Emperor Francis Joseph had been a consistent opponent of the ruthless submarine war. TheAnconaandPersiacases, with which I occupiedmyself especially, convinced the old man and those near him that a recourse to the submarine, even if it were to end the war more rapidly, was a double-edged sword. The old monarch, moreover, did not like the inhuman aspects of that sort of war, whether they were avoidable or not. He came from an age in which armies still fought with chivalry—when a truce could be had for the asking. From his familiars I learned that nothing pained the old man more than when a civilian population had to be evacuated or was otherwise subjected to hardship due to the war.
His successor, Emperor Charles, held the same view. One has to know him to feel that he would not give willingly his consent to such a measure as the ruthless submarine war. His sympathies are nothing short of boyish in their warmth and sincerity. When he ascended the throne, he was an easy-going, smart lieutenant of cavalry rather than a ruler, though the load he was to shoulder has ripened him in a few months into an earnest man.
In January of 1917 Emperor Charles went for a long visit to the German general headquarters in France. He was gone three days, despite the fact that he had lots of work to do at home in connection with the public-subsistence problems.
Connections informed me that the submarine warfare was the business which had taken him into the German general headquarters. Count Ottokar Czernin, I learned, had also quietly slipped out of town, as had a number of Austro-Hungarian naval staff men and experts.
It was Count Czernin who, a few weeks later, gave me an all-sufficient insight into the relations between the ruthless submarine warfare and the food question.
It would not have been proper, under the circumstances, to publish without some words of comment even so detailed a statement as that contained in the joint German-Austro-Hungarian note announcing the advent of the ruthless submarine war. Something had to be said to show the public why the risks involved were being taken.
The German public was taken into the confidence of the government in a speech made by Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg in the Reichstag. That was a convenient method. In Austria-Hungary that way was not open. The Reichsrath was not in session. Count Czernin decided that I should be the medium of bringing before the world why the Austro-Hungarian government had decided to adhere to Germany's new submarine policy.
Although knowing what was coming, the actual announcement that the crisis was here was somewhat of a shock to me.
Count Czernin was seated at his big mahogany roll-top desk as I entered the room. He rose to meet me. I noticed that there was a very serious expression on his face.
"We have notified the neutral governments, and through them our enemies, that the submarine war zone has been extended and shipping to Great Britain and her allies laid under newrestrictions," said the Foreign Minister, after I had taken a seat.
With that he handed me a copy of thenote diplomatiquewith the request that I read it. This done, he placed before me a statement which he wished me to publish.
"I should like you to publish that," he said. "If you don't care for the text the way it is written change it, but be sure that you get into your own version what I say there. At any rate, you will have to translate the thing. Be kind enough to let me see it before you telegraph it."
I found that the remarks of the Foreign Minister were a little too formal and academic, and said so. So long as he could afford to take the public of the world into his confidence through my efforts, I could venture to suggest to him how to best present his case.
"I will use the entire statement," I said. "But there is every reason why it should be supplemented by a better picture of the food situation here in Austria."
Count Czernin rose and walked toward a corner of the room, where on a large table were spread out several maps executed in red and blue. I followed him.
"These are the charts the note refers to," he said. "This white lane has been left open for the Greeks and this for the Americans. What is your opinion?"
My opinion does not matter here.
"Well, if the worst comes to pass, we can't help it," said Count Czernin, returning to hisdesk. "We have to use the submarine to shorten the war. There is such a thing as being victorious at the front and defeated at home. The food situation here is most pressing. Our people are half starved all the time. Babies perish by the thousands because we cannot give them enough milk. Unless this war comes to an end soon, the effects of this chronic food shortage will impair the health of the entire nation. We must try to prevent that. It is our duty to prevent that by all means.
"I grant that there are certain technicalities of international law involved here. But we can no longer regard them. It is all very well for some men to set themselves up as sole arbiters of international law, nor would we have any objection against that if these arbiters dealt as fairly with one side as they have dealt with the other. But they have not. The Central governments could not do anything right for some of their friends—the American government included, by the way—if they stood on their heads.
