Austria-Hungary, July
1914-November 1916
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This week's chapter
explores the meaning of the war for the Austro-Hungarian state, the German
Austrians and the war, the Magyars, the Austrian poles, the subject
nationalities and the war, the Yugo-Slaves, the Czecho-Slovaks, the Little
Russians, schemes of centralisation and Germanisation, reconstruction of the
Austrian cabinet, propaganda in favour of Central European Union, the
Magyars, Austrian centralism and Mittel-Europa, the Polish question, demand
for reassembling parliament, the death of the Emperor Francis Joseph 1
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The German Austrians greeted the outbreak of war with almost
hilarious excitement. War, at last! No more tiring discussions or wranglings
with the Czechs and Jugo-Slavs, but short, sharp orders. The Germans were to
be masters in Austria once more
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december 2, 1916
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Punitive expeditions,
both Austrian and Bulgarian have failed to intimidate the raiders, and the
enemy has long since learned not to provoke them
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| “Tell our brothers at Salonika to make haste, for Serbia is at her last gasp!” |
This message has been brought direct from Old Serbia by a special correspondent of the Paris Journal, who, greatly daring, rowed across the Danube by night from the Rumanian shore and landed in occupied territory. On the farther shore he and his companion found awaiting them a score of haggard figures, in ragged uniforms and armed.
These were Serbian officers and soldiers, survivors of last year’s Serbian Army; a handful of the heroic 10,000 guerrilla troops who, fugitives in their own land, have taken to the mountains and harry the enemy when opportunity offers. On one occasion they made a descent upon an occupied town and put the Austrian garrison to flight. Punitive expeditions, both Austrian and Bulgarian have failed to intimidate the raiders, and the enemy has long since learned not to provoke them.
One day a Serbian general landed in their midst from a French aeroplane and heartened them. They are the soul of the surviving population and the oppressed country’s one link with freedom.
With these phantoms of Old Serbia grouped about him, the correspondent conversed with one of their leaders, a captain wounded in the great retreat 12 months ago. He spoke of the nameless atrocities committed by the enemy in the early days of the occupation, of the massacres, and of the famine to which the country was succumbing. Stocks of food which were estimated to be enough to last the whole population for two years had immediately been commandeered with the most pitiless thoroughness. In particular, thousands of pigs had been driven off by the Germans.
The whole of this season’s harvest had also been requisitioned, so that by the end of the year the people would be starving. Destitution was boundless, and children were dying wholesale for want of food. Conditions were worse in the towns than in the country, and many persons committed suicide in order to end their sufferings.
And to all this is to be added the moral and religious persecution at which the Bulgarians in particular have proved themselves such adepts.
With these phantoms of Old Serbia grouped about him, the correspondent conversed with one of their leaders, a captain wounded in the great retreat 12 months ago. He spoke of the nameless atrocities committed by the enemy in the early days of the occupation, of the massacres, and of the famine to which the country was succumbing. Stocks of food which were estimated to be enough to last the whole population for two years had immediately been commandeered with the most pitiless thoroughness. In particular, thousands of pigs had been driven off by the Germans.
And to all this is to be added the moral and religious persecution at which the Bulgarians in particular have proved themselves such adepts.
