Category Archives: Austria

by Joel | 23 December 2025 · 10:56 pm

Liberating Slave Labor Camps

From Victory ’45: The End of the War in Eight Surrenders, by James Holland and Al Murray (Grove Atlantic, 2025), Kindle pp. 135-136:

The 3rd Infantry Division might have been first to Berchtesgaden, first to be able to crawl over the Berghof and first to reach the dizzy 6,000-foot heights of the Kehlsteinhaus, but they were not allowed to remain for long. Colonel Heintges had expected to be there for at least a week, but the following day the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment reached the town, part of the 101st ‘Screamin’ Eagles’ Airborne Division, and much to Heintges’ disappointment the Cottonbalers were relieved, while Leclerc’s men moved in on the Obersalzberg.

Yet while capturing Nazis and vast numbers of German troops was very much the Allies’ ongoing mission and a key part of securing Germany’s surrender, so too was liberating the astonishing number of concentration and forced labour camps. Nordhausen, a vast slave labour camp that fed workers into the Mittelbau-Dora factory where the V-2s had been manufactured, had been liberated on 11 April. The stench had been so bad that the American and British liberators had nearly all started vomiting. Buchenwald had been liberated the same day. A few days later, on 15 April, British troops had reached Bergen-Belsen, where tens of thousands of Jews had been left to starve. The arrival of Allied troops at these places of human degradation, misery and death was a watershed moment. Most found it hard to comprehend that fellow humans could be treated with such untold cruelty. Photographs and film footage of skeletal survivors, but also of piles of dead between the disease-infested huts, were quickly shown around the free world and prompted understandable feelings of shock, outrage and, of course, revulsion against the people responsible for this. It was hardly surprising that feelings towards the Germans hardened further; the enemy had continued fighting long after Germany had lost the war. Needless lives had been lost. Anger had already been rising among Allied troops, who saw no reason why they should risk their lives in this pointlessness. Now they were coming across scales of inhumanity that few could comprehend. Anger, disgust, horror and diminishing compassion for a subjugated enemy were the feelings aroused in many of the liberators.

And there were just so many camps. Every day Allied troops reached another, invariably presaged by the noticeable absence of birdsong and the rising stench that filled the air. On 4 May, the same day that Lieutenant Sherman Pratt and his men reached the Obersalzberg, it was the turn of the 71st ‘Red Circle’ Infantry Division. In sharp contrast to the battle-hardened 3rd Infantry Division, the 71st was one of the newest units to arrive in the ETO, landing in France only on 6 February 1945 and not heading into combat until early March. They’d seen plenty of action since then, however, and done well too, first attached to Patch’s Seventh Army and then moved to join Patton’s Third Army as it swept on into Austria and Czechoslovakia on the northern flank of 6th Army Group. And it was into Upper Austria, on the road to Hitler’s home city of Linz, that the Red Circle Division came across the horrifying site of Gunskirchen Lager.

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by Joel | 23 December 2025 · 4:02 am

Forging Ahead for the Postwar

From Victory ’45: The End of the War in Eight Surrenders, by James Holland and Al Murray (Grove Atlantic, 2025), Kindle pp. 52-54:

While, on the face of it, Wolff appeared to be one step ahead of Kaltenbrunner in his contacts with the Allies, the RSHA chief had been stockpiling immense amounts of cash for a post-war world in which money could well buy him out of trouble. Twenty miles north-west of Bolzano, down a long Alpine valley, lay Merano, a small spa town popular before the war for its mountain sports, which had been home to a number of Jews, most of whom had since been arrested and deported. Since early the previous year, it had also been the headquarters of an outrageous money-laundering operation. In fact, there were warehouses next to Merano’s racecourse now stuffed with boxes full of counterfeit British and US banknotes.

The location of Merano – between Innsbruck and Austria to the north, Switzerland to the east, and with Verona, Lake Garda and Bologna all as local satellites – made the town the ideal place from which to run a money-laundering operation. To launder money, the ability to distribute it and spread it to the four winds was essential, but equally important was to keep the enterprise away from too many prying eyes. Kaltenbrunner was mostly in Berlin, but Merano was surrounded by mountains and isolated. Here another of his creatures could mastermind the entire operation with comparative impunity.

Forging British banknotes had originally been devised by the SD back in 1940, although the counterfeiters initially struggled and by the time of Heydrich’s assassination in Prague in June 1942 the operation had already been wound down. Under Kaltenbrunner, however, counterfeiting British notes was revived as Operation BERNHARD. The aim was no longer to flood the British economy but rather to use the money to finance secret intelligence operations. And this time the counterfeiters were of an entirely higher calibre: Jewish prisoners at Sachsenhausen concentration camp to the north of Berlin who were superb at the art of forging banknotes. By 1943, some 140 prisoners were producing tens of millions of pounds’ worth of notes from six flat-bed printing presses. By May 1944, Kaltenbrunner ordered them to start producing US dollars as well, not exactly for intelligence operations but for his own personal use, whether that might be a last stand in the Alpine redoubt – certainly his cover story – or, more realistically, to accumulate a vast private fund for a rainy post-war day.

