1

GOOD SOLDIER ŠVEJK ACTS TO INTERVENE IN
THE WORLD WAR

In addition to this occupation he was plagued by rheumatism and was just now rubbing his knees with camphor ice.

“Which Ferdinand, missis Müller?” asked Švejk, continuing to massage his knees, “I know two Ferdinands. One is the pharmacist Průša’s¹⁰ servant and he once drank up a bottle of some hair potion there by mistake, and then I also know the one Ferdinand Kokoška, who collects those dog turds. Neither one would be of any loss.”

“But merciful Sir, the lord Archduke Ferdinand, the one from Konopiště¹¹, the fat one, the pious one.”

“Jesusmaria,” yelled Švejk, “that’s good. And where did it befall him, the lord Archduke?”

“They whacked him in Sarajevo, merciful Sir, with a revolver, you know. He was riding there with that Archduchess¹² of his in an automobile.”

“There you have it, missis Müller, in an automobile. Yeah, a lord like that can afford it, and it doesn’t even cross his mind how such a ride in an automobile can have an unfortunate ending. And in Sarajevo on top of it, that’s in Bosnia, missis Müller. The Turks probably did it. In short, we shouldn’t have taken that Bosnia and Hercegovina¹³ from them. So see, missis Müller. He is then, the lord Archduke, resting in the truth of the Lord¹⁴ already. Did he suffer long?”

“The lord Archduke was done for right away, merciful Sir. They¹⁵ know that with a revolver it’s no child’s play. Not long ago, a man in our Nusle neighborhood¹⁶ was also playing with a revolver and blasted away the whole family, even the custodian, who went to take a look to see who’s shooting there on the third floor.”

“Some revolvers, missis Müller, won’t go bang, even if you were to lose your mind trying to make them. There are many such systems. But for the lord Archduke they surely bought something better, and I would also like to bet, missis Müller, that the man who did it to him, dressed nicely for it. You know, taking a shot at the lord Archduke is a very tough job. It’s not like a poacher taking a shot at the game warden. Here the problem is how to get to him, you can’t go hunting a lord like that in some rags. You have to go with a top hat on so a cop wouldn’t pinch you beforehand.”

“There were more of them, they say, merciful Sir.”

“That goes without saying, missis Müller,” said Švejk, as he finished massaging his knees, “if you wanted to kill the lord Archduke or the lord Emperor¹⁷, then you would surely consult somebody. More people means more brains. This one will advise this, that one that, and then the job will succeed, as it says in our anthem¹⁸. The main thing is to lie in wait for that moment, at which such lord is riding by. Like, if they recall that mister Lucheni¹⁹, who ran that file through our late Elizabeth²⁰. He was strolling with her. Then go trust somebody; since that time no empress goes out for a stroll. And this awaits many others. You’ll see, missis Müller, that they’ll even get to that Czar and Czarina²¹, and could be, God forbid, even lord Emperor, since they have already started it with his nephew. He has, the old man, a lot of enemies. Even more than that Ferdinand. Just like the other day a man at the pub was saying, that the time will come, that those emperors will be dropping dead, one after the other, and that even all the state prosecutors won’t be able to help. Then he didn’t have enough to cover his tab, so the pubkeeper had to get him pinched. And he slapped him across the face once and the patrolman twice. Then they drove him away in a košatinka²², so he’d come to. Yeah, missis Müller, the things that happen nowadays. It’s again a big loss for Austria. When I was in the military service, an infantryman there shot a captain dead. He loaded a rifle and went to the office. There they told him that he had no business there, but he kept insisting that he needed to talk to mister captain. That captain came out and right away slapped him with confinement to the barracks. He raised the rifle and plugged him right in the heart. The bullet flew out of the captain’s back and still managed to do damage in the office. It broke a bottle of ink, which spilled onto official documents.”

“And what happened to that soldier?” asked after a while missis Müller, as Švejk was dressing.

“He hanged himself on suspenders,” said Švejk, cleaning his bowler. “And the suspenders weren’t even his. He borrowed them from the prison guard, that his pants were falling down. Was he to wait until they shoot him dead? They know missis Müller that in a situation like that everyone’s head spins. The prison guard was demoted for it and they gave him six months. But he didn’t do all of his time. He ran off to Switzerland²³ and today he is a preacher of some church denomination there. Nowadays there are few honest people, missis Müller. I imagine that the lord Archduke Ferdinand over there in Sarajevo misjudged the man, who shot him²⁴. He saw some man and thought: There’s an upright man, since he’s chanting glory to me. And instead that mister plugged him. Did he give him one or several?”

