I saw the Emperor a good many times. At the beginning of the war he was rushed past me in the Unter den Linden in Berlin. The crowds were cheering him. He seemed supremely happy, as he bowed to right and left in acknowledgment of the fealty voiced. Since I am not so extraordinarily gifted as some claim to be, I could not say that I saw anything in his face but the expression of a man happy to see that his people stood behind him.
Later I saw him in Vienna. He had come to the capital of his ally to view for the last time the face of his dead comrade-in-arms, the late Emperor Francis Joseph. He stepped out of the railroad carriage with a grave face and hastened toward the young Emperor of Austria to express his condolences. The two men embraced each other. I was struck by the apparent sincerity of the greeting. What impressed me more, perhaps, was the alacrity of the older man. For several minutes the two monarchs paced up and down on the station platform and conversed on some serious subject. I noticed especially the quick movements of the German Emperor's head, and the smart manner in which he faced about when the two had come to the end of the platform.
The streak of white hair, visible between ear and helmet, accentuated in his face that expression which is not rare in old army officers, when the inroads of years have put a damper on youthful martial enthusiasm. The man was still every inch a soldier, and yet his face reminded me of that of Sir Henry Irving, despite the fact that there is little similarity to be seen when pictures of the two men are compared, as I had shortly afterward opportunity of doing. I should say that in civilian clothing I would take the Emperor for a retired merchant-marine captain, in whose house I would expect to find a fairly good library indiscriminately assembled and balanced by much bric-à-brac collected in all parts of the world without much plan or design.
Such a retired sea-dog would be a very human being, I take it. His crews might have ever stood in fear of him, but his familiars would look upon him with the respect that is brought any man who knows that friendship's best promoter is usually a judicious degree of reserve.
That was the picture I gained of the Emperor as he marched up and down the station platform in a Vienna suburb. The same afternoon he was taken over the Ring in an automobile. There was no cheering by the vast throng which had assembled to see the mighty War Lord from the north. The old emperor was dead. The houses were draped in black. Many of the civilians had donned mourning. To the hats that were lifted, Kaiser William bowed with a face that was serious. He was all monarch—King and Emperor.
I can understand why a man of the type of Czar Nicholas should lose his throne in a revolution brought on by the shortage of food and the exploitation incident to war. How a similar fate could overtake a man of the type of William II. is not clear to me. For that he is too ready to act. His adaptiveness is almost proverbial in Germany. I have no doubt that should the impossible really occur in Germany becoming a republic William II. would most likely show up as its first president.
In Germany nothing is really ever popular—the works of poets excluded. For that reason the Emperor is not popular in the sense in which Edward VII. could be popular. But Emperor William II. is a fact to the German, just as life itself is that. For the time being the Emperor is the state to the vast majority, and, incongruous as it may seem at a time when conditions in Germany are making for equipollence between the reactionary and the progressive, there is no doubt that no throne in Europe is more secure than that of the Hohenzollerns.
To understand that one must have measured in Germany the patience and determination of those who bore the burden of the war as imposed by scant rations on the one hand and ever-increasing expenditures in warfare on the other.
Since King Alfonso of Spain is better known than the German crown-prince, I will refer to him as the ruler whom the latter resembles most. The two men are of about the same build, with the difference in favor of the crown-prince, who is possibly a little taller and slightly better looking in a Teutonic fashion. Both are alike in their unmilitariness. One looks as little the soldier as the other, despite the fact that the interested publics have but rarely the opportunity to see these men in mufti.
After all, that is scant reason for the comparison I have made. The better reason is that both are alike in their attitude toward the public. Alfonso is no more democratic than Frederick, nor would he be more interested in good government.
To my friend Karl H. von Wiegand, most prominent of American correspondents in Berlin, the German crown-prince said on one occasion:
"I regret that not more people will talk to me in the manner you have done. I appreciate frankness, but cannot always get it. The people from whom I expect advice and information make it their business to first find out what I might expect to hear and then talk accordingly. It is very disheartening, but what can I do?"
Those who remember the last act of "Alt-Heidelberg" will best understand what the factors are that lead to this. We may pity the mind that looks upon another human being as something infinitely superior because accident suddenly places him in a position of great power. I am not so sure that he who becomes the object of that sort of reverence is not to be pitied more. Our commiseration is especially due the prince whom the frailties of human flesh cause to thus lose all contact with the real life by accepting ipso facto that he is a superior being because others are foolish enough to embrace such a doctrine.
A very interesting story is told in that connection of Emperor Charles of Austria. As heir-apparent he had always been very democratic. In those days he was little more to his brother officers than a comrade, and all of them, acting agreeably to a tradition in the Austro-Hungarian army, addressed him by the familiar Du—thou.
After he had become Emperor-King, Charles had occasion to visit the east front, spending some time with the Arz army, at whose headquarters he had stayed often and long while still crown-prince.
The young Emperor detected a chilling reserve among the men with whom he had formerly lived. Some of his comrades addressed him as "Your Majesty." Charles stood this for a while, and then turned on a young officer with whom he had been on very friendly terms.
"I suppose you must say majesty now, but do me the favor of saying 'Du Majestät.' I am still in the army; or are you trying to rule me out of it?"
This may be considered a fair sample of the cement that has been keeping the Central states from falling apart under the stress of the war. To us republicans that may seem absurd. And still, who would deny that the memory of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln is not a thing that binds together much of what is Americanism? In the republic the great men of the past are done homage, in the monarchy the important man of the hour is the thing. Were it otherwise the monarchy would not be possible. It is this difference which very often makes the republic seem ungrateful as compared with the monarchy. But in the aggregate in which all men are supposedly equal nothing else can be looked for.
We must look to that condition for an answer to the question which the subject treated here has suggested. And, after all, this is half a dozen of one and six of the other. In the end we expect any aggregate to defend its institutions, whether they be republican or monarchical. In the republic the devotion necessary may have its foundation in the desire to preserve liberal institutions, while in the monarchy attunement to the great lodestar, tradition, may be the direct cause of patriotism. In England, the ideal monarchy, we have a mixture of both tendencies, and who would say that the mixture, from the British national point of view, has been a bad one?
A hundred and twelve million people in Central Europe were thinking in terms of shortage as they approached the winter of 1916-17. Government and press said daily that relief would come. The public was advised to be patient another day, another week, another month. All would be well if patience was exercised. That patience was exercised, but in the mind of the populace the shortage assumed proportions that were at times hard to understand.
