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

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СКАЧАТЬ caused the Prussian regiments, which sometimes received particular location by chance, to transform into local troops, which also complied with the objectives of the military reform. The aforementioned 22nd Infantry Regiment quartered in Upper Silesia in order to “train the young people of Upper Silesia to become good soldiers and citizens thanks to the new [reform] bill and the involvement of officers. This established and tightened contacts with all social classes in the province. Thereby, the reformers intended the burghers to adopt military virtues and motivate the brave to volunteer.”⁹

      However, these reassurances did not ameliorate the very bad opinion about Polish recruits from the eastern territories until the mid-nineteenth century, in particular from Upper Silesia:

Conscription of recruits for the regiments offered the officers a chance to display their talents. At that time, the annual arrival of recruits allowed them to make many observations of the physical and moral decay of the Upper Silesian population that was to characterize this region. Shoeless, with torn thick linen trousers and similar jackets with tassels, sometimes dressed in cheap clothes from thrift shops; they stood together in front of the barracks and only spoke Polish, which made them seem dull. Their long hair under old hats never encountered a comb. Their eyes were hazy from the coal dust of the local mines. Weak as children, the conscripts who “brought great hope” pushed their way into the barracks. Later, their hair was cut and they were cleaned. When Lieutenant von Goszicki saw the transport for the first time, he said “We should have been sent here maids who would teach these men how to keep their place clean and orderly and how to properly nourish themselves. Only this way could we accustom them to the new conditions.” Their susceptibility to alcohol must have drawn special attention to the gravity of the problem. However, there definitely appeared no [negative] attitude towards them. After the introduction of harsh discipline, Poles quickly manifested their military penchant: commitment to duty, extraordinary endurance in long marches, and loyalty to superiors. Hence, we praise them highly.¹⁰

At the time, the duty was still quite different from the one in the second half of the nineteenth century, after von Moltke’s reforms. An ordinary member of the ←12 | 13→22nd Infantry Regiment received a monthly salary of 2 Prussian thalers, 16 silver groschen, and 6 pfennigs with 12 silver groschen and 6 pfennigs as food benefit (Viktualienzuschuß), because he was supposed to buy everything on his own in the garrison. Non-commissioned officers received an additional benefit of 3 silver groschen. As a comparison, the wages of professional officers were much higher: the commandant of the same regiment received 2500 thalers per year, staff officers 1800 thalers, captains 800–600 thalers, lieutenants 200–300 thalers. They also received food benefits and benefits for their military decorations, especially for the Iron Cross (one thaler per month).¹¹ Meanwhile, in the 1860s, a typical textile industry worker earned about 120 thalers per year and a qualified worker in the highest paid metallurgical industry could receive even over 300 thalers.¹²

      There were no communal kitchens in the regiment, so meal preparation became a form of training. Everyone still received soup in the morning (for 10 pfennigs) but they had to prepare the rest of the meals on their own. The selected soldier would go shopping to the city market with lieutenant supervision:

Most of the recruits were not able to do this, they did not know the value of money or the prices of vegetables or meat, let alone the knowledge of spices. Many of the newcomers had to learn how to properly eat meat. However, later they cooked very well and clever soldiers began after a short time to comment on the effects of the gastronomic art. Colonel von Goszicki soon discovered that he did not need women to improve the living standards of the local population! The opposite sex could do it. After two or three years of duty, a soldier was able to prepare a tasty meal for a relatively small amount of money, keep his place clean and orderly, and regularly clean his uniform and shoes; but he also used comb, brush, soap, and hand towel on a daily basis, which became his second nature. Later, he would teach his wife how to do these things.¹³

Nevertheless, the main focus was military training, especially drills, marches with full load, and shooting. The most outstanding soldiers in this duty moved to special three-grade military schools that operated within the regimental framework, after which they could obtain ranks of non-commissioned officers. The lectures at the school were led by former professional non-commissioned officers along with full-time and over time (“one-year volunteers”) officers. Classes began on October 1 and ended in spring. For Polish recruits, these schools also served as places of complementary education in elementary subjects, such as reading ←13 | 14→and writing in German: “out of uneducated Polish recruits, the lessons produced gifted non-commissioned officers and minor officials.”¹⁴ Uneducated recruits testified to the negligence of public education which, since the Frederician times, was theoretically universal. There was still a very low turnout in folk schools, particularly in the countryside, which resulted in very high levels of illiteracy until the mid-nineteenth century.

Even after 1848, many non-commissioned officers recruited from the inhabitants of the Opole district, were not able to read or write what made it very difficult to fulfill the official duties. They coped with the situation in an astonishing way: “Many of them were illiterate. An individual that after many years of duty sometimes obtained the rank of company lieutenant, wrote orders with his own signs that resembled letters, that is, he actually shorthanded it according to his own system of signs, but later read it convincingly and confidently.”¹⁵

After the Unification of Germany

The military reform in Prussia was completed by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, appointed the Head of the Prussian General Staff in 1857, later the author of Prussian victories over Austria in 1866 – essential for the unification of Germany – and France in 1871, after the unification. Due to the fact that the former kingdoms in the south of the German Reich partially retained separate institutions, the German Emperor formally took leadership of four military contingents after 1871: Prussian, Bavarian, Saxon, and Württembergian.¹⁶ However, von Moltke improved the functioning of the German Army everywhere, uniformly commanding from the General Staff. Apart from the radical changes related to the increase in firepower, including both firearms and field artillery, von Moltke especially concentrated on the development of a precise mobilization system that was constantly improved until the outbreak of the First World War. The system based on territorial division and enabled a rapid concentration of military units in particular areas of warfare by the use of railway, the fastest and most modern means of transportation that rapidly developed in the German Empire. The number of railway passengers in Germany increased ←14 | 15→tenfold in 1870–1914.¹⁷ The corps was the basic military unit responsible for mobilization – coordinated by the General Staff – for which it prepared detailed plans and recruited new people. Thanks to these actions, in the case of military conflict, the corps could deliver equipment and firearms to soldiers in line regiments in an organized and quick manner – according to the sequence of actions that was planned with the accuracy of an hour – not to mention the reservists who gradually strengthened the rapidly developing regiments. The delivery of regiments to designated sties based on the “schedule” determined by the staffs. The reform of the General Staff – which began to play the key role since the mid-nineteenth century in the Prussian and later in the German Army – was possible thanks to constant rearrangements of this complicated schedule. It was important not only to determine СКАЧАТЬ