WWI in the Memories of Slovenian Soldiers

CHAPTER 1 Men Who Marched Away: WWI in the Memories of Slovenian Soldiers

Oto Luthar

In drawing on the title of Thomas Hardy’s poem “Men Who March Away,”1 this chapter hopes to capture the multifaceted involvement of Slovenian soldiers in the theatres of WWI in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. As Austro-Hungarian subjects, the majority of Slovenian men were drafted into the Imperial and Royal Army (kaiserlich und königliche Armee or k.u.k.), but there was also a small group of Slovenian intellectuals, mostly comprised of students, medical doctors, and clerks who were members of the pro-Yugoslav organization Revival (Preporod), who joined the Serbian Army at the very beginning of the war. They were known as prostovoljci, the Slovenian word for volunteers. Finally, some two thousand Slovenian soldiers who had been sent to the Eastern Front and captured by Russians joined either the Russian Army or the so-called dobrovoljska divizija, the Volunteer Corps of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and were known as dobrovoljci, the Serbian word for volunteers. During the Great War, Slovenian soldiers thus served in three armies and were present on almost every front in Central and Southeastern Europe. In Serbia, they even fought against each other: as k.u.k. soldiers they invaded Serbia, and as volunteers from the Revival movement who had joined the Serbian Army, they tried to repel the attack.2 After Italy entered the war in

1 Hardy, “Men Who March Away (Songs of the Soldier),” 5. 2 For some, this was already the second involvement on the Serbian side. A number of them, particularly medical doctors, had already joined the Serbian forces during the Balkan Wars. Upon the urgent request of the Serbian Red Cross, at least eleven of them (Dr. Otmar Kranjec, Dr. Edo Šlajmer, Dr. Jernej Demšar, Dr. Ivan Premrov, Dr. Franc Šabec, Dr. Josip Tavčar, Dr. Oražem, Dr. Črnič, Dr. Lavrič, Dr. Bačar, and Dr. Tajnšek) mostly from Ljubljana, Vrhnika, and Litija, joined the Serbian Army and at least two (Dr. Mavricij Rus and Dr. Gaber Hočevar) joined the Serbian allies in Bulgaria. Beside these, we should mention a man who fought with the Serbian četniki in uprisings against the Turks in the second part of the nineteenth century. In 1875, to be more precise, at least ten Slovenians joined the unit of Petar Mrkonjić in an uprising against the Turks in Herzegovina and later in Bosnia. The best known among them was Miroslav Hubmajer, a printer and non-commissioned officer in the Austro-

1915, most Slovenian men were transferred from Serbia and the Eastern Front to the Isonzo River, where they fought in all twelve Italian offensives between 1915 and 1917, including the breakthrough at Caporetto. Three years later, Slovenian volunteers in the Serbian Army, prostovoljci, once again regrouped at Salonica to participate in battles against the Germans and Bulgarians on the Greek—Macedonian border. For the majority of Slovenian men, however, the war started in Ljubljana, Maribor, Celje and other recruiting centers of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Like many young men in other parts of Europe and Australia, they got caught up in the “infectious mood of euphoria.” Similar to conscripts the world over, from Glasgow to Melbourne and from Paris to Berlin, they had not the “slight- est inkling of the horrors and tragedy that were to follow.”3 Army officials, church representatives, and especially local newspapers played a leading role in stirring up heroic and patriotic sentiments, endeavoring to make young men believe that the war would be over by Christmas. All those who failed to express confidence in the euphoric statements of various dignitaries were accused of being “reluctant to confront the enemy [. . .] [and of] not [being] loyal.”4 The conservative daily newspaper, Slovenec, was particularly keen to report the “enthusiasm of the Slovenian people” and their commitment “to heed the call of our Emperor [. . .] [and] regardless of all circumstances fulfil the duty which has been imposed on us by our great homeland Austria.” According to the author of the editorial, this sentiment was shared or expressed not only by “young men [but] also graceful girls [. . .] asking for instructions to avenge the death of the heir to the throne and defend the glory of Austria.”5 When the euphoric support for the invasion of Serbia was at its peak, Slovenec often made use of aggressive populist narratives inciting revenge. One of the best examples is provided by the following lyrics:

Hungarian Army, who joined the četniki at the age of twenty-four. After a year of fighting in Herzegovina, Bosnia, and Montenegro, he even became the leader of Mrkonjić’s unit. Later, when General Černjajev and his volunteers from Russia joined the uprising, Hubmajer obtained the rank of Second Lieutenant in the newly united forces against the Turks. 3 Carthew, Voices from the Trenches: Letters to Home, 6–8. 4 “He who heeds someone other than Him [the Emperor], who holds the right under the law of God and man to put the weapon in his hands, is not worthy of carrying it” is just one of the typical forms of warmongering that appeared in Slovenec in the summer of 1914. 5 Slovenec, 42/1914, no. 169, 28 June 1914.