Running the laundering of this extraordinary counterfeiting operation was another unscrupulous rogue called Friedrich Schwend, part of the mosaic of corruption, criminality and deceit that marked the Nazi regime. Like Kaltenbrunner, Schwend had been only too willing to cast ideology aside in favour of looking after number one and was proving adept at adapting his skills to self-preservation. Schwend was thirty-eight, a former pre-war car engine salesman and a smooth-talking charmer who had been working for the Abwehr, the Wehrmacht’s intelligence service – rather than the SS-run RSHA – at the start of the war. Repeatedly getting himself into trouble, he was caught out by his superiors selling unauthorized but bogus German U-boat plans to the British for cash, captured by Italian secret intelligence agents, turned back over to the Germans at the Brenner Pass and flung in prison at Klagenfurt in the Austrian Alps.

Kaltenbrunner learned about Schwend from none other than Wilhelm Höttl, who suggested this canny rogue as just the man for overseeing a money-laundering operation. That Schwend had fallen foul of the Abwehr was no disqualification for working for Kaltenbrunner; quite the opposite, in fact. Releasing Schwend from his incarceration, the RSHA boss instructed him to run the entire laundering operation of forged banknotes, giving him, frankly, astonishing levels of latitude so long as he successfully and swiftly spread the notes as far and wide as possible. Incredibly, Schwend even negotiated for himself a 33.33 per cent cut of every pound sterling he brought into circulation.

In very swift order, Schwend established his small operation under the entirely fake name of ‘Stab. 4 Deutsches Panzerkorps’, initially at Abbazia and Trieste before realizing that Merano offered a considerably better, more discreet location. Taking over the Schloss Labers, a grand – but not too grand – villa perched among vineyards on a hill overlooking the town, and protected by a small squad of SS police troops, Schwend got down to building a fortune. With the forged notes he bought houses, hotels, ships, cars and shares in a number of companies. Some of it was used for bribes and he also sent plenty to vaults in Zurich. He developed a dense network of couriers and agents, including Jews. Jack Van Herten, for example, was a Dutch Jew operating under the cover of the International Committee of the Red Cross. In reality, he was smuggling Jews to the Middle East but at the same time passing on laundered money for Schwend. And Schwend also took over those warehouses at the Merano racecourse, hiding counterfeit notes in race boxes that were then distributed to Holland, France, Denmark and elsewhere. It was a huge operation and Schwend was making millions. But Kaltenbrunner was making even more. And right under the nose of the Höchster SS und Polizeiführer in Italy, Karl Wolff.

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Filed under Austria, Britain, economics, Germany, Italy, military, Switzerland, U.S., war

by Joel | 13 October 2025 · 8:17 am

Poland’s Eastern Border, c. 1920

From Kosciuszko, We Are Here!: American Pilots of the Kosciuszko Squadron in Defense of Poland, 1919-1921, by Janusz Cisek (McFarland, 2025), Kindle Loc. 1390ff.

To understand better the genesis of the war and Piłsudski’s aims, it is essential to present a general background of this conflict. Between ethnic Poland and ethnic Russia stretches a belt of land several hundred kilometers wide, inhabited by a population that is neither Russian nor Polish. After a few centuries of political union with Poland, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Baltic nations, and even to some extent Belorussians succeeded in creating their own national movements at the turn of the twentieth century. Poland was the dominant political power until the end of the eighteenth century, but by the time of the second and third partitions of Poland (1793, 1795) Russia had taken over control of those areas. In spite of this, the Poles were a dominant element of both the economy and culture of those territories. For many of local leaders the tradition of a multinational Polish Kingdom, or Rzeczpospolita, with its privileges and freedom, was still an attractive example. All these matters were incomprehensible in the West, where all Polish claims to territories east of the Bug River were treated as imperialistic, even after two important declarations of the Bolshevik regime. In the Peace Decree of November 8, 1917, they announced:

The Government regards as an honest or democratic peace … an immediate peace without annexations (i.e., without the seizure of foreign land, without the forcible taking over of foreign nationalities) and without contribution.

