Cornwall M. The Undermining of Austria-Hungary: The Battle for Hearts and Minds

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224 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

duly employed in manifesto 45. Furthermore, when at the end of May Gaetano

Salvemini paid one of his periodic visits to the front to deliver some morale-

boosting lectures to the troops, Italy's commitment to the principles of the

Rome Congress seemed again to be assured. On 2 June at a public meeting in

Padua, Salvemini gave a speech which, Kujundz

reported to Trumbic

was unambiguous,

very liberal and also mentioned us. After viewing the

London Pact as a piece of paper which embodies the imperialism of the

Entente, but especially of Italy, he criticized Sonnino for his political short-

sightedness and

political obsoleteness. It was best exemplified by this pact of

his, because all his political cunning was embodied in it as to whether Italy

would get one piece of Austria, more or less. The Capitol agreement upset his

policy because the new Italy understands differently the problem of war as

well as the problem of the nation.

The speech

was received `with uncommon enthusiasm', and afterwards Salve-

mini's wife asked Kujundz

to write a few lines for her as a memento, summing

up his impression. Kujundz

obliged: `Your husband spoke not like an Italian

but like a Yugoslav. Hence I am extremely grateful to him.'

204

Yet these hopeful signs were to be dashed the next day. The e

migre

s and their

friends in London and Paris had failed to appreciate Sonnino's continued

influence and his underlying hostility to Italy's new course. Although tolerat-

ing the

Rome Congress, and even approving of the Padua Commission to the

extent that `whatever tends to create disaster in Austria-Hungary and weaken

her military power is advantageous', Sonnino still considered Italy's objectives

to be the defeat, not the dismemberment, of the Monarchy.

205

In contrast to

Orlando, who was prepared ostensibly to embrace both camps, Sonnino never

believed that Italy's true interests could be served by espousing the Yugoslav

dimension of nationality politics, since this would inevitably undermine the

London treaty and could produce a Yugoslav state as a serious rival to Italy on

the Adriatic. At Versailles on 3 June, Sonnino insisted that the Yugoslavs did

not merit the same recognition as the Czechs for, he claimed, 5 or at most 10

per cent of Yugoslavs desired independence while the other 90 or 95 per cent

simply wanted autonomy within Austria-Hungary.

206

Faced with this argu-

ment, which

Orlando felt obliged to support, the British and French were

forced to agree to an Allied declaration which, while endorsing the creation

of a Polish state, did no more than sympathize on the lines of Lansing's state-

ment with

the aspirations of the Yugoslavs and Czechoslovaks. Replying to

protests from the EPD about this, Balfour observed that the `frigid isolation' of

the Polish declaration would not diminish its propaganda value.

207

This was

true. As we have seen, Zamorski quickly employed it in several manifestos for

Polish soldiers, and did so partly through prompting from the EPD which at the

Italy's Campaign against Austria-Hungary 225

same time was telling Delme

-Radcliffe to calm the nerves of the Yugoslavs in

Padua.

208

Nothing, however, could alter the general weakness of the Versailles

Declaration, which both the CS and most of the national delegates at Padua felt

could only do harm if published. Consequently, it was given little space in their

Czech, Yugoslav or Romanian propaganda.

209

For the supporters of the subject

races the hopes, cherished since the Rome Congress, of a joint Allied statement

recognizing the nationalities as allies had been abruptly shattered. And the

sincerity of Italy's adherence to nationality politics was now called sharply

into question.

It was

to be a constant feature of the six-month propaganda campaign against

Austria-Hungary that those involved, directly at Padua or indirectly at Crewe

House, felt that their efforts were being compromised by Italy's duplicitous beha-

viour towards

the Yugoslavs. They argued, with perhaps questionable logic,

that a solid Italian commitment to a Yugoslav state would reap chaos among

the southern Slav regiments of the Austrian army: this implied that there was

a receptive `Yugoslav mentality' in the trenches opposite which could be

exploited. The propagandists were undoubtedly more accurate in general terms.