“The newspaper writes, merciful Sir, that the lord Archduke was like a sieve. He emptied the gun and hit him with all the bullets.”

“It goes extremely fast, missis Müller, terribly fast. For something like that, I’d buy a Browning²⁵. It looks like a toy, but in two minutes you can mow down twenty archdukes, thin or fat ones. Although between you and me, missis Müller, you’ll hit a fat lord archduke more likely than a thin one. If they recall how that time in Portugal they mowed down their own king²⁶. He too was such a fat one. You know that a king is not going to be skinny, after all. I’m now going to The Chalice pub then, and should somebody come for that little ratter, which I took a down payment for, they tell him it’s in my kennel in the country, that I recently clipped its ears and that it can’t be transported until the ears heal, so they wouldn’t catch cold. The key you leave with the custodian woman.”

At The Chalice pub there was sitting only one guest. He was the plainclothes patrolman Bretschneider, standing in service for the State Police²⁷. The pubkeeper Palivec was washing porcelain coasters and Bretschneider was in vain trying to engage him in a serious conversation.

Palivec was a well-known foul mouth, every other word of his was butt or shit. Still, he was well-read and urged everyone to read what wrote about the last item Victor Hugo²⁸ when describing the last answer Napoleon’s Old Guard gave the English in the battle at Waterloo²⁹.

“That’s a nice summer we’re having,” initiated his serious conversation Bretschneider.

“It’s all worth shit,” replied Palivec, putting his coasters away among the glassware.

“They sure did it to us nicely over there in Sarajevo,” piped up with a weak hope Bretschneider.

“In what Sarajevo?” asked Palivec, “that wine bar in Nusle? There they fight every day, you know, Nusle.”

“In the Bosnian Sarajevo, mister pubkeeper. They shot there the lord Archduke Ferdinand dead. What do you say to that?”

“I don’t get myself mixed up in such things; regarding that everybody can kiss my ass,” answered politely mister Palivec, lighting up his pipe, “nowadays getting mixed up in it could break anybody’s neck. I’m a small businessman, when somebody comes in and orders a beer, then I draw it for him. But some Sarajevo, politics or the late Archduke, that’s nothing for us, it holds no promise, but Pankrác³⁰.”

Bretschneider turned silent and was in disappointment looking around the deserted pub.

“There used to hang a picture of our lord Emperor here,” he let himself be heard again after a while, “right where the mirror hangs now.”

Yeah, you’re right,” answered mister Palivec, “it used to hang there and the flies kept shitting on it, so I put it in the attic. You know well, somebody could dare to make some remark and it could result in unpleasant difficulties. Do you think I need that?”

“Over there in that Sarajevo it must had been probably ugly, mister pubkeeper.”

To this sneakily direct question mister Palivec replied with unusual caution:

“Around this time in Bosnia and Hercegovina it is usually terribly hot. When I served there, they used to have to put ice on our senior lieutenant’s head.”

“Which regiment did you serve with, mister pubkeeper?”

“I don’t recall such trifle, I was never interested in such bullshit and couldn’t be less curious about it,” replied mister Palivec, “too much curiosity is detrimental.”

The plainclothes patrolman became definitely silent and his gloomy expression improved only upon the arrival of Švejk, who, having entered the pub, ordered himself a dark beer with this remark:

“In Vienna today they are also in mourning,” said Švejk. Bretschneider’s eyes lit up with full hope; he said succinctly:

“At Konopiště there are ten black pennants.”

“There should be twelve of them,” said Švejk, when he took a swig.

“Why do you think twelve?” asked Bretschneider.

“To make it fit the count, the dozen, it’s easier to count and by dozens one always gets it more cheaply,” answered Švejk.

