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

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54 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

This persuaded Arz to add to the guidelines a sentence, proposed by Czernin,

that `allegations about the oppression and persecution of Romanians in Hun-

gary belong

to the rank of fables', a statement which Czernin supported with

the dubious `evidence' that Romania's cultural renaissance had only been

possible in the idyllic free atmosphere of Transylvania.

Secondly, in submit-

ting the

guidelines for the DOHL's approval, the AOK once again confronted

the obstacle of Germany's ambitions in the East. In particular, Ludendorff

insisted that the guidelines specify Romania's future effective subordination

to the Central Powers, something which Czernin certainly hesitated over before

accepting.

Whether these `realities' about Hungary and Germany's ambitions

actually inhibited the effect of propaganda against Romanian soldiers is

unclear. Possibly many Romanians (`uneducated peasants' in the view of one

German Intelligence officer)

would be unlikely to appreciate certain nuances

within the propaganda. The evidence anyway suggests that in the following

months Romanian officers successfully managed to intercept much of the allied

propaganda and limited the chances of oral contacts. On the other hand, the

propagandists could indeed feel confident of some progress, not least from the

fact that after August the number of Romanian deserters to Wallachia began to

increase dramatically.

Meanwhile, by mid-August after three weeks' retreat by the Russians out of

Austro-Hungarian territory, the AOK was prepared to acknowledge that propa-

le in the Russian de

baganda had

again played an important ro

cle. The evidence

from deserters and prisoners (42 000 of them) seemed to suggest its effective-

ness in

lowering morale. Whole Russian corps were alleged to have become

infected, refusing to move into position during the offensive. The Russian XLV

corps, for instance, had helped through its passivity to surrender the important

city of Tarnopol to German troops. The Russian XL corps, which had been

hostile to fraternization in April, had gradually been enticed with rum, cigar-

ettes, newspapers

and personal contact and whipped into an `almost anarchical

condition'; at the end of July it allegedly sabotaged Russia's offensive on the

Romanian Front by refusing to cooperate.

Whatever the truth of these stories,

and many similar ones could be cited,

their significance lies in their value for

the AOK as proof of the propaganda weapon's success. It was in the light of such

evidence which had been accumulating since March, that Arz on 10 August

praised the propagandists:

The organs

of the propaganda service have undoubtedly made a glorious

contribution to the allied troops' successes in Galicia. Through their unflag-

ging activity

and efficiency, which so often threatens them with mortal

danger or capture, they have sharply diminished enemy morale, rendered

valuable service to the Austro-Hungarian leadership, obtained months of

rest for our troops and saved them from casualties during this time.

The Experience of Propaganda against Russia 55

Despite this, the Russian army had not completely collapsed. Many troops,

when pushed onto the defensive in late July, had shown surprising resilience

to the Central Powers' advance, halting it on the Zbruch river. The counter-

offensive was

now exhausted, not least because of the usual difficulty of bring-

ing up

supplies, especially munition, to troops who had pushed so far forward.

Similarly, to the south on the Romanian Front, the enemy had effectively

staunched any advance by German-Austrian forces into Moldavia during

August. It was not possible in late August, although Austrian propaganda

might later suggest otherwise,

for the Central Powers to cross the borders

and conquer Ukraine and Moldavia. For apart from facing successful Russian-

Romanian resistance, the allies already had more pressing demands on their

military machines: the AOK was now fully occupied with the 11th Isonzo battle

in Italy, while the DOHL's attention varied between the Western Front (the

third battle of Ypres) and a desire to advance in the north-east, take Riga

(achieved on 3 September) and threaten Petrograd. Both High Commands in

fact were prepared by September to put the Eastern Front on the back-burner,

treating it primarily as a `military reservoir' [Kraftspeicher] from which to draw

off troops for the Western and Italian theatres.

When the fronts in the East had stabilized, however, the Central Powers

decided to `reactivate' their propaganda campaign along the lines pursued

since April 1917. The order was obeyed only grudgingly by some commanders

who continued to view this activity as a confession of weakness or an invitation

to Russian espionage, and certainly a poor alternative to continued offensive

action.

Pantelija Borovica in turn was quite aware that propaganda would be

difficult after a period of hostilities, but he nevertheless urged the Intelligence

officers to resume contacts and reactivate the `newspaper service' from 1 Sep-

tember.