The ancestors of Emperor Francis Joseph had been buried in a rather peculiar manner. From the body were taken the brain, heart, and viscera in order to make embalming possible. The heart was then put away in a silver vessel, while the other parts were placed in a copper urn. In the funeral processions these containers were carried in a vehicle following the imperial hearse.
The funeral cortège of Francis Joseph was without that vehicle. The old man had requested that he be buried without the dissection that had been necessary in other instances. That being the case, the vehicle was not needed.
But its absence was misinterpreted by the populace. It gave rise to the belief that the copper for the urn could not be spared, seeing that the army needed all of that metal. That little copper would have been required to fashion the urn does not seem to have occurred to them. It was enough to know that the church bells had been melted down and that in the entire country there was not a copper roof left.
The phantom of shortage waxed when it became known that the lack of the necessary chemicals had led to the embalming of the Emperor's body with a fluid which had so discolored the body and face that the coffin had to be closed during the lying-in-state of the dead ruler. It grew again when it became known that, owing to a lack of horses, many changes had to be made in the funeral arrangements, and that most of the pomp of the Spanish court etiquette of funerals would have to be abandoned. What had anciently been a most imposing ceremony became in the end a very quiet affair. With one half of the world at war with the other half, there was a dearth even in monarchs, nobility, and diplomatists to attend the funeral.
Somehow I gained the impression that the word "Want" was written even on the plain coffin which they lifted upon the catafalque in St. Stefan's Cathedral in Vienna, twenty feet away from me. To get into the church I had passed through a throng that showed want and deprivation in clothing and mien. It was a chilly day. Through the narrow streets leading to the small square in which the cathedral stands a raw wind was blowing, and I remember well how the one bright spot in that dreary picture was the tall spire of the cathedral upon which fell the light of the setting winter sun. The narrow streets and little square lay in the gloom that fitted the occasion. The shadow of death seemed to have fallen on everything—upon all except the large white cross which presently moved up the central aisle. Under the pall which the cross divided into four black fields lay the remains of the unhappiest of men. His last days had been made bitter by his people's cry for bread.
Since coal was scarce, the church had not been heated. But that night, as if in honor of the funeral guests, a few more lights burned on the principal thoroughfares of Vienna. Even that was reckless extravagance under the circumstances.
Hundreds of thousands of women and children were sitting in cold rooms at that time. The coal-lines brought usually disappointment, but no fuel. Even the hospitals to which many of these unfortunates had to be taken found it difficult to get what coal they needed. The street-car service had been curtailed to such an extent that many were unable to reach their place of work. In Austria that was especially the fault of the Stürgkh régime, whose mad career in burning the candle at both ends the dead emperor had failed to check.
To keep certain neighbors good-natured and get from them such foods as they could spare, the Central states of Europe had in 1916 exported roughly three million two hundred thousands tons of coal. Another million tons had been shipped into the territories occupied by the Centralist troops. This was no great coal business, of course, especially when we come to consider that some of this fuel came from Belgium. But the four million tons could have been used at home without a lump going begging. When Christmas came coal was as scarce in Germany, Austria, and Hungary as was food. And that is saying a great deal.
Much economy had been already practised during the summer. "Summer time" meant the saving each day of one hour's consumption of fuel in city traction and lighting street, house, and shop. The saving was not great, when compared with the fuel a population of roundly one hundred and twelve millions will consume when given a free hand. But it was something, anyway.
That something was an easement of conditions in the coal market during the summer months. It did not make available for the cold season so much as a shovelful of coal. Whatever the mines put out was carted off there and then. When winter came the bunkers were empty.
The prospect of having to bear with an ever-craving stomach the discomforts of the cold and poorly lighted rooms was not pleasant.
The government saw this and tried a little belated regulation.
I say belated regulation because the measures came too late to have much value. That there would be a shortage in coal had been foreseen. Nothing could be done, however, to ward off the Knappheit.
Among my many acquaintances is the owner of several coal-mines in Austrian Silesia. His handicaps were typical of what every mine-operator had to contend with.
"The coal is there, of course," he would say. "But how am I to get it out? My best miners are at the front. Coal-mining may be done only by men who are physically the fittest. That is the very class of man the government needs at the front. I am trying to come somewhere near my normal output with men that are long past the age when they can produce what is expected of the average miner.
"It can't be done, of course.
"Women are no good underground. So I have tried Russian prisoners-of-war. I went to a prison camp and picked out seventy-five of the most likely chaps. I made willingness to work in a mine one of the conditions of their furlough. They all were willing—so long as they did not know what the work was. Right there the willingness of half the crew ended. I sent them back and tried my luck with the rest.
"To get some work out of the men, I made arrangements with the government that I was to pay them four-fifths of the regular scale. It isn't a question of money. It's a question of getting at the coal. To make a long story short: Out of the seventy-five Russians seventeen have qualified. I can't afford to repeat the experiment, for the reason that apprentices litter up the works and interfere with the few miners I have left."
The man was short then nearly two hundred workers at the mine shafts. He had underground most of his surface hands. With overtime and some other makeshifts he was able to produce about four-fifths of his normal output. The demand for fuel was such that he would have been able to sell twice as much coal as formerly.
Natural resources mean nothing to a state so long as they cannot be made available. This was the case with Central Europe.
More economy, more restrictions. Industries not contributing directly to the military strength of the Central Powers were ordered to discontinue all night work and overtime. Shops, cafés, hotels, restaurants, and other public places had to limit the consumption of fuel for heating and lighting purposes to one-third their usual quota. The lighting of shop-windows was cut down to almost nothing. Stores had to close at seven o'clock, eating- and drinking-places first at twelve and later at eleven. No light was to be used in the hotels after twelve. All unnecessary heating was prohibited, and the warm-water period in hotels shrank from four to two hours per day. On each stretch of corridor and at each stair-landing or elevator door one small light was allowed.
In Vienna all places of amusement "not contributing to the cultivation of art for art's sake" were closed. This hit the cheaper theaters and every moving-picture house.
A city of such restrictions would need no street lights at any time. But up to eleven o'clock two lights for each block were allowed. After that Stygian black reigned. Street traction ceased on some lines at eight o'clock; on all lines at nine, though arrangements were made for a few cars to run when the playing theaters closed.
