Page - 319 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

R ather than bringing equality to the peoples of Austria-Hungary, the war had created dramatic divisions. The emergency decrees in the event of war applied everywhere, but there was a relatively clear separation between the war zones and the hinterland of the fronts on the one hand, where the more stringent measures of the military authorities were implemented, and those of more distant regions in the inte- rior of the Monarchy on the other. The latter were not affected by the fighting, no mar- tial law had been imposed or the governors replaced by civilian and military authorities, and there was no huge burden caused by the presence of hundreds of thousands of sol- diers. This was notwithstanding the retreats, the destruction and the human sacrifices. However, the ominous letters used to notify relatives that a soldier had been killed, and the messages that someone had been wounded or was missing and was likely to have been taken prisoner were sent to every town, every village and every family, regardless of where they were located. Far from the front, however, where work was carried out to support the war effort, and where money also flowed abundantly, profits were made and for the time being the deprivations only made themselves felt to the extent that goods became scarce, some items were no longer available at all, or at least cost a great deal of money. Here, the situation was fundamentally different to that in Bukovina, Galicia, Bosnia, Herzegovina or Croatia. This was naturally also felt, and all the more keenly so, in these latter regions of the Empire, where the people regarded their situation as being an undeserved fate, and felt themselves to be disadvantaged and forced to bear a diffi- cult burden. Soon, stereotypical reactions developed. They included complaints that the hardships and the deprivations were unevenly distributed, that one half of the Empire was being forced to make greater efforts than the other, as well as repeated demands for a betterment of parts of the Empire and the regions after the war, and other forms of compensation for the period of suffering. However, for the time being, almost everyone felt they had cause for complaint against someone else. In the Austrian half of the Empire, objections were made that the situation was worse than for the Hungarians, while on the other side of the Lei- tha River, resentment was expressed that enormous efforts were being made for the good of the Empire without an appropriate reward. Any discussion of the war aims that took into account the conditions at home therefore ended not in distant foreign countries, but usually on home soil, and with a list of all the changes that would have to be introduced after the war and the compensation envisaged for the sacrifices that had been made, for the countless dead and all the other hardships. Here, the goals being