In fact the propaganda seeds were now able to fall on ever more fertile

ground. Attempts by the Russian High Command to tighten discipline in the

wake of the failed offensive were only temporarily successful: they acted like a

thin varnish upon soldiers longing for peace, men who increasingly identified

those trying to continue the war ± whether it be their officers or Kerensky or

the Entente ± as instruments of a `counter-revolution' seeking to reverse the

achievements of the past six months. The idea that a counter-revolution was

being plotted seemed of course a reality when in early September the army's

Commander-in-Chief General Kornilov made a clumsy attempt to seize power

from the Provisional Government. The `Kornilov affair' acted as a watershed in

revolutionary Russia, pushing the climate of opinion to the left and giving the

Bolshevik extremists (in the doldrums since July) a new credibility. They could

pose as the real guardians of the `revolution', offering the utopia of `peace,

bread and land' which Kerensky had been unable to deliver. At the front

hundreds of units now began to adopt resolutions calling for peace. The rank

and file after the Kornilov affair were not simply becoming more politicized,

56 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

with a new lease of life for the soldiers' committees as the Austrians suspected,

but were falling into a mood wholly receptive to Bolshevik agitation. As one

army newspaper editor observed in early October: `Out of the soldiers' hearts

pours forth a whole flood of hatred for the war and all it stands for. The soldiers

see the chief culprits as the French, the English and in general the whole

bourgeoisie. They forget about the Germans.'

This was precisely the attitude encouraged by enemy propaganda. While the

great period of oral propaganda was now passed ± on the Heeresfront of Arch-

duke Joseph,

for example, talks with the Russian XXIV corps were always the

exception which proved the rule ± the allied campaign now concentrated on

sophisticated newspaper propaganda. They filled a gap for Russian soldiers

who were poorly supplied with newspapers of their own.

The propagandists

were able, often very successfully, to monitor mood-swings in opposing Russian

units and to feed back to them information which blended hope for the future

with despair of the present. On the one hand, they stressed the Central Powers'

proven readiness for peace as the real antidote to the chaos prevailing in the

Russian interior. On the other, they regularly supplied factual news about the

latter and nurtured growing suspicion among the rank and file that it was

Kerensky in league with the belligerent Entente who were the main obstacles

to stability and a quiet life. As an added dimension to this, these `warmongers'

could be characterized as frustrating or betraying the real aims of Russia's

revolution. For example, in one striking cartoon, Kerensky was to be pictured

rising in the sky in his own balloon, throwing out ballast marked `socialism',

`democracy' and `abolition of the death penalty' so that he could ascend

higher; the leaflet implored the Russian leader in the style of a peasant prayer

to give up the `inhumane war' and fulfil what he had promised to the people:

peace, bread and land.

All of these themes were evident in draft propaganda guidelines drawn up by

the AOK in mid-October for discussion with the DOHL. The core argument was

to portray the Entente as the main obstacle to peace. Thus, it was the Entente

who had forced Russia to launch a summer offensive, who rejoiced over Korni-

lov's attempted putsch, and who still expected much from Kerensky ± in each

case because they wanted Russia to stay in the war and serve their rapacious

ambitions. It was the Entente who had thwarted the progress of the revolution,

particularly the chances of stability and a peace without annexations and

reparations. The Central Powers, in contrast, had repeatedly shown that they

wanted to end the war, most recently in their decision not to continue their

summer counter-attack and in their (very vague) replies to Pope Benedict XV's

peace initiative of August 1917. `These new declarations by the leading states-

men of

the Central Powers', asserted the guidelines, `could find a favourable

reception among the majority of the Russian people who are longing for

peace.'

The Experience of Propaganda against Russia 57

Clearly, however, some of these arguments, not least the references to a peace

without territorial annexations, were wholly anathema to the DOHL which

continued to insist on substantial German expansion in the East.

The guide-

lines which

Arz finalized with FM Hindenburg by 20 October were therefore

much plainer. The aim was as usual simply `to advance the desire for peace in

the Russian army'. The material was to be spread through newspapers and

propaganda speeches rather than by unsubtle manifestos which might alienate

the Russians. In content it would develop several themes prominent in the

campaign of the past six months, concentrating especially on how the so-called

`revolutionary government' had betrayed the revolution and followed the same

path as the Tsarist regime in slandering the Central Powers (despite their

readiness for peace) and clinging to the exploitative Entente. In comparison

to the AOK draft, the guidelines made hardly any reference to the aims or

behaviour of the Central Powers. Instead they sought to encourage grievances

against the Provisional Government ± for example, its attempts to tighten

military discipline ± and pointed to the growing misery which would occur if

Russia did not make peace.