Silence reigned, which Švejk himself broke with a sigh:

“So he is there already, in the truth of the Lord, give him eternal glory Lord God. He didn’t even live to be Emperor. When I was serving in the military, then one of our generals fell off his horse and got himself killed quite calmly. They wanted to help him back into the saddle, give him a boost, and were surprised that he was totally dead. And he was also to be promoted to Field Marshal. It happened during a parade review of the troops. These reviews never lead to any good. In Sarajevo there was also some kind of parade review. I remember that at one time, I was missing during such a parade review twenty buttons on my uniform and that they locked me up because of it in solitary for two weeks, and for two days I was lying still like lazar³¹, hogtied. But there has to be discipline in the military, otherwise nobody would take anything seriously or fear anything. Our Senior Lieutenant, Makovec, he would always tell us: ‘Discipline, you stupid boys, must be enforced, otherwise you would be climbing trees like monkeys, but military service will turn you into humans, you stupid idiots.’ And isn’t that the truth? Imagine a park, let’s say Charlie’s³², and in every tree one soldier without discipline. That’s what I always feared most.”

“Over there in that Sarajevo,” returned to the thread Bretschneider, “it was the Serbs, who did it.”

“You are mistaken,” retorted Švejk, “the Turks did it, on account of Bosnia and Hercegovina.”

And Švejk expounded his opinion of Austria’s international policy in the Balkans. The Turks lost in 1912 to Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. They had wanted Austria to help them, and when that didn’t happen, they shot Ferdinand.

“Do you like Turks?” Švejk asked, turning to Palivec, “do you like those pagan dogs? You don’t, right?”

“A guest is a guest,” said Palivec, “even a Turk. For us, who are in business for ourselves, politics has no currency. Pay for your beer and sit in the pub, and babble all you want. That is my principle. Whether it was a Serb or a Turk, who did it to our Ferdinand, or a Catholic, Mohammedan, anarchist, or Young Czech³³, it’s all the same to me.”

“Alright, mister pubkeeper,” let himself be heard Bretschneider, who was again losing hope that either of the two could be caught, “but you will admit, that it is a great loss for Austria.”

Instead of the pubkeeper answered Švejk:

“A loss it is, that cannot be denied. A terrible loss. Ferdinand can’t be replaced by some dimwit. Only he should had been still fatter.”

“How do you mean that?” said the revived Bretschneider.

“How do I mean that?” answered contentedly Švejk. “Altogether only like this. Had he been fatter, then he would surely had been hit with a stroke before this, when he was chasing after those broads at Konopiště, when they were collecting twigs and mushroom in his forest district there, and he didn’t have to die such a shameful death. When I think about it, a nephew of the lord Emperor, and they shoot him dead. Now that’s scandalous, the newspapers are full of it. Years ago, in our Budějovice, they stabbed during one of those petty arguments in the marketplace a livestock dealer, some Břetislav Ludvík. He had a son Bohuslav, and wherever he came to sell pigs, nobody bought anything from him and everyone would say: ‘That’s the son of the one, who was stabbed, he too is probably quite a scoundrel.’ He had to jump from that bridge in Krumlov³⁴ into the Vltava³⁵ and they had to pull him out, they had to try reviving him, had to be pumping water out of him and he had to die in the doctor’s arms, when he gave him some injection.”

“You sure come up with odd comparisons,” said Bretschneider meaningfully, “you speak first about Ferdinand and then about a livestock dealer.”

“But I don’t,” was Švejk defending himself, “God spare me from wanting to compare anybody to somebody else. Mister pubkeeper knows me. Say that I have never compared anybody to somebody else, right? I just wouldn’t want to be in the skin of the widow left by the Archduke. What now is she going to do? The children are orphans, the lord’s estate at Konopiště without its master. And to be marrying again some new archduke? What’s in it for her? She’ll go with him to Sarajevo again, and she’ll be widowed the second time. There was in Zliv³⁶ by Hluboká years ago a gamekeeper, he had such an ugly name, Littlepecker. Poachers shot him dead and he left a widow with two little children and a year later she again married a gamekeeper, the Šavels’ Pepík from Mydlovary³⁷. And they shot him dead for her too. Then she married for the third time and again took a gamekeeper for husband and said: ‘Third time lucky. If it doesn’t work out this time, I don’t know any more what I’ll do.’ It figures that they shot him dead for her again, and by now she had had six children altogether with those gamekeepers. She went all the way to the office of the Prince of Hluboká³⁸ and complained that she had had torment with those gamekeepers. So they recommended fishpond warden Jareš from the Ražice³⁹ pond ward cottage. And what would you say, they drowned him for her while fishing out the pond, and she’d had two children with him. Then she married a gelder from Vodňany, and he whacked her with an ax one night and went to turn himself in voluntarily. When they were then hanging him at the district courthouse in Písek⁴⁰, he bit off the priest’s nose and said that he had no remorse for anything, and he also said something very ugly about the lord Emperor.”