The decree was issued at the Second All-Russian Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies in Piotrogrod (St. Petersburg). Subsequent documents included the Declaration of the Rights of the Nations of Russia from November 15, 1917, guaranteeing the rights of self-determination to break away and to create independent states. Even more important was the decree of the Council of the Peoples Commissars from the August 29, 1918, about the annulment of the partition treaties in relation to Poland. According to many lawyers, these proclamations restored the status quo ante and legitimated Poland’s claims to lands within her 1772 borders. Of course, politicians in Warsaw realized the impossibility of openly claiming the return of those territories, mainly because of the awakening national consciences of the nations inhabiting these lands. Anyway, this option remained more or less in the propaganda arsenal.

Fundamentally, there were two approaches to the territorial shape of the state. The National Democrats headed by Roman Dmowski pursued the incorporation of the borderland areas into the Polish state and the gradual polonization of those people. Piłsudski countered Dmowski with his federation program, or the construction of national states friendly to Poland, which would fulfill the national aspirations of the Ukrainians and the Lithuanians and would separate Poland from Russian threat. In February 1919, following the German armies’ retreat from the “Ober-Ost,” the Bolshevik armies moved west. When they met Polish military outposts in the vicinity of Bereza Kartuska, armed conflict ensued. At the same time there were battles and skirmishes between Poles and Ukrainians in East Galicia. The conflict on this part of the frontline was complicated because there were at least three political entities that claimed principal state authority in Ukraine. It is common knowledge that until 1914 the Ukrainians, who did not have their own state, were divided by the Austro-Hungarian and Russian border. The eastern part of their national territory belonged to Russia and created a group of politicians opposing Russian domination. From this base came the later ally of Piłsudski and Ataman of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, Semen Petlura. Part of western Galicia under Austro-Hungarian control, and the capital Lwów, was turned into the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic with Evhen Petrushewich at its head. Its policy was decidedly anti–Polish. In addition there was the Ukrainian communist movement controlled from Moscow and led by the Bulgarian born Christian Rakovski. This triangle remained unchanged, with the exception of attempts at cooperation by both of the national wings of the Ukrainian movement against Poland. There was also a small but relatively influential group around the “Hetmanate” government of Pavlo Skoropadski appointed at the end of World War I, when the Germans occupied Ukrainian territory.

The situation underwent some changes from the conclusion of the May–June offensive of 1919, in which the Polish Army forced the Ukrainians back beyond the Zbruch River. Shortly after, namely in August 1919, under the pressure of anti–Bolshevik armies, the so-called White Russians, Kiev fell. The Tsarist generals did not even want to hear of independence for Ukraine. They fought all factions of Ukrainian political life opting for the breakaway of Ukraine from Russia. The occupation of Kiev signified the extinguishing of all hope of an independent state. Quite simply the Ukrainians did not have the resources to fight both Poland and Russia. Petlura was first to grasp the political situation. Since it was impossible to fight all the real and alleged enemies of Ukraine, it was necessary to ally, even at the cost of territorial concessions, with a partner who guaranteed political independence. It was Piłsudski’s idea of a federation that seemed to offer the most promise of an independent Ukrainian state. After a few weeks of hesitation, Petlura, in November 1919, sent Andrij Livickij to Warsaw with the aim of preparing for talks about a military-political alliance. This was the origin of the Polish-Ukrainian alliance, which was finalized in April 1920 by a political pact on April 21 and a military convention on April 24. With this ally Pilsudski moved on Kiev. However, as time showed, the mirage of an independent Ukraine disintegrated. This happened as a result of the relative apathy of the population, which had suffered six years of war. It was also due to the impossibility of ensuring a longer period for the organization of a state apparatus and administration after the Polish armed forces had taken Kiev on May 7, 1920.

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by Joel | 12 October 2025 · 8:57 am

From The Other Trench: The WW1 Diary and Photos of a German Officer, by Philipp Cross and Alexander Pfeifer (True Perspective Press, 2024), Kindle pp. 266-267: (The following passage is by the junior author, who supplies many backgrounders to help readers better understand his great-great-grandfather’s war diary.)

The recent and upcoming series of events are today known as ‘The Battle of Caporetto’ (The 12th Battle of The Isonzo), one of the most significant chapters of the Great War. When Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary in May 1915, they did so while influenced by the dreams of territorial conquest; and the desire to conquer the Italian-speaking areas around Trento and Trieste along their northeastern border. However, the Italian army had become fatigued towards the end of 1917. Insignificant progress had been made on its frontlines at the cost of severe casualties and a breaking economy. After 11 battles for the Isonzo in just over two years, the Italians anticipated a period of rest during the winter of 1917, but this did not happen. There were growing rumours of an attack by the Austro-Hungarians, and the Italians worked towards strengthening the mountainous combat areas around the town of Caporetto, today known as ‘Kobarid’ in Slovenia. Caporetto is positioned on the western side of the Isonzo River, with the frontlines lying six to seven miles east of the river as of October 1917. Due to the supposedly weakened Italian defence there, Caporetto had been chosen by the Central Powers as the main target for this significant offensive. The offensive, initiated on the 24th of October, would be seen as a complete disaster for the Italian army, also causing devastation nationwide.

