Richard Lein, Fulfillment of duties or high treason? : Czech soldiers of Austria-Hungary in the First World War
2020
Abstract
In his book, the Austrian historian Richard Lein asked himself the question of the loyalty of Czech soldiers during the First World War. The dispute over whether the Czech soldiers were quality fighters of the Austro-Hungarian army, or whether the Czechs were a nation of the Swiss, or even high traitors, is not new.
When, in 1917, German deputies of the Reich Council presented the well-known denunciation interpellation about the behavior of the Czech nation during the war, the struggle to depict the Czech relationship to the ongoing war and the monarchy had been raging for several years.