"We have made peace offers. I have told you several times that we do not want any of our enemies' territory. We have never let it be understood that we wanted so much as a shovelful of earth that does not belong to us. At the same time, we do not want to lose territory, nor do we want to pay a war indemnity, since this war is not of our making.
"We have been willing to make peace and our offer has been spurned. The food question, as you know, is acute. We simply cannot raisethe food we need so long as we must keep in the field millions of our best farmers. That leaves but one avenue open. We must shorten the war. We believe that it will be shortened by the use of the submarine. For that reason we have decided to use the arm for that purpose.
"I hope that our calculations are correct. I am no expert in that field. I also realize that a whole flood of declarations of war may follow our step. All that has been considered, however—even the possibility of the United States joining our enemies. At any rate, there was no way out. It is all very well for some to say what we are to do and are not to do, but we are fighting for our very existence. To that fight has been added the food shortage, whose aspects have never been graver than now.
"I feel that I must address myself especially to the American public. The American government has condemned us out of court. I would like to have an American jury hear this case. The American government has denied us the right of self-defense by taking the stand that we must not use the submarine as a means against the enemy merchant fleet and such neutral shipping as supplies Great Britain and her allies with foodstuffs."
Count Czernin grew more bitter as he progressed. He is an able speaker even in the English tongue.
That afternoon I had on the wires one of the greatest newspaper stories, in point of importance, that have ever been despatched.
I spoke to Count Stefan Tisza on the food question and its bearing upon the submarine warfare. We discussed the subject for almost two hours. When the interview ended I asked the Hungarian Premier how much of it I could use.
"Just say this much for me," he remarked. "For the United States to enter the European War would be a crime against humanity."
That is the shortest interview I ever made out of so long a session. As a matter of fact, Count Tisza said enough for a book.
I may say, however, that Count Tisza found in the food question whatever justification there would be needed for anything the Central governments might do.
In Constantinople I had made the acquaintance of Dr. Richard von Kühlmann, the present German Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Doctor von Kühlmann was then theconseillerof the German embassy at that point. He was somewhat of an admirer of the British and their ways, a fact which later caused his promotion to minister at The Hague. In all things he was delightfully objective—one of the few people I have met who did not mistake their wishes and desires for the fact.
I met Doctor von Kühlmann again in Vienna, while he was ambassador at Constantinople. But ambassadors are not supposed to talk for publication. Be that as it may, Doctor von Kühlmann had not even then made up his mind that recourse to the submarine warfare was theproper thing under the circumstances, no matter how great the prospect of success might appear. I had found him in Constantinople, as well as in The Hague, a consistent opponent of the submarine as a means against merchantmen. He was wholly opposed to the ruthless submarine warfare, but had no say in the decision finally reached.
The BritishAushungerungspolitik—policy of starvation—was well in the limelight in those days. It had been discussed in the Central European pressad nauseambefore. Now, however, it was discussed from the angle of actual achievement. Shocking conditions were revealed—they were shocking to the better classes, not to me, for I had spent many an hour keeping in touch with public-subsistence matters.
After all, this was but a new counter-irritant. The Austrian and Hungarian public, especially, did not fancy having the United States as an enemy. Though newspaper writers would belittle the military importance of the United States, many of the calmer heads in the population did not swallow that so easily. In the course of almost three years of warfare the public had come to understand that often the newspapers were woefully mistaken, and that some of them were in the habit of purposely misleading their readers, a natural result of a drastic censorship. There is no greater liar than the censor—nor a more dangerous one. By systematically suppressing one side of an issue or thing, the unpleasant one, he fosters a deception in thepublic mind that is as pitiful to behold as it is stupendous.
Now the conjuncture was such, however, that a discussion in the newspapers of the hardship suffered and the damage done by Great Britain's starvation blockade could not but fan the Central states population into a veritable frenzy. The British were to experience themselves what it was to go hungry day after day. That thought overshadowed the possibility that the United States might soon be among the open enemies of the Central states. A secret enemy the United States had long been regarded.
