The study explores the everyday life of the conscripts of the K. u. K. Army at the time of mandatory national service, primarily in Hungary. It predominantly relies on two novel source bases: diaries and memoirs held at the Military History Archives and the manuscript collections of the Hungarian National Library, as well as various disciplinary files preserved in the archives of the K. u. K. Eleventh Hussar Regiment. The theoretical framework is provided by the work of Erving Goffman, Michel Foucault, and Michel De Certeau. In this vein, the army barracks are not considered as a “total institution”: the inquiry considers the privates’ responses to authority and discipline, their experience in the strict, closed and often cruel world of military life, and how these affected their internal norms. Thus, the study examines the barracks of the Austro–Hungarian Army as the primary site of the conscripts’ everyday life, in addition to charting their drills and exercises, various disciplinary practices, everyday practices, and the interrelationships among the soldiers.

Nincs absztrakt.

Kőszeg, which was one of the most important towns in Hungary at the beginning of the eighteenth century, later not only lost its commercial significance to the rival town of Szombathely, but also descended into an industrial crisis. The decline was further exacerbated by the delays in joining into the nationwide rail network, consequently the town, which has traditionally been the military centre of the county, turned its expectations to becoming home to large Habsburg army garrisons. While military revenues provided a steady income for the town, a wide array of Kőszeg communities also indirectly benefitted from activities, such as quartering privates and officers, letting buildings (storage and infirmaries) for military purposes, and providing consumables. Following the quartering reform of 1879, however, the county chose Szombathely to build the future Habsburg cavalry barracks, which were finished in 1889. This was a blow to the number of army personnel stationed in Kőszeg and had a serious impact on the town’s finances. At the same time, the ensuing crisis forced the town to find new opportunities, which brought about a discernible, albeit initially rather humble, new wave of development by the turn of the century.