In the early morning of the first day of the battle, the Italian trenches were smothered with poisonous gas, which left many occupants dead and caused others to flee. An intense artillery barrage would later follow, as well as mines being detonated beneath Italian strongpoints — Then, the infantry assault. The attacks were led by specialised stormtroopers who made full use of their light mortars, flamethrowers, machine guns and hand grenades. The Italians were in a state of complete disarray and fell into retreat due to this rapid and astonishing breakthrough. The attackers advanced up to 25 kilometres towards Italy on the first day without much resistance. By mid-afternoon, the command centre of the Italian army was still oblivious of the magnitude of this offensive, and Luigi Cadorna, Chief of General Staff, would not realise to what degree his troops were suffering until later in the evening — Munition shortages, wavering commanders, communication breakdown and lack of information — all working against the few trying their hardest to suppress the German and Austro-Hungarian assault. We know how these events unfolded from Alexander’s perspective, but just what exactly was it like through the eyes of someone on the other side?

Colonel Francesco Pisani was the acting general of the Foggia Brigade, who was present at Caporetto on the first day of the offensive. With orders for parts of the brigade to reinforce other units under pressure from the assault, the left-over troops headed towards Caporetto while passing the retreating men telling horror stories of the battles ahead. Pisani was to defend the Eiffel Bridge over the Isonzo with his troops, with a retreat soon after being ordered. The control of the town was then handed over to the Foggia Brigade. This is how he afterwards describes this series of events in his post-battle debriefing:

“There was total confusion. The road was almost entirely blocked by a mass of troops, carts, horses, trucks, artillery pieces, mules, and supplies. Officers’ cars were unable to make any headway, and it was very hard to execute or even transmit any orders. At this point, the various components of the Brigade became separated in the chaos, the freezing fog, and the rain. We also tried to organise transport for the wounded, many of whom had been abandoned in the road. We could hear them groaning through the fog, and it was imperative to move them since their presence was demoralising the defenders of the bridge.”

This battle will continue until late November 1917, and will eventually lead to enormous Italian losses and setbacks. They will lose over 5000 square miles of territory, over 40,000 dead and wounded, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers left scattered who will either be captured or will have deserted. The Italians will not just be subject to losses of soldiers and land. More than 10 million ration sets and over 6 million tins of fish or meat will be seized by the attacking forces, as well as hundreds of tonnes of dried pasta, cheese, and coffee; and 5 million litres of wine. Many thousand pieces of clothing, bedding, boots, artillery pieces, machine guns, horses and mules, and vehicles will be abandoned and lost — a huge loss for Italy considering the shortage of these vital supplies before this setback had even occurred.

The potential reasons for this disaster, and later defeat, already caused political quarrels within 48 hours of the first assault. Blame was placed on all sides of the political spectrum, as well as other factors. General Cadorna, who was already unpopular before the battle, blamed the Austro-German breakthrough on: “The inadequate resistance of units of the Second Army, cowardly retreating without fighting or ignominiously surrendering to the enemy”. However, this has been viewed as an unfair assumption by many, as the Foggia Brigade’s experience of poor defensive positioning, inconsistent orders, and scarce supplies represented the entire situation. Several descriptions indicate that the Italians fought courageously, for as long as they had ammunition and officers. However, as soon as these crucial needs were no more, and their enemy gained more momentum, it was hard to maintain an overall positive attitude.

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by Joel | 9 October 2025 · 7:41 pm

Carpathian Front, August 1916

From The Other Trench: The WW1 Diary and Photos of a German Officer, by Alexander Pfeifer and Philipp Cross (True Perspective Press, 2024), Kindle pp. 173-174:

25.8.1916 There was thick fog during the night — the ground is littered with fireflies — an enemy patrol is being driven out.

The food is good and plentiful, but it usually only arrives late in the evening when it is dark because the road lies under artillery fire. There are three different types of field-kitchen food — Pearl barley with mutton, beans with mutton, and dried vegetables with beef. Besides this, we also get half a loaf of bread every day, and alternately some lard substitute, Dutch cheese, canned sausage, and marmalade. We also get cubes of coffee daily, and sometimes tea.

The night before last, we caught a Russian officer’s orderly who had gotten lost and came to us with the food and coat intended for his master. He was very surprised at how he was suddenly captured by us.

26.8.1916 Wonderful warm, sunny day. We are now living rather well because we have been brought up several boxes with all kinds of things from the canteen. For breakfast this morning, we had tea with marmalade bread, liver sausage, and Swiss cheese; and for lunch, asparagus spears, fried potatoes, one egg, roasted meat, and 1901-dated Tokay wine. We eat out of the field kitchen in the evening.