To eat under government supervision is not pleasant. It is almost like taking the medicine which a physician has prescribed. You go to the food authorities of your district, prove that you are really the person you pretend to be, and thereby establish your claim to food, and after that you do your best to get that food.
Living at hotels, I was able to let others do the worrying. Each morning I would find at my door—provided nobody had stolen it—my daily ration of bread, of varying size—300 grams (10.5 ounces) in Germany, 240 grams (8.4 ounces) in Budapest, and 210 grams (7.3 ounces) in Vienna. At the front I fared better, for there my allowance was 400 grams (14 ounces) and often more if I cared to take it.
For the other eatables I also let the manager worry. That worry was not great, though, so long as the food "speak-easy" was in operation. The hotel could afford to pay good prices, and the patrons did not mind if the dishes were from 150 to 300 per cent. dearer than the law allowed. The law, on the other hand, saw no reason why itshould protect people who live in hotels—until it was seen that this policy was not wise on account of the heavy drafts it made on the scant stores. Whether a small steak costs 8 marks or 20 makes no difference to people who can afford to eat steak at 8 marks and lamb cutlets at 15. And to these people it also makes no difference whether they consume their legal ration or two such rations.
ONE OF THE BREAD CARDS USED IN VIENNA AND LOWER AUSTRIAONE OF THE BREAD CARDS USED IN VIENNA AND LOWER AUSTRIA
Niederösterreich.Tages-Ausweisüber den Verbrauch von210gBrotGültig nur am---- 1915
Verkauf nur nach Gewicht gegen Vorlegung der Ausweiskarte und Abtrennung eines entsprechenden Abschnittes zulässig.
Nicht übertragbar!Sorgfältig aufbewahren!Nachdruck verboten!Strafbestimmungen.
Zuwiderhandlungen werden an dem Verkäufer wie an dem Käufer mit Geldstrafen bis zu 5000 K oder mit Arrest bis zu 6 Monaten geahndet. Bei einer Verurteilung kann auf den Verlust einer Gewerbeberechtigung erkannt werden. Fälschung der Ausweiskarte wird nach dem Strafgesetze bestraft.
K. k. n. ö. Statthalterei.
Many months of war passed before that element began to feel the war at all. But it had to come to that in the end.
Two people feeling the same degree of hunger are far better company than two who form opposite poles in that respect. Magnetic positive andnegative never could be so repellent. Nor is this all one-sided. One would naturally expect that in such a case the underfed would harbor hard feelings toward the overfed. That is not always the case, however.
One day a lady belonging to Central Europe's old nobility said to me:
"Well, it is getting worse every day. First they took my automobiles. Now they have taken my last horses. Taxis and cabs are hard to get. I have to travel on the street-cars now. It is most annoying."
THE BREAD CARD ISSUED BY THE FOOD AUTHORITIES OF BERLINTHE BREAD CARD ISSUED BY THE FOOD AUTHORITIES OF BERLIN
Nicht übertragbar Nicht übertragbarBerlin und Nachbarorte.Tages-BrotkarteNur gültig für den---- 1916Ohne Ausfüllung des Datumsungültig.Rückseite beachten!
I ventured the opinion that street-car travel was a tribulation. The cars were always overcrowded.
"It is not that," explained the lady. "It is the smell."
"Of the unwashed multitude?"
"Yes! And—"
"And, madame?"
"Something else," said the woman, with some embarrassment.
"I take it that you refer to the odor that comes from underfed bodies," I remarked.
"Precisely," assented the noble lady. "Have you also noticed it?"
"Have you observed it recently?" I asked.
"A few days ago. The smell was new to me."
"Reminded you, perhaps, of the faint odor of a cadaver far off?"
The light of complete understanding came into the woman's eyes.
"Exactly, that is it. Do you know, I have been trying ever since then to identify the odor. But that is too shocking to think of. And yet you are right. It is exactly that. How do you account for it?"
"Malnutrition! The waste of tissue due to that is a process not wholly dissimilar to the dissolution which sets in at death," I explained.
I complimented the woman on her fine powers of discernment. The smell was not generally identified. I was familiar with it for the reason that I had my attention drawn to it first in South Africa among some underfed Indian coolies, and later I had detected it again in Mexico among starving peons.