But the regulations came near spilling the baby with the bath. They were well meant, but poorly considered. Economic waste came from them.
The several governments did their very best to get coal to the consumers. In Vienna, for instance, Emperor Charles took a personal interest in the matter. He issued an order that as many miners as possible be returned immediately from the front. For the workers at the mines, who had been living none too well so far as food went, he prescribed the subsistence given the men in the trenches and placed military commissaries in charge of the kitchens. Men from the military railroad organizations were given the running of coal-trains. For certain hours each day the passenger service of the city street traction systems was suspended in favor of the coal traffic, which often gave rise to the unusual sight of seeing an electric street-car drag behind it, over the pavement, from three to five ordinary coal-wagons, which later were towed to their destination by army tractors.
It was a herculean labor that would have to be done in a few days, if a part of the population were not to perish in the cold spell that had come over Central Europe. The work of a whole summer was now to be done in a few days.
From the front came whole columns of army motor trucks. These took a hand at coal distribution. And finally Emperor Charles gave over to the work every horse in the imperial stables.
I will never forget the sight of the imperial coachmen in their yellow-and-black uniforms hauling coal all over Vienna. Their cockaded top-hats looked out of place on the coal-wagons, though no more so than the fine black and silver-adorned harness of the full-blooded horses that drew the wagons.
The press was freer now. Political censorship had been reduced to a minimum. Criticism changed with valuable tips, and one of them was that the government had done a very foolish thing in closing the Kinos—movies. It was pointed out that their closing resulted in so small a saving of fuel for heating and lighting that, compared with the wasteful result of the regulation, it stood as one to hundreds.
Such was the case. The men, women, and families who had formerly spent their evenings in the movies were now obliged to frequent the more expensive cafés or sit home and use light and fuel. Some man with a statistical mind figured out that the closing of a movie seating five hundred people and giving two performances in the evening, meant an increase in fuel consumption for heating and lighting purposes sixty times greater than what the movie used.
That was simple enough, and a few days later the movies and cheap theaters resumed business. More than that followed. The government decided that this was a fine method of co-operation. It gave the cafés permission to use more fuel and light in return for a more liberal treatment of patrons not able to spend much money. In harmony with this policy the passenger service of the car lines was extended first to nine and later to ten o'clock, so that people were not obliged to spend every evening in the same café or other public place.
The case was a fine example of co-operation between government and public, with the press as the medium of thought exchange. A twelve-month before, the reaching of such an understanding would have been next to impossible. The editor who then mastered the courage of criticizing a government measure had the suspension of his paper before his eyes. He no longer had to fear this. The result was a clearing of the political atmosphere. Government and people were in touch with one another for the first time in two years.
For over a year all effort of the upper classes had lain fallow. The women who had done their utmost at the beginning of the war had not met enough encouragement to keep their labor up. It had been found, moreover, that charity concerts and teas "an' sich" were of little value in times when everything had to be done on the largest of scales. What good could come from collecting a few thousand marks or crowns, when not money, but food, was the thing?
The fuel conjunction offered new opportunities. Free musical recitals, concerts, theatrical performances, and lectures were arranged for in order that thousands might be attracted away from their homes and thus be prevented from using coal and light.
One of the leaders in this movement in Vienna was Princess Alexandrine Windisch-Graetz.
The lady is either the owner or the lessee of the Urania Theater. In the past she had financed at her house free performances and lectures for the people in order that they might not be without recreation. A washed face and clean collar were the admission fee. Under her auspices many such institutions sprang up within a few weeks.
"We are saving coal and educating the masses at the same time," she would say to me. "There are times when making a virtue of necessity has its rewards."
And rewards the scheme did have. Lectures on any conceivable subject could be heard, and I was glad to notice that not a single one dealt with the war. The public was tired of this subject and the promoters of the lectures were no less so.
Those whom lectures did not attract could go to the free concerts, and, when the cheaper music palled, payment of twelve cents American brought within reach the best Vienna has to offer in symphony and chamber music.
At the same time "warming"-rooms were established in many cities. These were for unattached women and the wives of men at the front. Care was taken to have these places as cozy as circumstances permitted. Entertainment was provided. Much of it took the form of timely lectures on food conservation, care of the children, and related topics. Many of the women heard for the first time in their lives that there were more than two ways of cooking potatoes, and other manners of putting baby to sleep than addling its brain by rocking it in a cradle or perambulator.
I must say that this solution of the coal problem was an unqualified success.
The well-to-do also felt the pinch. Money no longer bought much of anything. The word "wealth" had lost most of its meaning. In the open food market it might buy an overlooked can of genuine Russian caviar or some real pâté de foie gras, and if one could trust one's servants and was willing to descend to illicit trading with some hoarding dealer, some extra food could be had that way. In most other aspects of subsistence rich and poor, aristocrat and commoner, fared very much alike. But I cannot say that this "democracy of want" was relished by the upper classes.
By this time every automobile had been requisitioned by the government. That was painful, but bearable so long as taxis could be had. Of a sudden it was found that most of the taxicabs were being hired by the day and week, often months, by those who could afford it. That was contrary to the purpose for which the government had left the machines in town. They were intended mainly to take officers and the public from the railroad stations to the hotels, and vice versa. As an aid to shopping they had not been considered, nor had it been borne in mind that some war purveyor's family would wish to take the air in the park by being wheeled through it. Regulation descended swiftly.
Hereafter taxicab-drivers could wait for a passenger five minutes if the trip from starting-point to destination had to be interrupted. If the passenger thought it would take him longer he was obliged to pay his fare and dismiss the taxi. Policemen had orders to arrest any taxi-driver who violated this rule; and since the two do not seem to get along well together anywhere, there was much paying of fines.
Regulation being still somewhat piecemeal, the hacks had been overlooked. Those who had to have wheel transportation at their beck and call hired these now by the day and week. Another order came. The hack-driver could wait in front of a store or any place ten minutes and then he had to take another "fare."
The upper classes had retained their fine equipages, of course. The trouble was that the government had taken away every horse and had even deprived the wheels of their rubber tires. With taxis and hacks not to be had, especially when the government ruled later that they could be used between railroad stations only, and not to points, even in that case, that could be reached with the street-cars, social life of the higher order took a fearful slump. Though a season of very quiet dressing was at hand, one could not go calling in the evening in the habiliment impervious to rain. Simple luncheons and teas were the best that society could manage under the circumstances.
