Page - 785 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Operation ‘Loyalty to Arms’ 785 that kept the Imperial and Royal soldiers going : of their own great offensive against the Italians. What had been prepared in September and October 1917 was on a scale that went beyond purely military dimensions, and placed an emphasis on the dependency of the hinterland on the front in a particular way. Very quietly, and almost in passing, a ca- tastrophe was brewing there. What was happening here was not recorded until 20 Oc- tober, and covered four pages. The report, with the file reference number ‘AOK Op. geh. 1917, Nr. 421’, which was then annotated with the handwritten comment : ‘Presented to the group chiefs. A[d] A[cta]’, was a ticking time bomb. Under the file reference number, an overview of the transport situation was given by the railways expert of the Army High Command, Brigadier Johann Straub, apparently only as a supplement to the operational plans, but with unequivocal conclusions. Straub wrote a list : of the ap- proximately 105,000 covered goods wagons available to the Monarchy, on average, 60 to 70 per cent were being used for the deployment for the offensive against Italy, with 40 per cent being used for the same purpose of the 170,000 open goods wagons. This increase in demand for military transportation would lead to a drastic reduction in the transport of civilian goods, while at the same time, the requirements in the autumn were in general greater, since additional supplies had to be transported for the winter. Heating materials and food needed to be conveyed in great quantities. However, during the deployment process, eighty trains would have to be driven every day in the Villach area and in the hinterland behind the Isonzo front. Straub wrote that after the deploy- ment had been completed, the need would not be lower, but instead would increase. Every day, as long as the offensive continued, ammunition, provisions, war materials of all kinds, as well as more soldiers, would have to be brought forward, and the wounded taken to the rear. Now, however, aside from coal and relatively durable foods, between 600 and 800 trains with potatoes would need to be freighted and brought to the des- ignated storage houses before the frost period began. If transportation could not be completed before winter closed in, the potatoes could no longer be taken, since they would freeze. ‘According to the information provided by the National Food Agency and the Imperial-Royal Ministry of Railways, over the coming period, 85,000 covered goods wagons with potatoes will be needed to be freighted in Austria alone’, Straub noted. If transport were to begin immediately, this would have required between 20 and 28 trains daily. During this period, Vienna alone needed 200 to 300 wagons of potatoes every day. As a result of the shortage in rolling stock, however, for weeks on end, only between 20 and 50 wagons (not trains !) were available. ‘The food situation among broad sections of the population in Vienna will become unsustainable if this low level of potato delivery continues. The same is true in all other larger cities, where the conditions are similar.’ Their intensive use of the locomotives had also led to a repair quota of between 36 and 40 per cent, compared to 14 per cent during peacetime. As a