File talk:Boka Kotorská, vzpoura - Fr. Koucký.jpg
Pula not Kotor
I have made a request to the Vojenský ústřední archives Praha (Military Central Archive in Prague) and to the Austrian State Archives, BKA - KA (ÖSTA Kriegsarchiv) concerning the photos published on Wikimedia in connection with the Cattaro Mutiny. Both archives have answered in the meantime. The Austrian archives informed me that unfortunately no information about the photos would be available there (letter dated 9 June 2020). The Czech archives wrote to me on 28 April 2020 that index cards with the photos were available there, whereby the descriptions recorded on the index cards would roughly follow those published by Veselý in 1958 (Jindřich Veselý: Povstání v Boce Kotorské. Historická kronika (Czech: Rebellion in the Bay of Kotor. Historical Chronicle). Prague 1958, appendix. Available online (April 10, 2020) as a PDF document with a different page count at [1].). However, from my point of view even these information are not fully reliable, because the Czech index card obviously contains greatly exaggerated to false information and Veselý does not indicate any sources.
For the photo in question (Boka Kotorská, vzpoura - Fr. Koucký.jpg) the description given by Veselý reads: Námořnik Fr. Koucký (*) mezi svými kamarády na palubě torpedoborce. [Czech: sailor Fr. Koucký (*) among his friends on board the torpedoboat]
The description in the Prague archives (summarized): Czech sailors on an Austrian torpedo boat: Frant. Koucký (*) was executed on 11 May 1918. At first it was written that the execution was carried out in Kotor, later it was added that this was carried out in Pula.
Conclusion: It is very likely that the photo shows František Koucký on board an Austrian-Hungarian torpedo boat. However, this is not certain, as there are no further sources available so far. Two sailors, the Czech Frantisek/Franz Koucký and the Dalmatian Ljubomir Kraus, planned an escape with a torpedo boat (Tb 80) from Pola to Italy in May 1918. The motive was probably more nationalism than social reasons. They were betrayed by a Sudeten German, sentenced to death by martial law on 10 May 1918 and shot on 11 May (after Paul, G. Halpern: The Cattaro Mutiny, 1918. in: Christopher M. Bell./Bruce A. Elleman (ed.): Naval mutinies of the twentieth century. An international perspective. London 2003, pp. 54-79, here p. 73 f.). See also Fitl, where, on the occasion of the appointment of the Hauptmann auditor Grünnewald as military prosecutor (public prosecutor) in Cattaro, this case is mentioned because Grünnewald was a prosecutor there ((Peter Fitl: Mutiny and State Court. The sailors' revolt in the naval port of Cattaro in February 1918 and its sequel in the court martial. Vienna 2018, p. 214). Plaschka also speaks of investigations against 11 defendants (Richard Georg Plaschka: Avantgarde des Widerstands. Modellfälle militärischer Auflehnung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. 2 volumes. Vienna 2000, p. 257).
The photo thus most probably has nothing to do with the events in Cattaro in February 1918. The articles using this photo should carry a corresponding remark.