Two Russian patrols are being shot at in the night.

28.8.1916 The declaration of war by Italy and Romania was reported to us via telephone this morning. Maybe now we will reach the Romanian border. There was shooting from patrols on several occasions during the first half of the night.

Heavy rain. It is raining into my shelter, so I am having a wooden roof put on it today.

29.8.1916 The weather is nice. I now have a medium mortar in my sector, which launches mortar shells with a diameter of 18 centimetres and a weight of one quintal. We just zeroed in on the field-guard summit with four shots. Those things have a huge impact; the Russians will have run away nicely as a result. They have constantly been shouting “Hurrah!” since yesterday evening, and have also stuck out a signpost on which Romania’s declaration of war is most likely written. They probably think that this is being kept secret from us, or they want to annoy us with it. Our mortars are the correct response to this.

30.8.1916 There was artillery fire to our left for several hours from 4 o’clock in the morning onwards, the likes of which I have never heard in the East. The volleys follow one another without interruption. It must be within the vicinity of the Jablonika Pass where the Austrians have retreated to in the last few days. We are always happy when we don’t have Austrians next to us, as you can’t sleep peacefully otherwise. As kind as the Austrian is as an associate, he is just as unreliable as a soldier — Always according to the motto: “Make room. The Germans want to attack. The Germans are braver people!”

I was just guiding the Count through my position which the Russians must have smelled, because they sent over plenty of shells and shrapnel from 10 to 12 o’clock at noon, although without success. Since my hut doesn’t provide enough cover against artillery fire, I am now having a stronger shelter built in a more protected area where the sun also shines all day, as it is well needed up here.

The strong artillery fire to the left of us is continuing all day.

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by Joel | 9 October 2025 · 8:16 am

Jägers vs. Russians, August 1916

From The Other Trench: The WW1 Diary and Photos of a German Officer, by Alexander Pfeifer and Philipp Cross (True Perspective Press, 2024), Kindle pp. 162-163:

10.8.1916 Early at sunrise, we had a view from the ridge on all sides that I have rarely seen so beautiful — one mountain range behind the other, and one summit next to the other.

Just as we arrived at Height 1478, there was fierce rifle and machine-gun fire ahead of us. The Russians attacked our positions but were repelled. We camped on the opposite slope of 1478, but the Russians must have noticed us because they graced us with several shells and shrapnel. Oberjäger Schmelz received a shrapnel shot in the upper leg as a result. We are lying in the warm sunshine all morning and at noon.

We are supposed to take back two heights; the eastern foothills of Point 1385 that the Austrians have recently lost — Captain Conrad leads the storm battalion made from Austrians and our 1st and 3rd Companies. I lead the 3rd Company, and Seemann leads the 1st. While taking advantage of the very difficult and partly densely overgrown terrain, I move into a deep gorge with my company in the afternoon where we line ourselves up for the assault as our very meagre artillery fires. It is a miracle that the Russians didn’t see us, as we would have fared very badly otherwise. We were thus only shot at slightly when we were already in the gorge. I likewise give the order to attack as soon as we see that the 1st Company is advancing to the right of us. Lingelbach starts with the first wave of the assault, and then Kramer. Both of them swarm out. I still stay back with the reserve platoon for the time being.

The ascent is incredibly high, steep, and troublesome with dense undergrowth and brittle trees everywhere. There is soon raging gunfire. Our artillery now shoots very well, and seven of our machine guns uninterruptedly pound the opposing foxholes. The Russians respond, and it is such an infernal racket that you can barely understand the person next to you. 15 minutes after our firing lines have advanced, I can’t stand it anymore down below and order my reserve platoon to follow me. There is suddenly loud screaming halfway up. Jägers shout “Over Here!”, and Russian voices yell in confusion. To the left of me, I unclearly see a large number of Russians through the bushes with jägers among them. I think that this is a flanking attack and even get the pistol ready to fire. I then see that the Russians have no weapons — they were the first captives.

I now continue ahead in all hastiness and arrive fully exhausted with my reserves at the 1200-metre-high ridge, which has been in our possession for 15 minutes. The 1st Company have also captured their height, and so have the Austrians to the left of us. My company has taken almost 320 prisoners. Some of the Russians defended themselves from our attack, but they surrendered without resistance for the most part. A large number had fled. Within the company, I have one dead, two heavily wounded and four lightly; incredibly minor casualties in relation to the Russian superiority and their brilliant position. Such a splendid success would have been impossible if there were only 50 Englishmen up here. The height was taken at 7 o’clock in the evening. There was then a lot of work — transporting the wounded and the prisoners, expanding the position to the other side, reorganising the company, pitching tents, setting up guards, providing food and so forth.

Our men are shooting a pig. There are also potatoes and kohlrabi (German turnips) up here.

