 130f.

64 Ibid., vol. 3, 270f.

65 Private collection of Dornik, Schaberl, 22-42.

66 StmkLA, Prokosch, vol. 2, 177.

67 Ibid., vol. 2, 109.

68 Ibid., vol. 1, 35.

69 See on this: Meschnig, Der Wille zur Bewegung, 161-74; Peter Wilding, “Krieg – Technik – Moderne: Die Eskalation der Gewalt im ‘ Ingenieur-Krieg’; Zur Technisierung des Ersten Weltkrieges,” in Aggression und Katharsis: Der Erste Weltkrieg im Diskurs der Moderne, eds. Petra Ernst, Sabine A. Haring, and Werner Suppanz (Vienna: Passagen Verlag, 2004), 163-86.

70 StmkLA, Prokosch, vol. 1, 57f.

71 Ibid., vol. 4, 314-318.

72 Ibid., vol. 5, 402f.; DOKU, Reiss, entries from 19 June 1918.

73 StmkLA, Prokosch, Vol. 4, 317-335.

74 For a groundbreaking paper on the Austro-Hungarian perspective of shell-shock and the medical discourse of this disease, see: Georg Hofer, “‘Nervöse Zitterer’. Psychiatrie und Krieg,” in Krieg, Medizin und Politik. Der Erste Weltkrieg und die österreichische Moderne, ed., Helmut Konrad (Vienna: Passagen Verlag, 2000), 15-134.

75 StmkLA, Prokosch, vol. 1, notes on the last page of the envelope.

76 Emperor Charles banned this punishment in 1917. It was only used in special cases: Hans Hautmann, “Sittenbilder aus dem Hause Habsburg im Weltkrieg,” Mitteilungen der Alfred Klahr Gesellschaft 15, no. 2 (June 2008) Vienna: 10-14.

77 StmkLA, Prokosch, vol. 2, 106f.

78 For this see the quote above by Bruckner on October 15 about the pregnant girls in Rava-Ruska. For more detailed information on rape and sexuality in World War One, see: Tammy M. Proctor, Civilians in a World at War, 1914-1918 (New York: New York University Press, 2010), 124-51.

79 StmkLA, Prokosch, Vol. 4, 317-335.

80 See in particular: Verena Pawlowsky, and Harald Wendelin, “Die normative Konstruktion des Opfers: Die Versorgung der Invaliden des Ersten Weltkrieges,” in Glanz – Gewalt – Gehorsam, eds. Cole, Hämmerle, Scheutz, 359-83. In terms of the war blinded, see: Barbara Hoffmann, Kriegsblinde in Österreich, 1914-1934 (Graz: Verein zur Förderung der Forschung von Folgen nach Konflikten und Kriegen, 2006).

81 DOKU, Bruckner, 128-40.

82 DOKU, Schovanez, supplement.

83 DOKU, Reiss, supplement.

84 StmkLA, Prokosch, Vol. 7, unnumbered page.

85 Private collection of Dornik, Schaberl, 86.