Reporting Atrocities Archibald Reiss in PDF

This article was downloaded by: [LSE Library]
On: 25 November 2012, At: 07:43

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
The Journal of Slavic Military Studies

Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fslv20
Reporting Atrocities: Archibald Reiss in

Serbia, 1914--1918
a
Bastian Matteo Scianna
a
Columbia University
Version of record first published: 21 Nov 2012.
To cite this article: Bastian Matteo Scianna (2012): Reporting Atrocities: Archibald Reiss in Serbia,
1914--1918, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 25:4, 596-617
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13518046.2012.730395
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation
that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any
instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary
sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,
demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or
indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 25:596–617, 2012
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1351-8046 print/1556-3006 online
DOI: 10.1080/13518046.2012.730395
Reporting Atrocities: Archibald Reiss

in Serbia, 1914–1918
BASTIAN MATTEO SCIANNA

Columbia University
Archibald Reiss reporting on atrocities during World War I in

Serbia contributed to the public perception of the role of civil-
Downloaded by [LSE Library] at 07:43 25 November 2012
ians and the meaning of war crimes. His reports on Austrian and
Bulgarian wrong-doings perfectly show the changing interpreta-
tion of laws of war from the traditionalist pre-1914 approach and
the new vulnerable, yet targeted civilian as a victim and not poten-
tial source of rebellion. This article shows how situational aspects
and the new industrial war led to a totalization of war and where
restraining elements existed. The ethnic cleansing aspect of the
Bulgarian case will be analyzed and the case made for its differ-
ent character in comparison to the Austrian actions in 1914 which
lacked a planned exterminatory character.
‘Devant la crime, personne ne doit rester neutre.’

- Archibald Reiss
INTRODUCTION
When, in August 1914, hostilities between Austria-Hungary and Serbia broke

out, the latter’s Chief of Staff, Radomir Putnik, was on holiday in an Austrian
spa town.1 He had with him the keys to the safe containing Serbia’s war
1
I am indebted to Dennis Showalter for this anecdote, in the same, War in the East
and Balkans, 1914–18 (pp. 66–81) here p. 69, in J. Horne, A Companion to World War I ,
Chichester, U.K., 2010.
Bastian Matteo Scianna is pursuing the M.A./MSc dual degree in International and World
History at Columbia University and the London School of Economics and Political Science.
His research interests are the development of strategic thought, irregularity in warfare and the
current European Defense Project.
Address correspondence to Bastian Matteo Scianna, Columbia University and LSE,
Margaretehnhof 37, 67316 Carlsberg, Germany. E-mail: bs2710@columbia.edu
596
Reporting Atrocities 597
plans. After a short imprisonment, the Austrians decided in an old chivalrous

move to let him go back to his country to fight the Habsburg Empire.
So some old ideas of ancien régime warfare seem to have been in place in
Europe in 1914.
Shortly afterwards, a German-born Professor at the University of
Lausanne prepared himself to go to Serbia to investigate war crimes com-
mitted by the Habsburg army. Rudolf Archibald Reiss came from a Protestant
family in Wilhelmine Germany, from which he escaped after an early rupture
to find open-mindedness in republican Switzerland.2 A man who was con-
stantly in the search for an identity, he became a world renowned scholar,
war reporter, soldier, honorary member of the Serbian reserve officer asso-
ciation and transformer of the Serbian police after the war. He remained
fascinated by ‘l’héroisme quotidien et au courage que souligne surtout la
fierté, la modestie et l’énergie de simples combatants qui sont en majorité des
paysans.’3 His reports influenced the view of civilians in war and the limits to
‘military necessity’ and his legacy can be seen ‘dans le fait qu’il symbolisait
et personnifiait réellement la conscience de l’Europe libre.’4
By analyzing his writings, this article will attempt to show the chang-
ing nature of the civilian in World War I along the lines of atrocities, public
propaganda, and the conduct of war. The Lieber Code and the Hague con-
ventions characterized non-combatants as part of the enemy state who are
in a democracy responsible for the actions of their government and there-
fore targets that must bear the hardships and successes of their countries.
It was stated that it was desirable to spare them, thus no concrete protec-
tion clause was embedded, for example, in the Lieber Code.5 The Hague
Convention 1907 retained this traditionalist approach, yet added the prohi-
bition of shelling undefended settlements (Article 25), obligations to warn
besieged towns (Article 26) and the sparing of cultural heritage (Article 27).
Most of the attention was concerned with the question of civilians as belliger-
ents (Article 1 and 2) and the mix of law and customs that led to a situation
that:
. . . when the First World War began, the laws of war contained no con-
cept of a civilian population distinguished from the military and deserving
of protection on that ground alone . . . if they did remain passive and out-
side the conflict then there would be no need to harm them, but if they
were caught in the ‘theatre of operations’ then there was no need to pro-
tect them. Finally, if they chose to fight outside the military they could
2
More details can be found in Z. Levental, Rodolphe Archibald Reiss, Lausanne, L’Age d’homme,
1992, p. 13f.
3
Ibid., pp. 15, 161.
4
Ibid., p. 110.
5
B. Alexander, ‘The Genesis of the Civilian,’ Leiden Journal of International Law, 20 (2007,
pp. 359–376, here p. 363. Best, G., Restraints on war by land before 1945 (17–38), here p. 30, in Howard,
M, Andreopoulos, G.J. & Shulman, M.R The Laws of War: Constraints on warfare in the Western World
(New Haven: Yale University Press 1994).
598 B. M. Scianna
be treated ruthlessly — for it was these treacherous, civilian belligerents

who were seen as the greatest threat to the laws of war and civilized
warfare.6
Additionally, these ‘rules’ and customs of war constituted a mix of inner

societal ethics, internal military discipline, the principle of self-sustaining
armies, and reciprocity of atrocities.7 All these principles could, in situa-
tional aspects, lead to an escalatory process of violence, even more so
when asymmetry came into play. The level of violence is always higher
when both situational and structural aspects mix, such as high casualties and
irregularity.8
In the following sections, the Austrian invasion and Reiss’ reports on the
atrocities will be analyzed as well as how the ‘holy enthusiasm’9 turned into
mass atrocities and blurred lines between combatants and non-combatants.
Following, the biographical line of Reiss, the Serbian retreat in 1915 and
the public debates in Switzerland will be analyzed before returning with the
Professor to the ‘Bulgarian experience’ which constitutes a further increase
in ‘total’ violence. The question of temperamentum belli (Howard, i.e., how
war can be controlled) will remain vital with its reciprocal influence on
controlling war and the battlefield extension through modern warfare.
THE EXPERIENCE OF WAR: 1914/15
Nikola Petrovic, the Serbian consul in Geneva, happened to know Reiss’