“And would you know what he said about him?” asked Bretschneider in a voice full of hope.

“That I cannot tell you, because no one dared to repeat it. But it was, it is said, something so terrible and dreadful that a councilor of the court, who was there, lost his mind over it and until this day they keep him in isolation so that it won’t come out. It was not just a common insult to the lord Emperor, the kind made while drunk.”

“And what kind of insults to the lord Emperor are made while drunk?” asked Bretschneider.

“I beg you, gentlemen, turn the page,” sounded up the pubkeeper Palivec, “you know, I don’t like it. This or that is blabbered out and then man regrets it.”

“What kind of insults to the lord Emperor are made while drunk?” repeated Švejk. “All kinds. Get drunk, have them play the Austrian anthem and you’ll see what you start saying. You will make up so much about the lord Emperor, that if only half of it were true, it would be enough for him to live in shame for the rest of his life. But the old man really doesn’t deserve it. Let’s take this. He lost his son Rudolf⁴¹ at a very young age, full of manly vitality. His wife Elizabeth they ran through with a file, then he lost Johann Orth⁴², and the brother, Mexican Emperor⁴³, they shot dead in some fortress by some wall. Now again, in his old age, they blew away his nephew. Given all that, a man better have nerves of steel. And then out of the blue some drunk decides to start calling him names. If something were to break out today, I would volunteer and serve the lord Emperor until my body was torn to pieces.”

Švejk took a thorough swig and continued:

“You think that the lord Emperor will let this go? Then you know him very little. There must be a war with the Turks. You’ve killed my nephew, so here comes your kickass beatdown. A war is guaranteed. Serbia and Russia will help us in that war. It will be a rumble.”

Švejk appeared beautiful in that prophetic moment. His simple-minded face, smiley like a full moon, shone with enthusiasm. To him everything was clear.

“May be,” he continued his exposition of Austria’s future, “that in case of a war with Turkey, the Germans will attack us, because Germans and Turks stick together. They’re such bitches, that they don’t have an equal in the world. However, we can join with France, which has it in for Germany since 1871. And that’ll get it going already. There will be war, I’ll say no more to you.”

Bretschneider stood up and said ceremonially:

“You don’t have to say any more, come with me to the hallway, I’ll tell you something there.”

Švejk followed the plainclothes patrolman into the hallway, where a small surprise awaited him, as the beer drinking companion showed him the little eagle badge and proclaimed that he was arresting him and would immediately take him to the police headquarters. Švejk tried to explain that the gentleman was probably mistaken, that he was totally innocent, that he had not uttered even one word, which could have offended anyone.

Bretschneider however told him, that he had really committed several criminal offenses, among which was numbered even the crime of high treason.

Then they returned to the pub and Švejk said in the direction of mister Palivec:

“I’ve had five beers and one roll with a sausage. Now give me a shot of slivovitz to boot and I have to go already, because I’m under arrest.”

Bretschneider showed mister Palivec the little eagle, for a moment was looking at mister Palivec and then asked:

“Are you married?”

“I am.”

“And can your wife run the business in your place during your absence?”

“She can.”

“So it’s all right mister pubkeeper,” cheerfully said Bretschneider, “call your wife here, turn it over to her and we’ll drive by tonight to pick you up.”

“Don’t let it make you feel bad,” Švejk was consoling him, “I’m being taken in only for high treason.”

“But what for I?” lamented mister Palivec. “I was so careful, after all.”

Bretschneider flashed a smile and triumphantly said:

“For having said that the flies kept shitting on the lord Emperor. They will, no doubt, knock that lord Emperor out of your head.”

And Švejk left The Chalice pub under the escort of the plainclothes patrolman, whom, having followed his face with his good-hearted smile, he asked, once they walked out into the street:

“Should I get off the sidewalk?”

“Why so?”

