In WWI the country borders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were in a mess and matched only by the chaos within the armies. Leaders struggled to command men, who spoke a multitude of languages different from their own, in places far removed from their homes. Napló (the Hungarian word for diary) is the story of one of these commanders, my grandfather, Stolmár Géza, and his experiences throughout the war. This book contains the English translation from the original and some of the original photos.
Stolmár Géza was a family man with a three and one year old daughter. At 36, he was well into his banking career at Moktár Bank, in Budapest. He lived in the city and had a cottage in Domonyvölgy. When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914 June in Sarajevo, all that changed. Sarajevo, ethnically Bosnian, was in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914. The Great War, today called WW1, was about to burst upon Europe and even further afield. By the time it ended, 9 million military and 8 million civilians had died. The war was between the Allies or "Etente" vs The Central Powers.
A faithful patriot of Hungary, Stolmár Géza spent one year in the cadets before the war. He enlisted in the Military by the end of the summer of 1914. He was promptly sent to Galacia, today's western corner of Ukraine. For the next three years or so, he was a Commander of a group of 100 to 200 men called sappers. He was typically at or near the front lines in today's Ukraine, fighting the Russians. This area was also part of Austro-Hungarian territory. His men built army roads, railway, bridges and miles and miles of trenches.
For the last few months of WW1 he was stationed in Italy, in Northern Italy, south of Tyrol, which was also part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918.
Gene Nagy (Nagy Jenci)
