The Mobilization at the Periphery

The book is devoted to the research of the processes of formation of common Austro-Hungarian armed forces during the last third of the 19th and first decades of 20th centuries up to the beginning of WWI. One of the most important aspects of this research is a study of the modernization of the army manning system and the influence of this process on the society of Austria-Hungary. The main methodology of this research is the comparative analysis of military modernization on the imperial level and the example of the peripheral province of the empire Austrian Galicia. The change of the manning system from the draft board to universal conscription was one of the most important components of state structure reformation at the end of the 1860s when the adaptation of dualism coincided with the implementation of the most modern manning technology. The need to fit very fast-changing standards of the time was the main reason for new modernizations of the army, launched in the mid1880s and on the eve of WWI. During the adaptation of conscription, the military system of the empire was reorganized to fit the dualistic administrative system of a state. The majority of the empires nations and confessional groups also were represented in the army. In contrary to the other states of the time, Austria-Hungary hasnt used military service for the assimilation of minorities. The realization of military reforms was slowed down by the weakness of the state mechanism, especially by ineffective administration, parliamentary disagreements, and lack of finances for military affairs of the state. That was the main reason why not more than 20% of the male population received full-value training notwithstanding the regulations of military law. The launch of mobilization in 1914 affected practically every person in the Empire that is demonstrated by the events of Ukrainian betrayal in Galicia illegal detentions and arrests, internment, and even executions during 19141915. The universal conscription was one of the factors of social development of the 2nd half of the 19 t h century for most European societies and Japan. The universality of conscription and every year regular recruitment in many cases influenced such traditional life aspects as marriage, migration, censuses, education, etc, and was an incentive to new social processes. For peripheral areas, including Galicia, military modernization was an important bearer of changes in its traditional way of life, often giving the population new opportunities for personal development.