work personally and was bound to him by friendship. Therefore, the invi-
tation to be part of a commission to investigate crimes committed by the
Austro-Hungarians, was only logical and had a personal character for Reiss.
His reasoning to support the Entente stemmed from his belief in ‘le droit
et la liberté.’10 He also reasoned that his task would be to show that it is
unacceptable to blame a whole army when the atrocities committed are only
the wrong doings of a few individuals, by which he indirectly criticized the
Carnegie report on the Balkans War.11
On his way to Serbia, he described the peacefulness of the landscape
and the desire for peace and neutrality in the minds of the Italian and Greek
people. The war came during a bad moment for Serbia, as she was still in
a process of assimilating the territories acquired in the Balkan Wars and the
6
Ibid., p. 365.
7
S. Neitzel and D. Horath, Entfesselter Kampf oder gezähmte Kriegsführung?, p. 12, in S. Neitzel,
S. D. Horath, Kriegsgreuel Paderborn, Schöningh, 2008.
8
Ibid., p.15.
9
J. Verhey, The Spirit of 1914 Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 11.
10
Z. Levental, Rodolphe Archibald Reiss, p. 33.
11
Ibid, p. 34.
army was recovering from the hardships suffered in blood and treasure.12
After all, for towns like Valjevo, it was the third war in three years.13 Reiss
seems to be mainly driven by idealistic ideas of investigating on a larger
scale and aspiring to communicate his findings to a global audience to
become a public voice of reason and ‘un figure historique de l’humanisme.’14
Consequently, he was in contact with three newspapers before his departure.
He was also driven by what Levental describes as ‘haine contre lui-meme’
in rejecting his own German identity and arguing against German militarism
(and by this, against his two brothers who became decorated war heroes in
Imperial Germany). So one can see a certain personality split of the world
renowned scholar: rejecting his original identity and looking for a mean-
ing and a sense of ‘belonging somewhere.’ This leads to the fact that he
seems totally uninterested in strategy or tactics but focuses more on por-
traying personal tragedies in war, mainly ‘la mentalité des simples soldats’
whose camaraderie fascinated him and created a long lasting passion and
connection to Serbia and its people.15
Arriving in Serbia, Reiss tried to visit as many front line sites as possible.
By interrogating captured Austrian as well as Serbian soldiers and civilians
he tried to get as much information as possible. He is certainly in his element
when he describes the use of explosive bullets by the Austrians. He found
‘whole boxes of them’ which had devastating effects on the human body, as
‘a limb which has been struck by an explosive bullet is always lost.’16 In total,
there were ‘117 cases of wounds caused by explosive bullets at the sixth
reserve hospital of Valievo in nine days’ and Austrian POWs’ testimonies
showed that these explosives were only distributed in December after the
defeats of Iadar and Tzer and, additionally, the soldiers explained that they
did not have any knowledge of them before the war.17 This is an example
where Reiss used his professional background to show that the Austrian
reasoning of using these explosives as artillery range marking was merely a
bad excuse. His own tests show that the marking function is inefficient as not
enough smoke was produced; moreover, as most soldiers were hit directly
by these bullets, there was no smoke or any fire at all that could be used by
the Austrian artillery.18 Thereby, his professional analysis could debunk the
excuse of the Austrians for using banned ammunition.
In October, Reiss visited Belgrade, which by then had been subject to
36 days and nights of bombardment. The Old Fortress is described by him
12
Showalter, War in the East and the Balkans 1914–18 (pp. 66–81), here p. 69 in J. Horne, A
Companion to World War I
13
R. A. Reiss, How Austria-Hungary Waged War in Serbia: Personal Investigations of a Neutral Paris,
A. Colin, 1915, p. 47.
14
Ibid., pp. 29, 42.
15
Ibid., p. 46.
16
Ibid., pp. 4, 7.
17
Ibid., p. 8.
18
Ibid., pp. 9–10.
600 B. M. Scianna
as being more of a museum than a real fortification. He adds that during the
bombing the ‘shells were aimed at private houses, Government buildings
and factories without any distinction’ and that over ‘sixty state buildings and
640 private houses were struck by the projectiles’ whereas the latter often
were not even close to any ‘valuable’ targets.19 The arbitrary shelling of the
town included the University, the national museum and hospitals which Reiss
saw as an outright violation of the Hague conventions and as a clear sign that
‘the Austro-Hungarians sought to destroy the civil population of Belgrade.’20
However, he himself gives the data that after this 36 day bombardment, ‘only’
25 civilians had died and 126 wounded, which hardly a number that hints at
exterminatory intents. However, he admired the courage of the people who
continued to live their everyday lives under such conditions.21
Along the same line, he reported from Sabac22 and Lesnica on
October 22, both open towns without any military installations that were
shelled without any necessity. They are mutually portrayed as rich towns
with many beautiful houses now in ruins and with the population fleeing.
The major of the town Petkovica, Pantelia Maric, is quoted in his report
as saying that the ‘burning was deliberately organized by the invading army.
He declare[d] that the Austro-Hungarian soldiers had with them little tin pots.
They painted with the contents of these pots the houses which they wished
to set on fire and then set a light to them with matches.’23 In general, all
the towns where troops passed had been destroyed and ‘all objects of value
ha[d] been carried away and safes broken open.’24
Apart from bombarding the town, Sabac was also the site of many
atrocities against combatants and non-combatants. What Reiss described in
his pamphlet is mainly the killing of wounded or immediately captured
Serbian soldiers by the Austrians.25 The Hungarian soldiers under Lt. Nagj
of the 37th Hungarian regiment were proven to have cut ‘the throats of the
wounded with their knives and bayonets’ and to have shot prisoners.26 The
Serbian soldier Mladen Simic reported that he was ‘in the trenches with many
other killed and wounded when the Austrians arrived. They finished off the
wounded.’27 Reiss also manages to give a good sense of the chaotic situ-
ation of attack and counter-attack around Sabac during this period. Citing
a Serbian report from 13 October: ‘Near the Schtipliane river, the Austrians
took prisoners about 10 wounded men of the 3rd supernumerary regiment.
19
Ibid., p. 11.
20
Ibid., p. 12.
21
Z. Levental, Rodolphe Archibald Reiss, p. 60.
22
Also written Chabatz.
23
Reiss, How Austria-Hungary Waged War in Serbia, p.13.
24
Ibid., p. 39f, with more than a thousand safes only in Sabac.
25
Ibid., p. 13, he used “fictitious initials for the names of my Austro-Hungarian witnesses to avoid
the disagreeable consequences which would otherwise ensue when they return to their country.”
26
Ibid., p. 14.
27
Ibid.
The wounds of these men were dressed. When the Austrians found them-
selves obliged to leave their positions in consequence of the attack of the
2nd battalion of the 3rd Serbian regiment, they shot the wounded in order
not to let them be retaken alive by the Serbs.’28 This plays into the factor of
perceived military necessity and calculated ‘number games.’
Reports from Austrian sources show a similar picture of chaos, frustra-
tion and slaughter. The unexpectedly strong resistance by the Serbs led to
confusion and aggravation which often resulted in friendly fire in the poorly
and hastily organized offensives.29 Especially during the hectic Austrian
retreat, which Kisch described as ‘witches’ Sabbath,’
hundreds of injured and sick men were left by the river bank, some fight-
ing to get across the pontoons, hundreds drowning.’30 The inexperienced
Austrian troops, without a systematic organization, lack of officer initia-
tive and poor training31 , advanced into an unfavorable territory against

a battle-hardened enemy that was defending its home soil — problems
of logistics and sustainability were neglected and became the key for
the military catastrophe in this terrain.32 The Austrian army devoted great
attention to morale and to willpower in their training and doctrine. This
unrealistic belief in overcoming material or physical obstacles by sheer
willpower explains the ‘spirit of the offensive’33
Additionally, the Habsburg soldiers had in mind an expectation of cru-

