I'd like to get some feedback on a family story. My great-grandfather snuck out of Bohemia on a night train to Germany and from there sailed to the US. The story is that he left to avoid fighting in the First World War...but he left a full two years before the war started. Were things really that tense in the Empire in 1912? Or was there forced military service anyway that he was avoiding and it just so happened that the war started while he was away? Or does the draft dodging theory make no sense at all...?
War between Austria and Serbia was broadly awaited since annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (1908) but there was no mobilisation before 1914. I think he dodged compusory military service. Maybe it was because of expected war (but nobody awaited long war). Or, maybe, he was volunteer and changed opinion. Fighting before 1914 is unlikely. There was only two possibilities - military service in Bosnia or some military intervention in Balkan wars. Both of this was managed by professional soldiers.
