The emigration issue and the compulsory military service in Austria on the eve of World War I. The article presents the police measures taken in Austria in March 1914 in order to prevent illegal emigration of conscripts. The measures consisted of a control system, spread along the state boundaries as well as over the main areas of origin of the emigration flows and along their routes heading abroad. The task of the system was the monitoring of the emigration traffic and the checking of the military position of the male travellers to intercept those among them without appropriate permits for leaving the state territory. The surveillance involved besides the police force also customs officers and railway staff. The measures did not change the normatives regulating the rights of persons under military service to emigrate, it only made the check procedures and those of passports issue stricter. Despite this, they came across opposition inside the government and brought about strong political protests because they put under question the freedom of emigration as a constitutional principal and the government’s careless attitude towards the population economic needs. The contribution rests on the dossier concerning the introduction and implementation of the special surveillance over emigration in the archive of the provincial authorities in Trieste.
