Chapters

As far back as 1774, Empress Maria Theresa had declared in her decree on school reform that ‘the education of youth of both sexes (...) [was] the most important fundament for the true happiness of nations.’ One of the approved teaching methods was the targeted educational use of children’s and teenage literature. Austria and Germany were particularly productive in this field, with Nuremberg and Vienna being the most important centres of publishing. It was inevitable, then, that war propaganda would extend its reach to literature for young people.

The seriously damaged relations between both countries improved to some extent only in view of later ambitions of an ideological and power-political nature. The fascist government of Benito Mussolini, which endeavoured to exert influence in the Danubian region and in so doing supported in particular authoritarian regimes, anti-socialist and anti-marxist movements, was regarded with ongoing suspicion in Austria, however. Resentment towards the ‘contract-breaching, unreliable and treacherous neighbours’ was even heightened in view of the threat to the ‘austro-fascist corporate state’ from the National Socialist German Empire.

Good morning, Mr. Officer, / All four of us are here / Good, brave soldiers / And comrades without fear.

And so he turned to the blackboard, took a piece of chalk, and, pressing with all his might, wrote as large as he could: ‘VIVE LA FRANCE!’ (Alphonse Daudet, La dernière classe [The Final Class])

A literary mobilization amongst children and young people was already taking place in Germany and France before the First World War. However, the focus was different in the two countries. While Prussia could boast proud victories, with its triumph against Austria in 1866 and, above all, against France in the war of 1870/71, France was trying to come to terms with this very defeat.  

‘It was boiling hot on the balcony. Even though it was on the shady side of the street, you could feel the scorching heat with which the August sun seared the streets of Berlin.’ With these words, Else Ury opens the volume Nesthäkchen und der Weltkrieg [Nesthäkchen and the World War], and we, the readers, are drawn in and carried along into the world-war adventure!

In 1976, when Die Biene Maja [Maya the Bee] flew onto the television screen as a cartoon character and Karel Gott contributed the title song that would later become a pop hit, Waldemar Bonsels’s most famous character was making her second triumphant sweep across the German-speaking world. The fact that Bonsels’s book was considered a ‘classic’ on the Front during the First World War is largely unknown today.

Even during the war the Eastern Front faded from the propaganda and media depiction spotlight compared to the theatre of war in the West. However, it is no longer true to describe discussion of the battles in the Bukovina, Galicia and the Russian part of Poland, the Baltic states and Volhynia as a neglected subject.

Eugene’s last days and the lion of the Belvedere... the King of France, whom he had so often defeated, gave him an African lion... at last there were three days when the lion saw his master no more, refused all food and paced up and down restlessly inside his cage... at around three o’clock in the morning, he let out such a roar that his keeper ran out into the menagerie to see what had happened. There he saw lights in all of the chambers of the palace and heard the death knell in the chapel. Thus he knew that his Master, the great Prince Eugene, had died at this hour. (Hofmannsthal, Prinz Eugen der edle Ritter [Prince Eugene the Noble Knight])

Historical personages have served since time immemorial as figures onto which (usually) idealized portrayals of nations and peoples can be projected. During wartime, it is, naturally, victorious historical military leaders who are the figures of choice to be instrumentalized for propaganda purposes. In Austria, this was Prince Eugene of Savoy, who was celebrated in essays, poems and in children’s literature during the First World War.

The war in the Eastern Europe was time and again characterised by considerable territorial gains. This, despite the fact that large-scale military operations were impeded not only by the geography, climate and vastness of the country, but also by the rudimentary motorisation, poor road network and problems with replenishment, supplies and communication.

Added to ‘effective killing’ there were the demographic consequences in the East, the consequences of industrial ‘machine warfare’ with hitherto unknown effects of mass mobilisation. This was reflected in long lists of troops both deceased and wounded, and prisoners of war. The mobile warfare also affected the civilians of these simply vast theatres of war, the various bases and the occupied areas.

The armies of the belligerent powers often viewed the population that still lived near the frontlines as an unwanted nuisance. The increasing nervousness and intensified ‘Russophile’ image of the enemy in the wake of the commencment of hostilities thus took its toll on the civilian population on the Eastern Front, too. There were several orders that decreed ‘ruthless actions’ towards ‘suspects and possible traitors’. Whoever was not ‘massacred and without mercy’ on the spot faced a policy of rigorous deportation.

