Service in a Foreign Army and Related Factual Basis of Criminal Offences in the Interwar Czechoslovak Criminal Law

Abstract

The topic of the article is service in a foreign army and the related factual basis of criminal offences of military recruitment into and service in an enemy army (military treason). These offences were regulated in Czechoslovak interwar law by the adopted Austrian-Hungarian law. The article presents the issue from the perspective of the law applicable in the territory of the Czech Republic today. Thus, it deals with the legal regulation adopted from Cisleithania. The offences in question were regulated by both military and civil criminal law. The original legislation was gradually supplemented, amended and partially unified by Czechoslovak legislation, in particular the Act on the Protection of the Republic of 1923 and the Conscription Act of 1927. The final part of the article outlines the issue of related post-war amnesties and the criminal prosecution of persons in connection with their service in the Spanish Civil War or with the organisation of their departure for such service.