Chapters

In November 1916 Emperor Franz Joseph died after a long reign of 68 years. In the middle of the turmoil of the First World War the Monarchy had lost the symbolic figurehead of Habsburg power. The political elites of the Habsburg Monarchy were ill-prepared for the change. Whole areas of public life were seized by a sense of disorientation.

What do "militarisation" and “militarism” mean? Can a clear distinction be made between the two terms? And when does the social militarisation process take place? At all events, the formation of modern states is closely linked with this process.

The systematic promotion of the military began under Maria Theresa and was to make it in the following decades into a commanding instrument of power. The wars with revolutionary France marked a new development in militarism, which also affected the Habsburg Monarchy.

The introduction of universal conscription marked the start of the fundamental militarisation of society in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. At the same time, public awareness of the military changed: from a dubious place for forcibly conscripted lower classes to a respected “school of the nation”.

The military systematically employed physical and psychological violence to train and tame recruits. Humiliation, threats and drastic physical punishments were daily occurrences. Although public criticism prompted various reforms, they were not necessarily felt in daily life in the barracks.

The consequences of the often brutal training of soldiers and the way in which the military encroached increasingly on other social spheres are illustrated by the questions in parliament regarding suicides in the Austro-Hungarian army. They were often preceded by brutality. The military authorities tried to repel the criticism by referring to contemporary ideas of psychophysiological pathology.

The anti-militarist movement in Bohemia illustrates how ambivalent and complicated the relationship was between the military, politics and society within the multinational Habsburg Monarchy.

The First World War and the special measures announced in connection with it led to a hitherto unseen level of militarisation. Basic civil rights were considerably reduced, public opinion was subject to censorship and propaganda, economic and administrative competences were shifted to the military authorities, and military justice was extended to civilian affairs.

Like in other areas of the arms industry there had also been significant innovations since the second half of the 19^th century in the fields of explosives and blowing agents ('powders'): this concerned mainly synthetic explosives which around the turn of the century by and large superseded the hitherto common gunpowder. 

Right up to the mid 19th century soldiers of the Austrian Imperial Army were equipped with manufactured muzzle-loading guns. Despite their ballistic advantages they were at a disadvantage compared to the newly developed breech-loaders: to reload the gun the soldiers had to stand up from their cover.

In 1900 it became more than apparent that the guns of the Imperial Artillery were by and large outdated compared to those of the other Great Powers.  An extensive process of modernisation was to balance out that deficiency. Yet the projected new gun models could not be brought to readiness for start of production before the beginning of the war in 1914.

The beginning of the First World War released a wave of enthusiasm throughout Europe, especially among intellectuals and the middle classes, the like of which it is utterly impossible for us to understand nowadays. It was the writers who led the way in propaganda, their verbal attacks making an essential contribution in preparing the ground for the general mood of unthinking nationalism.

Artillery and infantry were amongst the most important branches of the armed services in World War One, but they unfolded their full potential only in cooperation with each other. In this military union the artillery had to support the forward pressing infantry.

Among all the different branches of weapons of World War One, the machine gun held a prominent position. Thousands and thousands of soldiers were killed in the blaze of gunfire. Yet the full military potential of these automated guns was only to become apparent in the course of the war.

Hand grenades, mortars and howitzers were particularly used when the enemy could not be hit with direct fire. Despite the fact that the military knew of this area of application the industrial production in the Austro-Hungarian Empire of this weapon only began one year after the beginning of the war.

The Imperial Arms Industry had to struggle with some problems at the beginning of the war, which in the course of time would be solved, however, new and quite severe problems ensued.

The Imperial and Royal War Press Quarters (Kriegspressequartier/KPQ) was set up on 28 July 1914, the day of Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum to Serbia. Its purpose was to co-ordinate and direct military propaganda with specially written items for all media available at the time.

The topics writers dealt with were many and varied. They ranged from enthusiasm for the war and wartime propaganda to descriptions of battles with individual experiences and feelings. The types of text that were used were just as varied – including diary entries, essays, poems, dramas and novels.

In the age of universal conscription and the modern mass army the existence of a military postal service came to have a special importance. The increasing totalization of warfare demanded a high degree of social control and the wholesale psychological mobilization of the belligerent nations. Private correspondence was intended to bolster and support the mental health of troops at the front confronted with ‘modern’ industrialized warfare.
 

Each item sent from the home front by the Imperial and Royal postal system started its journey in the Monarchy at a post office. From there it made its way to the postal collection points where post for the front was sorted according to formation and troop unit. So-called ‘travelling Feldpost collection points’, as Paul Höger has called them, even performed this operation while trains were in transit on central railway lines.

For the eight to nine million soldiers called up in the Habsburg Monarchy during the course of the First World War and their families, friends and acquaintances, the military postal system often provided the only form of contact. Receiving a sign of life in the shape of a letter or postcard was essential both for the soldiers at the front as well as their families at home.
 

During the First World War correspondence between the front line and the home front became a mass cultural phenomenon encompassing all levels of society.

The sending of parcels from the home front to the front line was permitted from 10 August 1914, but had to be suspended for the first time by the beginning of September 1914 because the system was unable to cope with the volume of parcels being dispatched.
 

In everyday wartime life, which was dominated by propaganda and censorship, letters from the front assumed a special status. The ‘immediate proximity of its writers to the events of the war at the front’ gave it an otherwise almost unachievable ‘authenticity’.