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The Emperor and the Peasant This page intentionally left blank The Emperor and the Peasant Two Men at the Start of the Great War and the End of the Habsburg Empire KEnnETh Janda McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina ISBN (print) ECD-=-@CBB-BEAC-= ISBN (ebook) ECD-=-@CBB-?==D-E♾ Library of CongrEss CaTaLoguing daTa arE avaiLabLE briTish Library CaTaLoguing daTa arE avaiLabLE © 2018 Kenneth Janda. all rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. front cover: Emperor franz Joseph i (left, photograph by Carl Pietzner) and samuel Mozolák, 1905 (Wendel Photographic art studio); background: austro-hungarian prisoners from the battle of vittorio veneto (italian army) Printed in the united states of america McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box ?<<, Jefferson, North Carolina =@?>; www.mcfarlandpub.com To John Mozolak, Jr. and ann Mozolak Janda, the peasant’s second- generation Slovak- American grandchildren This page intentionally left blank Table of Contents Acknowledgments ix Preface 1 Prologue: The Habsburg Empire and the Great War 3 1. The Emperor in vienna 15 2. The Peasant in Krajné 29 3. The Emperor’s subjects 41 4. The Peasant’s voyage 57 5. imperial ignorance 70 6. Peasants in Passage 81 7. imperial deciders 96 8. Peasants under arms 110 9. imperial armies 123 10. Peasants in Peril 139 11. imperial irrelevance 151 12. Peasants in War 166 13. imperial Losses 187 14. Peasant gains 206 Epilogue: Immigration and Self- Determination 228 Chapter Notes 241 Bibliography 261 Index 271 vii This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments inspiration for writing this book came from british television and from my brother- in-law, John Mozolak. London Weekend Television’s 1970s series Upstairs, Downstairs, and the popular 2010s series Downton Abbey, impressed me with their penetrating views of life early in the 20th century from the top and bottom of society. My slovak- american brother- in-law’s research into his genealogy and into the military history of his grand- father, samuel Mozolák, inspired me to tell his grandfather’s story in an “upstairs, down- stairs” style—juxtaposing the slovak peasant’s life and death alongside the life and death of austro- hungarian Emperor franz Josef and his empire. John Mozolak provided virtually all of my information on the Mozolák family, on samuel Mozolák’s military experiences, and on his home village of Krajné. a great deal about that small village was in John’s collection of slovak books, sections of which my wife ann (Mozolak) Janda translated for me. other scholars and students of slovakia furnished valuable additional information on the land and the people. a family friend from Krajné, Milan Pagač, helped John in his research in slovakia and assisted me in securing information and permissions. university of Washington professor John Palka, whose grandfather was Czechoslo- vakia’s prime minister from 1935 to 1938, patiently read my manuscript and advised how to improve it. Professor M. Mark stolarik, an expert in slovak emigration at the university of ottawa, closely read sections of the manuscript, correcting errors and expanding on parts. daniel nećas in the immigration history research Center at the university of Minnesota patiently answered many questions. ryan Mattke and dana Peterson in the university’s Map Library turned up several maps for the book. Professors Winston Chris- lock (university of st. Thomas) advised me early in my writing, as did stanislav Kirschbauum (york university). Kevin hurbanis and suzette steppe, respectively vice- president and president of the Czechoslovak genealogical society international, also made useful comments, as did Professor Jana reshová (Charles university in Prague). Ed Chandla of the american sokol library in new york helped identify Czech and slovak organizations early in the 20th century. Kevin Mcnamara (drexel university) answered questions about the Czech and slovak Legionnaires fighting in russia. My observations on hungary were influenced by spending 1993–94 as a fulbright fellow in the political science department of the budapest university of Economic sci- ences at the invitation of Professor attila Ágh. My current writing was encouraged and advised by former departmental colleagues gabriella ilonszki and Láslo váss, by antal Örkény at Eötvös Loránd university, and by my former Ph.d. student at the Central European university, gabriela borz. in Minnesota, Zsolt nagy (st. Thomas university) ix x Acknowledgments kindly took time to talk with me about the project. bernard Tomas (valdosta state) pro- vided helpful comments and shared some of his family experiences with Magyarization in hungary. Carl Kotlarchik, who maintains a website on austro- hungarian army records, confirmed some information on samuel Mozolák’s military life. Michael dreyer (friedrich schiller university in Jena, germany) interpreted some german texts. Living