Page - 960 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

960 The Twilight Empire in which the state and the army found themselves, as well as the necessity of an im- mediate peace.2324 The Emperor acknowledged all of this, and chose to ignore the fact that the reticence towards him and the respect to which he had been accustomed had vanished ; he was attacked in just the same way as the Army High Command. And the number of those who felt that he was personally responsible for the misery, and who castigated him for his indecisiveness, for making errors and showing flaws of character, rose from day to day. This notwithstanding, it was necessary to look ahead. Emperor Karl ordered a conference for 7 September of the three military ministers, the Chief of the General Staff, the Chief of Recruitment and the Chairman of the Joint Food Committee. All the gentlemen requested to attend the conference were to give a report of whether the necessary requirements in terms of personnel and materials were still in place in order to continue the war : on the difficult recruitment situation, the lack of war materials, the need for rolling stock, the organisation of the work forces in the hinterland, as well as on the ‘propaganda for maintaining the morale of the army in the field and in the hinterland’. However, this related not to the final months of the current year, but already to 1919. The figures actually spoke for themselves : in the hinterland, there was a shortfall of 40,000 men in order to provide the materials needed by the armaments industry and to help in the fields. It was of no use to count on the half- a-million returnees, since in many cases, after their convalescent leave, they no longer re-joined the ranks. It had been hoped that a limitation in discharges from duty would make more soldiers available. 160,000 men had been anticipated. However, in Hungary, only 11,000 men could be enlisted, and in Austria, 50,000 additional men were added to those who had already been discharged. From 1917, increasing numbers of ‘female auxiliary workers’ were taken on, in order to free up men for the fighting. With time, over 30,000 women were employed who fell under the ‘female auxiliary workers’ category, and who worked as technical assistants in laboratories, kitchens and offices, or as nurses and domestic staff in the military hospitals. They reported least of all for reasons of an increased sense of patriotism, but because they had to earn money to survive, and expected to be better provided for by the military than if they were hired as industrial workers. This applied at least to around half of the women, who came from the lower social classes and who volunteered as auxiliary staff. Ultimately, however, the use of women only offered a low degree of help when it came to replacing human resources.2325 The Chief of Recruitment gave an overall figure for the number of people in the army in the field as 2,823,066. These in- cluded around 200,000 prisoners of war, 125,000 wounded and sick and 32,000 female auxiliary workers. The fighting troops now comprised only 917,000 men. If this level was to be maintained, a monthly replacement of between 100,000 and 120,000 men would be required. If the returnees, those who had recovered from injury or illness and those born in 1900 would be available and that, on top of this, ‘no major fighting oc-