Page - 557 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

‘T re cose, Sire, ci bisognano preparare, danari, danari e poi danari’, the Marshal of France, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, is said to have replied to the French King Louis XII when he asked him about what was needed to wage war. Similar state- ments were apparently made by the Imperial Field Captain Lazarus Schwendi and Field Marshal Raimondo Montecuccoli : to wage war, one needed money, money and, again, money. And in fact, everyone knew this  – including in Austria-Hungary. Only the quantity of money that was to be spent on the entire armed force was repeatedly the subject of debate. The budgets prior to 1914 had at any rate only been set for an army and navy during peacetime.1306 However, what was to be done during a war ? What would happen when the war was not short in duration, but long and, finally, one in which the existence of the Empire was at stake ? This made it necessary to make alterations to any budget planning and, above all, it also became clear that during the war, it was not only a question  – figuratively speaking  – of soldiers and cannons, but of each individual existence. Money, money and, again, money was needed. The ‘Great War’ left no-one untouched. The Search for the Nervus Rerum Just a few weeks and months after the beginning of the war, the financiers in the Aus- tro-Hungarian Monarchy had become increasingly concerned. The situation looked anything but favourable, and now, the years before the war were remembered with nothing other than feelings of nostalgia. At that time, everything had seemed to be more or less as it should be, and even if financial policy measures had been necessary every so often in order to keep the state budget to some degree in order, there had been no doubts as to the solidity of the finances and the stable value of the currency, the krone. The fact that the Austrian government was unable to produce a balanced state budget, and that numerous crown lands also had difficulties in passing their budgets, had nothing to do with the fact that the Monarchy was possibly severely in debt and the banks insolvent. Quite the opposite : the Austro-Hungarian Bank, which acted as the central credit institution and the central bank of the Danube Monarchy, was not only able to draw on a gold reserve of around 1.5 billion kronen, but also on bills of exchange and deposits that ran to far higher sums than the debts. And the liabilities