For when Italy vacillated over the Yugoslav issue, any Allied policy of destroy-

ing the

Monarchy and forming new states could not be stated unambiguously

in Padua's propaganda. This certainly weakened the potential of Padua's argu-

ments. Official

Italy's attitude also had a corrosive effect within the Padua Com-

mission itself.

Many soon began to wonder whether Ojetti and other Italian

propagandists were themselves sincerely committed to nationality politics or

whether they simply viewed it as a means to victory.

For Ugo

Ojetti the commitment was sincere. On 14 May, for example, at a

reception in Padua for the national delegates given by the wealthy and influ-

ential Contessa

Papafava, he had made a speech comparing the Yugoslavs to

heroes like Mazzini, working for their country's freedom while in exile.

210

But it

was his general approach to the campaign which undermined the confidence of

the other propagandists. From the start he had a patronizing view of the

national delegates ± `my balcanici', as he termed them ± believing that their role

on the Commission should be to act as translators of manifestos prepared and

vetted by a thoroughly Italian organization under his own control. According

to Gallenga Stuart (who admittedly had some reason to malign him), Ojetti was

indeed pro-Yugoslav but `unfortunately he was egotistical and anxious to run

the whole propaganda committee on his own inexperienced and ignorant

lines'.

211

This could not fail to influence harmony in the Commission. Baker and

Gruss had immediately found themselves relegated to being mere `advisers',

with little access to the national delegates since Ojetti, on his own admission,

felt that they were only to be consulted `when it is profitable to ask for their

advice or when it is opportune to display to them the results of our work'.

212

Gruss quickly retired into the background, the French Military Mission rather

226 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

irritated at Italy's understandable decision not to employ the Naud propaganda

grenades. Baker, however, interpreted his brief with a breadth similar to

Ojetti's, and would fight hard to maintain his place as `the British represent-

ative' on

an Allied Commission.

The national

delegates also soon objected to Ojetti's strict control over work

which they felt themselves to be engaged in on behalf of their national com-

mittees. Jambris

ak,

only three weeks after arriving in Padua, reported in disillu-

sioned tones

to the Yugoslav Committee: `The work is obstructed by the

impracticability and slowness of the Italians' and `because they wish to conduct

both military propaganda and propaganda for themselves and their aims, two

concepts which cannot be linked together'. He had come to Padua

with the

greatest desire and ambition, firstly to work for the propaganda

project, and secondly to make good and friendly mutual relations with

Italians with whom I came into contact. I wanted to convince them about

our profound belief that our relations must be based upon present realities

and not on past historic traditions.

Italians, however,

Jambris

ak diagnosed, had closed their eyes to the present: `in

no way can they understand that one cannot defeat modern guns with Dante,

Michelangelo and others. They are in love with the past and they live with the

conviction that the Italy of the past is the same as today's Italy.' In character,

they were `people made up of a wide range of intelligent, witty and passionate

traits, which never form a harmonious unity'. Rather, it made them unstable, so

that `they want everything at the same time: for example, at the same moment

both to support the Croats and Slovenes, and to popularize and realize Son-

nino's Patto di Londra'. Ojetti was, in this sense, `a true representative of Italian

society' with views which were `never anything definite, clear or deter-

mined'.

213

Ironically, Ojetti himself felt much the same about the Yugoslavs. As a close

associate of Salvemini he had attended, before and after the Rome Congress,

meetings between Salvemini, Trumbic

, Trinajstic

, Steed, Bissolati and others, at

which Salvemini had urged Trumbic

to define more precisely the future Italian±

Yugoslav border and renounce Istria to Italy in return for Italy's renunciation of

Dalmatia. Trumbic

, however, had refused to commit himself, partly it seems

because of the effect this would have on Slovenes and Croats of his own

Committee (including the Istrian Trinajstic

), partly because Austrian propa-

ganda might

then be able to continue exploiting fears of Italian imperialism

among Slovenes and Croats of the Monarchy.

