Page - 577 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The War Bonds 577 War bonds in billions of kronen Austria Hungary 1st war bond (November 1914) 2.20 1.23 2nd war bond (May 1915) 2.69 1.13 3rd war bond (October 1915) 4.20 2.27 4th war bond (April 1916) 4.52 1.94 5th war bond (November/Dec.1916) 4.47 2.36 6th war bond (May 1917) 5.19 2.55 7th war bond (November 1917) 6.05 3.95 8th war bond (May/June 1918) 5.81 3.16 The total amount came to 53.72 billion kronen. Or, to put it another way : Austria-Hun- gary raised only two-fifths of the funds for its war through taxes and ongoing revenues, with three-fifths coming from war bonds. The absolute figures are however misleading to the extent that the seventh war bond, which, with a nominal value of 6.05 billion kronen in the Austrian half of the Empire alone, was the most successful of all eight bonds, only corresponded in terms of purchasing power to a total of 732 million (peace- time) kronen, and therefore was in fact only worth an eighth of the nominal value.1344 Regardless of how the war ended, with terms of 40 years until the bond was redeemed, it could be expected that future generations  – children and grandchildren  – would also pay the price for Austria-Hungary’s (final) war. The smallest payment units were tranches of 100 kronen. However, those investing very small sums could also make use of the opportunity to purchase parts of 100-kronen bond securities. From 25 kronen, they were ‘in’.1345 Indeed, it wasn’t even necessary to pay this money in cash ; it was paid in advance. The first bond attracted a huge wave of small investors, around 55,000 in Cisleithania alone. For the second bond, the number of subscriptions for the smaller amounts of up to 500 kronen decreased, but this was offset by the increase in subscriptions for higher sums. However, from the sixth war bond on- wards in May 1917, people were no longer prepared to purchase bonds in Austria, even if it was repeatedly stressed that the results were a sign of ‘unshakeable confidence’ and described and honoured as a ‘sweeping success’.1346 Ultimately, newspapers, authorities and model examples could not fully influence behaviour, since if someone was unwilling to subscribe, and was not forced to accept war bonds instead of wage payments or cash, they could not be coerced into doing so. In Moravia, one sentence began to circulate in 1917 : ‘The war bond is prolonging the war’. The sentence had an effect. However, even in crown lands such as Tyrol and Vorarlberg, where an almost unconditional will to per- severe could be observed, the amounts subscribed by private investors went into steep decline. There was no money left, and the much-lauded middle classes were, according