Stuck away on the east side of multiple train tracks at the train station in Trieste is a small monument.  It stands forlornly nest to a like sized monument dedicated to rail workers who died in World War 2.  The monument in question reads: “In riccordo di cittadini del littoral Austriaco partiti da questi binary nell’agosta del 1914 per lontani cmapi di battaglia” – “In memory of citizens of the Austrian Littoral who left from these tracks in August 1914 for battlefields far away.”  The sign is fixed on a large stone on which also is placed, a cap design for the Imperial and Royal – Kaiserliche und Königliche (K. und K.) – Infantry Regiment 97.  The K. und K. Infantrie Regiment 97 entrained from here to the battlefields of Galicia from which many of the men, locals from Trieste and the surrounding region, would never return.

HISTORY AND VICTORY

History is told by the victors in most cases.  In this part of the Adriatic, World War 1, until recently, is told through an Italian lens.  There is the large lighthouse monument, the Faro della Vittoria or Victory Lighthouse, set on the north edge of the city accentuating the Italian victory.

Built purposely higher than the Berlin Victory Column, – that column was inaugurated in 1873 in commemoration of German unity in Königsplatz, Platz der Republik, today – the lighthouse was built upon the foundations of a former Austrian fort.  After 1866 and the loss of the Veneto to the Kingdom of Italy as a result in the Austro-Prussian War, Trieste was one of two remaining areas of the Austrian Empire containing a majority of Italian-speaking citizens as opposed to formerly most of what is today’s northern Italy before 1859.

Then there are the inevitable place name changes when one country leaves and another comes in:  Piazza Grande becomes Piazza Unità d’Italia; Triest Südbahnhof becomes Trieste Centrale with rail lines; a large park curls halfway around the upper sections of the hill on which the Castle of San Giusto and the Trieste Cathedral sit – Parco della Rimembranza sul Colle di San Giusto – complete with a array of stones memorializing locals who died for the cause of Italy in either World War.

TRIESTE AND THE EMPIRE

Trieste was the fourth largest city in the Austria-Hungary at the time of the war.  The 19^th century saw huge development in the city serving as the main port for the Austrian half of the empire.  And while times were good for most Triestinos in the years before the war, there was a vocal minority calling – like in the Trentino province of South Tyrol – for unification with Italy.  A few Triestino intellectuals avoided being called up into the Austrian army when the empire mobilized in July 1914 following the assassination of the imperial heir Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Most young men from Trieste and the rest of the Littoral Province accepted the summons to war.  A picture on the monument rock shows men getting in boxcars for what would be for many, a last journey from home.

Side note: The bodies of the Archduke and his wife transferred through Trieste 2 July 1914 via the dreadnaught Viribus Unitus, the same ship he had earlier gone south with from Trieste en route to Sarajevo. From Trieste, the bodies went to Vienna on the Südbahn and on to Arnstettin where they were laid to rest at the family castle.

ARMY CHANGES POST BISMARCK

Following the wars of the mid-19^th century, Austria Hungary became a complicated political country, complications extending into the military.  The country became two with the Kingdom of Hungary and the Empire of Austria united by a common ruler – Franz Josef of the House of Hapsburg – sharing a common army, general finances and foreign ministry.  This division became one of the main fallouts following the loss to Prussia and Italy during the Austro-Prussian War.  Hungary gained autonomy and they gained the right to have a national army/guard – the honvédség.  That army was in addition to the joint common army shared with Austria.  The Empire also gained the right to form a national army – the Landwehr.  So, the army became three as universal conscription became introduced throughout the entire lands.

The entire country – both the empire and kingdom – were split into recruiting areas for the common army – K. und K (Imperial and Royal).  These areas corresponded to centers around which the different corps of the army came together during mobilization.  Regiments took in recruits from the draft age men living in the regiment’s home district. Those recruits usually were born in the same district, although their actual residence may have changed between birth and induction.