214

Ojetti declined to concede this

latter argument and reproached Trumbic

for taking a blinkered Yugoslav

stance. If the Yugoslavs were sincere about the Pact of Rome, then they ought

to be more open and prepared to make a detailed agreement with the Salvemini

Italy's Campaign against Austria-Hungary 227

group, rather than with Torre who had `signified nothing'; until this was done,

the Treaty of London would have to be retained by Italy as `a means of

insurance at the future peace conference'.

215

Ojetti's own pragmatic stance towards the Yugoslav question was further

revealed in mid-May in an incident which again led him to question the

Yugoslavs' dedication to what they believed in. On 12 May, in Sonnino's

mouthpiece, the Giornale d'Italia, a journalist, Franco Caburi, wrote an article

alleging that Anton Koros

ec's agitation in the Yugoslav regions of the Mon-

archy was

being carried out with the full connivance and support of the Vien-

nese authorities.

Ojetti pressed the Yugoslav delegates for a public refutation

of the assertion, even though it had been agreed at the Rome Congress that

polemics within the Allied camp should be avoided. Jambris

ak and Kujundz

for their part objected, explaining that they were prepared for such attacks as a

matter of course, that they wished to avoid polemics, and that in any case they

could not act without the approval of Trumbic

and the Yugoslav Committee.

216

Ironically, the upshot was that Ojetti's own motives became suspect among

the e

migre

s. Although he was actually urging the Yugoslavs to clear themselves,

the rumour emerged in Switzerland that he was part of the problem. When

Seton-Watson visited Switzerland at this time, he reported back to Steed the

news `that Ojetti is being influenced by Caburi and others in direction of sus-

pecting Yugo-Slav

clergy of Austrophilism. Borgese had written him stiffly.'

217

The accusation had arisen because the EPD, like the Yugoslav delegates, failed

to detect the difference between Ojetti's wish to control propaganda as a purely

Italian concern, and the fact that an effective campaign was already being

obstructed by other Italian `influences'. Baker and the Yugoslavs considered

Ojetti himself to be the main culprit for this. But it is clear from Ojetti's letters

to his wife and Albertini that he had his own frustrations. Although he was

backed by Orlando, with whom he was in regular contact, and Badoglio, who

was increasingly confident about the new weapon, he faced obstacles in `Son-

nino-men': notably, his nominal superior, General Siciliani, who wished mani-

festos to

promise only autonomy and not independence; and, as we have seen,

the naval chief who balked at distributing Yugoslav material over Dalmatia.

218

In view of this, it was perhaps not surprising that Ojetti was uneasy about the

idea of propagating the Corfu Declaration in his Yugoslav material.

219

The EPD viewed such Italian censorship in itself as a fundamental evil. By

June, after complaints from Jambris

ak in particular about the way the Com-

mission was

functioning, Crewe House was telling Delme

-Radcliffe that it was

indispensable that

the representatives of the nationalities to the Central

Inter-Allied Commission should be consulted and asked to draw up appeals

to the Austro-Hungarian troops of their own race in the form and with the

arguments which they consider most likely to be effective.

228 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

Radcliffe, who was already consoling the delegates after the weak Versailles

Declaration, immediately contacted Bissolati, Siciliani and Badoglio, urging

them to remedy these grievances. On 10 June he assured Northcliffe that the

delegates would indeed be allowed to draft their own material.

220

These moves

did something to dispel the tension. Jambris

ak, who in early June had departed

for Rome to see Trumbic

, feeling that Italians were `fickle and disloyal . . . mad

and megalomaniacs', calmed down on his return: `Relations here are now much

better than before my departure for Rome. Both the tone and the work have

significantly changed for the better (General Radcliffe!).'