elty, irregularity, treason and barbarity awaiting them and reports show this
mix of anxiety and tension in entering terra incognita.34 Where civilians
took up arms to defend themselves and turned into semi-combatants this
28
Ibid., p. 15.
29
R. Jerábek, Potiorek: General im Schatten von Sarajevo Graz, Verlag Styria, 1991, pp. 121–123, 142.
30
Cited in A. Kramer, Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War
Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 141.
31
L. Sondhaus, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf: Architect of the Apocalypse Boston, Humanities Press,
2000, p.200.
32
G.E. Rothenberg, ‘The Austro-Hungarian Campaign against Serbia in 1914,’ Journal of Military
History 53 (1989) pp.127–146, 137, 144.
33
Sondhaus, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf , pp. 39, 54–56 and also V. R. Berghahn, Europa
im Zeitalter der Weltkriege : die Entfesselung und Entgrenzung der Gewalt Frankfurt am Main, Fischer
Taschenbuch Verlag, 2002, e.g., p. 119.
34
See exemplary herefore the report in Jerabek, Potiorek, pp. 127–28: ’Man hatte sich das lange
nicht so schwer vorgestellt. Die Truppe sah sich absonderlich neuen Elementen gegenüber — einer schier
unerträglichen Hitze, einem durchaus fremdartigen Gelände voller Fallstricke . . . dann einem immer
unsichtbaren, überaschend und gespensterhaft auftretenden Feinde, der sich listig und sichtlich von der
Bevölkerung benachrichtigt und unterstützt, jedem Zugriffe entzog. Hier trug jeder Bauer ein Gewehr
oder die Soldaten Bauernkleider und selbst von Weibern und Kindern erzählte man sich feindselige
oder grausame Akte gegen unsere liegengebliebenen Verwundeten. In jedes Unternhemen mischten sich
Überraschung und Verrat immer musste man auf Feuer, Hinterhalt und Überfall gefasst sein, nie gab es
eine ruhige Nacht. Diese seelische Spannung war schwerer zu ertragen, als Hunger und Durst. Das war
kein ehrlicher Feind, der immer aus Verstecken schoss. Dazu schwere blutige Verluste . . . Vor allem fehlte
ein sichtbarer, positiver Erfolg . . . [eigene Truppen] 75% Nichtaktive . . . Besonders im Gefecht ging es nicht
in dem Tempo, das man vom Manöverfelde gewohnt war. Dazu gab es da und dort eine kleine Panik, bei
der man inne wurde, daß es Grenzen für vernunft, Führung und Kommandogewalt gab. . . . So hatte
602 B. M. Scianna
played in the Austrians’ mindset of facing a generally rebellious population

and providing new ground for slaughter narratives of mutilated corpses and
treachery.
Consequently, everyone who fell into Austro-Hungarian hands faced
severe punishments, which sometimes even included civilians suspected of
taking part in the fighting. The rights of prisoners were in general described
as being ‘délibérement violées et, en bien des occassions, ses hommes se sont
montrés aussi sauvages que les barbares de l’ancien temps.’35 During their
transport away from the battlefields, they were poorly fed, had to march
long distances and suffered from hard labor, poor housing conditions and
malnutrition in the camps.36 There were attempts by the civilian population
near Heinrichsgrün, the main camp in Austria, to help the POWs ‘mais les
gardes en empechechaient et les battaient.’37 Reiss does not contemplate any
effort to improve the conditions and thus asks if this was an attempt ‘à
exterminer autant de Serbes que possible? Pour ces gens-la, chaque homme,
chaque femme, chaque enfant mort dans les camps de prisonniers ou internés
constitute un gain.’38
The violations of the rights of the civilians and the atrocities committed
upon them constitute the largest part of Reiss’ work and he offers numerous
accounts on these. Many Austrian soldiers stated that:
an order was read to the regiment, to kill and burn everybody and every-
thing met with in the course of the campaign and to destroy everything
Serbian’ and name specifically that the officers of the 26th regiment,
‘Commandant Stanzer and Captain Irketitch gave orders to attack the
Serbian population.’39 The punitive character is portrayed in a testimony
that describes an officer’s reasoning that it is ‘necessary to show the Serbs
what Austrians are.40
This included even ‘children of five to the oldest men,’ as in the massacre of
twelve primary school children in Dobric in August.41 Some of these atrocities
were committed on Habsburg soil, e.g., in the village of Sirmia and other
towns in Bosnia; notably often the accused regiments were Hungarian.42
These testimonies from Austrian sources show the willingness to commit
crimes by some soldiers, and their obedience in following higher orders for
man sich das Debut in Serbien nicht vorgestellt. Die Stimmung war vielfach verdrossen und düster, das
Vertrauen gegenseitig erschüttert.’
35
R. A. Reiss, Le traitement des prisonniers et des blessés par les Austro-Germano-Bulgares; résultats
de l’enquête exécutée sur le front de Salonique Paris, B. Grasset, 1919, p. 5.
36
Ibid., pp. 7, 8, 17–18 (One of these prisoners was Ivo Andric.).
37
Ibid., p. 11.
38
Ibid., p. 28.
39
Reiss, How Austria-Hungary Waged War, p. 16.
40
Ibid.
41
Ibid., pp. 17, 19–20.
42
Ibid., pp. 18, 20.
such crimes, as Reiss laid out in the order by General Horststein, which
stated that:
in consequence of the hostile attitude of the population of Klenak

[Hungarian territory] and Chabatz [Sabac], hostages will again be taken
in all the Serbian villages, etc, even those situated on this side of the
frontier, which are or will be occupied by the troops. These hostages
are to be killed at once in case of any crime being committed by the
inhabitants against the armed forces and the enemy villages are to be
burnt. The Commander of the Army Corps reserves the power to burn
the villages on our own territory.43
This already constitutes a certain connectedness between situational aspects

of atrocities amidst the fog of war and higher orders for a planned
pacification.
Official Serbian reports show a similar picture of devastation, as
Lieutenant Stoiadinovic reports that:
on 7 and 8 August, being in command of the advance sentries, my rounds

took me to the village of Zoulkovic and its neighborhood. I saw in a
ravine the bodies of 25 boys from 12 to 16 years of age, and two old
men of more than 60 years, heaped one upon the other, mutilated with
bayonet thrusts and pierced with bullets. In another house an old women
lay dead with her daughter. The bodies were in front the door, half naked,
with the legs apart . . . in a courtyard I found a little boy of four years
old who had been thrown after being killed. His body had been partially
eaten by dogs. Near him lay a young woman, naked, between whose
legs had been placed her nursing child with its throat cut.44
Furthermore, the evidence provided by civilians shows again beatings,

rape, and murder on a large scale in Sabac45 , where around sixty civilians
were massacred near the church, many with bayonets in order to economies
ammunition.46 Another account showed that the Austrians never drank water
43
K.u.K. 9 Korps Kommando. R. No 32. Ruma, 14th August 1914, Ibid., p. 21.
44
Ibid., p. 21.
45
Ibid., p. 26.
46
Ibid., pp. 30–31, also Jerabek, Potiorek, p. 164 cites this account from Austrian sources in the fol-
lowing way: ’Im Garten der Kirche sah ich einen großen Haufen Leichen, circa 80 Stück. Auf meine
Frage, was das sei, sagte mir Lt.Gf. Esterhazy, dass das erschossene Civilgefangene sind, die heute
Vormittag niedergemacht wurden. Er kam gerade dazu, wie so gegen 11h v.M. die auf der Strasse vor
der Kirche befindlichen Truppen auf diese Gefangenen ein wildes Feuer eröffneten. Er kommandierte
sofort das Feuer einstellen und zog einen das ganze Vorgehen passiv zusehenden Infanteriekadett zur
Verantwortung, der sich damit entschuldigte, dass soeben ein ihm unbekannter General mit einem Auto
vorbeigefahren sei, der den Befehl erteilte, dass man von den Gefangenen, die auf die Nachricht, dass
die Serben in der Nähe seien und die Stadt beschiessen, unruhig geworden sind—die Bulgaren ausschei-
den und die anderen niedermachen soll. — Die Truppen hatten das gehört und darauf sofort zu feuern
angefangen.“
604 B. M. Scianna
without first having it tasted, which gives an interesting insight into the sus-
picious mind and the fear of treason on the Habsburg side.47 In Lesnica,
Reiss discovered a pit with 109 dead peasants who were ‘bound together
with a rope and encircled by wire, then shot and immediately buried with
some still alive.’48 In Prnjavor, there were reports that people had to yell
‘Long live Emperor Francis Josephus’ before their execution, and the people
of this town erected a monument for Reiss after the war to honor his reports
on their suffering.49
In total, he accounts for 1308 dead civilians where he had been and an
additional 2280 missing persons; consequently he argued that the ‘number
of civilians killed in the invaded territory must amount to between three and
four thousand.’50 This plays into the overall notion of high Serbian wartime
casualties given its relative small population. In comparison, Horne and
Kramer account for 6400 dead civilians in Belgium and France during the
German invasion. Among these victims were plenty of women and children,
(i.e., people who could hardly bear arms, but who were often tortured and
mutilated and either).
shot, killed by the bayonet, their throats were cut with knives, they were
violated and then killed, stoned to death, hanged, beaten to death with
the butt-end of rifles or sticks, disemboweled, burnt alive, or their legs or
arms were cut or torn off, their ears or noses cut off, their eyes put out,
their breasts cut off, their skin cut in strips or flesh torn from the bone;
lastly a little girl of three months was thrown to the pigs.51
It is therefore not unreasonable to link these pictures that come up in one’s

