Poles in Kaisers Army On the Front of the First World War. Ryszard Kaczmarek

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СКАЧАТЬ we were all tired and sleepy…. After the lecture, we quickly put on our drill uniforms and again ran down to the stable. Here, both Lance Corporals shouted: “Putz! Putz!” … During the assembly, the Head of the Battery introduced us to tomorrow’s schedule, which did not differ from today’s … The only difference was that three of our friends were assigned to twenty-four-hour stable duty. We performed it every sixth day. For dinner, we received half of mess tin of tea, ninety g[rams] of liver sausage, and one kilogram of bread for two days…. We barely ate and rested a little when it was already eight o’clock, time for cleaning. We started to clean our uniforms, shoes, leather, and other things. After an hour, everything was squeaky clean. Shortly before ten in the evening, we were in beds, waiting for the sound of the trumpet, and for the lights to go out.¹⁰⁸

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      Interestingly, this kind of rigorous training did not differ much from the training of one-year volunteers; the only difference was that the superiors did not use violence toward their subordinates in the latter case. However, all the emphasis was on the implementation of thoughtless automaticity of behavior on the battlefield, and this was achieved by repeating the same actions in constantly induced stress; through haste, screaming, and physical effort at the verge of human capability:

Duty was very hard in the first half of the year. At least three hours every day were devoted to learning stunts with rifles. Excellent precision was attained by a huge amount of energy and effort and a complete stupefaction of recruits who started to move like automatons. Blisters appeared on their hands, knees stiffened, muscles contracted. We exercised on empty stomachs from five to six in the morning, then one hour after breakfast, and again one hour in the evening. After a few weeks, field duty started. The non-commission officers had here the opportunity to go hard on those intelligentsia-students! We were hurried until we passed out in the midst of sharp insults, screams, and rants. We listened to juicy vulgar vocabulary and amazing associations of concepts, for example, “You stand like a pregnant canary,” “Quicker! Curl up like an oiled lightning!”, “You walk like a lice on stomach!” And if someone made a mistake in a stunt or a phrase, he heard the terrible sentence: “Eine Stunde nachexerzieren!”, an hour of disciplinary punishment. Let’s add to that those disciplinary exercises – an opportunity for the corporal for extraordinary abuse – always occurred during the time devoted to a two-hour lunch break. “The theory” taught by non-commissioned officers had a specific meaning. It consisted of learning by heart the names and addresses of all the superiors from the corporal to the lieutenant; and from captain through the commander of the company and the general to the admiral. Rifle cleaning was a separate ceremony. It lasted an hour a day. Despite our greatest efforts, we could never please the corporal, who was always dissatisfied with what he controlled.¹⁰⁹

      However, the duty of officer candidates changed over time. The breakthrough moment was when they left the barracks and started living in the quarters:

Only after four-five months of elementary training, when we could properly salute, make stunts with rifle, even march “like at parade,” change guards, clean rifles, polish shoes until they shine, and polish the room till it looked like a marchioness’ chamber, we could finally move out and rent a room in the city (for fifteen marks a month). At that time, each of us was assigned a cleaner from an older year group (third year of duty), who was a jester, an old hand, who cut his teeth on the duty and knew all the secrets, and he knew the ways to trick the corporal, and even the sergeant.¹¹⁰

      Only then, the commander of the subunit assumed command and conducted field training. The period of duty in the military training area sometimes lacked ←44 | 45→the disparaging harrasment of non-commissioned officers, and some of the young Poles even recalled it as a useful time of great adventure of youth:

The culminating moment of the one-year military duty was the concentration of troops in one infantry division with artillery and auxiliary units, and two battalions of naval infantry…. Compared to the drill and training yard in Kiel, this service was light and even interesting. Marches, exercises in beautiful plein-air, in vast heathlands, in the heat of the summer, mock skirmishes and battles, none of it was arduous and it offered sport-like satisfaction. Besides, military duty attracted me with physical training, light-heartedness, and the cheerful life outside of the classroom. We attended interesting lectures, particularly conducted by some captain of the general staff who acquainted us, “one-year volunteers” and aspirants for reserve officers, with secrets of tactics at the lowest levels of chain of command of platoon and company./I listened carefully to use my experience as an instructor in the Rifle Squads, so as to effectively beat the Germans in the future. I used my skills soon, in 1918, in Poznań and in Poznań Region.¹¹¹

Despite the arduousness, the duty at the training unit was one of the best periods in the soldier’s life during the war. The tragedy began once the mobilization started, and they went to the front, not only because of the nightmare that the trench warfare turned out to be but also the necessity to face the enemy units, which also consisted of Poles. Before the war, about 300 thousand Poles served in the armies of the Partition armies: in the Russian Army 165–200 thousand; in the Austro-Hungarian Army 55–60 thousand; and about 40 thousand in the German Army. After the general mobilization in August 1914, the number of the mobilized soldiers increased to about 3.3 million Polish soldiers who fought against each other during the four years of the war.¹¹² The Russian Army numbered 1.196 million Poles, the Austro-Hungarian Army 1 million Poles, and the German Army 780,000 Poles.¹¹³

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1 O. Kranz, Erich Haffenstein und andere, in: Das Infanterie-Regiment Keith 1. Oberschlesisches Nr. 22, Kattowitz 1913, p. 170.

2 G. Ciupek, Aus der Geschichte des Infanterie-Regiments, in: Ratiborer Heimatbrief aus der Patenstadt Leverkusen, Weihnachten 1952, pp. 7–8.

3 W. Wette, Militarismus in Deutschland. Geschichte einer kriegerischen Kultur, Frankfurt am Main 2011, pp. 50–51.

4 Ibid., pp. 60–61.

5 B. Hulewicz, Wielkie wczoraj w małym kręgu, Warszawa 1973, pp. 13–14.

6 W. Skorupka, Moje morgi i katorgi 1914–1967, Warszawa 1975, p. 59.

7 Kranz, Erich Haffenstein und andere, p. 135.

8 Ibid., p. 141.

9 Ibid., p. 135.

10 Ibid., pp. 144–145.

11 Ibid., pp. 146–147.

12 G. W. F. Hallgarten, J. Radkau, Deutsche Industrie und Politik СКАЧАТЬ