The War Crimes of the Austro-Hungarian Soldiers during the First World War

Maister’s evening: Miha Sluga, The War Crimes of the Austro-Hungarian Soldiers during the First World War

Excesses of the Austro-Hungarian army in Galicia and the Balkans during the great war in the years 1914-1918 testify that the Habsburg monarchy did not lead in a “knightly” way. Extensive powers to military authorities and a number of extraordinary laws have severely restricted the freedoms of citizens, and the worst consequences for newly enacted lawlessness have been felt by residents of exposed areas along the borders of the Russian Empire. Similarly, in Habsburg Bosnia and in the occupied areas of neighboring Serbia, which became the site of cruel treatment of Serbian military prisoners, plundering, reprisals and, in some cases, the real massacres of the civilian population.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire, on the eastern fronts of Europe, pursued a policy of ruthlessness, attempting to only conceal its weakness due to internal national tensions, while at the same time freeing up the wave of violence that erupted in the much more barbaric version in the next world war.