mind with later atrocities as Levental does when he states that ‘ces atroci-
ties nous rappelent les ‘Einsatz’ . . . pendant la Seconde guerre mondiale . . .
comme par example à Babi-Yar’52 ; however the scale and duration of these
atrocities remain two different categories.
About half of the victims were ‘not even’ executed but otherwise killed
and Reiss concludes that ‘the worst that can be said against the civilian
combatants is that they were defending their country.’53 This of course is
a problematic statement as he did not analyze in detail their methods and
character of resistance. The Hague conventions obliged civilian resistance to
be under a unified command, a responsible officer, following the laws and
47
48
Ibid., p. 34.
49
Levental, Rodolphe Archibalde Reiss, pp. 35, 48.
50
51
Ibid., p. 38.
52
Levental, Rodolphe Archibalde Reiss, p. 50.
53
customs of war and wearing openly marked uniforms or other signias that
define the person as a combatant.
Reiss often linked the Austrian atrocities to the ‘Rape of Belgium’ and
states that ‘les Allemands en Belgique n’ont pas agi autrement.’54 He com-
pared the Austrian methods to Bethmann-Hollweg’s dictum that ‘necessity
knows no law’ and criticized heavily this neglect of civilians’ rights.55 Similar
patterns of violence indeed evolved, as the ‘trauma of combat and ideological
and cultural predispositions’56 were certainly a major cause in the Austrian
case too. Additionally, the idea of countering any form of irregular resis-
tance with the harshest means possible can be linked to Belgium, and the
Habsburgs clearly showed the same fear of irregulars ‘who viewed war-
fare as an extension of politics, or worse, of revolution.’57 This plays into
the argument of Jonathan Gumz who sees the Habsburgs waging a counter-
revolutionary war between a ‘nationalizing state and a national, bureaucratic,
absolutist’ Empire.58
Even the Austrian high command realized that the treatment was too
harsh and the Army issued an order to conduct war in line with the Hague
conventions even though Serbia was not a signatory. Moreover, an out-
right ‘total war’ would undermine the jus publicum Europaem (Schmitt) and
endanger the overthrow of the old order.59 However, in the same decree
it is also stated that in case of violations of the Hague conventions by the
Serbians ‘harsh reprisals’ (schärfste Repressalien) should be exercised. Some
villages, especially in Syrmia, had been pillaged and destroyed to such a
degree that the Austrian troops could not find shelter in the villages during
their December retreat.60 These shortages often resulted in a fight for food
between soldiers and civilians.61
Apart from simply showing evidence, Reiss tried to answer the ques-
tion of why this happened and if there was a certain plan to exterminate
the Serbian population. The main causes were portrayed in the fact that
the idea of a greater Serbia and an independent Serbian state blocked the
way of the Habsburgs to Salonika and undermined its stand and influence
in the Balkans.62 Furthermore, the Serbian appeal attracted Slavs within the
54
R. A. Reiss, Réponses aux accusations austro-hongroises contreles Serbes contenues dans les deux
recueils de témoignages concernant les actes de violation du droit des gens commis par les États en guerre
avec l’Autriche-Hongrie Lausanne, Payot & Co., 1918, p.10.
55
R. A. Reiss, Infringements of the Rules and Laws of War Committed by the Austro-Bulgaro-Germans;
Letters of a Criminologist on the Serbian Macedonian Front, London, G. Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1919, p. 5.
56
J. Horne, and A. Kramer, German Atrocities, 1914 : A History of Denial, New Haven, Yale
University Press, 2001, p.419.
57
Ibid., p. 421.
58
J. E. Gumz, The Resurrection and Collapse of Empire in Habsburg Serbia, 1914–1918, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 2009, p.7.
59
Ibid., p. 22f.
60
Jerabek, Potiorek, p.163.
61
Ibid., p. 165.
62
606 B. M. Scianna
Habsburg Empire and thus a propaganda of hatred became necessary to

establish a basis for future harsh measures. This was also useful to make
the Austrian-Hungarian soldier afraid of getting captured and ‘when they
reached Serbian territory and found themselves in the presence of these
people, who had always been described to them as barbarians, they were
afraid, and they probably committed their first cruelties through fear, so
as not to be massacred themselves.’63 Reiss contemplates an escalation-
ary process where violence then becomes legitimized and an everyday
aspect:
the sight of blood produced the effect that I have often had occasion
to observe; man becomes changed into a blood-thirsty animal. A real
outburst of collective sadism took possession of those troops — sadism
which those who have been present at a bull-fight have had an opportu-
nity of observing on a small scale. Once the blood-thirsty and licentious

animal was unloosed and set free by his superiors, the work of devas-
tation was carried out by men who are fathers of families and probably
gentle in their private life.64
Nonetheless he argued that the ‘responsibility for these acts of cruelty

does not rest upon the soldiers in the ranks, victims of the wild beast instincts
which lies dormant in every man, but on their superior officers, who made
no efforts to restrain these tendencies; I will go so far as to say they have
aroused them’ and that there had been a ‘systematic preparation [original
italics] for the massacres by officers of superior rank.’65 This can be found in
a document, which Reiss did not specify closer. This document was issued
by the K.u.K 9 Korps Kommando and puts an emphasis on the hatred the
soldiers will encounter, where murder (Archduke) is glorified as heroism
and towards such a population ‘all humanity and all kindness of heart are
out of place; they are even harmful, for any consideration, such as it is
sometimes possible to show in war, would in this case endanger our own
troops.’66 The document goes on in a language of paranoia and of pre-
emptive measures:
Consequently I order that during the whole course of the war the greatest
severity, the greatest harshness and the greatest mistrust be observed
towards everyone. In the first place I will not allow inhabitants of the
enemy’s country, armed but not in uniform, who are met either alone
or in groups, to be taken prisoners. No consideration is to prevent their
execution. In going through a village, they (i.e. the hostages) are to be
63
Ibid., p. 45.
64
Ibid.
65
Ibid., p. 46.
66
Ibid.
conducted if possible until the queue has passed through, and they will
be executed without any question if a single shot is fired on the troops in
the neighborhood. The officers and soldiers will keep a rigorous watch
over every inhabitant and will not allow him to put his hand in his pocket,
which probably conceals a weapon . . . No sermon is to be permitted
on any condition . . . Every inhabitant who is found outside a village,
especially in the woods, will be looked upon as a member of a band who
has hidden his weapons, which we have no time to look for. Such people
are to be executed if they appear in the slightest degree suspicious.67
Reiss correctly noted that between a third and one half of some Serbian
regiments never received any uniforms and that there was an idea of ‘col-
lective responsibility’; thus the punishment of innocent bystanders is against
the Hague conventions and he saw this as an ‘incitement to murder.’ The
document shows also the lines between taking enemy soldiers’ captive and
taking arbitrarily civilians as hostages were already blurred.

