During World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Army, in cooperation with its auxiliary units (Shukor), committed numerous crimes against the civilian population in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The orders and instructions issued by the High Command and the War Administration represented the basis for judicial and extrajudicial killings. The procedure before the summary court was utterly simplified. Soon, however, even this was no longer compulsory. Instead, the independent application of the “law of force in war” (Kriegsnotwehrrecht) without the involvement of a judge was left to the discretion of the individual commander. After the war, Captain Alfonz Svetek, who served as a stage commander in Milići in the autumn of 1914, was accused of ordering many executions of Bosnian Serbs. The documents from the court file reveal the gruesome methods and the number of executions he decided on as a true master of life and death.