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

It resulted from the military reforms of the first half of the nineteenth century, which allowed recruits to choose between one-year voluntary military duty over the earlier two or three-year compulsory duty, which created a new category of “one-year volunteers” (Einjährig-Freiwillige). After the completion of this shorter training, volunteers could apply for the appointment to the rank of reserve lieutenant. However, there were additional conditions for the approval for the special one-year duty. Only graduates of at least the first grade of Gymnasium and Realschule (Obersekunda) could submit applications, that is, usually seventeen-year-olds. It also meant that the applicant will cover the expenses like housing, weaponry, and uniforms. The latter obligation was particularly difficult to fulfill. Such a one-time expense costed 2–3 thousand marks, far exceeding the income of small craftsmen and merchants. This is why only 30–40 percent of secondary school graduates – the potential “one-year volunteers” – enrolled in this type of military training. Between 1906 and 1910, 181 thousand people were eligible, but only 59 thousand exercised the possibility. But the professional officers hardly ←9 | 10→tolerated even those enrolled before 1914. Most often, the latter would become an object of mockery in regiments due to their insufficient military training and lack of experience. Nevertheless, they usually tried to meet the requirements, which enabled them to enter the circle of professional officers. Moreover, the reserve officers adopted the professional officers’ features and values important in first-line regiments: discipline, order, punctuality, sacrifice for the duty, and even the behavior and worldview mocked by the civilians. They later implemented these views in their everyday life, which led to the popular belief that the soldiers the German Empire.⁴

Right before the First World War, patriotically oriented representatives of the Polish intelligentsia exploited this system and enlisted as “one-year volunteers,” so that they could later use the experience in their work toward the rebirth of the Polish state. For example, the national-democratic Association of the Polish Youth “Zet” recommended such way of action, as Bogdan Hulewicz testifies in memoires on his voluntary enlistment to the German Army: “I was healthy, physically skilled, athletic, and inured, my ZET “brothers” in Munich picked me out for the future instructor in Rifle Squads. Therefore, avoiding the German military one-year duty was out of the question, so after a couple of study semesters, I reported to the draft board in October 1912. To receive a comprehensive military training and reach the rank of reserve lieutenant was part of ZET’s program, which I followed enthusiastically. I chose a naval battalion quartering in Kiel, where I received military training in the infantry and the navy, as well as in the essential aspects of field and naval artillery.”⁵

Apart from “one-year volunteers” and already during the Frist World War, there emerged an intermediate category between commissioned and non-commissioned officers was proved a gradual democratization of the German officer corps, even if forced by the growing recruitment needs. That is, there appeared the function of a deputy officer (Offizierstellvertreter). At first, those waiting for the commission were treated like non-commissioned officers and received no admission to the caste of the professional military men. Only when front losses increased did they become significant front commanders at section and platoon level.⁶

There was a strong tradition both in the Prussian officer corps and among officials that dated back to the Frederician period, which was to keep class ←10 | 11→diversity among those nominated by the king. The goal was to integrate the state around an absolute monarch. For instance, in 1815–1830, the king appointed in the Upper Silesian 22nd Infantry Regiment seven officers from Saxony, five from Mecklenburg, four from Westphalia, four from the Kingdom of Poland, three from Pomerania, two each from Rhineland, Hanover, and Hesse, one each from Holstein, Anhalt, Franconia, Austria, Russia, and England. What integrated all of them was loyalty to the Hohenzollern dynasty that they conscientiously cultivated as part of the regimental tradition. All the officers of the 22nd Infantry Regiment had to have “solely monarchist views” and keep distance toward “any party-oriented attitude.”⁷

      The military reform partially changed also this tradition, even among commissioned officers. The new generation of officers of the 22nd Infantry Regiment stemmed from the Upper Silesian destitute nobility already from the 1820s. However, we mean here the families that settled in Silesia only in the eighteenth century. Hopes for quick enrichment often turned out illusive, so the newcomers’ sons and grandsons, after having obtained appropriate education, decided to pursue a military career in the nearest regiments. They spent the initial part of duty in regiments as officer aspirants (Offiziers-Aspiranten), due to the lower cost of such accommodation. This was facilitated by the fact that, after the Napoleonic Wars, regiments received permanent locations of residence with barracks.

      At the time of regiments permanent location in the Upper Silesia before 1866, the frequency of officers’ contacts with the surrounding Silesian nobility grew, as we read from reports of this gradual process:

There was a lively, valorous spirit in the regiment during the stay in its garrison. The most important was to keep in close touch with exquisite local circles. At the beginning of the carnival season, young men visited nearby homes in rigid service dress uniforms and feathered hats sprucely worn on neatly arranged hair. Families of high officers and officials along with the noble families – all cordially greeted the officers from the 22nd Infantry Regiment due to their courteous and quiet behavior. For this reason, the families willingly and voluntarily allowed the officers to make acquaintances with their daughters…. In the fusilier bataillions that quartered in small garrisons (Brzeg, Kłodzko, Opole), officers were particularly eager to fulfill their social duties. In this way, former captains and lieutenants [who had already completed active duty and lived in their rural estates] could longer entertain themselves in the circle of young officers who then belonged to the new generation. The unmarried grey-haired men felt like fathers ←11 | 12→to these young modest officers, always eager to help them with money in case of need, which the “young blood” often lacked during parties.⁸

The long garrison stay and the increasingly closer relations between different strata of inhabitants in the eastern Prussian territories – even more true in the case of local non-commissioned officers and soldiers – over time 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.