Interestingly, he somehow justifies the ‘animal like’ behavior of the rank
and file as being brain-washed by propaganda and following higher orders.
The encounter with the satanically portrayed unknown, in combination with
no efforts on behalf of the officers to restrain the will or nature of men, led to
this vicious cycle of ever increasing violence and a normalizing process that
went with it. The ordinary men, as they were mainly described as slaughter-
ing persons on one side, fascinated him on the Serbian side. Particularly in a
report from Valjevo he portrayed how the wounded were brave and showed
great morale and how recovering soldiers would step out of the hospital to
make room and get up ‘pour se retrouver au mileu de ses camarades.’68 This
passion for camaraderie has to be seen as the main reason for his decision
to stay with the Serbian army the following year. However, Reiss was not
alone in supporting Serbia in its ‘glorious’ fight, as many individuals devel-
oped a fascination and attached to the struggle attributes of ‘independence,
ambition, and intrepidity.’69
THE ‘SERBIAN GOLGOTHA’ AND THE SWISS INTERLUDE
A new Austro-Hungarian offensive led to a breakthrough and the subse-

quent exodus of Serbian forces towards the Albanian and Macedonia border:
‘Serbia’s Golgotha.’70 Reiss joined this retreat and for this period there is a
67
Ibid., pp. 47–48.
68
Levental, Rodolphe Archibald Reiss, pp. 55–58, here p. 57.
69
Mitrovic, Serbia’s Great War, 104–105, names e.g., John Reed, J.D. Rockefeller Jr., and
D’Annunzio’s Ode to Serbia.
70
See A. Mitrovic, Serbia’s Great War, 1914–1918, West Lafayette, Ind., Purdue University Press,
2007, p. 151f.
608 B. M. Scianna
noticeable silence in his writings and he did not cover this setback at all. The
retreat was harsh and costly for everyone. As the diary of the British Rear-
Admiral Troubridge, who was a member of this retreat, shows, the treatment
of the POW did not always have priority in such chaotic circumstances when
everyone was on his own. He accounted that ‘the situation of the unfortu-
nate Austrian prisoners is truly dreadful. Yesterday snow all day and to-day it
freezes. They are all half-starved, many with bare feet and wandering about
in such a state of misery as makes one’s heart bled for them, poor wretches
— they were so much better off before this second invasion.’71 Many of
these prisoners were handed over to the Italians who transported them to
the uninhabited island of Asinara, close to Sardinia, where the malnutrition,
bad housing, and poor sanitary conditions led to the death of 1,500–37,000.72
The episode shows a similar ‘neglect’ of needs for POWs under which many
Serbians also suffered in Austrian custody.
Reiss argued against slaughter narratives and cruelties committed by

Serbian soldiers and civilians by hinting at the modern weapons that demol-
ish corpses to an extent that had been simply unknown before.73 Therefore,
he fits into the picture with other war reporters who were shocked by
the new means of ‘mass killings’ and could not explain the results. Reiss
conducted interviews with numerous soldiers from both sides to prove the
accusations wrong and to show that the Central Powers never had testimony
for their claims and most of the incidents were merely myths.74
However, he devoted most of his time to address in polemics the Swiss
and global audience’s call for intervention and the lack of toleration for the
Austrian-Hungarian practices of war. In a letter to the Consel Fédéral in the
Gazette de Lausanne he wrote that,
L’armée Potiorek a voulu faire une guerre d’extermination et les troupes

d’invasion d’aujourd’hui suivent l’exemple’ and therefore ‘la voix de la
petite Suisse a encore une certain valeur dans le monde et elle sera encore
plus puissante quand on verra qu’elle defend courageusement les lois de
l’humanité et le droit international.75
His calls for more Swiss action spurred resistance in a country that was
split internally between neutrality and regionally differing sympathy for
the different sides. Hence, the ‘just naturalized citizen’ Reiss became sub-
ject of numerous attacks in newspapers when he returned to Switzerland
71
Diary entry from November 18th 1915 in C. Fryer, The destruction of Serbia in 1915, New York,
Columbia University Press, 1997, p. 171.
72
Kramer, Dynamic of Destruction, p. 142 names the number of 1,500–7,000, explains in his
appendix (p. 368) that Italian reports speak of up to 37,000 deaths.
73
Reiss, Responses aux accusations Austro-Hongroises contre les Serbes, p.13.
74
Reiss, Responses aux accusations Austro-Hongroises contre les Serbes, pp. 21, 23, 35, 45.
75
Levental, Rodolphe Archibalde Reiss, p. 79.
after the costly retreat. He was reminded that his brothers were fighting for
Wilhelmine Germany and his ‘Teutonic’ call for action marked an insult to
Swiss neutrality.76
This ‘don’t tell us what to do’ reaction is also embodied by the pamphlet
of Erwin Janischfeld (‘Kultur, ein Schreiben an die gesittete Welt und drei
Briefe an Professor Reiss in Lausanne,’ 1915) in which he accuses the Serbian
soldiers of similar war crimes, demands Reiss to return to Lausanne and
write not only one-sided descriptions, as Janischfeld had seen the Russians
doing ‘even worse things’ in the East.77 Carl Spitteler stressed the fact that
even though the Serbs are viewed as heroic people of culture, ‘nous nous
placerons au véritable point de vue neuter, au point de vue Suisse.’78 To pre-
vent a further internal division, Paul Seippel and Fernand Feyler presented
the view that there should not be a special feeling of solidarity for small
countries like Serbia, as strict neutrality should be upheld as a state but that
a back door should be opened, and vice versa ‘si un Etat est neutre, cela
ne veut pas dire que ses citoyens doivent aussi etre neuters!.’79 Reiss replied
to these critiques by stating that ‘devant la crime, personne ne doit rester
neutre.’80
Another case Reiss portrayed was the Austrian attempts to reach out to
‘their’ nationals in Switzerland, as they sent summons for ethnic Serbian resi-
dents and refugees to a military inspection.81 Thereby the Austrians neglected
their rights and almost the existence of a Serbian state simply because they
occupied it at this point in time. The question for Reiss remained what
Switzerland could do to stop these practices on their soil and whether there
was a willingness to do anything against this practice at all. Reiss how-
ever continued his call for more protection of the rights of civilians and
a stronger role to be played by Switzerland. Notably, expanding his view
beyond Serbia, he had already called for protection of other nations that
‘viennent d’exterminer d’une facon que l’esprit a peine à concevoir, une autre
petite nation: celle des Arméniens.’82
In 1916 he remained a skeptic about the Serbian ability to rebuild her
army quickly, but already in May he noted that ‘150,000 soldats serbes se
battront de nouveau pour reconquérir leur pays’ and the subsequent victory
of Kajmakcalan marked the reentry of Serbian troops on their home soil.83
Even though he arrived too late to be part of it, he described it again in very
heroic terms, depicting ‘l’image apocaliptique du champ de bataille’ with a
76
Ibid., pp. 81–82, an anonymous reply to his writings.
77
Ibid., p. 89.
78
Ibid., p. 90.
79
Ibid., pp. 93–94.
80
Ibid., p. 94.
81
Reiss, Infringements of the Rules and Laws of War, p. 84f.
82
Levental, Rodolphe Archibalde Reiss, pp. 95–97.
83
Ibid., pp. 101, 103.
610 B. M. Scianna
strong emphasis on morale, psychology and the internal life of an army.84

