The diary Dr Isaak Barasch kept while serving in the
Austro-Hungarian army on the Italian front during the First World
War gives the reader a remarkable insight into the conflict and
into the man himself. Few personal accounts of service on the
Italian front have been published in English and diaries from the
Habsburg side are rarer still, so his writing is exceptional. He
doesn't record military actions and manoeuvres in detail, but
concentrates on his own reflections and feelings as he coped with
the sick and wounded on the front line. He is often angry with the
army and the war, but never expresses jingoistic hatred of the
enemy. His indignation is directed at superiors, at commanders and
politicians who know nothing of the terror of the fighting. When
reproached for being too sensitive and insufficiently hardened, he
noted that his biggest worry was how to remain untouched -how to
retain his humanity. Eventually Barasch's sensitivity -and his
resistance to authority -led to his being placed in a psychiatric
hospital, and he died during the influenza pandemic of 1918\. But
his unique account has been preserved and is now available in
English for the first time. It is engrossing reading. It shows one
man's honest, often emotional response to the experience of the war
on the Italian front and offers a very rare inside view of life in
the Austro-Hungarian army.
General
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