I slept the night in the tent because the Ruthenian wooden huts stink too much and are likely full of vermin.

The Russians were armed with Japanese rifles.

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by Joel | 8 October 2025 · 6:33 pm

Entering Bukovina, August 1916

From The Other Trench: The WW1 Diary and Photos of a German Officer, by Alexander Pfeifer and Philipp Cross (True Perspective Press, 2024), Kindle pp. 155-156:

1.8.1916 We continue on a rapid climb in the eastern valley at 6 o’clock in the morning. The ascent begins after approximately three kilometres. The road, which was only built during the war, winds its way up the steep slope in countless wide windings. Around noon, we arrive close beneath the peak of the 1599-metre-high Copilasul [Rom. ‘The Small Child’] whose grassy summit is lined with field fortifications.

We pitch our tents on the grassy ridge that forms the border between Hungary and Bukovina, and which leads to the 1655-metre-high Stog [Rom. ‘hayrick’]. It swarmed with jägers from various battalions on the way there. There is a lovely view here of the Pip Ivan [‘Father Ivan’?] (2026 metres) and the Corbul [Rom. ‘The Raven’] (1700 metres). On the higher mountains, the woodland suddenly stops at the top, and the summit is a green peak of grass. Our field kitchens can’t drive to us at the top anymore. The food needs to be carried up in cooking crates using pack animals.

The last piece of bread has been consumed — nothing more to eat. I am sleeping in the grass during the afternoon. The field kitchens are to be dragged up via horse and carriage tonight. When it gets dark, an Austrian guard drives a large flock of sheep past and sells them for 1 Mark a piece. Many have even vanished unpaid. My company has pinched at least eight that will immediately be butchered and brought to the field kitchen. They were very beautiful animals with wonderful raven-black, shiny and long curly fur.

Dozens of watchfires are blazing up everywhere upon the heights, and you can hear singing from all around. It is a marvellous evening. Such a thing would be completely ruled out in the West, as the thick shells would be present within five minutes.

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by Joel | 28 September 2025 · 7:30 pm

Defending a New Poland, 1919-1921

From Kosciuszko, We Are Here!: American Pilots of the Kosciuszko Squadron in Defense of Poland, 1919-1921, by Janusz Cisek (McFarland, 2025), Kindle Loc. 67ff.

The presence of American airmen in the Polish army was preceded by a series of efforts between the individual enlistment of officers, soldiers and citizens of the United States and the drafting of a separate American legion to fight in Poland. Endeavors in this field lasted as long as the Polish–Bolshevik war itself. Their one tangible result was the establishment of the Kościuszko Squadron, a military unit unique in being the sole representative of the Western Hemisphere in this war, since in 1920 the only regular military forces helping Poland were the army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic under Ataman Semen Petlura and a small Belorussian Army under the command of General Stanisław Bułak Bałachowicz. Unlike the American volunteers, both of these formations fought primarily for the independence of their own nations.

The efforts of representatives of the Polish Republic were based on a variety of factors. The main one was the threat of German and Russian revolution and the continuation of the war in Eastern Europe. When Poland regained her independence in 1918, her borders were not yet defined. Her administration was based mainly on the dedication of civil servants of Polish descent, who remained on their jobs after the fall of the three occupying powers, Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary. The Army comprised barely a few tens of thousands of veterans of the Polish Military Organization, the Polish Legions, and officers and soldiers who gradually flowed in from the armies of the partitioning powers. After four years of war, during which enemy armies plundered everything that could be of any use, there was nothing left in Poland. The infrastructure of roads, railways, bridges, water-supply systems and power-plants was almost completely destroyed. One must remember that the front rolled through some areas several times.

Józef Piłsudski, Commander-in-Chief and Head of the Polish State, and the entire nation faced an enormous challenge. Confronted by shortages, many Polish politicians turned towards the West. It was not only about delivering aid to a suffering population. It was also of primary importance to repel the Bolshevik armies approaching from the east and to prevent the communist revolution in Russia from uniting with the German “Spartakus” movement. However, the young Polish state did not possess enough military might.

Thus Pilsudski’s attention concentrated on bringing to Poland the 80,000 strong army of General Józef Haller, which included a significant number of Polish residents of the United States and which was still stationed in France after November 1918. In fact, it remained there until April 1919, and became the pivot of many plans both political and military within the Polish National Committee, and also in French, British, and American circles. Haller’s Army was officially chartered in France by a decree of the French president on June 4, 1917. Following insistent appeals by the famous pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski to President Woodrow Wilson, permission was given also to recruit Poles living in America. Up until the end of the war, 24,260 American Poles served in the army’s ranks. The rest were recruited from prisoners of war, Poles living in western Europe, and Polish volunteers from other countries. That superbly trained and equipped army was no mere bagatelle in November 1918, when Poland reappeared on the European map. For both the Americans and the Poles, it had already set a precedent—as reborn Poland’s first army recruited from beyond her national territory and as the first American contingent to fight beyond its own national boundries in the sole interests of a foreign state.