There was now the prospect of ever greater success with these arguments at

the front. For on the eve of the Bolshevik revolution, an official report about

the allies' campaign in the month of October judged that the mentality of the

Russian rank and file thoroughly matched these ideas. Even if the Russian

cavalry remained totally hostile, more Russian divisions were now susceptible

to oral contact: of 192 divisions along the whole Russian-Romanian Front

(including 57 at some time in reserve), about 50 in October had engaged in

some talks with Austrian or German Intelligence officers. And even if the

amount of oral contact opposite Austrian troops was undoubtedly meagre, it

was balanced by a lively newspaper campaign, enabling the official report to

conclude that `favourable prerequisites' existed for further subversion.

Propaganda according to the new guidelines had barely been sent across the

trenches when Lenin and the Bolsheviks moved against the Provisional Gov-

ernment in

Petrograd. The Bolshevik revolution of 7 November made peace on

the Eastern Front a virtual certainty. For in response to Lenin's immediate

appeal to all belligerents for a `just and democratic peace', the mood of most

of the Russian armed forces was quite clear.

The fact that most of them now

supported the new regime certainly owed something, however hard to gauge,

to the efforts of the Central Powers' propaganda campaign which for months

had been playing to the Russian rank and file the same tune as the Bolsheviks.

As the leader of the campaign on the Heeresfront of Archduke Joseph put it:

The Bolshevik

upheaval on 7 November found [Russian] front-line troops

prepared for both of the main aims which the new [regime's] programme

contained: `peace and land'. These were the same goals which had been set

58 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

by the troops from the beginning of the revolution, but had been ignored by

the [Provisional] Government, the same goals which our propaganda had

consistently reminded the Russian soldiers about in the past months.

This practice of reinforcing the Bolshevik message, and particularly of push-

ing the

Russian army towards an armistice, was to be the final task of the

propaganda offensive. When Ludendorff learnt of the Bolshevik coup d'e

tat he

immediately telegraphed Arz and army commands in the East, urging them

that the news, `desirable from our point of view', should be used for propaganda

purposes. The Central Powers moved to undermine the lingering stubborn-

ness in

some Russian military circles ± in the 9th army, for example, as well as at

the Russian High Command ± by simply repeating Bolshevik propaganda over

as wide a terrain as possible. Thus when General Dukhonin, the Russian Com-

mander-in-Chief, refused to obey Bolshevik orders and Lenin then bypassed

him on 22 November with a crucial wireless telegram broadcast to all units,

ordering them to elect plenipotentiaries for the imminent armistice talks ±

German military Intelligence picked up the message and immediately relayed

it back to all sectors of the front.

The AOK

and the DOHL expected after this broadcast that pressure from the

Russian rank and file would finally force their commanders to begin peace talks.

To add extra inducement, the German-Austrian Intelligence officers were

instructed to exploit the existing propitious situation, taking the field in place

of any further hostilities. As with much of the propaganda carried out since the

failed armistice approach of May 1917, the Intelligence officers were not sup-

posed to

dwell on the Central Powers' peace terms which might arouse some

resentment. Rather, particularly in the present climate, they were to encourage

peace initiatives from the Russians, urging them to be free of England and to

follow the government which offered them bread, land, freedom and peace.

In other words, the blunt argument of this propaganda was that the Russian

army should obey its new regime, a message which was not to be muddled by

any talk of Germany's ambitions in the East. When the propagandists set to

work, approaching the Russian lines and appealing for authorized representa-

tives to

negotiate, they found a favourable response in many sectors which

gradually developed into a mass of local cease-fires and regional armistices. A

notable success, for example, was in the Russian XI corps (8th army). Its morale

was already felt by the Austrians to have been destroyed by their propaganda

during the July retreat, and in late November, when the corps again proved

responsive, they felt that they were building on this achievement.

Certainly

the evidence which we possess of the mentality of the XI corps peace delegates

seems to prove that German-Austrian Intelligence was finely sensitive to the

mood and concerns of many Russian units. For although the XI corps negoti-

ators asked

for Germany to publicly renounce all annexationist goals in the

The Experience of Propaganda against Russia 59

East, they also boldly stated their conviction that `Present day Russia will

never again fight for the interests of the English and French. The government

that has given them peace and land will never more be overthrown.'