in retirement in the Twin Cities proved little handicap to research. The excel- lent interlibrary loan system at the roseville branch of the ramsey County Library in Minnesota allowed me to order and obtain scores of books on the habsburg empire, World War i, and international immigration—many of which came from the fine collec- tion at the university of Minnesota Library. The roseville Library also sponsored a helpful series of talks by World War i historian Janet Woolman, who also read and com- mented on my manuscript. Thanks to its digital archive of League of nations documents, my former library at northwestern university provided a rich source of statistical data on the belligerent nations before and after World War i that i could access online. north- western also provided online access to print materials in electronic form, such as scholarly journals and back issues of the New York Times before and during the war. Concerning World War i and its aftermath, Professor James sheehan (stanford uni- versity) helped define targets and sources very early in my research. Professor gregory ference (salisbury state university) answered several queries about slovak- american support of the war in the united states. Zora bútorová and radka skalická at the Center for Public opinion research in the Czech republic provided data on polls prior to the 1993 division of Czechoslovakia into the Czech and slovak republics. My northwestern colleague, andrew roberts, also helped with poll data. special thanks goes to Professor geoffrey Wawro (university of north Texas) for sharing his anonymous review of my draft manuscript and encouraging me to proceed. Wawro’s 2014 book A Mad Catastrophe greatly informed my writing. another reviewer, who chose to remain anonymous, sug- gested several lines of revision that led to a better book. Concerning the processes of writing my manuscript, i benefited greatly from the suggestion by Professor Thomas ort (new york’s Queens College) to incorporate into my narrative insights from novels, such as Jaroslav hasek’s Good Soldier Svejk and Joseph roth’s The Radetzky March. anthropologist Janet Pollak (William Paterson university) gave similar advice. as an academic who previously wrote only scholarly books and arti- cles on political science, i never would have thought to use fiction to elaborate facts. Jerry goldman, my departmental colleague at northwestern university, my co- author of The Challenge of Democracy (an american government textbook), and my dear friend, plowed through 300 pages of an early draft of a manuscript on topics far from his own interests and identified several aspects of my text that needed improvement. My best friend, my wife ann, unwearyingly read my text and made it better in so many ways, as she has done for decades. as for publishing my manuscript, John Palka shared his own experiences in pub- lishing his own book, My Slovakia, My Family, which sustained me when i received rejec- tion emails. other good friends—irving rockwood (former editor and publisher of Choice) and nader dareshori (former chairman and CEo of houghton Mifflin)—advised me on contractual issues. Thanks to their assistance, this book is being published in time to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War i and the deaths of samuel Mozolák and the habsburg empire. Preface This book is unlike any i have written before. Those were either specialized books for political science professionals or textbooks for students taking courses in political science. This is a historical narrative—a nonfiction work informed by research—written for broader audiences. it aims at two categories of readers. The first is the general reader who wants to know more about the “great War” from the standpoint of the Eastern Theater of operations—as opposed to the many, many books about the Western front. World War i actually began in the east, when austria- hungary declared war on serbia and shelled belgrade. The war also lasted somewhat longer in the east, and it killed more soldiers—and probably more people. unlike other histories, my account of the war and austria- hungary delves into the foppish nature of the upper society in the habsburg empire. it focuses on Emperor franz Josef, who ruled the country for almost 68 years and—against his better judgment at almost age 84, but in keeping with his antiquated conception of honor—started World War i on July 28, 1914. Throughout his long reign over an opulent court, franz Josef was in many ways quite ignorant of the lives and aspirations of his subjects. My treatment expands to include the other ill- informed autocrats of the principal belligerent nations—german Kaiser Wilhelm ii and russian Tsar nicholas ii—who were equally unprepared to guide their nations in the 20th century. although experientially ignorant of their subjects’ lives and of public affairs within their nations, they were constitutionally empowered to declare war.

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