MULTICULTURALISM IN THE ARMY

From 1883 until 1914, Austria Hungary fielded 102 line infantry regiments.  There were ten different major languages within the entire country. In the fifteen provinces of Cisleithania – Austrian half – seven provinces featured a vast majority of German speakers.  One province – Carinola – was predominately Slovene with sizable Slovene populations present in three other provinces – Carinthia, Styria and the Austrian Littoral.  Italian was the mother tongue in the largest group in the Austrian Littoral – 39.6% – with a large minority 42.1% of the population in the County of Tyrol – Germans accounted for 57.3% there – as well as a small minority in Dalmatia – 2.8% versus 94.6% Serbo-Croatian.

Austrian regiments in the past moved about around the two lands enabling the soldiers to gain a better understanding of the country and people they were defending.  After 1866, the regiments stayed closer to their regimental bases taking those opportunities away.  Common army units stationed in Hungary rarely moved.  The national guard units – Landwehr and honvédség – always stayed put. 

CONSCRIPTION – WHERE THE RECRUITS WENT

Universal conscription placed 80% of conscripts into the joint Common army and navy with the rest split between the two national guards.  Active service in the Common army lasted three years followed by seven years in the reserve.  Those chosen for the national guard units spent two years in active service and ten in the reserve.  Recruits became further divided according to lot. 

Those with high numbers went into the Common army or guard units.  A middle number got one chosen for the Ersatzreserve – after 1882. This meant an eight-week training period repeated every year for ten years.  A low number placed one in the Landsturm, a rear-guard formation which received no training and also veterans of active service formations up to the age of forty-two.  The training received by the Ersatzreserve and Landsturm proved worthless. These formations were rushed into the front after the Austro-Hungarian army suffered grievous losses in the opening days of the World War.

COMMAND AND LANGUAGE

Army command language in the Common army was German.  Soldiers needed to learn some eighty different commands issued in German – simple commands such as “right”, “left”, “at ease”, “halt”, and “fire”.  Other commands were given in the regiment’s specific national language – or languages.  A language becomes a unit’s “national” language if at least 20% of the soldiers in the regiment spoke it.  Officers needed to learn the language or languages of his regiment. 

In 1914, 142 regiments and independent battalions were monolingual – only 32 being German.  Another 162 units spoke at least two languages while 24 spoke three.  A few units used four languages.  That was all good for the officers of the active army units.  They were forced to learn the languages if they wanted to maintain their jobs.  Reserve officers did not.  As the war went on, language requirements lapsed to fill in the massive gaps in the ranks.  Regimental losses also were not able to come from the same region as they normally recruited from over time.  Men became simply plugged in where needed as the war dragged on.  It was amazing that the multilingual, multicultural army persevered as long as it did.

ITALIANS IN THE ARMY OF THE EMPIRE

Before 1866, Italians made up about 1.3% of the population of Austria-Hungary.  Italian representation with the armies of the imperial and royal forces was about the same – 1.5%.  By losing the Veneto, Austria Hungary lost seven regiments recruited from their former Italian province.  After the 1866 war, outside of the four regiments of Tyrolian Kaiserjäger, men recruited mainly from the South Tyrol where Italians made up over a third of the population, the only regiment in the Common army where Italians reached the 20% barrier to gain the right to have their language included as a regimental language was the K. und K. 97^th Infantry Regiment.  The Regiment 97 was one of those multi-lingual regiments with Slovenian and Croatian added as regimental languages alongside Italian.

THE K. und K. 97TH INFANTRY REGIMENT

The men of the Regiment 97 came from the Austrian Littoral province mostly, Plezzo-Bovec to the north, Gorizia, Gradisca, Friuli, Karst, Trieste – where the regimental headquarters was – and southern Istria.  Besides being familiar with the other languages of the regiment, there was also the eighty commands in German to remember.  Exact ethnic composition for the regiment came out to be 45% Slovene (including many from Trieste and its suburbs), 25% Serbo-Croatian, 20% Italian and 8% various other groups.  The regiment came into being after the army went from 80 regiments to 102 in 1883. 

