Page - 727 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The System Eats its Own Children 727 working ten, twelve and more hours, as well as improved food provision for the same pay. They were granted a reduction in working time to eight hours on Saturdays and ‘urgent consideration in the apportion of provisions’. Then, the Arsenal employees re- turned to work. However, shortly afterwards, strikes were called at the Škoda factory in Pilsen, in the ammunition factories on the edge of the Steinfeld region, in Vítkovice (Witkowitz) and in Ostrava (Mährisch-Ostrau). Everywhere, it became necessary to ‘intervene’, something that also became an eminent test of strength for the military. The station commander of Prague, Major General Eduard Zanantoni, understood only too well what was going through the workers’ minds. As he noted in his private log : ‘From 31 May [1917] onwards, there was not a single month that passed in which I did not witness some wicked and difficult days in Prague. Strikes followed each other in quick succession, in particular among the metalworkers, who were primarily tasked with producing the ammunition. On repeated occasions, all the factories in Prague stood empty and it was only through the use of force that the workers could be made to resume their work […]. I had the task of creating order myself with force of arms when the situation in the factories got out of control […]. I could empathise with the concerns and efforts of the worker myself, and could privately well understand how he must feel when he had to work and neither he nor his family had any proper food to eat.’1666 Railway workers walked out, even though the railway industry had been militarised. Threats, punishments and reassurances caused them to return to their duties. However, railway workers and employees had become aware of the essential role they played in waging the war, and exploited the situation and their newly found sense of importance. The policy of reassurance by the Imperial-Royal Ministry of National Defence was proving increasingly ineffective, and hardly anywhere did the announcement on the prohibition of strikes bring the desired result. Attempts were therefore made to haul the workers in outright. ‘The fact that under such auspices, work cannot be flourishing and fruitful, is self-evident, which is why I have never fully supported such measures, and was following only higher commands and not my own conviction’, Zanantoni wrote. ‘And so, together with the Gendarmerie and military patrols, I must repeatedly fetch the workers in the early morning (5 o’clock) from their homes and have them taken to the factories. The extensive authorisations that were needed for this purpose with respect to the details can be imagined by anyone who knows that it was always thousands and tens of thousands of workers for whom these measures were required, who lived in the suburbs of Prague and in the villages in the surrounding area, which were at times a great distance away, in hundreds of houses. To me, this method of haul- ing in the workers recommended by the War Ministry appeared undignified.’1667 Finally, on 8 July 1917, the industrial companies were militarised throughout.1668 Landsturm (reserve forces) detachments were posted in the factories that were impor-