Токови историје (Dec 2016)
Czech Soldiers during the Great War (1914–1918)
Abstract
The goal of this article is to objectively assess the conduct of Czech soldiers during the First World War. In the past, this issue was, for various ideological reasons, greatly oversimpliϐied. German national propaganda portrayed Czech soldiers ϐighting in the uniforms of the Austro-Hungarian Army in the period 1914–1918 as a very unreliable element, owing to their Slavic sentiments. However, after 1918 the Czechoslovak Republic also adopted a very critical position toward these soldiers, as the main credit for the founding of the independent state was ascribed to the so-called legionnaires, i.e. to the soldiers who fought on the side of the Allied states. In this article the author reϐlects upon the Czech historiographic production on the First World War at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries and attempts to present a balanced (non-national) perspective on the subject.
