Seite - 201 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The War Economy Dominates Everyday Life 201 their horses. An army needed around 500 tons. Food and animal feed could be obtained in Serbia and Galicia but only partially in the vicinity of the front. Most of it had to be sent to the troops. If the animal feed was lacking, the march of the artillery divisions was slowed down, as were the supplies, which were hauled by motor convoys. Even more important was that the weapons were replaced and ammunition and armaments supplied. This demonstrated that the Habsburg Monarchy was better able to meet the demands of a factory war than Russia or Serbia. But the conversion to a war economy required time and above all a considerable number of sacrifices. The human factor played a particular role on all sides, at the front as well as back home. The outbreak of war had enraptured the Austro-Hungarian labourers just as it had the majority of the rest of the population. There was hardly any difference be- tween the workers of Bohemia, Moravia, Lower Austria or Croatia ; it was the same right across the Empire. Even between the organised and the non-organised workforce, between Christian Socialists and Social Democrats, there was no difference. Redlich depicted the demonstration of young Christian Socialists workers on the day of the declaration of war in front of Vienna’s St. Stephan’s Cathedral, and the Austrian Social Democratic Party made an appeal to its members ‘to show that there are no cases of desertion in our ranks and that our men, who are dedicated to the class struggle, will also stand with their flag until their last breath’.472 Only on the extreme left wing had there been secession movements, above all that of Friedrich Adler, who on 8 August 1914 had set aside his party offices and editorial duties. He was deeply depressed that the Social Democrats had abandoned their inter- nationalism without so much as a whimper and that there now only appeared to be a national socialism, for which he, he claimed, was unsuitable. He was ashamed of what the Arbeiter-Zeitung wrote.473 And in a memorandum for the party executive of the Austrian Social Democrats he declared : ‘The seizing of the hearts has succeeded ! […] Our enemies have succeeded in placing the workers in the service of enthusiasm for the war ; they shoot at their brothers and not only, as we had anticipated, as mere submissive tools of those in power. The national ecstasy has overpowered the consciousness of the international proletariat […].’474 In this case we have a witness who is completely beyond suspicion and testifies that the national enthusiasm of the beginning of the war had spread to all groups, even those on the left of the workforce. To this was added the loyalty of the vast majority towards their country in a narrower sense as well as towards the Monarch. A more tightly or- ganised and larger trade union organisation would have made no difference. Further- more, the special measures applied by the government would already have nipped any burgeoning resistance in the bud. But no action had to be taken. In Austria-Hungary  – in contrast to Germany, France or Great Britain  – it was not even necessary to negoti- ate with the workforce in order to avoid unrest. Thus, there was initially no upgrading