Editing Josip Broz Tito (section)

===World War I===
In May 1913,{{sfn|West|1995|p=33}} Broz was [[conscript]]ed into the [[Austro-Hungarian Army]]{{sfn|Vinterhalter|1972|p=58}}{{refn|group=lower-alpha|When he was conscripted into the army, his date of birth was recorded as 5 March 1892.{{sfn|Ridley|1994|p=43}}}} for his compulsory two years of service. He successfully requested to serve with the [[Royal Croatian Home Guard|25th Croatian Home Guard Regiment]] garrisoned in Zagreb. After learning to ski during the winter of 1913 and 1914, Broz was sent to a school for [[non-commissioned officer]]s (NCO) in [[Budapest]],{{sfn|Swain|2010|p=7}} after which he was promoted to [[sergeant major]]. At age 22, he was the youngest of that rank in his regiment.{{sfn|West|1995|p=33}}{{sfn|Swain|2010|p=7}}{{refn|group=lower-alpha|Vinterhalter states that he was promoted to sergeant after completing non-commissioned officer (NCO) training.{{sfn|Vinterhalter|1972|p=64}}}} At least one source states that he was the youngest sergeant major in the Austro-Hungarian Army.{{sfn|Ridley|1994|p=59}} After winning the regimental fencing competition,{{sfn|Swain|2010|p=7}} Broz came in second in the army fencing championships in Budapest in May 1914.{{sfn|Ridley|1994|p=59}}

Soon after the outbreak of [[World War I]] in 1914, the 25th Croatian Home Guard Regiment marched toward the [[Kingdom of Serbia|Serbian]] border. Broz was arrested for [[sedition]] and imprisoned in the [[Petrovaradin fortress]] in present-day [[Novi Sad]].{{sfn|Ridley|1994|p=62}} He later gave conflicting accounts of this arrest, telling one biographer that he had threatened to desert to the Russian side but also claiming that the whole matter arose from a clerical error.{{sfn|Swain|2010|p=7}} A third version was that he had been overheard saying that he hoped the Austro-Hungarian Empire would be defeated.{{sfn|West|1995|pp=40}} After his acquittal and release,{{sfn|Ridley|1994|pp=62–63}} his regiment served briefly on the [[Serbian Campaign of World War I|Serbian Front]] before being deployed to the [[Eastern Front (World War I)|Eastern Front]] in [[Galicia (Central Europe)|Galicia]] in early 1915 to fight against [[Russian Empire|Russia]].{{sfn|Swain|2010|p=7}} In his account of his military service, Broz did not mention that he participated in the failed Austrian invasion of Serbia, instead giving the misleading impression that he fought only in Galicia, as it would have offended Serbian opinion to know that he fought in 1914 for the Habsburgs against them.{{sfn|West|1995|pp=40}} On one occasion, the [[Reconnaissance|scout]] [[platoon]] he commanded went behind the enemy lines and captured 80 Russian soldiers, bringing them back to their own lines alive. In 1980 it was discovered that Broz had been recommended for an award for gallantry and initiative in reconnaissance and capturing prisoners.{{sfn|West|1995|pp=41–42}} Tito's biographer Richard West wrote that Tito actually downplayed his military record as the Austrian Army records showed that he was a brave soldier, which contradicted his later claim to have opposed the Habsburg monarchy and his self-portrait of himself as an unwilling conscript fighting in a war he opposed.{{sfn|West|1995|p=41}} Broz's fellow soldiers regarded him as ''kaisertreu'' ("true to the Emperor").{{sfn|West|1995|p=43}}

On 25 March 1915,{{refn|group=lower-alpha|West gives the date as 21 March,{{sfn|West|1995|p=42}} and Ridley says 4 April.}} Broz was wounded in the back by a [[Circassia]]n cavalryman's lance{{sfn|Gilbert|2004|p=138}} and captured during a Russian attack near [[Bukovina]].{{sfn|Frankel|1992|p=331}} In his account of his capture, Broz wrote: "suddenly the right flank yielded and through the gap poured cavalry of the Circassians, from Asiatic Russia. Before we knew it they were thundering through our positions, leaping from their horses and throwing themselves into our trenches with lances lowered. One of them rammed his two-yard, iron-tipped, double-pronged lance into my back just below the left arm. I fainted. Then, as I learned, the Circassians began to butcher the wounded, even slashing them with their knives. Fortunately, Russian infantry reached the positions and put an end to the orgy".{{sfn|West|1995|p=42}} Now a [[prisoner of war]] (POW), Broz was transported east to a hospital established in an old monastery in the town of [[Sviyazhsk]] on the [[Volga]] river near [[Kazan]].{{sfn|Swain|2010|p=7}} During his 13 months in hospital, he had bouts of pneumonia and typhus, and learned Russian with the help of two schoolgirls who brought him Russian classics by such authors as [[Tolstoy]] and [[Turgenev]].{{sfn|Swain|2010|p=7}}{{sfn|West|1995|p=42}}{{sfn|Ridley|1994|p=64}}
{{stack|float=right|[[File:Комплекс зданий земской больницы.JPG|thumb|The Uspensko-Bogorodichny monastery, where Tito recuperated from his wounds|alt=a colour photograph of a brown multi-storey building]]}}
After recuperating, in mid-1916, Broz was transferred to the Ardatov POW camp in the [[Samara Governorate]], where he used his skills to maintain the nearby village grain mill. At the end of the year, he was transferred to the [[Kungur]] POW camp near [[Perm, Russia|Perm]] where the POWs were used as labour to maintain the newly completed [[Trans-Siberian Railway]].{{sfn|Swain|2010|p=7}} Broz was appointed to be in charge of all the POWs in the camp.{{sfn|Ridley|1994|p=65}} During this time, he became aware that camp staff were stealing the [[Red Cross parcel]]s sent to the POWs. When he complained, he was beaten and imprisoned.{{sfn|Swain|2010|p=7}} During the [[February Revolution]], a crowd broke into the prison and returned Broz to the POW camp. A [[Bolshevik]] he had met while working on the railway told Broz that his son was working in engineering works in [[Petrograd]], so, in June 1917, Broz walked out of the unguarded POW camp and hid aboard a goods train bound for that city, where he stayed with his friend's son.{{sfn|Swain|2010|pp=7–8}}{{sfn|Ridley|1994|pp=66–67}} The journalist [[Richard West (journalist)|Richard West]] has suggested that because Broz chose to remain in an unguarded POW camp rather than volunteer to serve with the Yugoslav legions of the [[Royal Serbian Army|Serbian Army]], he was still loyal to the [[Austro-Hungarian Empire]], undermining his later claim that he and other Croat POWs were excited by the prospect of revolution and looked forward to the overthrow of the empire that ruled them.{{sfn|West|1995|p=43}}

