Page 305 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

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Military Troops Deployed to Carry Out Policing Duties in
Hungary during the Last Year of the First World War

TIBOR BALLA

On 1 January 1918, the land forces of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy consisted of the
Imperial and Royal Army, the Royal Hungarian Honvéd Army and the Imperial Royal Land-
wehr, altogether 4,410,000 soldiers, organised into 72 infantry and 12 cavalry divisions.
2,850,000 of them comprised the field army, whereas 1,560,000 soldiers served in the reserve
units, the military authorities and the headquarters in the hinterland. the imperial and
1
Royal (so-called “common”) Army had 16 military headquarters in the territory of the Em-
pire, 6 out of which were located in Hungary, whereas the 1st General Headquarters was set
up in Nagyszeben (Sibiu) in the spring of 1918. As an addition to that, the Royal Hungarian
Army had 6 recruiting districts.
In the last year of the war, more than half of the strength of the army did not fight at the
fronts anymore, but was deployed in the hinterland to control the population and the reserve
troops. 2
The legal conditions of the deployment of Austro-Hungarian military troops to carry out
policing duties, and the rules of their use of firearms were settled by the regulation for the
military authorities published in 1908 and the Regulations of the “common” army, both
4
3
of which were still in force in 1918 with certain amendments. Policing duties were primarily
carried out by the infantry and the cavalry, but artillery batteries and armoured trains too
could be deployed along with them. 5
Reserve battalions, which had been set up to replace the fallen and those taken prisoner
from field units, were garrisoned in regions inhabited by nationalities other than those of the
battalions, out of political considerations. For instance, reserve units consisting of mostly
Hungarian soldiers were stationed in Czech territory, whereas battalions comprising Serbian,
Croatian and Czech soldiers were positioned in Hungarian and austrian provinces. the aim
was to keep the troops from civilian influence, which was secured by foreign-language sur-
roundings, so that they could be deployed to perform policing duties. Czech and Hungar-
ian soldiers were deployable against each other’s nationalities; Germans against Slovenians,
Poles and Czechs; Hungarians and Bosnians against Germans; Poles against the Ukraini-

1 Plaschka, Richard Georg, Haselsteiner, Horst, and Suppan, arnold. Innere Front. Militärassistenz, Wieders-
tand und Umsturz in der Donaumonarchie 1918. Vol. I. (Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, Vienna, 1974):
44.
2 Deák, István. Volt egyszer egy tisztikar. A Habsburg-monarchia tisztjeinek társadalmi és politikai története
1848-1918. (Gondolat, Budapest, 1993): 253-254.
3 Entwurf. Instruktion bezüglich Anforderung, Beistellung und Verwendung militärischer Assistenzen. Na-
chdruckausgabe mit Berücksichtigung der bis Ende 1908 ergangenen, ergänzenden Erlässe. (Vienna, 1908)
4 Dienstreglement für das kaiserliche und königliche Heer. Vol. I. (Vienna, 1909)
5 Plaschka, Haselsteiner and Suppan. Vol. I: 33-35.