221

He proceeded to

buy three bottles of champagne for his colleagues. It was a sign of sorts that a

more stable marriage might be emerging in the Padua Commission. A few

weeks earlier Zamorski had commented that the national delegates were still

on honeymoon with the Italians in Padua, meaning not that it was a blissful

experience but rather that the relationship was gradually maturing.

222

In fact, it

had proved to be a rocky start for a number of reasons. Yet Ojetti had still

managed to lay a firm basis for an intense and sophisticated campaign against

the Austrians in the weeks before their June offensive.

6.4 Trench propaganda

Alongside the political-military propaganda centre under Ojetti, there devel-

oped during

these months a network of `trench propaganda' which was wholly

in military hands. It evolved from the example set by Cesare Finzi in the 6th

army sector and benefited substantially from the changes in Italy in April

1918, particularly the creation of a Czechoslovak Legion. `From May onwards',

as Ljudevit Pivko notes in his memoirs, `the whole front from Switzerland to

the sea was equipped with mobile Czechoslovak reconnaissance units.'

223

As we have seen, it was in late March (before Steed's visit) that the CS had

decided to create Slav propaganda patrols in every Italian army on the Pivko

model. The ideal source for recruitment was felt to be reliable Czechoslovak

prisoners who had been concentrated for months at Padula near Salerno.

By April, trains containing hundreds of volunteers were beginning to leave

the camp, bound for the war zone and the separate Italian armies. For some

of the army Intelligence officers these would be a largely new phenomenon, for

others ± Finzi and Marchetti ± they were a welcome supplement to existing Slav

resources. In late May, after the creation of the Legion, its commander, General

Graziani, decided to reinforce each army's Czech unit, and divided up between

them the 2nd battalion of the 31st regiment (which had been training with

the rest of the Legion in Perugia). From the Italian point of view, this move

was undoubtedly desirable because evidence was mounting of an imminent

Austrian offensive which a mass of propaganda troops might investigate and

disrupt. For the existing Czech propaganda units, it was a move which gave

Italy's Campaign against Austria-Hungary 229

them some added security. As `islands in an Italian sea', isolated from each

other and subordinate to the individual Intelligence offices, they were now ±

nominally at least ± all grouped together as the II/31st regiment and each unit

proceeded to take an oath to the Czechoslovak National Council.

224

In the weeks before the Austrian offensive the task for the Czech propaganda

units was identical. They were to creep into the front line, gather information

for the Intelligence offices, and make propaganda which might lower enemy

morale and perhaps even provoke some desertions in advance of the forthcom-

ing battle.

Their psychological role thus in many ways matched that of the

Padua Commission, but for the Italians it was more tangible and direct. The

effectiveness of the patrols depended on a variety of circumstances, most of

which were shared by their Austrian counterparts: there was the difficult ter-

rain; the

basic receptiveness of enemy units to propaganda; and lastly, the

degree of support which the patrols could expect from their own (Italian)

military.

All of

these variables are apparent in the trench propaganda conducted by

Czech units of the 3rd, 8th and 4th Italian armies. In these three easterly

sectors, which ran from the river Brenta to the sea, the Intelligence officers

had until April chiefly used Slav volunteers for strictly Intelligence purposes.

However, the Intelligence heads (Smaniotto, Dupont and Vigevano respect-

ively) were

naturally aware of the 1st army's experiences, and in early April it

was to their sectors that the first Czech trains from the Padula camp were

directed. In these months trench propaganda in this zone was to be most

effective in the 3rd army, and this can serve as a detailed example of the patrols

at work. In the 4th army sector, dominated by Monte Grappa, the only initi-

ative of

note was in mid-May when Vigevano sent his Czechs out to Monte

Pertica; there they made contact with Czech regiments opposite, secured a few

desertions, and certainly forced the Austrians to exchange some of their front-

line troops.

225

In the 8th army sector there were more active patrols, concen-

trated on

the river islands south of the Montello; they sang Czech songs as well

as securing valuable information for Dupont, not least from one garrulous

Czech deserter.

