Teacher on the front

The outbreak of war caught Josef Dudek on holidays after graduating from the 3rd year of the teachers' institute. However, he did not pass the first draft due to an eye defect and was able to finish his studies. However, the losses on the battlefields grew, so in the summer of 1915 he also entered military service. The eye defect was no longer an obstacle. He was sent to Austria for officer training. It was here that he first encountered the anti-Czech attitude of some of his superiors and colleagues. In January 1916 he went to the Eastern Front, where he was soon wounded, but was suspected of simulation. Already in May he was sent to the front in Italy. In the summer, however, he moved again to the east, where it was necessary to stop the Russian offensive. In April 1917 he returned to the Italian front. Everywhere, however, he encountered the incompetence and laxity of his superior officers and their growing distrust of everything Czech. In May 1917 he was captured by the Italians. In captivity he became acquainted with the idea of fighting for the Czechoslovakia. Independence. These experiences - together with the growing hostility of his German and Hungarian colleagues - eventually led him into the ranks of the Czechoslovak Army. Army, with whose 34th Rifle Regiment he fought the famous battle of Doss Alto and the war for Slovakia in the summer of 1919.