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

language as official or even administrative autonomy. Nevertheless, mass-scale cases of irredentism were rare before 1914. The minorities behaved loyally even in the army of the multinational Austro-Hungarian monarchy, which is often perceived as the model of the decomposition of an eminent power due to accumulating problems of national disloyalty especially among the Slavic. Rok Stergar analyzes the attitude of Slavic countries toward Austrio-Hungarian universal conscription and interprets this phenomenon not as the result of blind legitimism but pragmatic conformity.⁶⁷ This term recently grows in popularity in the context of civic attitudes the nineteenth- and twentienth-century Central and Eastern Europe, especially in the borderlands, which best reflects the matter of the complex Upper Silesian behaviors. There is no room for “Prussian nationalism” that stemmed from loyalism to the House of Hohenzollern; it was an adjustment to the existing conditions. The limit for such opportunism was the inviolability of the most important values of traditionalist communities: religion and language. Despite Kulturkampf, the army sought no conflict in this field so the idea of attachment to “one’s own” regiment survived in Upper Silesia. Men hanged portraits from the period of military duty with pride, combatant unions were popular, and many celebrated anniversaries of nineteenth-century battles; particularly the 1870 Battle of Sedan.

However, such attitude was often put to a hard test in contact with officers almost exclusively from proper Prussia or Germany. The officers often referred to the popular motif of their civilizational superiority over the Polish-speaking population. Some of the idealistic Prussian commanders directly spoke about the necessity of spreading culture in the East. The famous concept of “the bearer of culture” (Kulturträger) appeared infrequently, but we easily find descriptions of German superiority over others at the time. This is how we should interpret the ←32 | 33→behavior of Colonel von Goszicki, who welcomed the Polish recruits as people “physically and spiritually handicapped.”⁶⁸ However, this expression of utter contempt for another nation did not only result from the evaluation of the national traits of Poles. It primarily stemmed from the mission “to enlighten the recruit” that functioned in the armies formed by universal conscription. Such view lives to this day in many European armies – also Polish – as a humorous transformation of “the civilian into a human.” We frequently find all manner of simplified beliefs about the slow-witted conscript from a village in such nineteenth-century stories: the lack of hygiene, long hair, and unrestrained tendency to drink vodka are to be his typical attributes. The second part of the same description emphasizes the positive features of the Polish recruit after training, which proves that this contempt did not refer to all Poles on face value.⁶⁹

      A Prussian officer in the regiment primarily emphasized the training of his soldiers. He was inspired by the apotheosized Clausewitz, so the officer perceived his duty is to build a modern well-trained army, capable of participating in total war. In the opinion of Prussian officers, the Poles met those criteria not after the process of denationalization, but after the imposition of other civilizing norms. This was the real goal of the activities of German commanders: military training based on mutual understanding, impossible without learning the German language; self-reliance on the battlefield; trust for the superiors; and general education, increasing often required by modern military tactics, particularly among the non-commissioned officers.

These actions constituted no harassment but simply formed the necessary element of social modernization, effectively implemented through universal conscription. Inspired by idealistic German philosophy, some Prussian officers regarded the modernizing task not only as duty but also a mission that was to enable the promotion of at least the gifted part of their subordinates who quickly achieved the ranks of non-commissioned officers.⁷⁰ The army was a good place for these people to complete the necessary general education. Therefore, the regiments had elementary schools with additional military subjects. The recruits received lessons on many levels. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the 23rd Infantry Regiment possessed as many as ten such institutions, which constituted a coherent educational system:

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Ten different schools in the regiment started education on November 1 and worked in the same way…. The Nysa school taught soldiers in two classes counting, reading, writing, spelling, stylistics, geography, and history. The best students also received introduction to geometry. Whereas the first battalion gathered the best non-commissioned officers from all units to be promoted to the rank of sergeant [Feldwebel], who learned mathematics, geography, German language, and writing letters. Moreover, the majority of young soldiers already learned reading, writing, and counting in their companies, under the supervision of officers and sergeants.⁷¹

The circumstances forced the Prussian authorities to implement such procedures. If the majority of recruits in these regiments came from Polish-speaking areas, it was only natural that to train these non-commissioned officers because they were more likely to reach their subordinates. In turn, it meant social advancement for many of the recruits. This group included regimental or even divisional writers who later often continued work as officials at lower posts.⁷²

No wonder that the fascination with German military power on the eve of the outbreak of the First World War grew in popularity as a result of paramilitary associations’ activities and press propaganda among the youth. The breakthrough was visible in the grand celebration of the centenary of success over the Napoleonic army, treated as the German national liberation war. According to the memoirs of Arka Bożek, then happened a change of attitude toward the Polish recruits even in the army. The barracks became open so that families could finally visit the training grounds of their sons, which was previously unavailable. In the first period of the First World War, it aroused the enthusiasm and hopes for a quick victory among the young people from the eastern Prussian districts and other German lands.⁷³

      The activities that were part of the training of the Polish recruits also resulted from the modernization efforts; that is, the desire to create a modern society capable of waging a future total war with modern technology and military tactics by all the reservists. Although such behavior resulted in general alienation and the abandonment of army’s social functions (Kriegergesellschaft) – today often called “the Prussian soldatesque” – it also contributed to major civilizational ←34 | 35→changes, not necessarily motivated by ideological Pan-Germanism. What was a derivative of these activities was the mutual trust between subordinates and officers typical for a civic army. While analyzing this phenomenon, we must conclude to our astonishment that, before 1914, neither side noticed any contradiction between the German nationalism of a Prussian officer and the Polish language of the Upper Silesian recruit.

The Recruit’s Training

Regular training of Polish recruits in the Prussian army was not easy, especially during the period of accelerated preparation of soldiers for the war of 1914–1918. Back then, there was no time left for anything, hence only basic military training was conducted. Thanks to the written memoirs of conscripts, we have an excellent insight into the process of such training. We find out how it looked from the letters of Kazimierz Wallis, trained in 1915–1916 in Ścinawa. Wallis arrived there from his hometown of Rozbark in Bytom, after all the medical examinations conducted during the annual review of conscripts (Musterung). A journey to the regiment usually began on a regular train, although during the war, the soldiers usually traveled in wagons specifically adapted to transport the army, which included additional benches.⁷⁴ The first days at the unit were always difficult. It was necessary to adapt to the new