“I’m thinking that, since I’m under arrest, I don’t have the right to walk on the sidewalk.”

As they were entering the gate of the police headquarters, Švejk said:

“The time went by quite nicely for us. Do you come often to The Chalice?”

And while they were taking Švejk to the arraignment office, at The Chalice mister Palivec was handing over the pub to his weeping wife, soothing her in his own peculiar way:

“Don’t cry, don’t bawl, what can they do to me on account of a shitty picture of the lord Emperor?”

And so the good soldier Švejk intervened in the World War in his lovable, charming manner. Historians will be interested to know that he saw far into the future. If the situation later developed differently from how he was expounding it at The Chalice, we have to keep in mind that he hadn’t had preparatory education in diplomacy.

Endnotes

⁹ [Franz] Ferdinand was a nephew of Emperor Franz Joseph I and, from 1896 to 1914, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. He was murdered in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 together with his wife Duchess Sophie, an event that eventually led to the outbreak of World War I. His full name was Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria von Österreich-Este. He owned Konopiště castle by Benešov where the family spent much of their time.

Franz Ferdinand's political views were relatively liberal; he opposed preventive warfare against Serbia, and he advocated making Austria-Hungary a three-pillar federal state where the Slav nations were put on an equal footing with Germans and Hungarians. [honsi.org]

¹⁰ Průša was the owner of Drogerie Průša at Tylovo náměstí (Tyl’s square) in Vinohrady. Jaroslav Hašek worked here as an apprentice from March 1898 (or later) until September 1899. Exactly when he started is not known, but it happened after he had been dismissed at drogerie Kokoška.

The pharmacist was born in Votice in 1862, was married to Mathilde (b. 1872) and they had the son Rudolf. The family moved to Vinohrady in 1893. Otherwise we know little about him but newspaper adverts reveal that his store existed at least until 1915, the year Průša died. In 1916 Čech reported that his widow had been the victim of fraud, but that the culprit had been arrested and sentenced to 5 months in prison. From the death protocols it transpires that Průša died from a brain stroke, that he suffered from diabetes and lived at Vinohrady čp. 603 when he passed away.

Adverts from a chemist's Fr. Průša appeared already in 1890 but then from Kamenice nad Lipou. That said there is no doubt that this Průša is the same person as police registers reveal that the son Rudolf was born in the very Kamenice in 1893.

Průša is the first of countless examples of how the author pulled in fragments from his own experiences to create the backdrop for the novel. Even Průša who appears to be a fictional person, is drawn from real life. This is probably the case with most of the apparently fictional figures in the novel. Their role might have been distorted or mystified but the names were rarely thought up. [honsi.org]

¹¹ Konopiště is a village and castle by Benešov that was owned from 1887 to 1914 by Archduke Franz Ferdinand, then Austrian heir to the throne. [honsi.org]

¹³ Bosnia-Hercegovina was (and is) the political entity consisting of Bosnia and Hercegovina. The area was annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908. This led to widespread dissatisfaction among Serbs and is arguably the main reason for the grievances that led terrorists to plot and carry out the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand six years later. [honsi.org]

¹⁴ In the increasingly apostate western society, in which once common Biblical concepts were widely understood, I was gently alerted that an explanation is in order here. Even the original Czech expression “být už na pravdě Boží” is marked as “outdated” in the Academic dictionary of contemporary Czech, published by the Institute for the Czech Language of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. And it wasn’t even included in the Dictionary of Standard Literary Czech Language (1960–1971). The term is a euphemism for “to be dead” according to the dictionary entry. No wonder it’s not understood. It is actually a euphemism for “passed away”. (The only equivalent for that expression I know of is “odebrat se na onen svět”, “to repair/betake oneself into that [other] world”.) The difference being that “passing away” implies dual nature of human life and life after death. Specifically, the immortal soul passes from the material body, which starts decomposing, into the presence of God. (30% of Czechs are atheists and 41% “non-religious” for a combined score that puts them in the third place behind Sweden, bested by the Swedes by mere 1%, and ahead of the Brits by 3%. The list is headed by China with 90%.)