Less than a month after Broz arrived in Petrograd, the [[July Days]] demonstrations broke out, and Broz joined in, coming under fire from government troops.{{sfn|Swain|2010|p=8}}{{sfn|Ridley|1994|p=67}} In the aftermath, he tried to flee to [[Grand Duchy of Finland|Finland]] in order to make his way to the United States but was stopped at the border.{{sfn|West|1995|p=44}} He was arrested along with other suspected Bolsheviks during the subsequent crackdown by the [[Russian Provisional Government]] led by [[Alexander Kerensky]]. He was imprisoned in the [[Peter and Paul Fortress]] for three weeks, during which he claimed to be an innocent citizen of Perm. When he finally admitted to being an escaped POW, he was to be returned by train to Kungur, but escaped at [[Yekaterinburg]], then caught another train that reached [[Omsk]] in [[Siberia]] on 8 November after a {{convert|2000|mi|km|adj=on|order=flip}} journey.{{sfn|Swain|2010|p=8}}{{sfn|Ridley|1994|pp=67–68}} At one point, police searched the train looking for an escaped POW, but were deceived by Broz's fluent Russian.{{sfn|Ridley|1994|p=67}}

In Omsk, local Bolsheviks stopped the train and told Broz that [[Vladimir Lenin]] had seized control of Petrograd. They recruited him into an [[Red Guards (Russia)|International Red Guard]] that guarded the Trans-Siberian Railway during the winter of 1917 and 1918. In May 1918, the anti-Bolshevik [[Czechoslovak Legion]] wrested control of parts of Siberia from Bolshevik forces, the [[Provisional Siberian Government (Omsk)|Provisional Siberian Government]] established itself in Omsk, and Broz and his comrades went into hiding. At this time, Broz met a 14-year-old local girl, {{ill|Pelagija Belousova{{!}}Pelagija "Polka" Belousova|sh|Pelagija Belousova}}, who hid him and then helped him escape to a [[Kazakh people|Kazakh]] village {{convert|40|mi|km|order=flip}} from Omsk.{{sfn|Swain|2010|p=8}}{{sfn|Ridley|1994|p=71}} Broz again worked maintaining the local mill until November 1919, when the [[Red Army]] recaptured Omsk from [[White forces]] loyal to the [[Provisional All-Russian Government]] of [[Alexander Kolchak]]. He moved back to Omsk and married Belousova in January 1920.{{refn|group=lower-alpha|West states that the marriage occurred in mid-1919.{{sfn|West|1995|p=45}}}} At the time of their marriage, Broz was 27 years old and Pelagia Belousova was 14. They divorced in the 1930s in Moscow.{{sfn|Ridley|1994|p=76}}<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |title=Marko Stričević je u Sibiru našao obitelj prve supruge o kojoj Tito nikad nije govorio. 'Oteo ju je po stepskoj tradiciji, bilo joj je 14 godina' |url=https://www.telegram.hr/kultura/marko-stricevic-je-u-sibiru-nasao-obitelj-prve-supruge-o-kojoj-tito-nikad-nije-govorio-oteo-ju-je-po-stepskoj-tradiciji-bilo-joj-je-14-godina/ |website=Telegram.hr |last1=Hr |first1=Telegram }}</ref> Broz later wrote that during his time in Russia, he heard much talk of Lenin, a little of Trotsky, and "as for Stalin, during the time I stayed in Russia, I never once heard his name".{{sfn|West|1995|p=45}} Tito joined the Communist Party in 1920 in Omsk.<ref name=":0" /> In the autumn of 1920, he and his pregnant wife returned to his homeland, by train to [[Narva]], by ship to [[Stettin]], then by train to Vienna, where they arrived on 20 September. In early October, Broz returned to Kumrovec in what was then the [[Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes]] to find that his mother had died and his father had moved to [[Jastrebarsko]], near Zagreb.{{sfn|Swain|2010|p=8}} Sources differ over whether Broz joined the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] while in Russia, but he said that the first time he joined the [[Communist Party of Yugoslavia]] (CPY) was in Zagreb after he returned to his homeland.{{sfn|Ridley|1994|p=77}}