226

The negative aspect to 8th army propaganda was that

Dupont left the patrols out on the front when the Austrians finally attacked.

This suggests a serious lapse in his own Intelligence network, and it resulted in

35 captured scouts, 25 of whom were publicly executed by the Austrians.

In contrast,

Czech efforts on the 3rd army front achieved more tangible

successes, decisively confirming for both Italians and Austrians the real poten-

tial of

the propaganda weapon. Although Ercole Smaniotto had initially been

sceptical though curious about employing Slav volunteers in this manner, his

reservation had been largely overcome in late March when he met members

of Steed's mission and attended the CS coordinating meeting.

227

When soon

afterwards 107 Czech volunteers arrived at Mogliano, Smaniotto still questioned

230 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

them seriously, but proceeded to send them out to Cavazuccherina on the

Lower Piave to entice Czech troops of IR21 opposite. It was quickly apparent

that the `enemy' was receptive. Austrian and Czech accounts agree that as a

result of the patrols' work, luring with food and friendly conversation, about a

dozen Czechs were persuaded to desert. Indeed, the Italians speedily exploited

such demoralization and secured over 20 prisoners during two raids into enemy

lines. KISA's April report on these events might well list with confidence the

counter-measures which had been taken, but it ignored one other significant

result, namely that at least one company of IR21 had had to be withdrawn to

the rear and disciplined.

228

From the deserters, moreover, the Italians learnt

some colourful details. Czechs in the regiment had apparently turned violently

on a German captain who had tried to punish the `fraternizers'. The story was

sent on to Padua where Ojetti published it as manifesto 37, detailing how the

Czechs under investigation in the rear had refused to betray their comrades:

`in the face of such unanimous and manly behaviour the German-Magyar

murderers had to give in'.

229

The incident was a prime example of how the

Italians were already learning to coordinate their trench and aerial propaganda,

feeding back as manifestos to the Austrians news of unsettling incidents which

had actually been provoked by their own effective trench propaganda.

Since Smaniotto

was also impressed by the work of his Czech units, the 3rd

army patrols in May were moved north to Fossalta di Piave with the new task of

discovering the character of the forces opposite. Here they encountered the

12ID, which was predominantly Polish but also contained a sizeable Czech

element. In this sector there had been some limited propaganda by both sides

in March and April. But the few KISA records which have survived show that

Italian efforts dramatically increased in May. From 6 May the 12ID began to

receive a steady stream of manifestos shot over by rocket; from 19 May the

division was reporting regular Czech calls for desertion: `fear not, we are your

brothers, we will not fire on you!'

230

One patrol finally made direct contact

with IR56 and with a Czech lieutenant Karel Stinny

, who indicated that he

would desert with all of his men if they could be helped across the Piave. This

was no easy task in view of the river's fast current. After frustrating attempts

with boats on consecutive nights, Stinny

and four of his men were finally

hoisted by a pulley system across the river. Further desertions were halted by

Austrian fire. But, as Vojte

ch Hanzal noted, Stinny

's desertion was `one of the

greatest successes of the Czechoslovaks' Intelligence activity'. Hanzal left it for

future historians to assess how crucial was Stinny

's betrayal of the forthcoming

Austrian offensive; the idea is pursued below in Chapter 7.

231

At this point what

can be confirmed is that the Stinny

case became a cause ce

bre both in Austrian

and Italian circles, a notorious example of Czech treachery or sacrifice. Perhaps

especially because Stinny

composed a leaflet `to all Slavs' which was sent across

the front, the incident was well known to Austrian Intelligence;

232

and in the

Italy's Campaign against Austria-Hungary 231

wake of Austria's June disaster, it was taken up by the Hungarian press as

typifying general Czech perfidiousness.

In Italy

meanwhile, the Czech patrols of the 3rd army received fulsome praise

both in their own sector and further afield from the lips of Graziani himself.