Now to the point of why such a euphemism for “being dead” or “passed away”, depending on your world-view:

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6

“I was greatly delighted to find some of your children walking in truth, just as we have been commanded by the Father.” 2 John 1:4

Followers of Jesus strive to walk in truth given to them by Him. Once they pass away, they have reached the goal and are fully in the truth of the Lord Himself. [Translator’s note]

¹⁵ The italicized ‘They’ or ‘they’ and their morphological variants indicate, that they are used instead of ‘you’, when addressing a stranger or showing respect to age, position, or maintaining distance. [Translator’s note]

¹⁶ Nusle was from 1898 a town in the Prague conurbation that grew rapidly during the industrial revolution. In 1922 it became part of greater Prague. The capital Prague (so-called Great Prague) was established on January 1, 1922 by annexing 37 municipalities and settlements. In addition to Nusle, all these, mentioned in Book One, are among them: Podolí, Vinohrady, Dejvice, Motol, Karlín, Vršovice, Smíchov, Žižkov, Malešice, and Košíře. [honsi.org]

The emperor-king suffered a number of personal tragedies: the oldest daughter died when she was two, his brother Maximilian was executed in Mexico, his son and heir Crown Prince Rudolf committed suicide, Sisi was murdered, and in 1914 his nephew Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo. The emperor was rather unpopular among Czechs because he refused to be crowned as king of Bohemia. [honsi.org]

¹⁸ It is found in the fourth stanza of the 1854-1918 version of the Astro-Hungarian anthem, “Mit vereinter Kräfte Walten, Wird das Schwere leicht vollbracht” (nationalanthems.info), i.e. “Done with united forces, the hard will be accomplished easily”. [Translator’s note]

¹⁹ Lucheni was a French-born anarchist of Italian descent, who lived most of his life in Switzerland. He murdered Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary in Geneva in 1898. He was given a life sentence (Switzerland had abolished the death penalty) and later committed suicide in prison. [honsi.org]

Elisabeth was the second eldest daughter of duke Maximilian Joseph of Bayern of the royal Bavarian Wittelsbach dynasty, one of eight siblings. Only 17 years old she married her cousin Emperor Franz Joseph I in what could be described as a dynastically arranged marriage. The couple had four children, but mostly lived separate lives. After Ausgleich (the Vienna Accord of 1867 that put Hungary on an equal footing with Austria and in practical term led to the creation of the Dual Monarchy), she was crowned queen of Hungary on 8 June 1867.

The empress/queen was very popular and has over the years acquired a status as a legend. She has been the focus of countless books, films, plays, and animations. [honsi.org]

²¹ The Russian equivalent of emperor and empress, who used to rule Russia until 1917:

Nicholas was a Tsar (Emperor) of the Romanov dynasty and the last monarch of Russia. His reign lasted from 1894 to 1917, when on March 15 he was forced to step down after the February Revolution. He was from September 1915 commander-in-chief of Russia's armed forces after replacing his cousin Nicholas Nikolaevich. On July 17th 1918 he and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks, an event which is regarded as one of the most significant political murders in recent history.

Nicholas was regarded a weak and inept ruler, but has since 1990 seen a certain postmortem rehabilitation. He was officially buried in 1998 and in 2000 he was declared a saint by the Russian-Orthodox church.

A paradox is that Jaroslav Hašek in 1916 and 1917 advocated czarist rule and even proposed that a Romanov prince ascend the Czech throne after the foreseen victory in the war and the subsequent break-up of Austria-Hungary. [honsi.org]

Alexandra was Empress of Russia from 1894 to 1917, married to Tsar Nicholas II. She was executed together with her family in Yekaterinburg (Екатеринбу́рг). [honsi.org]

In addition, Switzerland was at times during the war a place of refuge for Professor Masaryk and other Czechs who worked for national independence. [honsi.org]

It was Princip who fired the lethal bullets after several attempts had failed in the preceding minutes. Princip unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide and was immediately arrested.

The trial started in Sarajevo on October 12^th 1914, and on the 28^th, the verdict fell. Some of the conspirators were handed death sentences, but Princip was convicted to life imprisonment as he was too young for capital punishment.

