Page - 652 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

652 Emperor Karl the war. But this period had been overcome and in 1916 a level had been reached that was completely sufficient to cover the requirements of the Imperial and Royal Army. In 1916, around 1.2 million rifles and almost 13,300 guns were produced. The manu- facture of rifles could even be scaled back in favour of the mass production of machine guns. Four million rounds of rifle ammunition were produced each day and two mil- lion pieces of artillery ammunition each month. Yet the Hindenburg Programme was supposed to practically double the output. The targets for small arms were 7.8 million bullets each day and for artillery ammunition four million pieces each month.1480 Even assuming that there were constantly days of major combat, it was not possible to fire this much. The Imperial and Royal War Ministry believed for a time that it could get hold of the required amounts of iron and steel for the new production targets, namely at the expense of allocations of carriages, tracks and bridges, but this meant intervention in another sector that was in any case already in a crisis, namely transportation. As it happened, the envisaged increase in the output of ammunition for small arms was in fact realised in a matter of months. But in the case of the considerably more elaborate artillery ammunition output remained far behind the demands, and ultimately less was produced in 1917 than prior to the introduction of the Hindenburg Programme. The Dual Monarchy was dependent on the import of premium iron and steel, and the imports in this sector could only be increased slightly. The situation was even worse for the rare metals that were essential for the production of ammunition or alumin- ium. The Hindenburg Programme envisaged the monthly production of 1,100 tons of aluminium, but even when all capacities were strained it was only possible to produce 462 tons in Austria each month.1481 Thus, wherever one looked, unrealistic target values could be detected. The newly forced production of armaments did, however, lead to a rapid exhaustion of raw materials that could neither be procured in sufficient quantities domestically nor obtained from the German Empire. Instead, other economic sectors were deprived of their last funds and resources. The necessary expansion of transpor- tation was not even attempted, and as early as the beginning of 1917 it was evident that the programme was bound to fail and that the whole thing would end in chaos.1482 Since, however, the programme had been begun with German support, namely finan- cial assistance and the appropriate know-how, and everything was also geared towards the programme that had started at the same time in Germany and was also ending in chaos, the Habsburg Monarchy not only became increasingly dependent but also had to ask itself how attempts to sign a peace could actually be reconciled with such a pro- gramme. It was visibly difficult for the Imperial and Royal Majesty, however, to escape from the German arguments of the necessity of the programme.