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

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

      ←45 | 46→

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 von Bismarck bis in die Gegenwart, Frankfurt am Main 1986, p. 28.

13 Kranz, Erich Haffenstein und andere, pp. 146–147.

14 Ibid., pp. 147–148.

15 Ibid.

16 W. Rezmer, Polacy w korpusie oficerskim armii niemieckiej w I wojnie światowej (1914–1918), in: Społeczeństwo polskie na ziemiach pod panowaniem pruskim w okresie I wojny światowej (1914–1918), ed. M. Wojciechowski, Toruń 1996, p. 138.

17 J. Dülffer, Deutschland als Kaiserreich (1871–1918), in: Deutsche Geschichte. Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, ed. M. Vogt, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 548.

18 M. Howard, Wojna w dziejach Europy, Wrocław 2007, pp. 111–112.

19 B. Gebhardt, Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte, Vol. 2, Stuttgart 1931, p. 547.

20 Ibid., pp. 686–687.

21 Rezmer, Polacy w korpusie oficerskim, p. 138.

22 Wette, Militarismus in Deutschland, pp. 70–71.

23 Rezmer, Polacy w korpusie oficerskim, p. 138.

24 J. Keegan, Die Kultur des Krieges, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1997, p. 47.

25 VI. Armee-Korps (Deutsches Reich). http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/VI._Armee-Korps_(Deutsches_Kaiserreich)