The theater remained a little more accessible. Street-cars were provided to take the spectators home. With the show over, everybody made a wild scramble for the cars. Central Europe was having democracy forced down its throat. The holder of a box at the Royal Opera had indeed abandoned the evening dress and chapeau claque. His lady had followed his example in a half-hearted manner. But all this did not make the ride home easier. The gallery angel in Central Europe is well-behaved and not inclined to be conspicuous or forward. But he takes up room, and one was elbowed by him. When soap was scarce he also was not always washed all over, and that made a difference.
But the theaters did a fine business, for all that. The better institutions were sold out three weeks ahead, and the cheaper shows were crowded by the overflow.
Admission to the theater was the one thing that had not gone up in price very much. The artists had agreed to work for a little less, and those to whom royalties were due had acted in a like public spirit. Managers were content with being allowed to run on about a 5-per-cent.-profit basis. I suppose they thought that half a loaf was better than none. There would have been none had they gone up in their prices.
The performances were up to standard. A great deal of Shakespeare was being given. Two of the Vienna theaters played Shakespeare twice a week, and at Berlin as many as three houses had a Shakespearian program. Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw plays were occasionally given and also some by the older French playwrights. Modern French authors seemed to be taboo. No changes were made in the play-lists of the operas, nor was prejudice manifested on the concert programs. All performances were in German, however—Hungarian in Budapest. In other parts of the Dual Monarchy they were given in the language of the district; Italian, for instance, in Trieste, where I heard a late Italian opéra comique just imported via Switzerland.
The stage was not fallow by any means during the war. In Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest it was a poor week that did not have its two or three premières. It is rather odd that nobody wrote plays about the war. Of some twoscore new plays I saw in three years not a single one occupied itself with a theme related to the struggle that was going on. It seemed, too, that the playwrights had turned their attention to psychological study. One of these efforts was a phenomenal success. I refer to Franz Molnar's "Fasching."
About twenty new "Viennese" operas made their début during the war. Just two of them touched upon the thing that was uppermost in the mind of man. The others dealt with the good old days of long ago; the happy days of our great-grandfathers, when soldiers still wore green uniforms with broad lapels of scarlet and lapped-over swallowtails that showed the same color; when soldiers carried a most murderous-looking sidearm on "clayed" leather sashes hung rakishly over the shoulder. How happy those fellows looked as they blew imaginary foam from their empty steins in front of the inn!
Ten operas were turned out in the three years. I give credit for much vitality to only one of them. It is known as "Der Heiland"—"The Saviour." It was voted the one addition to lasting music.
With concert-composers also busy, there was no dearth of musical enjoyment. The art world did yeoman service to keep the population from going insane. As to that there can be no doubt. It was fortunate that the Central European public can find so much mental nourishment in the theater and concert-hall. Otherwise there would have been a lack of room in the asylums for the insane.
Society, however, did not go to sleep entirely. The luncheons were simple repasts, but lasted all the longer. Usually one left in time to reach tea somewhere else. For dinner only the closest friends of the family were invited, and when others had to be entertained in that manner there was the hotel. Balls and similar frivolities were under the ban, of course.
After listening all day long to what the people in the cafés and restaurants had to say of the war, it was really refreshing to hear what the aristocrats thought. Most of them were severely objective in their opinions, some verged on neutrality, and a small number took the tragedy of the war to heart.
Among the latter was a princess related to Emperor Francis Joseph by marriage. She was a motherly old woman. The very thought of warfare was unwelcome to her. She had one expression for what she thought of the calamity:
"Civilization has declared itself bankrupt in this war."
What she meant was that a civilization that could lead to such a catastrophe had shown itself futile. She was plain-spoken for one of her station, and the American ambassador at Vienna was her bête noire. This will suffice to identify the lady to all whom her identity could interest.
Much of the food shortage was laid at the door of the United States government. Why didn't the American government see to it that the Central states civilian populations received that to which international law and the recent The Hague and London conventions entitled them?
I was asked that question a thousand times every week. With the male questioners I could argue the point, but with the ladies ... it was another matter. As many as ten at a time have nailed me down to that question. At first that used to ruin many a day for me, but finally one gets used to anything.
The question was not so easily answered in Central Europe. The best reply was that I was not running anything aside from myself, in which I followed the ways of the diplomatist who is never responsible for the acts of his government so long as he wishes to remain persona grata.
On the whole, Central European society was leading a rather colorless life when the war was three years old. Even their charity work had no longer much of a sphere. It was still possible to collect money by means of concerts, teas, and receptions—bazaars had to be abandoned because everybody had tired of them—but there was so little that money could buy. Government control had gradually spread over everything, and, with everybody working hard, nobody needed much assistance, as everybody thought. That was not the case by any means, but such was largely the popular impression.
The truth was that everybody was tired of working at the same old charities. The shortage of fuel gave a new opportunity, but did not occupy many. It was one thing to pin a paper rosette to a lapel in return for an offering willingly made, and quite another to preside over a co-operative dining-room or a place where the women and children could warm themselves and pass the time with pleasure and profit to themselves. Not many were equal to that. Few had the necessary experience.
The worst of it was that travel to the international summer and winter resorts was out of the question. And to move about in one's own country meant passes, visées, authorizations, health certificates, documents attesting good conduct and a clean slate with the police; and if by chance the trip should take one into an inner or outer war zone, the home authorities had to go on record as having established that he or she was not plagued by insects. It is remarkable what the Central governments would do in the interest of law and order, public security, and sanitation. But it was more remarkable that the highest nobility had to conform to the same rules. The only persons who had the right to sidestep any of these multifarious regulations were officers and soldiers whose military credentials answered every purpose. Since I traveled only on Offene Order—open order—the marching order of the officer, I was one of the few civilians exempt from this annoyance.
That and the state of the railroads kept the upper classes at home. Many of them were thus afforded their first good chance to know where they lived.
Shortage had even come to rule the day for the aristocrats. It was a bitter pill for them, but I will say that they swallowed it without batting an eye.
