“Completely Forgotten and Totally Ignored”: Czechoslovak Veterans of the Austro-Hungarian Army and the Transitions of 1918-1919

Abstract

This article uses Czechoslovakia as an example of the process of transition following the end of the First World War and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary. It analyzes the military context of the transition itself, showing how difficult, violent, and prolonged a process it was, in contrast to the traditional assumption of a quickly emergent successor state built on the ethnic-based enthusiasm of its Czech-speaking population. In the second part, it goes on to analyze the memory of the transition and the position it came to hold in the overall narrative of this period of the interwar years, with specific attention given to the way Czech-speaking veterans of Austro-Hungarian service tried to retell the story of the transition, and why their proposed narratives ill-fitted the official discourse of the war as the “national struggle for independence” of Czechoslovakia.