This speaks to his concern to portray the mentality of the Serbian peasant
and his love for the home soil, thereby Reiss created international solidarity
and sympathy with the Serbiann cause. His return to Serbia confronted him
this time more with an ‘inter Balkan’ rivalry with Bulgaria.
THE ACTIVE FIGHTER AGAINST ‘BULGARIZATION’
The Balkan Wars have been described as the ‘first phases of the First World
War’ and Hall goes so far as to state that ‘they were the same war. In them,
conscripted soldiers, motivated by nationalist ideologies, often fought to the
point of material, moral and physical exhaustion.’85 However, these wars
remained more rooted in the 19th century tradition of ‘European’ wars than
showing tendencies towards ‘modern slaughter,’ where modern technology

was mixed with ideas of total enmity. The Serbian conflict with Bulgaria had
never really stopped. The Bulgarian comitadji (i.e., partisans) in the new
Serbian territories preferred to continue fighting over accepting Serbian rule
that was manifested by a 90,000 men occupation army.86
The ideas of regular conscription-based standing armies were intro-
duced relatively late in Serbia and Bulgaria where the war of 1885 marked
a watershed. Yet, besides the conventional troops, there always remained a
large body of irregular troops in support of the main army. Modern technol-
ogy led to an enlargement of the battlefield and hence the civilian population
became more and more directly targeted by the belligerents. ‘Some of the
terror directed against the civilian population was the reaction to the frustrat-
ing and costly guerilla warfare that troops of the Balkan League encountered
as they entered Ottoman territories.’87 Many of these slaughter narratives
were used in Western Europe to back racial stereotypes about the ‘barbaric
Balkans’ and played a role during World War I.
The Danish reporter Fritz Magnussen, who was known for his pro-
Serbian sympathies, reported that the
Serbian military activities in Macedonia have taken on the character

of an extermination of the Arnaut (Albanian) population. The army
is conducting an unspeakable war of atrocities. According to officers
and soldiers, 3,000 Arnauts were slaughtered in the region between
Kumanova/Kumanovoo and Skolpje and 5,000 near Prishtina. The Arnaut
villages were surrounded and set on fire. The inhabitants were then
84
Ibid., p. 105–108.
85
R.C. Hall,. The Balkan Wars, 1912–1913, London, Routledge, 2000, p.132.
86
K. Boeckh, Von den Balkankriegen zum Ersten Weltkrieg : Kleinstaatenpolitik und ethnische
Selbstbestimmung auf dem Balkan, München, R. Oldenbourg, 1996, pp. 160–161.
87
Ibid., p.137.
chased from their homes and shot like rats. The Serb soldiers delighted
in telling me of the manhunts they conducted.88
The young Trotsky reported from the war and interestingly also put an
emphasis on Turkish suffering.89 He cites a young Serbian soldier account-
ing that ‘the killing of prisoners is due partly to desire for vengeance for
disappointed hopes . . . but mainly it is due to the simple calculation — one
enemy less, one danger the less.’90 Taking prisoners would have required
extra guards and food, thus depriving an ill-fed army of additional resources
and reducing the available manpower to sustain the military effort. Analyzing
the atrocities and the irregular forces, he concludes that ‘the comitadjis were
worse than you can possibly imagine.’91
The fact that the war remained mostly one of movement led to a
frequent change in territory possession and it was often during retreat
that violence against civilians would erupt. After the war, different com-
missions in the countries blamed the other side for committing atrocities
and large reports and documentations were filed.92 Also, the ‘internation-
alization’ through the Carnegie report marked a new step in propaganda
warfare. For the first time in Balkan history an international commission con-
ducted research on war crimes and was at least able to conduct interviews
in Macedonia and Thrace. The Report of the International Commission to
Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars was published only
months before the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. It stressed
the equal responsibility and guilt of all states and also handles financial,
social and moral aspects.93 Nonetheless, the crimes during the wars had the
character of ‘a competition who is best at ‘denationalizing’ his neighbor’
but ‘stopped somewhere short of genocide’94 ; yet, they were left unpun-
ished, which Paul Mojzes described as a ‘bad omen’ for the consequent
development of the Balkans.95
Many of the atrocious policies of war returned during the First World
War when the enemies faced again after a short breathing space. In early
1917, Reiss extensively covered the advance of the Serbian army; being an
active soldier himself now devoted to defend Serbia, he could report on
88
Ibid., p. 157.
89
L. G. Trotsky, The Balkan Wars, 1912–13: The War Correspondence of Leon Trotsky, New York,
Monad Press, 1980, pp. 285–287.
90
Ibid., p. 119.
91
Ibid., p. 120.
92
See Zaimis, Atrocités Bulgares en Macédoine or Les Cruautés Bulgares en Macedone Orientale et
en Thrace and the Subsequent Bulgarian Replies.
93
For reports in The Times and Frankfurter Zeitung that also stress the mutual character of atrocities,
see Kramer, Dynamic of Destruction, p. 137.
94
Ibid., p. 139.
95
P. Mojzes, Balkan Genocides : Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century, Lanham,
Md., Rowman & Littlefield, 2011, p. 40.
612 B. M. Scianna
the former Bulgarian occupation zone. Sofia’s policies are portrayed as an

attempt to ‘Bulgarize’ Macedonia and replace all Majors with Macedonian
comitadjis and subordinate them to the Central Macedonian organization
in the capital.96 This aspect of Bulgarization is a factor largely missing in
the 1914/15 Austro-Hungarian case. These officials were infamous for their
corruption and self-enrichment and often decided to deport the wives and
children of soldiers who had fought against the Bulgarians.97
This was also used as a practice for personal enrichment as Reiss
reported in an incident in Monastir where ‘the citizens were summoned to
the police station and there they were told that they were on the list to be
deported. Still, for a pecuniary consideration, the matter might be arranged.
The usual fee demanded for ‘this service’ ranged from 350 to 500 Francs,
payable in gold and not in Bulgarian paper currency.’98 Hence, the shift
in local power allocation created a willing segment of collaborators who
exercised their new methods of control and power to the utmost. Another
incident from Bor in October 1917 shows that the desire for plunder and
enrichment could lead to mass killings. The inhabitants of an ‘insurgent vil-
lage’ were ordered ‘to bring their money along with them, because they were
to be deported to Bulgaria. When all were ready to start, the soldiers killed
them and robbed the dead bodies of all the valuables upon them. Often they
would then set the village on fire.’99
Monastir was bombed several times by the Central Powers, even though
it was declared an open town. This led to a downfall of the sanitary system of
the town and hospitals stopped working; hence, the civilian population was
left to its fate.100 The bombing lasted from November until April, and Reiss
portrayed it as an attempt to completely destroy the city, as the Bulgarians
realized they could not hold on to it. He investigated the use of gas shells
that helped kill 399 inhabitants whereupon ‘most of the victims were thus
surprised in their sleep’ with low noise explosion gas shrapnel.101 In October
1917, he increased the casualty count to 1,500 killed or wounded, furiously
described Wilhelm II and Ferdinand of Coburg as ‘baby killers’ and portrayed
the heroic refusal of 35,000 inhabitants to leave the town.
Reiss also described the very interesting case of the open town of
Vodena, on 30 April 1917. Even though he had described the use of air
power before102 , this case demonstrates the new destruction potential of
aircrafts. The main target seems to have been the railroad station, but ‘the
96
Reiss, Infringements of the Rules and Laws of War, p. 15f.
97
Ibid., p. 22.
98
Ibid., p. 24.
99
Ibid., p. 65.
100
Ibid., p. 27.
101
Ibid., pp. 30–32.
102
Ibid., pp. 51–52 and 103–106 the bombing of a British hospital that was clearly marked with Red
Cross flags.
other bombs were dropped at random on various quarters of the town.