233

They could feel that they had proved their effectiveness and benefited the wider

Czech cause, even if, as in the other armies, their experience of working with

Italians was not without friction. It was in fact still an uneasy partnership.

Smaniotto had undoubtedly smoothed the ground by appointing as their Ital-

ian liaison

Moses Kobylinskij, a Russian Jew with a formidably bear-like appear-

ance, who

had been attached for some time to 3rd army Intelligence and was a

Czech enthusiast.

234

In mid-May, 3rd army command had also ordered its

subordinates to lend full support to the propaganda patrols, emphasizing that

their self-sacrificing exploits were already `sending deep confusion into the

hearts of enemy units'.

235

Nevertheless, the evidence of one Czech officer of the

unit, who visited the Padua Commission, shows that a new relationship with

the Italians could not be made overnight. As Lt Kouba explained:

There are

a mass of things which so irritate us about these people that, if I

was not committed to this cause, I would either commit suicide or go back

[to the prison camp]. In a very real sense they exploit us. Every day they send

us out to the most dangerous positions and make themselves heroes on our

backs. Every day we hear from the officers `compliments' that we are traitors,

that we've come because we are starving, that we've come to prolong the

war, etc. One officer told me openly that a position near Capo Sile was not

under bombardment when we weren't there. If we start a conversation with

our people on the other side, they call us traitors, yelling to us to come back

or they will fire. That has actually happened several times and as a result we

protested energetically that we would not tolerate it any longer. But the

most deplorable incident occurred a few days ago when five of our deserters

were killed by the Italians at the moment when they wanted to swim across

the Piave.

236

Pivko's unit had, of course, faced just the same dangers on the mountain

front in the preceding months. Pivko's own frustration at Italian suspicions

would never completely disappear. Yet it was the case that in the lst and 6th

army sectors, under the influence of an Intelligence service which had already

employed Slav patrols, the wave of new Czech recruits was received more

benignly by local Italians. On 14 April, a mass transport of 450 Czechs with

15 officers arrived in Verona, destined to serve as propaganda troops on the

mountainous front from the Swiss border to the Brenta. Marchetti was careful

to prepare for their reception both among the military and the civilian popula-

tion. He

drafted for the lst army command a letter to each army corps, ordering

232 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

them to banish their prejudices about employing Slav volunteers.

237

Since the

Czechs were to be trained initially in the Procolo fortress, he also publicized

their presence in Verona itself so as to persuade a possibly unsympathetic

civilian population. A week after the volunteers' arrival, the ladies of Verona

organized a special celebration in the Teatro Filarmo

nico at which the Czechs

were presented with their colours. After eulogies spoken by Graziani, Hlava

and Stane Vidmar, the national anthems were sung and a blanket of carnations

and lilacs was scattered over the volunteers.

238

If such a union sacre

e amply matched Marchetti's wishes, it concealed at this

time some anxiety on the part of those training the Czechs about their actual

calibre or suitability. It had soon become apparent that some of them, after

several years in captivity, were reluctant to submit to authority: they either

resisted any hierarchy per se, or objected to former Habsburg officers retaining

the same ranking in the Legion. When Vidmar, who was in charge of training,

was presented with a petition on this subject, he exclaimed that it was `Bol-

shevism'. Josef

Kohoutek (one of the original Carzanci ), who had been

seconded with others from Tugurio to aid Vidmar, agreed. He reported to

Pivko on 26 April that a certain `socialist corruption' was evident among

the recruits who had clearly been spoilt during their sojourn in captivity.

239

Although this `rebellion' quickly subsided, the leading Slav officers were natur-

ally sensitive

about any signs of indiscipline which might tarnish their repu-

tation among

the Italians. Pivko, for example, would always assert that all

of the recruits were volunteers and idealists. When in May a few Czechs in

the 1st army sector got drunk and started praising Austria, they were imme-

diately dismissed

and returned to the prison camps.

