Page:Diary of a Prisoner in World War I by Josef Šrámek.pdf/123

 Clarion Foreword Review

At the start of World War I, Josef Šrámek, a young Czech textile worker, found himself drafted into the Austrian army. As part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Czechoslovakia fell under the empire's rule, and the twenty-twoyear-old had no alternative but to serve. Loyal to the Czech national movement, Šrámek wanted nothing to do with the Austrian cause, but he had no choice. From the day he finished basic training in 1914 through the end of August 1916, he kept a diary, which his grandson Tomáš Svoboda has now translated and published as Diary of a Prisoner in World War I. The book offers an astonishing view of one soldier's tremendously challenging, disheartening, and life-threatening experiences during a war that he and many others never wanted and never understood.

"We are going to kill people who have done us no wrong," Šrámek starts. "It is hard for me to part with our beautiful homeland." Hiking from Plzeň to the Serbian front, he encounters the first of many hardships. Extreme heat followed by deep mud, lack of food and water, and dysentery and lice make the trek almost impossible. After only two weeks, he admits, "I cannot go any farther. I am out of strength." The war has not yet even started for his battalion, yet the troops are already