In the market place for instance, two projectiles killed and injured a num-
ber of civilians.’103 From spies, he then gathered the information that the
Bulgarian (i.e., often German) pilots were frustrated by French-Serbo aerial
resistance that denied them access to their original operational target. Thus,
they ‘dropped their cargo of bombs on this town without any definite object
and solely for the sake of doing damage to their enemies,’ without any
regard to civilians.104 Reiss interprets this as an ‘act of vandalism commit-
ted with the object to terrorizing the civil population, perhaps even out of
revenge because the Allied aviators had prevented the enemy squadron from
carrying out destructive work of real military value,’ thus attributing a clear
intent to their actions.105
This episode shows that the new methods of war blurred the line
between the front and the hinterland. Reiss neglected to address the poor
aiming tools and wide error margins in early aerial bombing which lasted
until World War II. Nonetheless, he rightly noted that the new possibilities in
spreading chaos and benignly terrorizing the population, here the psycho-
logical factor that he always had in mind, played a great role too. In addition,
irregular troops contributed strongly in brutalizing the war as it went on and
means and goals became more radical. Notably, the Germans encouraged the
use of Bulgarian comitadji against Serbia: ‘If 30,000 guerrillas could be armed
and induced to attack eastern Serbia from Bulgaria, then Serbia would have
to deploy part of its forces against them, thus facilitating Austro-Hungarian
operations.’106
The Austrian and Bulgarian soldiers are depicted as simply living off the
land without paying any redistribution and also robbing and hitting civilians,
whereas the peasants had to work for the occupational authorities without
getting any pay.107 This sometimes included working on defensive positions
and carrying ammunition for the Bulgarians, which Reiss described as an war
effort against one’s own country which violates the Hague conventions.108
Article 23 outlines that ‘it is likewise forbidden to a belligerent to compel
nationals of the opposite party to take part in military operations dictated
against their own country.’109 The Bulgarization attempt in the occupied terri-
tories in southern and eastern Serbia went hand in hand with forced drafting
into the Bulgarian army and the shooting of those who resisted.110 Often,
POWs were brutally hit and faced penalties if they resisted ‘Bulgarization.’111
103
Ibid., pp. 108–109, in total 17 killed and 26 injured; he provides all the names and ages.
104
Ibid., p. 114.
105
Ibid.
106
Falkenhayn in a report to the Chancellor, in Mitrovic, Serbia’s Great War, p. 126.
107
Reiss, Infringements of the Rules and Laws of War, p. 17.
108
Ibid., pp. 17, 75.
109
Ibid., pp. 70–71.
110
Ibid., p. 21.
111
Ibid., pp. 48–49, as late as November 1917.
614 B. M. Scianna
In addition, he noted again the ‘mania for execution picture postcards’

that also spread among the Bulgarians. He explained the pictures with many
gibbets as a sign that there was probably a high use of them, and executions
were always public, to give them a daunting character.112 Reiss also described
in detail the suffering of the POWs as a ‘système d’extermination’ of malnu-
trition, and hard work under enemy (or friendly) fire.113 Muslim POWs were
handed over to the Ottomans to press them into military service besides
their own attempts to Bulgarize Macedonian soldiers.114 In addition, beat-
ings and not helping wounded soldiers and the shooting of 18,000 POWs
are listed by Reiss and show a level of violence that massively exceeded
to the 1914 instances.115 On the other hand, Reiss tries to show a counter-
development to this Bulgarian totalization of war, in the good treatment
German, Austrian and Bulgarian POWs received in Serbian custody. Still, one
has to bear in mind other reports, as for example in the diaries of Troubridge
and Josef Sramek.116

In the end, even Reiss admits that there was no clear order to massacre
all POWs but that sometimes mid-level officers tolerated, encouraged, or
even ordered such violence.117 He also provided evidence from Bulgarian
prisoners who stated, ‘Officiellement on n’avait pas donné l’ordre de tuer les
prisonniers, mais on le faisait toujours’ and show that ‘les officiers disaient
que les Serbes maltraitaient les gens et qu’il fallait se venger. Le sous-lieutenant
Topaloff a declare qu’il y avait un ordre disant qu’il ne faillait pas faire de
prisonniers et qu’il fallait tuer tous les Serbes.’118
Resettlements were also carried out to such an extent that even the
Bulgarian Bishop of Kicevo wrote a letter of protest to King Ferdinand I of
Bulgaria.119 However, Reiss stated that ‘no neutral country has protested’ and
claimed that the deportations did not happen because of labor shortages but
out of the ‘want to exterminate the Serbian nation.’120 Here he compared
it again to Belgium and Northern France where protest by neutrals and an
angry worldwide public opinion led to a change as ‘Germany was impressed
by this universal reprobation of her methods. She has begun to send back
these guiltless galley-slaves to their families.’121 So Reiss again raised the
question why no one did intervene in Serbia. Comparing the two cases he
argued that ‘the sufferings of Belgium are great, but they are far less than
what poor Serbia is called upon to endure under the yoke of her invaders,’
being surrounded by enemies and landlocked and cut off from help and
112
Ibid., p. 79f.
113
Reiss, Traitement des prisonniers et des blesses par les Germano-Bulgares, p. 32.
114
Ibid., pp. 33–35.
115
Ibid., pp. 41, 44, 47, 56, 58.
116
Josef Sramek, Diary of a Prisoner in World War I , p.15f, 50.
117
Reiss, Traitement des prisonniers et des blesses par les German-Bulgares, p. 84.
118
Ibid., pp. 77–78.
119
Reiss, Infringements of the Rules and Laws of War, p. 20.
120
Ibid., p. 90, he also states that the even the Turks “maltreated” better.
121
Ibid., p. 89.
supply from the Entente which did not permit food relief out of fear that the
Central powers could intercept it.122 So not even the famine resulted in an
outcry from the neutrals and Reiss blamed them:
long war has made the neutrals forget how to be roused. Coal, flour,
sugar, etc., matter more to them than the unspeakable sufferings of a
whole people. And yet I am certain that a vigorous act of protest on the
part of the neutrals would compel these barbarians to pay a little more
attention to the rules of modern civilization, since one cannot speak of
even the most elementary rules of humanity to these soulless creatures.
History will pass judgment upon this lack of courage.123
Before the signing of the Treaty of Neuilly, the ‘Documents relatives aux
violations des Conventions de la haye et du droit international en general,
comises da 1915–1918 par les Bulgares en Serbie ocupée’ stated that ‘anyone
unwilling to submit him or herself to the occupiers and become Bulgarian
was tortured, raped, interned, and killed in particularly gruesome manners,
some of which recorded photographically.’124
The choice between Bulgarization or being subject to violence is further
outlined by US journalist William Dayton whose testimony affirms that he
brought to light that the Bulgarians indisputably carried out bestiality