240

It was vital that wide-

spread Italian

suspicion about the volunteers should cease; for, as we will see,

it was an Achilles' heel which in August 1918 the Austrians would skilfully try

to attack.

By May

the 450 new volunteers had been divided up and dispatched to the

7th, lst and 6th armies, the number allocated to each army depending on the

number requested by the local Intelligence office. In the following weeks

propaganda patrols were most active on the 1st and 6th army sectors. If this

owed much to the groundwork laid by Marchetti and Finzi in comparison to

the relative scepticism of Vecchiarelli in the 7th army (who initially requested

only a dozen Czechs), it also reflected the hazardous Alpine terrain of the 7th

army sector. Over much of it warfare was conducted in glacial conditions in

mountains which were five times the height of those to which the Czechs were

accustomed in their homeland.

241

Vojte

ch Hanzal, the Czech officer in

command of the 7th army units, was specifically chosen because he had for-

merly carried

out reconnaissance work in the mountains from the other side ±

for Austrian Intelligence. He proceeded in early June to send some units up to

the Tonale pass to agitate in anticipation of an Austrian attack. Otherwise their

Italy's Campaign against Austria-Hungary 233

main work was in more congenial terrain in Val dei Concei (west of Lake Garda)

where they reconnoitred enemy positions, marked out the Austrian lines for

the first time, and deposited a listening apparatus.

242

In the lst army sector, substantially more could be achieved in these crucial

weeks prior to the Austrian offensive. By June, Tullio Marchetti's units were

operating at five points in the front line, their role as usual being to investigate

sectors where Czech troops were suspected opposite, to make propaganda, and

to demoralize the enemy in advance of a local Italian attack. The latter object-

ive was

achieved on Monte Corno, a long-contested point where Cesare Battisti

had been captured in 1916; those Czechs who were taken prisoner after the

Italian capture of Corno (13 May) confirmed that they had been deeply affected

by the Czech songs opposite.

243

Elsewhere the volunteers were experimenting

with propaganda rockets. For example, in the sector between Val Lagarina and

Lake Garda, where Austrian electric wire was a major obstacle, a Czech unit

under Karel C

ek agitated vigorously and shot over leaflets.

Austrian records

indicate that the Austrians in May were wholly aware of this

upsurge in Czech propaganda patrols and usually suspected the sectors which

the Italians were targeting. In early May the 11AK came to know from the Swiss

press about the creation of a Czechoslovak Legion in Italy. On 7 May it sent out

orders (later fully approved by the AOK) which set a price of 300 Kronen on the

head of each captured legionary. Czech patrols were to be fired upon immedi-

ately, and

the shell fire was to be followed by a special manifesto addressed to

Italians which described the legionaries as `delinquents' and `rascals' who by

their presence on the Italian side were violating international law and dishon-

ouring the

customary rules of warfare.

244

It was just one of the Austrian means

used to combat the new danger, a method which was still part and parcel of

their own propaganda offensive against Italy.

The Austrians

in these weeks were similarly conscious of lively propaganda

emanating from the Italian 6th army, an area which provides us with a detailed

example of trench propaganda in the mountains. The 6th army, with Finzi as

the Intelligence head, remained the zone of Pivko's units (even though his men

usually operated only in the east under Italian control, since British and French

divisions were present in the west). Finzi was steadily incorporating Czech and

Yugoslav volunteers into his Intelligence service, keeping two of them (Mate

Nikolic

and Boz

idar Pajk) permanently at his headquarters at Mirabella, while

giving others new tasks such as eavesdropping on enemy telephone conversa-

tions on

the Asiago plateau.

245

In line with the CS's own priorities, Pivko's units

were soon leaving Tugurio and ascending the steep slopes to the front line in

order to engage in specific front propaganda. Once again, the units which

General Ferrari of the XX corps command requested on 30 April were to be

directed at the 26SchD which was believed to have positioned Czechs in the

front line. This section of the front, moreover, was still considered by the