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204 Adjusting to a Longer War
thing, precisely the measures described above can be used to thoroughly revise the ver-
dict nourished above all in Germany especially after the war about ‘Comrade Lace-Up’,
or, as it became known some time later, the ‘slack Austrian’. The Austrian war economy
certainly bore comparison with others. The question was, however : for how long ?
Even a cursory glance at the working and living conditions in place from August
1914 reveals the first beginnings of a total war and is faintly reminiscent of the picture
that was painted in France at the beginning of the Revolutionary Wars in 1793 : ‘The
young men will go off to war, married men will forge weapons and transport supplies ;
women will sew tents and clothing and serve in the hospitals ; children will unstitch
old washing ; old men will be brought to public places in order to arouse the courage
of the warriors.’ But this picture was ultimately in many respects no longer accurate.
Of course, in this case no ‘hatred for the king’ should be preached, as the French War
Minister Carnot had demanded in 1793, and there were still privileged groups who at
least initially thought that they would not be directly affected by the war. For most of
them, however, the first emergency regulations brought deep fissures with them. It was
above all the mobilisation that already resulted in a situation where much of the work
quite naturally done up to that point by men could only be offset by means of it being
transferred to women. This was particularly noticeable in agricultural areas, but also
in industry and the services, and it ultimately affected practically all areas of life. The
overload could hardly have been greater. In order to combat material hardship, millions
of women carried out work that they were often not used to, albeit for lower wages than
men. The early onset of food shortages meant that the women had to queue in front of
stores more often and for longer periods. To this were added the household and chil-
dren and soon widowhood and nursing. Strange conflicts occurred, for example, where
women who wanted to earn money by sewing and knitting resented women from the
aristocracy and upper middle classes for carrying out sewing and knitting work free of
charge for charitable reasons. Sewers felt threatened by this competition and feared for
their jobs. The existential problems were also superimposed by many social and sexual
problems. A long chapter of history deserves to be devoted to ‘women at war’.481
The adjustment of the economy of the Dual Monarchy from war to peace returns
us to the ‘Orientation Aid on Emergency Regulations in the Event of War’, which we
have already encountered in the description of political conditions and that of the ad-
ministration at the beginning of the war. This Orientation Aid also envisaged a range
of lasting intrusions into the economy. Among these was the ban on the import, export
and transit of certain goods. The list of things that should no longer be imported was
relatively short. It was made up of weapons, ammunition and pigeons, evidently so
that no-one could invest in a stock of ‘Viennese tumbler pigeons’ and in this way send
messages abroad. The lists of export and transit bans were very much longer and covered
several pages. Animals to be slaughtered, draught animals, saddles and pushcarts were
THE FIRST WORLD WAR
and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
- Title
- THE FIRST WORLD WAR
- Subtitle
- and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
- Author
- Manfried Rauchensteiner
- Publisher
- Böhlau Verlag
- Location
- Wien
- Date
- 2014
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-205-79588-9
- Size
- 17.0 x 24.0 cm
- Pages
- 1192
- Categories
- Geschichte Vor 1918
Table of contents
- 1 On the Eve 11
- 2 Two Million Men for the War 49
- 3 Bloody Sundays 81
- 4 Unleashing the War 117
- 5 ‘Thank God, this is the Great War!’ 157
- 6 Adjusting to a Longer War 197
- 7 The End of the Euphoria 239
- 8 The First Winter of the War 283
- 9 Under Surveillance 317
- 10 ‘The King of Italy has declared war on Me’ 355
- 11 The Third Front 383
- 12 Factory War and Domestic Front, 1915 413
- 13 Summer Battle and ‘Autumn Swine’ 441
- 14 War Aims and Central Europe 469
- 15 South Tyrol : The End of an Illusion (I) 497
- 16 Lutsk :The End of an Illusion (II) 521
- 17 How is a War Financed ? 555
- 18 The Nameless 583
- 19 The Death of the Old Emperor 607
- 20 Emperor Karl 641
- 21 The Writing on the Wall 657
- 22 The Consequences of the Russian February Revolution 691
- 23 Summer 1917 713
- 24 Kerensky Offensive and Peace Efforts 743
- 25 The Pyrrhic Victory : The Breakthrough Battle of Flitsch-Tolmein 769
- 26 Camps 803
- 27 Peace Feelers in the Shadow of Brest-Litovsk 845
- 28 The Inner Front 869
- 29 The June Battle in Veneto 895
- 30 An Empire Resigns 927
- 31 The Twilight Empire 955
- 32 The War becomes History 983
- Epilogue 1011
- Afterword 1013
- Acknowledgements and Dedication 1019
- Notes 1023
- Selected Printed Sources and Literature 1115
- Index of People and Places 1155