Bolest i rat: Liječenje bosanskohercegovačkih vojnika u toku Prvog svjetskog rata

The organization of healthcare posed a significant challenge for the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy during the years of the First World War. Poor and scarce nutrition which was mostly carbohydrate-based and of low nutritional value, posed additional problems since it significantly weakened the immune system. Minimal meal portions, and, quite often, inability to even provide meals, resulted in widespread malnutrition among soldiers, sometimes leading to fatal outcomes. The lack of drinking water, intense fatigue and exhaustion, severe psychological conditions and a general sense of uncertainty, coupled with the inability to maintain hygiene practices, paved the way for various infectious diseases. The lack of disinfectants, as well as problems with the supply of clean clothing, footwear and undergarments, further facilitated the spread of various pathogenic organisms. Considering the noted social difficulties, which reflected the hardships of wartime and intense military conflicts, controlling sanitary conditions among the troops of the Double-Headed Eagle was an exceptionally challenging task. The first part of this paper aims to present the greatest challenges faced by Bosnian-Herzegovinian military units on the front lines and the infectious diseases (both acute and chronic) they most commonly suffered from. Loneliness, prolonged separation from partners and wives, and the daily horrors of war not only led to a general decline in morale among the troops but also contributed to various neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders. Research by prominent military psychiatrists who treated army units on the front lines during the First World War serves as a valuable historical source in this regard. Using these studies and the rarely preserved letters that Bosnian-Herzegovinian soldiers sent to their families during the war, this paper seeks to explore how everyday fears, anxieties, and the horrors of war impacted the mental health of soldiers. Given the fact that Bosnian-Herzegovinian military units were a valuable “tool” for achieving the various political, national, and ideological goals of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, as well as defending their borders in the context of the global conflict, the paper also examines the government's efforts to care for the sick and wounded. It aims to reconstruct how medical care functioned on the battlefield and the greatest challenges faced by Austro-Hungarian medical services. In wartime conditions, the merging of military and civilian health services effectively meant that military troops were allowed to be treated in civilian hospitals. Some civilian hospitals were entirely converted into military facilities due to extreme demand. In analyzing the healthcare strategies employed by the Monarchy for treating military units in the second phase (after soldiers were evacuated from the battlefield), the final section of this paper attempts to identify the challenges faced by Bosnian-Herzegovinian municipal, district, and the central National Hospital in Sarajevo. As military troops arrived from the front in large numbers via transport trains, one of the most significant problems for the overstretched healthcare system, nearing collapse, was the lack of hospital accommodations. The military personnel who were sick and wounded, along with other patients treated in these institutions, could not all be hospitalized. Whether the Austro-Hungarian authorities, represented in the Bosnian-Herzegovinian province by the National Government, resorted to temporary measures or sought to implement long-term and effective solutions is a question addressed in the epilogue of this research task.