It was Lenin's direct wireless appeal to the troops (22 November), echoed by

German-Austrian Intelligence in this final propaganda thrust, which had per-

suaded the

bulk of the Russian army to back the new regime in demanding

100

peace. While the soldiers could feel that they had brought about the regional

armistices, through exercising pressure on their commanders in the name of

the new Soviet government, the AOK and the DOHL could equally feel that this

development was testament at last to the success of their propaganda

campaign. The way was now set for general armistice talks to begin between

the belligerents at Brest-Litovsk on 3 December. On that day the Austrians

re-echoed Bolshevik statements for the last time: Trotsky's public reply to

Czernin, who had agreed to the Bolsheviks' plea for a truce, was duly

dispatched over the Russian trenches in leaflet form.

101

For the Central Powers the eight-month propaganda offensive on the Eastern

Front was now at an end. Their objectives for much of the campaign had been

the same as the Bolsheviks, to persuade the Russian soldiers to revolt against

their leaders; and this harmony of aims seemed to have reached its peak in the

weeks after the Bolshevik coup d'e

tat. But from November 1917 onwards, during

the months of tortuous peace negotiations at Brest-Litovsk, it was the threat of

Bolshevism which was uppermost in minds at the AOK when it thought about

propaganda in the East.

102

Earlier in the campaign, as we have seen, the

German and Austrian military had feared that their own troops could easily

become infected through contact with the propaganda weapon, either from the

Russians or even from their own efforts. But it was in November, after Lenin's

calls for a general peace, that the AOK and the DOHL took extra precautions. In

the final propaganda guidelines, all fraternization or traffic with the Russians

(apart from official approaches) was strictly forbidden and one officer was to

be appointed in each regiment whose task was to keep ordinary troops at a

distance from the propaganda `meeting-points'.

103

In fact, the German and

Austrian Intelligence officers seem to have found it impossible to adhere to

this stricture on fraternization and finally had to concede some regulated

contact. Similarly, Bolshevik appeals which the Central Powers were exploiting

were a two-edged sword. Lenin's `Decree of Peace' of 8 November, a `resolution

with an enormous propaganda punch' as one Austrian historian describes it,

was quickly distributed by Russian planes over Austrian and German troops.

104

The fact was that the aims of the Central Powers and the Bolsheviks, in using

the propaganda weapon, were now beginning to diverge. Both had employed

it to create chaos in the Russian trenches, but their second objective was not

the same. The Central Powers saw the second and final goal as almost achieved,

namely to bring those who controlled Russia to the negotiating table to

60 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

conclude a separate peace. For the Bolshevik leadership, however, the second

goal was to extend the revolution. In the months before November, Lenin had

only touched on this broader purpose for propaganda when advocating fratern-

ization at

the front.

105

But with the seizure of power, Bolshevik propaganda

entered a new phase, being targeted more specifically on Germany and Austria-

Hungary with the aim of fomenting revolution there and eventually producing

a general `people's peace'. In keeping with this idea, at first Lenin and the other

Bolshevik leaders did not view the peace talks at Brest-Litovsk as an end in

themselves. Rather, their negotiators were instructed to spin-out the discus-

sions as

long as possible, using them as a public platform for proclaiming the

Bolsheviks' subversive messages, while by intense fraternization and distribu-

tion of

Bolshevik propaganda through the front lines, the supposedly `immin-

ent' revolution

in Germany and Austria-Hungary would be accelerated.

106

For Austrian military Intelligence it became one of the foremost aims of its

`defensive Intelligence' activity in the winter of 1917±18 to counter this Bol-

shevik revolutionary

threat.

107

Max Ronge, the head of military Intelligence,

expected that it would be easy to intercept printed propaganda, even though

or perhaps because the armistice agreement of 15 December permitted news-

papers to

be exchanged and fraternization to occur at a few key points on each

sector of the Eastern Front. Yet by early 1918 the slow seeping of Bolshevik

material into the Monarchy was to be one factor contributing to the military

authorities' near paranoia about ubiquitous `enemy propaganda'. Where Ronge

was more accurate was in assessing the danger of those prisoners of war who

would soon be returning from the East to Austria-Hungary; these `homecomers'

were indeed to have a major disruptive impact among the Monarchy's armed

forces during 1918.