The food situation in Central Europe became really desperate in the third year of the war. The year's wheat crop had been short in quantity and quality. Its nutritive value was about 55 per cent. of normal. The rye crop was better, but not large enough to meet the shortage in breadstuffs caused by the poor wheat yield. Barley was fair under the circumstances. Oats were a success in many parts of Germany, but fell very low in Austria and Hungary. The potato crop was a failure. The supply of peas and beans had been augmented by garden culture, but most people held what they had raised and but little of the crop reached the large population centers. To make things worse, the Hungarian Indian corn crop was very indifferent. Great losses were sustained when the Roumanian army in September and October overran much of Transylvania, drove off some twenty thousand head of cattle, and slaughtered about fifty thousand pigs. Large quantities of cereals were also ruined by them, as I was able to ascertain on my trips to the Roumanian front.
Up to this time the war-bread of the Central states had been rather palatable, though a steady loss in quality had been noticeable. Soon it came to pass that the ration of bread had to be reduced to about one-quarter of a pound per day. And the dough it was made of was no longer good.
The 55-25-20 war-bread was good to eat and very nutritious. The stuff now passing for bread was anything but that, so far as Austria was concerned. Its quality fluctuated from one week to another. I was unable to keep track of it. Indian corn was already used in the loaf, and before long ground clover hay was to form one of its constituents. Worst of all, the bread was not always to be had. At the beginning of November the three slices of bread into which the ration was divided, as a rule, fell to two, so that the daily allowance of bread was not quite four ounces. On one occasion Vienna had hardly any bread for four days.
In Hungary conditions were a little better, for the reason that the Hungarian government had closed the border against wheat and cereal exports. But the large population centers were also poorly provided with flour.
Germany, on the other hand, was better off than either Austria or Hungary. The rye crop had been fairly good, and food regulation was further advanced there. It was, in fact, close to the point of being perfect. But the quantity allotted the individual was inadequate, of course.
Throughout Central Europe the cry was heard:
So far the several populations had borne all hardships in patience and stoical indifference. The limit of endurance was reached, however. Colder weather called for a greater number of calories to heat the body. The vegetable season was over. The hoardings of the poorer classes had been eaten up. The cattle were no longer on pasture, and, fed with hay only, gave now less milk than ever.
It was a mournful season.
All food was now regulated. While there had been no meat cards in Austria and Hungary as yet, there were two, and at times three, meatless days; though when on three days no beef, veal, or pork could be eaten, it was permitted to consume mutton and fowl on one of them.
But the consumption of meat regulated itself, as it were. Meat has always been proportionately expensive in Central Europe, and but a small percentage of people ever ate it more than once a day. The majority, in fact, ate meat only three times a week, as was especially the case in the rural districts, where fresh meat was eaten only on Sundays. There was no inherent craving for this food, on this account, and beef at seventy cents American a pound was something that few could afford.
Animal fat had in the past taken the place of meat. In the summer not much was needed of this, for the reason that the warm weather called for less body heat, to supply which is the special mission of fats. But with clothing worn thin, shoes leaking, and rooms poorly heated, the demand for heat-producing food grew apace.
This was reflected by the longer potato-lines.
On one occasion I occupied myself with a potato-line in the Second Municipal District of Vienna. It was ten o'clock in the morning. Distribution was going on. Those then served had been standing in that line since six o'clock. The first who had received their quota of the eight pounds of potatoes, which was to last for three days, had appeared in front of the shop at three o'clock in the morning. It had rained most of that time and a cold wind was blowing.
I engaged one of the women in conversation.
She had arrived at the store at about seven o'clock. There were three children she had to take care of. She had given them a breakfast of coffee and bread for the oldest, and milk for the two others.
"I have nobody with whom I could leave the children," she said. "My neighbors also have to stand in the food-line. So I keep them from the stove by placing the table on its side in front of it. Against one end of the table I move the couch. The children can't move that, and against the other end I push my dresser."
It appears that the woman had come home once from the food-line and had found her rooms on the verge of going up in a blaze. One of the children had opened the door of the stove and the live coals had fallen out. They had set fire to some kindlings and a chair. The children thought that great fun.
I complimented the woman on her resourcefulness.
Her husband, a Bohemian, was then at the front in Galicia. For the support of the family the woman received from the government monthly for herself 60 crowns ($12) and for each child 30 crowns, making a total of 150, of which amount she paid 48 crowns for rent every month. I could not see how, with prevailing prices, she managed to keep herself alive. Coal just then was from 3 to 5 crowns per hundredweight ($12 to $20 per ton), and with only one stove going the woman needed at least five hundred pounds of coal a month. After that, food and a little clothing had to be provided. How did she manage it?
"During the summer I worked in an ammunition factory near here," she said. "I earned about twenty-six crowns a week, and some of the money I was able to save. I am using that now. I really don't know what I am going to do when it is gone. There is work enough to be had. But what is to become of the children? To get food for them I must stand in line here and waste half of my time every day."
The line moved very slowly, I noticed. I concluded that the woman would get her potatoes in about an hour, if by that time there were any left.
Since I used to meet the same people in the same lines, I was able to keep myself informed on what food conditions were from one week to another. They were gradually growing worse. Now and then no bread could be had, and the potatoes were often bad or frozen.
The cry for food became louder, although it was not heard in the hotels and restaurants where I ate. My waiters undertook to supply me with all the bread I wanted, card or no card—but who would eat the concoction they were serving? I was able to buy all the meat I needed and generally ate no other flour products than those in the pastry and puddings.
It was a peculiar experience, then, to eat in a well-appointed dining-room of supplies that were rather plentiful because the poor, who really needed those things, could not afford to buy them. The patrons of the place would come in, produce such cards as they had to have, and then order as before, with all the cares left to the management—which cares were comparatively slight, seeing that the establishment dealt with wholesalers and usually did much of its buying clandestinely.
Somewhere the less fortunate were eating what the luck of the food-line had brought that day, which might be nothing for those who had come late and had no neighbors who would lend a little bread and a few potatoes. Suicides and crime, due to lack of food, increased alarmingly.
There was a shocking gauntness about the food-lines. Every face showed want. The eyes under the threadbare shawls cried for bread. But how could that bread be had? It simply was not there. And such things as a few ounces of fats and a few eggs every week meant very little in the end.
Perhaps it was just as well that those in the food-lines did not know that a large number of co-citizens were yet living in plenty. There were some who feared that such knowledge might lead to riots of a serious nature. But I had come to understand the food-lines and their psychology better. With the men home, trouble might have come—could not have been averted, in fact. But the women besieging the food-shops were timid and far from hysterical. Most of them were more concerned with the welfare of their children than with their own troubles, as I had many an occasion to learn. Not a few of them sold their bodies to get money enough to feed their offspring. Others pawned or sold the last thing of value they had. The necessity of obtaining food at any price was such that many a "business" hoard entered the channels of illicit trade and exacted from the unfortunate poor the very last thing they had to give. The price of a pound of flour or some fat would in some cases be 800 per cent. of what these things normally cost.