Each regiment had a ceremonial Inhaber or colonel whose name the regiment became known by.  For the Regiment 97, the Inhaber was Georg von Waldstätten.  Besides sporting an outstanding mustache, he served as a Field Marshal Lieutenant and Fortress Commander of Krakow.  Coming from a Moravian family raised to nobility at the beginning of the 18^th century, Waldstätten finished his career as a Privy Councilor, retiring as a full General of the Infantry.

A side note, Georg’s brother Johann Baptist also used mustache wax with his big mustache. He served as Inhaber for the K. und K. 81st Infantry Regiment

Other units including Triestinos were the Feldjäger 20^th Battalion, an autonomous unit comprised of 58% Slovenes and 31% Triestinos; the 87^th IR and the 47^th IR, comprised mostly of German-speakers in the former and Slovenes in the latter also included some from Trieste in their ranks.  Triestinos were also recruited for the ranks of the navy.

KuK 97TH GOES TO WAR

 At the onset of the World War, the Regiment 97 had battalions scattered across Croatia.  They then concentrated to Trieste before entraining for Lviv on the Galician Front on the afternoon of 11 August 1914.  The train ride took almost a week before the 3,500 soldiers reached the front.  Inserted immediately into the 3^rd Corps of General Böhm-Ermolli’s 2^nd Army where they suffered grievous casualties – more than 50% – in the fighting in late August and early September.

In the first day of fighting, like the scene in other Austrian regiments, the 97^th marched into battle as if on the parade ground.  The officer corps suffered serious losses.   The loss of officers and the dramatic regimental losses on the first day quickly led to a rout.  Possible retreat routes simply not planned for pre-battle for fear of what the effect on troop morale could prevail. The regimental colonel suffered a nervous breakdown needing evacuation off the field.

What was left of the regiment after the first day was thrown back into combat two days later, reconstituted with replacements, and here, desertions and surrenders became a problem. Many men fell prisoner to the Russians and episodes of insubordination and desertion needed repressing.

DEMOGHELA

The regiment refitted and became thrown back into combat.  Now, came about the legend of “Demoghela”, which basically means “we escaped”.  Looking for scapegoats to the debacle suffered German cavalrymen under General Pflanzer-Baltin equated the performance of the 97^th with that of certain Czech units which eagerly surrendered.  There were surrenders and desertions, with a postwar song arising from the now-motto for the regiment, Demoghela.  The song shown by postwar irredentists to be proof that Triestinos wanted nothing to do with Austria-Hungary.

World War One was just starting, however.  Regiment 97 would go on to many battles on the Eastern Front, rebuilding itself after each battle.  Like in other Austrian units. It was not long before replacements came from anywhere and not just the Littoral.  The magnitude of Austrian losses in the East simply made it too complicated to fill regiments with men from their original origins.  Many of the men became Russian prisoners with many dying in captivity.  Others who survived did so only after 1920 and the Russian Revolution.  They returned to a home where a new flag flew, often without home, goods and definitely not affections, of at least the new government.

10TH marschbatalione

One battalion, the 10^th Marschbatalione, stayed behind in the Littoral to help watch the Italians.  Normally, each regiment had a marschbatalione made up of replacements to fill in the gaps in the normal regiment when they occurred in the field. But with emergencies, the battalion could deploy as an individual unit which here was the case. When Italy entered the war, the men helped defend in the Carso near Sagrado on the west edge of Monte San Michele.  The first three Italian offensives went nowhere, but the battalion suffered near annihilation during the fighting.

Winners get to tell history. The men of the 97^th and other Austrian units were simply dismissed by the new powers that were.  Only a hundred years later did some of the efforts of the 97^th become remembered beyond families.