Page - 41 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Socialisation of Violence 41 tarisation of factory operations. The act had been finalised, but never passed. In 1908, it would have been issued as an imperial order if general mobilisation had been necessary, but in the event, it was not required. When the act and the prepared orders had been revised in 1912 and a corresponding act had been incorporated for the Hungarian half of the Empire, one significant change was made. Until then, it had been specified that the communities would be accountable for providing the services demanded, but now the burden fell to every individual citizen. With the exception of a few groups, all ci- vilians aged up to 50 years old who were capable of work and who were of conscription age were subject to the stipulations made in the act. Similar acts had been in force in the German Empire since 1873, as well as in France, Italy and most other European states. Following a period of consultation lasting just a few weeks among the relevant com- mittees in the Reichsrat and taking into account the fact that the act to be passed would have to be compatible with its counterpart currently being debated in the Hungarian half of the Empire, the Law on War Contributions was agreed at the end of Decem- ber 1912. The government had successfully parried a series of attempts at obstruction, and the Social Democrats had been assured that a moderate approach would be taken when implementing the measures. In this way, agreement was reached, with relatively minor changes, that a general mandatory military service from age seventeen onwards should be introduced, and that a provision should be made for the suspension of civil and workers’ rights during periods of war. In reaction to the prospect of military con- trol of those factory operations that were important to the war effort, right-leaning socialists such as Karl Renner commented during the general debate on the act that if the Social Democrat movement suddenly wanted to abolish the right to ownership by common citizens, it would ‘merely have to apply the War Services Act’, and could eject any factory owner from his property. Instead, one could then employ a corporal and  – in a free adaptation of Marx’ words  – ‘expropriation of the expropriators will be completed in the smoothest manner possible.’75 Renner explained the decision of the Social Democrats to vote for the act by claiming that : ‘If we  – regardless of who is at fault  – find ourselves forced to fight a defensive war, we shall defend ourselves as a matter of course  – on this, we and our comrades in other countries, including Bebel in the German Reichstag, have always been clear  – and cannot disregard the fact that our people are those most threatened […] It would be a ridiculous imposition were the Social Democrats  – once the misfortune of war were to occur  – to deny soldiers the opportunity to defend and feed themselves.’76 This agreement by the German Aus- trian Social Democrats contrasted starkly with the attitude taken by their Bohemian comrades, who rejected the act to the last, albeit at the same time supplementing this rejection with a declaration of loyalty. The Law on War Contributions was designed to make it possible not only for factories that were vital to the war effort to continue oper- ating and wherever the military was in control of the factories to subject the ‘war service