108

But before that happened the peace talks at Brest-Litovsk

had, as the Bolshevik leaders expected, begun to bear some rotten fruit in the

Empire, exacerbating war-weariness and nationalist agitation in many corners

of the Monarchy. This general impact of peace with Russia, stimulating the

hopes of those at home who thought that `peace is being born there and will

come to us',

109

was not something which Austrian military Intelligence could

ever properly counter. It was an ironic and indirect result of their own propa-

ganda campaign

of 1917.

That the

campaign on the Eastern Front had been a success was acknow-

ledged by

all those involved in it. One member of an Austrian Intelligence

troop unit who had been active in the East boasted later that `we propagandists

worked and broke Russia and forced her to make a separate peace'.

110

It was a

myth which, as we will see, quickly gained currency in the West and contrib-

uted to

the reorganization of the British propaganda machinery in early 1918.

The rumours were rife in Allied circles that German propaganda in some form

or other had contributed to the Russian upheaval, perhaps even that `Germany

[had] conquered the Eastern front by propaganda'.

111

These claims were viewed

The Experience of Propaganda against Russia 61

as highly exaggerated by the Austrian and German High Commands. But at the

time, in late 1917 particularly, they undoubtedly gave their campaign more

credit than they were to do after the war when they were less likely to praise

their own use of a weapon which, they would allege, their enemy had craftily

employed to defeat them. For a start, they were less inclined by late 1917 to

view this weapon as `unfair', a concern of both Emperor Karl and General

Ludendorff in the early stages of the campaign.

112

It had been shown that

propaganda work was quite a dangerous activity, requiring courageous and

dedicated personnel. After all, about 150 of the propagandists active on the

Heeresfront of Archduke Joseph had been lost in the course of their duties.

113

The AOK was also well aware that its propaganda would have had little effect

without the unstable conditions in the Russian hinterland. Chaos in the inter-

ior had

been a prerequisite for the Austrians' own propaganda arguments to

make an impact. It was in this context that they felt the objectives of their

campaign had been achieved. With the aid of the Russian soldiers' committees,

the propaganda had managed to widen the gap between the Russian soldier and

his officers, fomenting insubordination, damaging the `Kerensky offensive' of

July, and finally forcing the Russian army to sue for an armistice. It would, of

course, be argued that the final push in this direction had come from Petrograd

after the Bolshevik coup d'e

tat. The Central Powers undoubtedly accepted this.

But they also felt, because of the close interrelation between front and hinter-

land in

determining the Russian breakdown, that their own propaganda in

converting the soldiers had played its part in the fall of Kerensky and the

creation of the Bolshevik revolution. In other words, the Central Powers' pro-

paganda had

eventually worked its way back from the front into the hinter-

land.

114

According to a leading German Intelligence officer, one of the central

themes of the campaign, that `England' should be seen as an imperialist enemy

of Russia, had been disseminated in this way; he argued that it was one of

the `most decisive successes' of the campaign that `Russian public opinion and

politics' had been converted to this idea by the Central Powers' propaganda.

115

In plainer language, this was tantamount to arguing that the propaganda

campaign had helped to turn Russians against the war and against the Provi-

sional Government.

It was only a short step from here to the more exaggerated

claim that propaganda had `broken Russia and forced her to make a separate

peace'. The myth was then expanded by rumours of Germany's subversive

activities in Petrograd.

For the

AOK and the DOHL, however, it was simply sufficient to believe that

their propaganda had acted as a significant secondary stimulant upon the

Russian armed forces. Whether this was actually the case is, of course, debatable

(and requires more research on the Russian side). But this does not detract from

the fact that the High Commands had the perception that front propaganda

had been effective. They were sure that propaganda had proved itself to be

62 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

a `modern weapon of warfare', all the more so because of the important

by-products and lessons learnt from the campaign.