The several governments were not ignorant of these things. But for a while they were powerless, though now they had abandoned largely their policy of "mobilizing" the pennies of the poor. To apply the law to every violator of the food regulations was quite impossible. There were not jails enough to hold a tenth of them, and a law that cannot be equitably enforced should not be enforced at all. The very fact that its enforcement is impossible shows that it is contrary to the interest of the social aggregate.
In Germany a fine disregard for social station and wealth had marked almost every food-regulation decree of the government from the very first. The several state governments were concerned with keeping their civil population in as good a physical condition as the food situation permitted. The financial needs of the government had to be considered, but it was forever the object to make the ration of the poor as good as possible, and to do that meant that he or she who had in the past lived on the fat of the land would now have to be content with less. As the war dragged on, pauper and millionaire received the same quantity of food. If the latter was minded to eat that from expensive porcelain he could do so, nor did anybody mind if he drank champagne with it, for in doing so he did not diminish unnecessarily the natural resources of the nation.
Food regulation in Austria had been less efficacious. In Hungary it was little short of being a farce. In both countries special privilege is still enthroned so high that even the exigencies of the war did not assail it until much damage had been done.
It was not until toward the end of December that the two governments proceeded vigorously to attack the terrible mixture of food shortage and chaotic regulation that confronted them.
The new ruler of the Dual Monarchy, Emperor-King Charles, was responsible for the change.
While Emperor Francis Joseph lived, the heir-apparent had not occupied much of a place in government. The camarilla surrounding the old man saw to that. But by depriving the young archduke of his rightful place, which the incapacity of the Emperor should have assigned him, the court clique gave him the very opportunities he needed to understand the food situation he was to cope with presently—had to cope with if he wanted to see the government continued.
The removal of Premier Stürgkh by the hand of the assassin had been timely; the death of Francis Joseph was timelier yet. The old monarch had ceased to live in the times that were. He came from an age which is as much related to our era as is the rule of the original patriarch, one Abraham of Chaldea. Food conditions might be brought to his attention, but the effort served no purpose. The old man was incapable of understanding why the interests of the privileged classes should be sacrificed for the sake of the many.
At the several fronts, at points of troop concentration, and in the very food-lines, the young Emperor had heard and seen what the ailments and shortcomings of public subsistence were. One of the first things he did when he came into power was to take a keen and active interest in food questions. For one thing, he decided to regulate consumption downward. It was a great shock to the privileged class when it heard that the Emperor would cut down the supply of those on top in order that more be left for those beneath.
To do that was not easy, however. The young man thought of the force of example. He prohibited the eating at court of any meals not in accord with the food regulations. Wheat bread and rolls were banished. Every servant not actually needed was dismissed so that he might do some useful work. Several of the imperial and royal establishments were closed altogether. The ménage at Castle Schönbrunn was disbanded. The personnel of the Hofburg in Vienna was reduced to actual needs. It was ordered that only one suite in the palace be lighted and heated—a very simple apartment which the Emperor and his family occupied.
Some very amusing stories are told in connection with the policy the Emperor had decided to apply. I will give here a few of them—those I have been able to verify or which for some other reason I may not doubt.
They had been leading a rather easy life at the Austro-Hungarian general headquarters. The chief of staff, Field-Marshal Conrad von Hötzendorff, was rather indulgent with his subordinates, and had never discouraged certain extravagances the officers of the establishment were fond of. One of them was to have wheat dinner-rolls.
A few days after the new Emperor's ascension of the Austrian throne he happened to be at Baden, near Vienna, which was then the seat of the general headquarters. After a conference he intimated that he would stay for dinner at the general mess of the staff. That was a great honor, of course, though formerly the influence of the archducal party had made the heir-apparent more tolerated than respected in that very group.
After a round of introductions Emperor Charles sat down at the head of the table. On each napkin lay a roll and in a basket there were more. The Emperor laid his roll to one side and ate the soup without any bread. When the next dish was being served, and those at table had made good inroads upon their rolls, the Emperor called the orderly.
"You may bring me a slice of war-bread, and mind you I do not want a whole loaf, but just the third of a daily ration, such as the law entitles me to. No more, no less!"
Some of the officers almost choked on the morsel of wheat roll they were about to swallow. The Emperor said no more, however, and his conversation continued with all the bonhomie for which he is known. But henceforth no more wheat bread in any form was to be seen in any officers' mess. A few days later came an order from the civil authorities that all patrons of hotels and restaurants were to bring their bread, issued to them in the morning, to their meals if they were not to go without it. The eating-house manager who gave bread to patrons would be fined heavily once or twice and after that would lose his license to do business.
A few days after that I saw a rather interesting thing in the cloak-room of the Court Opera. A well-dressed couple came in. The lady was attired in quite the latest thing made by some able couturier, and the man was in evening dress, a rare sight nowadays. As he pushed his fur coat across the counter a small white parcel fell to the floor. The paper wrapping parted and two slices of very black war-bread rolled among the feet of the throng.
"There goes our supper bread!" cried the woman.
"So it seems," remarked the man. "But what is the use of picking it up now? It's been rolling about on the floor."
"But somebody can still eat it," said the woman.
Just then two men handed back the bread. Its owner wrapped it up again and put the parcel into a pocket. I suppose the servants of the household ate next day more bread than usual.
Shortly after that I had tea at the residence of Mrs. Penfield, wife of the American ambassador at Vienna. Among other guests was a princess of the house of Parma. There are several such princesses and I have forgotten which one it was, nor could I say whether she was a sister or a cousin of Empress Zita.
At any rate, the young woman had a son of an age when good milk is the best food. She said that the recent regulations of the government were such that not even she could transgress upon them, though that does not seem to have been her intention.
How to get enough milk for her boy was a great problem, or had been. The problem had on that very day been solved by her, however.
"I bought a good cow two weeks ago," said the princess.
"That was certainly the best way of getting good milk," commented the American ambassadrice.
