Page - 662 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

662 The Writing on the Wall fertiliser and the decrease in the number of horses. During the winter of 1916/1917, a great horse slaughtering measure was begun. Then, the horses that remained began to die. In comparison with the last year of peace, the grain harvest of 1916 had decreased to less than half the amount, and as a result of the war with Romania, imports slid to around a third of their previous level. Where had the times gone when it had been hoped that measures would suffice such as the prohibition on using grain as feed and of baking more than twice within 24 hours, the setting of maximum prices and finally, the introduction of ration cards for flour and bread ? Two-thirds of slaughter cattle went either to the army or to the canning factories that catered for the army’s needs.1501 It is understandable that all possible measures were taken in an attempt to persuade Hungary to supply Austria with greater quantities of food, but with little success. Here, too, the figures told a very clear story. During peacetime, Austria had imported around 14,000 metric hundredweights of grain. In 1915, the figure had still been just over 5,000 metric hundredweights, while in 1916, it was 463.7 metric hundredweights. In 1917, it was as low as 276.8.1502 Imports of cattle also decreased during 1916 to a third of the quantity imported in 1915. All in all, therefore, there was a great deal that had to be ‘gone without’. During the winter months of 1916/1917, Bohemia and Moravia in particular were required to supply the regions of Austria south of the Danube down to the southern- most peak of the Bay of Kotor. However, the Bohemian crown lands also had no sur- pluses. A desperate process of calculation, reallocation, bringing forward and dilution began. New substitute ingredients were sought and, finally, parts of the stockpiles of seeds were requisitioned. This was already pure robbery, and yet the hardships allowed no room for any other option. The army, which usually had food in its warehouses to last 14 days, now had stockpiles for just one or two days. Now, the threatened punish- ments were also radicalised : the death sentence was imposed for food profiteering, and anyone found ‘hording goods’ faced a five-year prison sentence. And aside from this, the military was authorised to requisition food wherever it was necessary.1503 Hungary was certainly in a better position than Austria, but just as the Magyars were keen to paint their own situation in gloomy colours, in Austria, the potential agricultural yield from Transleithania was overestimated. For example, the autumn rains of 1916 meant that the maize had to be harvested very wet, rather than dry, so that large quanti- ties rotted. Even so, the harvest statistics continued to report record yields. Hungary had already signed a contract in 1914 committing it to export around 30,000 pigs to Austria every month. In November 1916, however, only 7,800 animals had been available for de- livery.1504 At the beginning of 1917, there was a great commotion in the Austrian Council of Ministers when it was announced that the per capita quotas for bread cereals were to be oriented to the standards specified for Germany, while it was now forbidden to use barley for brewing beer and the Germans had been promised 200,000 slaughter cattle.1505