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There is probably hardly any other phrase which is mentioned more often in Austria and Germany in connection with the First World War than ‘original catastrophe’. The term is derived from the words of the George F. Kennan, an American historian and diplomat for the United States, who in 1979 spoke of ‘the great seminal catastrophe’. This was shortened in German translation to Urkatastrophe (original catastrophe), and this word has meanwhile become a frequently used narrative, but one which generally does not bear in mind its origin, meaning, and above all its effect.

The observer cannot but get the impression that in the struggle of the publicists for sales and attention it is the interpretation which comes up with the pithiest and most memorable labels for historical periods that finds favour.

In treatises and reports about the First World War the same concepts and labels crop up time and time again. Many of them have been taken over from the period of the war itself or from the years immediately after it. They represent – in most cases unthinkingly – a point of view which does not do justice to the present state of historical research. At the same time they repeat a narrative which appears problematic from a present-day perspective.

Surrogates have a long history. Among the most well-known are the various types of ersatz coffee. In the course of industrialisation the number and variety of surrogates increased. When the First World War started, they took on a new importance for both private consumers and the war economy.

Mining and metallurgy were flourishing economic sectors, but they were nevertheless inadequately equipped for a protracted all-out war, and rare and vital metals had to be replaced increasingly by other more abundant ones.

Mining was stepped up during the war to ensure the supply of metals. Metal was also collected and melted down for military purposes. Examples included the Patriotic War Metal Collection committee and the melting of church bells.

Within a very short time after the outbreak of war, uniforms had to be provided for entire armies. Domestic textile fibres were in short supply, however. Paper textiles made of wood pulp from domestic forests were thus used above all to supply the civilian population.

When supplies dried up soon after the start of the war, the former reliance on some unremarkable raw materials from far-off lands became clear. Among them were quebracho wood from Argentina, which had lots of tannin and was used for tanning leather, and wax from the carnauba palm in Brazil, which was used to care for leather.

Rubber goods were widely used in the home and for technical and scientific purposes. When supplies of rubber from the colonies of other powers were no longer available, no suitable substitute was found during the First World War. The processing and recycling of old rubber was the only possibility.

The Habsburg monarchy had vast areas of forest, but there were few tree species like black pine suitable for industrial extraction of resin and its products rosin and turpentine oil. When imported products were no longer available, fossil resins from coal tar offered a solution.

The Prater offered entertainment, but it was also used for military propaganda. In the last months of the war an exhibition was organised there on surrogates. Although the intention was the opposite, it showed how difficult it had become to manage on a day-to-day basis.

Erected in 1660, the Burgtor was originally one of the gates in the fortifications surrounding the city of Vienna and was the site of fierce fighting during the second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683. After the gate was blown up by Napoleon’s soldiers in 1809 it took fifteen years for the military to rebuild it. The foundation stone was laid in the presence of Emperor Franz I in 1821. The opening ceremony took place on 16 October 1824, the eleventh anniversary of the battle of Leipzig, the so-called ‘Battle of the Peoples’, at which the joint forces of Austria, Prussia, Russia and Sweden defeated Napoleon in a ‘heroic fight’.

The ‘Siegfried’s Head’ was commissioned from the sculptor Josef Müllner by the German Student Fraternity in honour of the members of the university who fell in the First World War and was placed in the main entrance hall of the University of Vienna. The sculpture has been an object of controversy for decades, because Müllner and the fraternity who commissioned it are linked to an anti-Semitic, German nationalist and anti-liberal way of thinking.

Before the First World War military monuments were reserved exclusively for high-ranking personalities such as commanders and generals. In this respect the war led to a paradigm shift: now people wanted to have monuments in remembrance of the ‘ordinary’ soldiers and to ‘honour’ them in this way. War memorials dedicated to the soldiers who fell in the First (and later also the Second) World War were put up in many towns and even small villages.

The hotel-restaurant … offers you agreeable accommodation in the vicinity of the battlefields of Verdun. From here you can easily reach the memorial at Fleury, the fortresses of Vaux and Douaumont, the trench known as the Tranchée des Baϊonnettes, the charnel house in Douaumont and the subterranean citadel. An attractive detail: quiet and calm in the centre of town in a hotel offering every comfort.

Viewing the sites of war began during the war itself, when members of propaganda bureaus, journalists and photographers travelled to the front in order to document the events taking place there. Since then remembrance tourism has become a business, which booms especially in the ‘round’ anniversary years. Hence the battlefields of Verdun are among the places in Lorraine which attract the most visitors. Such tourists thus make a significant contirbution to the region’s economic performance.

Vienna’s economy in the years before the outbreak of the First World War was characterised by a combination of traditional small businesses and expanding large modern companies. This applied not only to the industrial sector but also to business-related financial services like banks, insurance companies and company headquarters.

The first months of the war were characterised by a marked increase in unemployment in Vienna. Small businesses in particular, even in important sectors like metalworking, suffered from a drop in consumer demand before the transition to a war economy had been completed.

Ammunition, arms and explosives were manufactured in Vienna not only by specialist armaments companies like G. Roth AG. A number of companies from other sectors converted their production facilities. In spite of the shortage of raw materials, the output remained surprisingly high until 1917. It was only with the dramatic deterioration of the workers’ supply situation that productivity began to drop.

Even before the war the Imperial and Royal Artillery Arsenal was a large state-owned armoury. During the war it experienced a huge expansion. Up to 20,000 workers were employed in eighteen factories not only with the production of new arms but also with the repair and recycling of weapons.

The demands of modern warfare went far beyond the production of arms and ammunition. Transport – locomotives, wagons, motor vehicles and even aeroplanes – were of great importance. They were made by Viennese companies like Gräf & Stift and Lohner-Werke.

Significant profits were accrued from the war industry in Vienna, prompting the government in 1916 to introduce a staggered war profit tax. This measure increased wage costs and inflation and caused a drop in profits in the last year of the war, considerably dampening industrialists’ enthusiasm for the war.

Statistics for the establishment and closing of businesses demonstrate a good deal of activity by small businesses but at the cost of considerable wear on plant and equipment. Large-scale light industries were thus best equipped to survive the war, while other parts of the production sector suffered badly.

The Christian-Social mayor appointed in the four-curial electoral system was noted as a pragmatic politician. For a long time he believed he could guide the great new awakening, but in fact had to administer to decline and collapse.

According to the Viennese constitution this institution of the “Obmännerkonferenz” – “conference of chairmen” – did not exist. But it proved to be a cunning strategic instrument for Mayor Weiskirchner; it provided for “Burgfrieden” – a political truce among the parties – and secured continuity in politics and administration even after the collapse of the monarchy.

Vienna was bigger than ever before during the First World War and never as big later. There were no censuses held during the war, so there are no secured statistics to analyse, but numerous indications show that the population must have risen to more than 2.4 millions.