The hope given by the existence of this precedent was rekindled when some of the hundreds of thousands of demobilized soldiers and officers of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), who were mainly based in France, indicated their readiness to serve, even under a foreign flag. It did not only affect Poland.

Among the important factors, it is also worth mentioning that as a consequence of the partitions, a significant group of Polish officers served in the armies of other states, which obviously influenced organization of the Polish army after over a century of occupation. In November and December 1918, the cadre of officers, at first derived from the Polish Legions of Józef Piłsudski, began to fill with Poles who, lacking other opportunities, had trained and become officers in the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, or to a lesser extent German armies. One can assume that in the Polish Army there was a conducive atmosphere for the transfer of officers and soldiers from other armies. We already mentioned here the consistent threat to the Republic, prevalent from the very beginning of its independent existence. Polish politicians and the military thought that a foreign military contingent would have a restraining influence on the appetites of both her large and small neighbors. On the assumptions made above, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, a few days after the signing of the armistice in November 1918, asked the American Secretary of War Newton D. Baker for permission to discharge all soldiers and officers of Polish extraction from the American Army to enable them to serve in the Polish Army. According to various estimates—independently of Haller’s army, which was not a part of the American Armed Forces—there were approximately 200,000–230,000 officers and soldiers “of Polish extraction” who were serving under the Star Spangled Banner. It needs to be stressed that in the aforementioned appeal to Baker, Paderewski was only concerned with Polish “resident aliens,” excluding American citizens. Baker, who had been considered a friend to Poland, refused, fearing that the officers and soldiers would serve a nationalistic cause, which he suspected Poland of propagating. This argument managed to convince Wilson, thanks to which the project failed.

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Filed under Austria, Germany, migration, military, nationalism, Poland, Russia, U.S., Ukraine, war

by Joel | 14 August 2025 · 2:32 am

1848 in Ireland

From The Famine Ships: The Irish Exodus to America, by Edward Laxton (St. Martins, 2024), Kindle pp. 85-86:

The government in London still declined to recognise the state of Ireland’s rapidly diminishing population. There was little fight left in the people, little strength to fight the hunger and none at all to fight the British who mistook the mood of the people and remained insensitive to the reality of their situation: even peasant armies cannot fight on empty bellies. Tenants on some of the larger estates banded together to avoid paying rents, current or arrears, and formed combinations while in the towns and cities Confederate Clubs were set up; but that was as far as they went – there is no evidence of well-organised conspiracies to murder landlords or agents, however much they were hated. But the apprehension of an Irish uprising had been growing steadily for more than two years among Britain’s leaders. Elsewhere in Europe, uprisings were rife: in January 1848 the people in Sicily forced concessions from their King; in February a bloodless revolution overthrew the French Parliament; in early March the army in Vienna was routed by the city’s people; then the Austrian rulers were driven out of Milan by the Italians. These winter insurrections encouraged radical leaders of the Young Ireland Party to rebel. As a result, in March three men, William Smith O’Brien, Thomas Meagher and John Mitchel, were arrested and charged with sedition. After the first two were acquitted, the third, Mitchel, a journalist, was tried in May under another act and convicted. The Attorney General in London had just drafted a new Treason Felony Act, decreeing, ‘… any person who, by open and advised speaking, compassed the intimidation of the Crown or of Parliament,’ was made guilty of felony. And in the current climate any person found guilty under this Act would be sure to face a heavy sentence – transportation to an overseas colony possibly for life. Within an hour of the jury returning their verdict, and sentencing Mitchel to 14 years’ transportation, he was on his way out of the country, not on an emigrant ship but aboard a British warship, bound for Tasmania on the other side of the world.

Fear is often fuelled by rumour, which was rife at the time. Misleading stories spread of great protest gatherings, 10,000-strong, and marches of 20,000 militants were reported to London. It was rumoured than an Irish Brigade was being raised in America, and that the Confederate Clubs were arming their members. As a result, the British Government determined to quash the threat of a peasant uprising. More English troops and weapons poured into Dublin and spread around the country. Additional English warships were despatched to strengthen the fleet at Cove, near Cork.

The British decided that further examples should be made among the would-be leaders and early in July, Thomas Meagher, son of the Mayor of Waterford, was re-arrested. His speeches in previous years, urging armed rebellion, had earned him the title Meagher of the Sword. He was detained by the police right outside the offices of the Waterford Chronicle whose editorial that day, on July 12th, cautioned against immediate rebellion, urging instead, ‘Wait until England is engaged in a major European war. The Chronicle will equip 200,000 men to fight against England.’