Demand for war literature that was suitable for children was very high at the outbreak of war. Picture books were particularly popular, and therefore great numbers of them were published. The portrayals explored both serious and seemingly light-hearted themes, which turned the war into a cheery game.

In the whole of Europe the military commanders preferred an offensive strategy, but after only a few months it became apparent that their attacks had failed nearly everywhere. Thus in the West trench and static warfare began. In the East the opening military campaigns turned out to be quite different right from the start.

At the beginning of May 1915, the Russian front began to totter as a result of the German-Austrian breakthrough near Tarnów-Gorlice. Galicia, which had been occupied by the troops of Tsar Nicholas II, was reclaimed after just a few weeks. The ensuing forays by the German High Command in the East led to the conquest of Russian Poland and parts of the Baltic States.

Despite their defeats in 1915 the Tsarist Army still managed to deal considerable blows to the Central Powers. General Aleksei Brusilov destroyed entire Austro-Hungarian armies in June 1916, although the offensive was by no means an operation that decisively turned the course of war. The temporary government that followed the downfall of the Tsar in spring 1917 tried once more to succeed on the battlefields, yet just caused yet more destabilisation within Russia.

Unlike the interim government that had been in office since the ‘February Revolution’, the Bolsheviks under Vladimir I. Lenin advocated an end to the ‘Imperial War’, and so managed not least of all to speak to battle-weary soldiers and large parts of the population. After the ‘October Revolution’ the new Soviet government under Lenin immediately sought to conclude a ceasefire.

Neither Germany, nor Austria-Hungary nor Russia managed to create any kind of stable order for a shorter or longer period of time in the conquered territories, nor did they manage to bond with the local population for any longer period of time. This applied in varying grades of intensity and forms for nearly all territories concerned, with Poland, the Ukraine and the Baltic States leading the way.

Generally speaking, the turn of the year 1918/19 meant further escalations of violence for the Central-Eastern European macro-region. This was caused by three key factors: firstly, the conflicts between the successor states of the Habsburg Empire and the connected battles between the Hungarian Councils and the neighbouring states; secondly, Poland’s territorial claims and those of its antagonists; and thirdly, the advance of the Red Army into the former German-Austrian occupied territories.

‘Earth from Bohemia, earth from Hungary, earth from Slovenia … earth from Austria’: With these words in his drama The Third of November 1918 the author Franz Theodor Csokor buries not only a colonel of the Imperial and Royal Army who has committed suicide out of despair but also, in symbolic form, the Monarchy. 

Article 1
German-Austria is a democratic republic. All public powers are put into force by the people.

Article 2
German-Austria is a constituent part of the German Republic. Special laws regulate the participation of German-Austria in the legislation and administration of the German Republic as well as the extension of the area of validity of the laws and institutions of the German Republic to German-Austria.
(Articles 1 and 2 of the new constitution of German-Austria)

‘… and then Fritz Adler will proclaim the Soviet Republic of Austria. What was shameful about the affair was not so much the childishness of this arrangement as the names which were to be found in connection with it: Rothziegel, Frey, Weihrauch, Ganser, Kisch, Waller etc., all of them Jews.’ (From the diary of Franz Brandl, a senior police official)

The collapse of the Monarchy was preceded by mass strikes by the workforce. The one which was most successful and had the most consequences was the ‘January strike’ in 1918, which began in Wiener Neustadt on the morning of 14 January as a result of the very slow progress of the peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk and the catastrophic food and fuel supply situation. It spread to other factories and hence paralyzed the production of material needed for the war.

The role of the Social Democrats under their Party Chairman Victor Adler during the days of the strike has remained a controversial issue to the present day. If at that time there had been a decision in favour of revolution, then this, in the opinion of radical left-wingers, would have been possible in January 1918.  

How are the events before and at the time of the founding of the republic to be assessed? Did an ‘Austrian Revolution’ in fact take place, as Otto Bauer maintained in 1923?  Historians have still not been able to agree on the answers.

The way that foreign policy was conducted in Austria underwent a radical change in November 1918. Up to then it had been in the hands of the Emperor and the upper ranks of the aristocracy; now Otto Bauer, a Social Democrat, took over as Secretary of State in the State Office for Foreign Affairs.

The economic situation of the population in the post-war years was desperate. Many people starved and froze: social unrest was the result. The country was dependent on deliveries of aid from abroad, but it was difficult to get these, as German-Austria was viewed with suspicion from all sides, on the one hand as bearing responsibility for the war and on the other because of its left-wing political leadership.