"Yes, it was," remarked the Princess Parma. "But it did not end my troubles. I had the milk shipped here, and found that the food authorities would not allow it to be delivered to me, except that portion which the law prescribes for children and adults. That much I got. The remainder was turned over to the Food Central, and I got a letter saying that I would be paid for the milk at the end of the month."
"But the allowance is too small, your Highness," suggested somebody, sympathetically.
"That is the trouble, of course," returned the princess. "It is too small for a growing child. But what could I do? The authorities say that the law is the law. I spoke to the Emperor about it. He says that he is not the government and has nothing to do with it. Nor can he intercede for me, he says, because he does not want to set a bad example."
"Then the buying of the cow did not solve the problem," I ventured to remark. "The solution is only a partial one, your Highness!"
The princess smiled in the manner of those who are satisfied with something they have done.
"The problem is solved, monsieur!" she said. "This morning I shipped my boy to where the cow is."
There was no longer any doubt that food regulation was on in real earnest. When a woman allied to the imperial house was unable to get for her child more milk than some other mother could get, things were indeed on the plane of equity. That every person should thereafter get his or her share of the available store of bread is almost an unnecessary statement.
The Austrian civil authorities had not made a good job of food administration. They were too fond of the normal socio-economic institutions to do what under the circumstances had to be done, and were forever afraid that they would adopt some measure that might bring down the entire economic structure. And that fear was not unwarranted, by any means. The drain of the war had sapped the vitality of the state. Though Austria was for the time being a dead tree, the civil administrators thought that a dead tree was still better upright than prostrate.
Emperor Charles had surrounded himself with young men, who were enterprising, rather than attached to the interests of the privileged. Among them was a man known as the "Red Prince." It was not the color of hair that gave this name to Prince Alois Lichtenstein. Odd as it may sound, this scion of one of the most prominent families in Europe is an ardent socialist in theory and to some extent in practice, though not anxious to be known as one. He holds that the chief promoters of socialism the world over are professional politicians who have seized upon a very valuable socio-economic idea for the purpose of personal promotion, and that under these circumstances he cannot support them.
His influence with the new Emperor was great, and led to a rather "unsocialist" result—the appointment of a military food-dictator, General Höfer, a member of the Austro-Hungarian general staff.
It was argued that equity in food distribution could be effected only by placing it in charge of a man who would treat all classes of the population as the drill-sergeant does his men. The military food-dictator had no favors to grant and none to expect. General Höfer acted on this principle, and despite the fact that he was handicapped by a top-heavy regulation machine and a shortage in all food essentials, he was shortly able to do for Austria what Dr. Karl Helfferich had done for Germany.
In speaking here particularly of Austrian regulations when the crisis came I have a special objective. I am able to give in this manner a better picture of what was done throughout Central Europe. The necessity for a certain step in food regulation and the modus operandi move in a narrower sphere. In Germany the situation had been met more or less as its phases developed; in Austria and Hungary this had not been done. There had been much neglect, with the result that all problems were permitted to reach that concrete form which extremity was bound to give them. So many threads had been pulled from the socio-economic fabric that holes could be seen, while the Germans had always managed in time to prevent more than the thinness of the thing showing.
The profit system of distribution manages to overlook the actual time-and-place values of commodities. Under it things are not sold where and when they are most needed, but where and when they will give the largest profit. That the two conditions referred to are closely related must be admitted, since supply and demand are involved. But the profit-maker is ever more interested in promoting demand than he is in easing supply. He must see to it that the consumer is as eager to buy as the farmer is anxious to sell, if business is to be good. This state of affairs has its shortcomings even in time of peace. What it was to be in war I have sufficiently shown already.
The regulations to which the food crisis of the fall of 1916 gave justification laid the ax to the middleman system of distribution. The several governments empowered their Food Commissions and Centrals to establish shortcuts from farm to kitchen that were entirely in the hands of the authorities. Though the Purchasing Central was even then not unknown, it came now to supplant the middleman entirely.
The grain was bought from the farmer and turned over to the mills, where it was converted into flour at a fixed price. The miller was no longer able to buy grain for the purpose of holding the flour afterward until some commission-man or wholesaler made him a good offer. He was given the grain and had to account for every pound of it to the Food Commissioners.
Nor was the flour turned loose after that. The Food Centrals held it and gave it directly to the bakers, who meanwhile had been licensed to act as distributors of bread. From so many bags of flour they had to produce so many loaves of bread, and since control by means of the bread-card coupon would have been as impossible as it was before, the Food Commissions assigned to each bakeshop so many consumers. The bread cards were issued in colored and numbered series. The color indicated the week in which they were valid, while the number indicated the bakeshop at which the consumer had to get his bread—had to get it in the sense that the baker was responsible for the amount the card called for. The Food Central had given the baker the necessary flour, and he had no excuse before the law when a consumer had cause for complaint. If there were one thousand consumers assigned to a bakeshop the authorities saw to it that the baker got one thousand pounds of flour, and from this one thousand loaves of bread had to be made and distributed.
The system worked like the proverbial charm. It was known as Rayonierung—zonification. Within a few days everybody managed to get the ration of bread allowed by the government. The bread-lines disappeared of a sudden. It made no difference now whether a woman called for her bread at eight in the morning or at four in the afternoon. Her bread card called for a certain quantity of bread and the baker was responsible for that amount. It was his duty to see that the consumer did not go hungry.
Much of the socio-economic machine was running again—not on its old track, but on a new one which the government had laid for it. And the thing was so simple that everybody wondered why it had not been done before.
But the greed of the profiteer was not yet entirely foiled. Bakers started to stretch the flour into more loaves than the law allowed, and some of them even went so far as to still turn consumers away. These were to feel the iron hand of the government, however.
I remember the case of a baker who had been in business for thirty years. His conduct under the new regulations had led to the charge that he was diverting flour, turned over to him by the Food Centrals, into illicit trading channels. The man was found guilty. Despite the fact that he had always been a very good citizen and had been reasonable in prices even when he had the chance to mulct an unprotected public, he lost his license. The judge who tried the case admitted that there were many extenuating circumstances.
"But the time has come when the law must be applied in all its severity," he said. "That you have led an honorable life in the past will not influence me in the least. You have obviously failed to grasp that these are times in which the individual must not do anything that will cause suffering. There is enough of that as it is. I sentence you to a fine of five thousand crowns and the loss of your license to operate a bakery. Were it not for your gray hairs I would add confinement in prison with hard labor for one year. I wish the press to announce that the next offender, regardless of age and reputation, will get this limit."