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Filed under Australia, Austria, Britain, France, Ireland, Italy, migration, military, nationalism, U.S., war

by Joel | 2 August 2025 · 8:57 am

Rebuilding a Polish Nation in Galicia

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 504-507:

Unlike the Hohenzollerns of Prussia/Germany or the Romanovs of Russia, the Habsburgs were Roman Catholic monarchs—and this is an important distinction. Furthermore, Habsburg piety was proverbial. All this meant that there should have been more common ground between the Poles and Austrians. At the same time, the Habsburgs had historically been the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (defunct as of 1806) and thus had a special relationship to the Germans of the rest of Europe.

As in all the partitions, the treatment of the new subjects was uneven. In the beginning, the Austrian authorities sought to civilize what they considered to be a backward land. Later, under the oppressive influence of Metternich, they sought to constrain what they thought was a revolutionary people—as witnessed in the debacle of the peasant jacquerie of 1846. (The incorporation of the Free City of Kraków into Galicia set the relatively thriving medieval capital of Poland back decades.) Metternich had seen fit to equate Polonism with revolution. Doubtless the new ruler of the Austrian Empire, Franz Joseph, felt similarly.

Only after a period of absolutism and Germanization did the tone change. This was brought about by several Austrian military defeats. The loss to the French in 1859 led to reforms at home that ultimately resulted in constitutional rule in Austria as of the early 1860s. Notably for the Poles, they were allotted their own provincial Seym as early as 1861.

The defeat of Austria by Prussia in 1866 was even more significant. The defeat forced the Habsburgs to reach a new modus vivendi with the Hungarians, who had been chafing under Habsburg rule particularly since the end of their failed revolution of 1848–1849. In 1867, the two parties reached the famous compromise that led to the establishment of the Dual Monarchy. Henceforth, the country would be known as Austria-Hungary.

That the Habsburgs had been compelled to make concessions to one of their subject peoples was a fact not lost on the Poles. Already the failure of the January Insurrection under Russian rule led some important Galicians to reconsider their approach to the Habsburg monarchy. A new and influential group known as the Kraków Conservatives resolved to be loyal to the Habsburgs. Although initially skeptical, after several years the Polish elites of Galicia were won over to this idea. Even the defeat of Austria at the hands of Prussia did not shake their belief in the monarchy.

…

These developments led to a third, and most fruitful, phase for the Galician Poles. Unlike the disgruntled Czechs of Bohemia, Poles decided to participate in the Reichsrat or imperial council, a two-chambered parliament in Vienna. Polish elites sought to recast Galicia as a conciliatory, conservative, loyal province. All this boded well for the position of Poles within the Habsburg Empire. Indeed, during the Dual Monarchy, a number of Poles actually came to hold important posts in the imperial government, including that of prime minister.

Given a degree of autonomy, Galicia became a haven for the Poles—a place where Poles could be Poles while still being loyal to the Habsburg dynasty. This dual identity was facilitated by Article 19 of the Fundamental Laws, which specified that each people within the monarchy had the right to cultivate its own nationality and language. Poles, and especially the democrats who vied with the conservatives for influence within the province, availed themselves of this opportunity in various ways, including the celebrating of a series of national figures and historic anniversaries. Among the most noteworthy were the solemn reburial of the poet Adam Mickiewicz in the Wawel crypts in 1890 and the five-hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald in 1910, also celebrated in Kraków. The Polish pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski had commissioned a massive monument commemorating that great medieval battle. These large public celebrations helped to bring Poles from all three partitioned lands closer together.

Thus, in the last third of the nineteenth century, the best place to be a Pole—certainly if one wanted to be politically active—and unlike in the Prussian or German lands, politically active in Polish—was Galicia. One could breathe Polish air there—or, as was also remarked, the very stones spoke Polish. To be sure, in Vienna (in the Reichsrat) Poles used German for their interpellations. However, back in the province, in the Galician Seym, the Polish language ruled (although it should be noted that Ruthenian interpellations during the proceedings were written down, phonetically, in Latin—not Cyrillic—script). Polish nonetheless became the language of government, the language of schooling.

Galician Poles had a high degree of autonomy—all of which allowed them to school themselves in the art of governance, to work in the bureaucracy, to develop scholarly institutes and universities where Polish would be the language of instruction, and the like. They lived in a country in which they had parliamentary representation and the rule of law. This, combined with the rights of nationalities, suggests that, as of the last third of the nineteenth century, one might think of Galicia as the closest thing to a Piedmont that the Poles had (Piedmont, meaning the Italian province that initiated Italian unification in the 1860s). Could these advantages within Galicia, thus, help propel the Poles to their own unification?