most repugnant and of most inhumane nature. Barbarian attitude toward
the civilian population, male or female, old or young, torture, plunder,
blackmail, brigandage, killings and sadism permeate the statements that
we collected. We are especially stressing that nowhere was there even
a trace of investigation. Bulgarians killed and tortured without mercy
whomever they wanted whenever they wanted. . . . They did it system-
atically and persistently throughout full three years. I am not saying that
every crime was carried out by a command, but I assert that organized
mass killings took place and that this terror, as such was inspired by
Bulgarian leaders and approved by the entire nation, with the clear goal
of Bulgarization of the land by exterminating the population.125
CONCLUSION: THE INVENTION OF THE MODERN CIVILIAN
Rudolf Archibald Reiss’ reporting did not lead to greater intervention by neu-
tral states. Nonetheless, he was part of a greater development towards neutral
journalists reporting on war crimes and raising global awareness. He became
122
Ibid., p. 94–95.
123
Ibid., p. 66.
124
Cited in Mojzes, Balkan Genocides, pp. 41–42.
125
Ibid., p. 43.
616 B. M. Scianna
involved in the fighting and found a new home in Serbia, changing his role
from ‘observing as a neutral’ to reporting from the trenches as a member. His
writings show that in 1914–15, the Austrian army did commit atrocities on a
large scale. Based on the findings, the nature of this seems to be situational;
excluding Bosnia, there was never an attempt at ethnic cleansing, high level
orders to exterminate the Serbian population, or a fight against ‘Serbianness’
per se. The violence was also spurred by mid-level orders and a pre-war,
structural mindset of encountering barbarians and treason. The suspicious
feelings were then combined with high casualties inflicted by a militarily
superior enemy. Frustration and the idée fixe of irregular resistance domi-
nated the causes for atrocities and brutal conduct of war. Certainly, there
was no violence for the sake of violence, where means would have over-
thrown the ends and deprived war of any positive goal, as Hull argued for
Imperial Germany’s evolution in conducting war.126 However, reports from
the Serbian retreat in 1915 show that each side struggled when it came to
properly treating prisoners of war. Further, as Gumz has argued, after an
early phase of chaotic reprisals the Austrians attempted to wage a “coun-
terinsurgency” campaign to prevent a fully fledged “people’s war” to save
the monarchical order and restrict the war in regard to its means and ends
to a framework of the ancient régime and prevent a war of annihilation.
The Bulgarian case is different. Taking into consideration the legacy of
the Balkan Wars, the character of the war from 1915 on and the occupation
had a distinct feature of ‘Bulgarization.’ Atrocities in regard to targets and to
methods lay along the same lines as in the Austrian case, yet the amount
of victims and the intentions weigh different. Large scale deportations and a
distinct Kulturkampf targeted the very soul of Serbianness and the treatment
of the residents of the occupation zones came close to ‘genocidal actions.’127
Leaving aside the question of guilt and reciprocal accusations, both
examples show a change in the normative perception of the ‘civilian’ and
irregularity. The fact that unconventional troops manifested an immense part
of the fighting capabilities besides the regular army certainly led to a greater
and faster blurring of the lines between combatants and non-combatants.
Besides losing 210,000 men of its armed forces, Serbia suffered an additional
300,000 civilian casualties out of a 3.1 million population.128 Reporters like
Reiss did not strengthen the position or protection of civilians, as the slaugh-
ter narratives often led to reciprocal violence. However, the civilian as a
term and legal subject underwent a change from the traditionalist approach
before the war to the codified subject of international law in the inter-bellum
period.
126
I. V. Hull, Absolute Destruction : Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany,
Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press, 2005, pp. 324–325.
127
Mojzes, Balkan Genocides, p. 41.
128
Figures from Kramer, Dynamic of Destruction, p. 143.
The propaganda battle and new technologies of war created debates

about more protection of non-combatants but also made them more vulner-
able. Thus, war indeed became more total as the barrier between military
and civil society, destruction and production, was breaking down and new
scales of mass mobilization in both spheres would irrevocably change social
participation and societal order.129 The order issued by the Belgian King, not
to resist by irregular means, and the British and American news reports in
1914 show the existing fear and likeliness of civilian resistance. The writings
of Reiss and others led to a change in interpreting the laws of war in a
much more protective manner than the traditionalist approach had outlined
them and stronger ‘than they had been understood to be by all European
nations before the war.’130 The civilian as a threat was reinterpreted in the
laws of war, becoming a main component that had to be protected; thus, the
German actions were deemed illegitimate. Aerial developments, however,
provided an option to focus on civilians as targets, besides the ‘feminizing’

vulnerability aspect which created a certain paradox of civilians as desirable
targets and victims to be protected.131 In this respect, the Western front again
is an anomaly in World War I where aircraft were mainly used for tactical
support of ground operations. An extension to bomb civilian conglomerates
à l’outrage was not only prevented by fears of reciprocal reprisals and an
objection to bombing civilians, but also as simple calculation and doctrinal
procedures that saw airpower as not useful in strategic operations.132 The
incidents described by Reiss show no such restraint in the Serbian theatre
of war.
The ‘Totalization’ of war can be analyzed in comparing the two periods
examined. Targeting the state, culture, and people as such swept aside all
considerations of the jus publicum Europaeum (Schmitt). Terror was used as
a tool that ‘purposely threaten[ed] to breach a cardinal principle of just-war
thinking, that of non-combatant immunity.’133 The debates and the reeval-
uation of jus ad bellum went hand in hand with a radical restructuring of
the jus in bello and the characters taking place in it. Consequently, the def-
inition of a justus hostis was redefined by transforming the civilian and the
irregular character, which in many cases led to terror and counter-terror, up
to annihilation.134 Herein lies the importance of Reiss in describing a vital
period that links the 19th and 20th centuries’ ‘way of war’ in Europe.
129
Geyer, The Militarization of Europe 1914–45 (65–110), here pp. 74–75, in Gillis, The Militarization
of the Western World.
130
Alexander, The Genesis of the Civilian, Leiden Journal of International Law, 20 (2007),
pp. 359–376, here p. 369.
131
Ibid., p. 376.
132
L. Barros, ‘Strategic Bombing and Restraint in “Total War”, 1915–1918,’The Historic Journal 52
(2009), pp. 413–431, here pp. 430–431.
133
H. Strachan, ‘Essay and Reflection: On Total War and Modern War,’ The International History
Review 22 (June 2000), pp. 341–370, here p. 356.
134
C. Schmitt, Theory of the Partisan: Intermediate Commentary on the Concept of the Political,
New York, Telos Press Pub, 2007, p. 51.

Reporting Atrocities Archibald Reiss in PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Reporting Atrocities Archibald Reiss in PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

This article was downloaded by: [LSE Library]

On: 25 November 2012, At: 07:43

The Journal of Slavic Military Studies

Reporting Atrocities: Archibald Reiss in

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13518046.2012.730395

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Reporting Atrocities: Archibald Reiss

BASTIAN MATTEO SCIANNA

Archibald Reiss reporting on atrocities during World War I in

‘Devant la crime, personne ne doit rester neutre.’

When, in August 1914, hostilities between Austria-Hungary and Serbia broke

plans. After a short imprisonment, the Austrians decided in an old chivalrous

be treated ruthlessly — for it was these treacherous, civilian belligerents

Additionally, these ‘rules’ and customs of war constituted a mix of inner

THE EXPERIENCE OF WAR: 1914/15

Nikola Petrovic, the Serbian consul in Geneva, happened to know Reiss’

tive and poor training31 , advanced into an unfavorable territory against

Additionally, the Habsburg soldiers had in mind an expectation of cru-

played in the Austrians’ mindset of facing a generally rebellious population

in consequence of the hostile attitude of the population of Klenak

This already constitutes a certain connectedness between situational aspects

on 7 and 8 August, being in command of the advance sentries, my rounds

Furthermore, the evidence provided by civilians shows again beatings,

It is therefore not unreasonable to link these pictures that come up in one’s

Habsburg Empire and thus a propaganda of hatred became necessary to

nity of observing on a small scale. Once the blood-thirsty and licentious

Nonetheless he argued that the ‘responsibility for these acts of cruelty

taking arbitrarily civilians as hostages were already blurred.

THE ‘SERBIAN GOLGOTHA’ AND THE SWISS INTERLUDE

A new Austro-Hungarian offensive led to a breakthrough and the subse-

Reiss argued against slaughter narratives and cruelties committed by

L’armée Potiorek a voulu faire une guerre d’extermination et les troupes

strong emphasis on morale, psychology and the internal life of an army.84

THE ACTIVE FIGHTER AGAINST ‘BULGARIZATION’

showing tendencies towards ‘modern slaughter,’ where modern technology

Serbian military activities in Macedonia have taken on the character

the former Bulgarian occupation zone. Sofia’s policies are portrayed as an

other bombs were dropped at random on various quarters of the town.

In addition, he noted again the ‘mania for execution picture postcards’

and Josef Sramek.116

brought to light that the Bulgarians indisputably carried out bestiality

CONCLUSION: THE INVENTION OF THE MODERN CIVILIAN

The propaganda battle and new technologies of war created debates

provided an option to focus on civilians as targets, besides the ‘feminizing’

You might also like