116

First, as we have seen,

their propaganda's alleged success, in demoralizing vast numbers of the

enemy and achieving local cease-fires, had enabled vital manpower to be with-

drawn to

the Italian and Western Fronts, while in the East lives had been saved

and resources spared. Second, there were the certain benefits which had

accrued to military Intelligence from oral propaganda and regular contact

with the Russians. These were concrete results, which could always be measured

more accurately than the nebulous effects of propaganda on enemy morale. But

besides these gains, it is important also to mention the lessons which the

Central Powers had learnt about the use of the weapon. They had secured

valuable experience on how to manage front propaganda, coordinating it

with infantry and artillery activity, and through trial and error they had

adopted and used the most effective material and techniques. For example, it

had been found that oral propaganda was the most forceful at the front, but

that when literature was used, the Russian soldiers had especially responded to

factual newspapers containing news, devoid of comment, about the Russian

interior; only a few visual images appear to have been exploited. In each case it

had been vital to tune into the Russian mentality, presenting to the soldiers

`objective truths' about the situation, even if the range of such `truths' was

carefully selected according to the interests of the Central Powers.

117

The bleak Russian conditions at the front and in the hinterland had provided

a rich material for this propaganda, but it had still proved necessary to ignore

some issues, such as Germany's policy on annexations in the East, concentrat-

ing instead

on repeating well-worn slogans such as the `imperialist Entente' or

`betrayal of the revolution'. The issue of German policy in the East was in fact

always a potential Achilles' heel in the campaign, since it could not be honestly

discussed at the front in view of the allies' continued disagreement over its

details. Here too the AOK perhaps learnt a lesson, that front propaganda should

always be in harmony with the policies of the Ballhausplatz, for when the

propaganda arguments diverged from agreed policy both were usually com-

promised, either

at the time or in the future. A safer alternative therefore might

be, as on the Eastern Front, to dwell most heavily on the misery and tensions in

the enemy's own camp.

3.3 The Serbian campaign

The AOK's clear satisfaction with the results of propaganda against Russia was

particularly shown by its immediate use of the weapon on its two other fronts.

The first to be targeted was the Macedonian theatre. Here lay the remains of the

Serbian army, which in the wake of its defeat in late 1915 had made a dramatic

anabasis across the mountains of Albania, leaving its `homeland' to be occupied

The Experience of Propaganda against Russia 63

by Austria-Hungary as the so-called Milita

rgeneralgouvernement Serbien

[MGG/S]. The Serbian forces, after re-formation on the island of Corfu, had

been shipped to Salonika and thence moved up to the front again to constitute

part of the Orient army under the French General Sarrail. Their generally low

morale, not least because of their diminishing numbers which could only be

supplemented by Austrian prisoners of South Slav nationality, was well known

to Baden by mid-1917. The AOK also had clear evidence of the Serbians' poor

performance during Sarrail's limited offensive in May 1917 when they had lost

over a thousand men;

118

and had got wind of a Serbian `officers' plot' which

(though exaggerated by the Serbian Regent to remove dangerous rivals to

himself ) could appear to Baden as yet another chink in the Serbian armour.

119

All of these weaknesses were highlighted by Arz when on 19 June he wrote

to the DOHL suggesting propaganda among the Serbian forces to produce

`desertion and disintegration', for ± with a hint to the Russian experience ±

`the military and political benefits which can spring from such fruitful activity

need no further proofs'.

120

Arz proposed a two-pronged attack. Firstly, under the direction of Austrian

military Intelligence, a number of reliable Serbs would be sent from occupied

Serbia [MGG/S] or neutral countries, via Greece, into the rear of the Serbian

forces to agitate among their compatriots. Secondly, the main campaign would

begin in the front line with propaganda by leaflet, by correspondence to and

from occupied Serbia, and orally by establishing a battalion of reliable Croat

troops to patrol and proselytize along the whole Serbian sector. Although the

forces opposite the Serbians were all German or Bulgarian, collected together

under the Heeresgruppe of the German General Friedrich von Scholtz, Arz did

not hesitate in insisting that Austria-Hungary would take charge of this cam-

paign against

its old enemy. He recommended that leadership of front propa-

ganda should

fall to the Habsburg liaison officer at the Heeresgruppe Scholtz,

Major Wilhelm Stipetic

Major Stipetic

through his knowledge of southern Slav sentiments [Volk-

seele]

and his complete command of the Serbian language is thoroughly

suited to control this propaganda and he would be assigned for this purpose

two tested Intelligence officers who for years have been working against

Serbia.

121

It was a campaign for which Stipetic

would have powerful arguments to

hand. Although it would be hard to disguise the past and present reality of

life in Serb regions controlled by Austria-Hungary, the propaganda could play

on homesickness and war-weariness, not only of Serbs from MGG/S but also of

South Slavs formerly in the Habsburg army who had perhaps only joined the

Serbian army as a means to desert back into the Monarchy. There was thus an