He died in jail in Terezín already in 1918. Thus, he never lived to see the greater Serbia that Yugoslavia, in many ways, became. [honsi.org]

²⁵ [John Moses] Browning was an American firearms designer. He made pistols, rifles, shotguns and machine guns. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed with a Belgian-made Browning semi-automatic pistol (FN Model 1910). [honsi.org]

The king had indeed, as Švejk said, become quite fat in his later years. He was however killed by rifle shots, and not with a Browning. [honsi.org]

Jaroslav Hašek had intimate knowledge of the state police, originating from his period as an anarchist activist (from 1904). His most celebrated encounter with them was after his famous hoax at U Valšů on November 24^th 1914 where he registered as a Russian trader, ostensibly to test the vigilance of the Austrian security service. He was let off with only 5 days in jail which he served immediately.

During the war the eyes of the State Police again fell on Jaroslav Hašek. It happened after the author on June 17^th 1916 published a story in Čechoslovan where he lets a tomcat soil pictures of the emperor. This led to charges of high treason and an arrest order was issued. Several of the other stories he wrote also aroused interest at home. They were translated to German for the benefit of the investigators and led to a lively exchange between the police headquarters in Prague and Vienna. [honsi.org]

³⁰ Věznice Pankrác (Pankrác Prison), officially c.k. penitentiary for men in Prague, was at the time a large penitentiary for men, and "pankrác" is almost synonymous with “prison” in Czech slang. The prison is named after the Pankrác district where it is located. Construction started in 1885 and was complete in 1889. It was at the time a modern prison with good conditions for the inmates. In Austrian times the prison mostly housed dangerous male criminals but also saw the odd political prisoner. The prison later became the scene of executions and 1,580 persons were killed; 1,087 of them during the Nazi occupation. During Communist rule starting 1948 another few hundred were executed. [honsi.org]

The medieval structure of the town has been preserved and it is on the world heritage list of UNESCO. It has become a major tourist attraction.

According to the 1910 census, Krumlov had 8,716 inhabitants, of whom 1,295 (14 per cent) reported using Czech as their everyday language. The judicial district was okres Krumlov, administratively it reported to hejtmanství (administrative district) Krumlov.[honsi.org]

During the summer of 1896 (or 1897), Hašek's mother Kateřina took the children on a trip to the area around Protivín to visit relatives. Both his parents were from this area. They visited Zliv, Mydlovary, Hluboká, Budějovice, Putim, Skočice, Krč, Protivín, Ražice, and Vodňany. All of these places appear in The Good Soldier Švejk and some of them even in the short stories.

In the spring of 1915 Jaroslav Hašek reportedly appeared in Zliv again, now on an unauthorized "excursion" from the Budějovice garrison. [honsi.org]

The fact that his father was born in Mydlovary is significant. This meant that Jaroslav Hašek had right of domicile here so he, just like his literary hero, was drafted into Infantry Regiment No. 91. [honsi.org]

Hluboká is a small town in South Bohemia, 15 km north of Budějovice. It was one of the favorite haunts of German-Roman emperor Charles IV, who often visited when he resided in Budějovice. Nowadays Hluboká is best known for its Windsor-style chateau which until 1938 belonged to the House of Schwarzenberg. [honsi.org]

Jaroslav Hašek knew the village very well and mentions it both in The Good Soldier Švejk and in some of his stories. [honsi.org]

The court in Písek hosted the 2nd trail of the infamous Hilsner affair (or Polná affair) in which the young Jew Leopold Hilsner was accused of ritual murder. His death-sentence was confirmed in Písek on November 14^th 1900 but was converted to life imprisonment by Emperor Franz Joseph I and in 1918 he was set free during a general amnesty. Future president Professor Masaryk put his academic career at stake during his defense of Hilsner, and an article he wrote in on the case was confiscated. The verdict at Písek was quashed only as late as 1998. [honsi.org]

Rudolf suffered from severe mood changes and there is still some debate over whether it really was suicide. The death certificate mentions "spiritual confusion." The drama of Mayerling has been filmed many times, including in a French/British production from 1968 with Omar Sharif in the role as Rudolf.

The free-thinking crown price lived a dissolute life, got dependent on morphine after treatment for VD and infected his wife with gonorrhea, which made her sterile. Rudolf was politically liberal and associated with the organization Free Thought. His political views prevented him from being included in the influential circles of the court, his father keeping him at distance. [honsi.org]

His full name was Giovanni Nepomuceno Salvatore Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Ferdinando Baldassares Lodovico Carlo Zenobio Antonino d'Asburgo-Lorena. [honsi.org]