Abstract
Austro-Hungarian authorities employed censorship and propaganda throughout the war to keep the soldiers on the fronts as well as the civilians at home optimistic and loyal. Nevertheless, exchange of information between the front and the home front occurred. By the end of 1917, a new element was added to information exchange. Thousands of former POWs began returning from Russian camps. To prevent the spread of revolutionary Bolshevik ideas among the Habsburg civilian population and in the army, the Ministry of War and the Army High Command created a department responsible for the returning soldiers, the Heimkehrwesen. Habsburg Romanian military chaplains were among those officials who examined the returning soldiers’ physical and mental condition. Soldiers needed a “positive” evaluation before they were permitted to return home or were sent to the fighting front. This article analyzes how the Romanian military chaplains coped with this secular duty in addition to their pastoral obligations. The priests were more successful in acquainting the soldiers, mostly of peasant background, with theology, than with gaining and regaining support for and loyalty to the emperor and monarchy through subtle propaganda. Partial explanations for their failure: the emperor and the Fatherland were no longer considered symbols of security, peace and well-being.
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