Page - 725 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The System Eats its Own Children 725 made of copper wire also had to be delivered.1656 Chandeliers, lamps, ciborium crowns, crosses from processional banners, etc. all fell victim to the requisition measures.1657 For this reason, it was almost a mockery when at the end of 1917 and 1918, the ban on the ringing of bells was lifted for a large portion of the area that until then had been the hinterland behind the war zone. There was nothing left to ring ! In the meantime, the bell ropes had also been removed and sold to the treasury at the specified prices.1658 From the summer of 1917, the fields were guarded. In some places, the farmers erected protection for their own fields in order to be able to harvest anything at all.1659 The discrepancy between the towns and cities and the countryside worsened. The non-agrarian population accused the farmers of making no sacrifices and that their patriotism did not extend beyond their parish or district borders.1660 The farmers hit back. And everywhere, it was suspected that the others were faring better. Accusations of parasitic behaviour were made in the most irrational contexts, such as against refu- gees. For the most part, they came from Galicia, Bukovina and Italy (see Chapter 26). Naturally, provisions had to be made for their sustenance. Why hadn’t they returned home long ago ? The simple answer, that they no longer had a home, and that they would not have survived the next winter, was accepted least of all or, if so, then only grudgingly. Little by little, the pressure on the refugees increased until enforced repa- triations were begun.1661 The process of polarisation continued almost unabated. Wherever one looked, the willingness to endure further hardships during this war and, above all, without any evident goal and without knowing how long things would continue in this way, had reached its limits. In some cases, these limits had already been exceeded. Groups and individuals who until then had not counted among the politicisers, housewives, day labourers or female workers, discussed in detail the events in Russia and their own situ- ation. Almost immediately, therefore, the censorship reports from the War Surveillance Office took on a new and different tone.1662 In Austria, there was almost nothing more that could be achieved by the Hinden- burg Programme. The capacity increases were by no means sufficient in order to even come close to meeting demands. From March 1917 onwards, the Army Administra- tion demanded 70,000 pieces of artillery ammunition daily, and received only 50,000. During August, production even decreased dramatically to just over 18,000 pieces. The boom enjoyed by the armaments companies had vanished, as had the period of vast profits that had been possible in this sector of the industry. In 1916, taxation on war profits was decreed and made retroactive to 1914.1663 In individual cases, the dividends were still increased, for example for the Prager Eisenindustrie-Gesellschaft (Prague iron industry company), which increased its dividends for the financial year 1916/1917 from 38 to as much as 40 per cent. However, during 1917, the Alpine Montan company only raised dividends of 13 per cent, against 25 per cent during 1916. Overall, there was