The baker paid enough for the ten loaves he had embezzled. His fate had a most salutary effect upon others.
What bread is for the adult milk is for the baby. It, too, was zonified. The milk-line disappeared. A card similar to that governing the distribution of bread was adopted, and dealers were responsible for the quantities assigned them. The time which mothers had formerly wasted standing in line could now be given to the care of the household, and baby was benefited not a little by that.
Simple and effective as these measures were, they could not be extended to every branch of distribution. In the consumption of bread, milk, and fats known quantities could be dealt with. What the supply on hand was could be more or less accurately established, and the ration issued was the very minimum in all cases. Waste from needless consumption was out of the question.
It was different in other lines. The governments wanted to save as much food as was possible, and this could best be done by means of the food-line. The line had boosted prices into the unreasonable for the profiteer, but was now used by the several governments to limit consumption to the strictly necessary. To issue potatoes and other foods in given quantities was well enough, but not all that could be done. In some cases half a pound of potatoes per capita each day was too little; in others it was too much, though taken by and large it was a safe average ration. The same was true of cooking-flour and other foods. Those able to buy meat and fish stood in no need of what the government had to allow those who could not include these things in their bill of fare. On the other hand, it was impossible to divide consumers into classes and allow one class a quarter of a pound and another half a pound of potatoes each day. That would have led to confusion and waste.
A scheme of equalization that would leave unneeded food in the control of the government became necessary. The food-line provided that in a thorough manner. The woman not needing food supplies on a certain day was not likely to stand in a food-line, especially when the weather was bad. She would do with what she had, so long as she knew that when her supply was exhausted she could get more. The cards she had would not be good next week, so that she was unable to demand what otherwise would have been an arrear. The green card was good for nothing during a week of red cards. Nor was there anything to be gained by keeping the green card in the hope that some time green cards would again be issued and honored. By the time all the color shades were exhausted the government changed the shape of the card and later printed on its head the number of the week.
Hoarding was out of the question now. In fact, the remaining private hoard began to return to the channels of the legitimate scheme of distribution. Those who had stores of food drew upon them, now that the future seemed reasonably assured, leaving to others what they would have called for had the food-line been abolished altogether and supplies guaranteed, as in the case of bread, milk, and fats.
It must not be accepted, however, that the war-tax and war-loan policy was abandoned in favor of this new scheme. The state was still exacting its pound of flesh and the officials were too bureaucratic to always do the best that could be done. To illustrate the point with a story, I will give here another instance of how Emperor Charles interfered now and then.
He is an early riser and fond of civilian clothing—two things which made much of his work possible.
He was looking over the food-lines in the Nineteenth Municipal District of Vienna one fine morning in December of 1916. Finally he came to a shop where petroleum was being issued. The line was long and moved slowly. Charles and the "Red Prince" wondered what the trouble could be. They soon found out.
At first the shopkeeper resented the interest the two men were showing in his business. He wanted to see their authority in black on white.
"That is all right, my dear man!" said the "Red Prince." "This man happens to be the Emperor."
The storekeeper grew very humble of a sudden.
"It is this way, your Majesty," he explained. "The authorities have limited the allowance of coal-oil for each household to one and one-half liters [2.14 pints] per week. This measuring apparatus [a pump on the petroleum-tank whose descending piston drives the liquid into a measuring container] does not show half-liters, only one, two, three, four, and five whole liters. The customers want all they are entitled to, and usually think that I am not giving them the proper measure when I guess at the half-liter between the lines showing one and two liters. To overcome the grumbling and avoid being reported to the authorities I am measuring the petroleum in the old way by means of this half-liter measure. That takes time, of course. While I am serving one in this manner I could serve three if I could use the pump."
"Do these people have the necessary containers for a larger quantity than a liter and a half?" asked the Emperor.
"Yes, your Majesty," replied the storekeeper. "Nearly all of them have cans that hold five liters. Before the war petroleum was always bought in that quantity."
An hour afterward the burgomaster of Vienna, Dr. Weisskirchner, to whose province the fuel and light supply belonged, was called up by the Emperor on the telephone.
The conversation was somewhat emphatic. The mayor felt that he was elected by the people of Vienna and did not have to take very much from the young man whom accident had made Emperor. He offered to resign if he could not be left a free hand in his own sphere.
"You can do that any time you are ready!" said the young man at the other end of the wire. "But meanwhile see to it that petroleum in the city of Vienna is issued in lots of three liters every two weeks. The food-line is necessary as a disciplinary measure to prevent waste, but I do not want people to stand in line when it is unnecessary. I understand that nearly every shop selling petroleum uses these pumps. Kindly see to it that they can be used. Three liters in two weeks will do that." Thereafter petroleum was so issued.
The case led to a general clean-up in every department of food administration and regulation. In a single week more than eight hundred men connected with it were dismissed and replaced. And within a month food distribution in Austria and Hungary was on a par with that of Germany.
The question has often been asked, To what extent is the scarcity of food in Central Europe the cause of the ruthless submarine warfare?
Dr. Arthur Zimmermann, the former German Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, discussed that subject with me several times while I was interviewing him.
On one occasion he was very insistent that Germany would have to shorten the war. Though there was no reason why in 1916 that statement should have seemed unusual to me, since the Central European public was thoroughly tired of the war and all it gave rise to, I was nevertheless struck by the insistence which the Secretary of State put into his remarks. I framed a question designed to give me the information I needed to throw light on this.
"England has been trying to starve us," said Mr. Zimmermann. "She has not succeeded so far. In the submarine we have an arm which, as our naval experts maintain, is capable of letting England feel the war a little more in food matters. I am not so sure that it is a good idea to use this weapon for that purpose, seeing that the measures incident to its use would have to be sweeping. So far as I am concerned, I am not for a policy that would make us more enemies. We have enough of them, God knows."
I may say that this was in a general way the policy of the Chancellor, von Bethmann-Hollweg. I have been reliably informed that even Emperor William was at first an opponent of the ruthless-submarine-warfare idea. Much of his gray hair is due to criticism heaped upon Germany for acts which were thought justified, but which others found nothing short of outlawry. He had always been very sensitive in matters of honor affecting his person and the nation, and, like so many of those around him, had come to believe that Germany and the Germans could do no wrong.