the way this book describes it makes it come off as a very savage and crazy place
>>25297188Like what? Full of disullisioned men from discriminated minority groups who are only as loyal as is required conscripted to fight for empire that pretends they do not exist? Fighting so that the Empire can fullfill it's 'Mitteleuropa' plan - which consisted of germanization of said minorities? Yes, the Austro-Hungarian army was absurd - for example czechs, people from land-locked country, were over-represented in the navy especially amongst the officers. The official language was german, but majority of soldiers didn't speak german as their native language and lot of them didn't know german - like in 18th century there is an infamous battle where parts of austrian army fought against each other, mistaking themselves for enemies. The soldiers also didn't receive helmets (for trench warfare). And so on and so on.
>>25297188The secret police arresting you in a bar for saying there's going to be war, which is kind of obvious? Yeah, that's a real thing that happened. The Hapsburgs ruled with an iron fist, secret police were everywhere, and you could not say shit against the crown.The war being pointless slaughter nobody involved was interested in perpetuating, besides the people who wanted to do war crimes outright? That's WW1 for you, on all sides.The ethnic stuff? No, actually. Hapsburgs did their best to germanize the shit out of all their vassals, but they weren't especially racist besides pushing their culture on people, and the germanization was reduced a good bunch by the end of the century. If you really look at their words and deeds, they did quite a lot for Bohemia and Hungary. Hašek's treatment of them is a little unfair, but hating the monarchy was very much in vogue after the republic was established. It's also worth noting that his writing is a little crazy because he was a little crazy. He came from an INSANE hardline catholic family, which ended up flipping him into an anarchist socialist hedonist down the line. But then, he would end up serving as a legionnaire, so it's pretty hard to hate on him, those guys were based.(t. Czech)
>>25297188Personally, this book gave me a great respect for the Austro-Hungarian army. If I could travel back in time, I would choose the period of World War I and go to war with the brave soldier Svejk for the emperor and the fatherland.
>>25297218there are a lot of descriptions in the book how everyone was constantly drunk and getting into fights, crazy corruption and institutional dysfunction that's also described, savage violence in the army (like the one where they tortured people who didn't want to serve in the army with enemas) and so on and so forth. lots of crazy and sometimes even revolting stuff.usually people describe russia that way, i didn't expect something like this here.
>>25297219He betrayed legionaires for bolsheviks in russia. He was considered traitor and when he returned home czechs hated him and considered him spinelless human trash. Especially his old friends in the legions. Schweik itself was more popular amongst the bohemian germans at first (translated by Max Brod - the person who published most of Kafka's work), czechs considered it to be a disgusting traitorous book mocking czech soldiers written by known traitor. It became popular only after Hašek's death.
>>25297218Hitler speaks of this in Mein Kampf.
>>25297229>be a fat drunk irreverent asshole with war PTSD, sounds like the ideal Russian>join bolsheviks>they immediately issue a personal order to stop drinking so you can go make communist uprising in your homeland>become somewhat sensible person against your willyou hate to see itBut yeah, he's a pretty complicated historical character. The whole period is kind of difficult to paint with broad strokes - the legionnaires were just trying to survive, and never expected to actually have a country to return to. Even with that stroke of fortune, the politics of their own country turned on them down the line.
>>25297224What you are describing is 'mazáctví' which was official 'training' policy of the army (basically hardcore bullying of the conscripts), russia had (and has) it's own version which is even worse. The extreme penalties for misbehavior comes from the disilussion of the conscripts - basically the empire officially pretended it's still feudal kingdom where people worship their ruler as if he's chosen by god - when in reality the empire had basically 0 soft authority and had to resort to secret police etc. So the army had to do that shit, becouse the official tactics (based on bayonet charges) required extreme loyalty and discipline from soldiers who didn't care. It's important to notice (and the book shows it) that the disillusion is on every level except on the very top, it's like only the emperor and his family thought they are beloved and worshipped and everyone else did their best to pretend and everyone knew about each other that they are just pretending becouse it was easy and life wasn't so bad.Historically austrian army was underfunded as shit. For example (before WW1) it was common for soldiers to freeze to death in barracks, becouse the barracks didn't receive enough funding for heating. The soldiers also had to have a job if they didn't want to die of hunger, becouse their pay was so shit. And veterans received barely anything (most beggars and homelless men were ex-soldiers).
>>25297240Also Hemingway talks mentions it in Farewell to Arms. (Tchecos = Czechs)
>>25297240why did people tolerate this
>>25297274Tolerate what? The bullying? Well it's designed to break you. The life in army? Well, they really didn't, voluntary service in army was really unpopular (becouse of those exact reasons) and even for mandatory people would cripple themselves to dodge the draft. The life in Austria-Hungary? Well, like half a million of czechs emigrated to USA. And even for those who didn't life wasn't that bad, it was better than in Russia and probably even better for the poor and children than in Great Britain (child labor was banned, school was compulsory). Life got really bad only during WW1, but at that point most men were drafted or hiding, the secret police was even more prominent and the people who were not drafted were trying to survive.Finally you must understand that the discrimination of minorities Austria-Hungary did was nowhere near what GB did to Indians or even the irish, USA did to blacks or natives. Like it was really light.
>>25297188Absolutely, a literal bolshevik's portrayal of a monarchy is definitely very truthful and completely unbiased.
>>25297480>nowhere near what GB did to Indians or even the irish, USA did to blacks or nativesreally high bar
>>25298226Well, that's what westerners imagine when you speak about ethnic minorities in 19th century empire. The treatment of Czechs in A-H could be compared to how France treated Occitans, with the difference being that A) Austrians and Czechs were lot more different than French and Occitans and B) Occitania was part of France for far longer than Bohemia was part of Austria, in fact Occitania was part Gaul before France even existed and C) Bohemia and Czechs probably had larger Czech intelligentsia than Occitania.