"Good God!" exclaimed the lady, after a period of serious thought. "Have we come to that?"
I assured her that the situation was not as alarming as it looked. In the end the healthy constitution would adjust itself to the shortage in alimentation. No fit adult would perish by it, though it would be hard on persons over fifty years of age. There could be no doubt that many of them would die of malnutrition before the war was over. Babies, also, would cease to live in large numbers if their diet had to be similarly restricted.
Thesmell had a repellent effect upon the woman. I met her many times after that and learned that it was haunting her. Her desire to keep it out of her palatial residence caused her to pay particular attention to the food of her servants. The case was most interesting to me. I had sat for days and nights in the trenches on Gallipoli, among thousands of unburied dead, and there was little that could offend my olfactory nerves after that, if indeed it had been possible before, seeing that I had for many weary months followed the revolutions in Mexico. Thus immune to the effects of the condition in question, I was able to watch closely a very interesting psychological phenomenon.
I found that it was torture for the woman to get near a crowd of underfed people. She began to shrink at their very sight.
"I take it that you fear death very much, madame," I said, one day.
"I dread the very thought of it," was the frank reply.
"But why should you?" I asked. "It is a perfectly natural condition."
"But an unjust one," came the indignant answer.
"Nothing in nature is unjust," I said. "Nature knows neither right nor wrong. If she did, she would either cease to produce food altogether for your people and state, or she would produce all the more—if war can be laid at the door of nature in arguments of right and wrong."
"But that has nothing to do with the smell—that awful smell," insisted the woman.
"It has not, to be sure. Our conversation was side-tracked by your remark that death was an unjust natural condition. Your words show that you are living in illusions. You have an inherent loathing for the underfed, because your instincts associate the smell of their bodies with dissolution itself. But you are not the only one so affected. Thousands of others feel the same discomfiture."
The long and short of the discussion was that I proved to my own satisfaction that the woman was one of those self-centered creatures to whom pity is merely known as a noun. I suggested discreetly that a little more sympathy for the afflicted, a little more love for her kind, would prove a first-class deodorant.
Let us examine what the diet of the Central states population then was. In doing this, it must be borne in mind that the rural population, always at the fountainhead of food, fared much better. The conditions pictured are essentially those of the industrial classes in the towns and cities.
The adult, after rising in the morning, would drink a cup or two of some substitute for coffee, or very bad tea, without milk, if there were children, and with very little sugar. With this would be eaten a third of the day's ration of bread, about two and one-half ounces. That meal had to suffice until noon, when a plate of soup, a slice of bread, two ounces of meat, andtwo ounces of vegetables were taken, to be supplemented by a small quantity of farinaceous food in the form of some pudding or cake. A cup of coffee substitute would go with this meal. At four in the afternoon another cup of substitute coffee or poor tea would be taken by those who could afford it, usually together with cake equal to a half-ounce of wheat flour and a quarter-ounce of sugar. The evening meal would be the same as dinner, without soup and pudding, a little cheese and the remaining seventy grams of bread taking their place. As a rule, a glass of beer was drunk with this. But the nutritive value of that was small now. It was more a chemical than a malt product, and contained at best but 4 per cent. of alcohol.
That was the meal allowed by the government. Those who had the opportunity never allowed themselves to be satisfied with it. But the vast majority of people received that and nothing more, especially later when fish and fruit had soared skyward in price.
A chemical analysis of this bill of fare would probably show that it was ample to sustain human life. Some American food crank might even discover that there was a little to spare. But the trouble is that often the scientific ration is compounded by persons who lead an inactive life and who at best make exercise the purpose of special study and effort. The bulk of any population, however, must work hard, and must eat more if elimination is not to exceed assimilation.
The food scientist has his value. But he generally overestimates that value himself. Thus it happened that the Central states governments were soon obliged to allow a larger ration of bread, sugar, and fat to all persons engaged in heavy labor. At first this was overlooked here and there, and, bureaucratism being still strong then, strikes were necessary to persuade the governments to meet the reasonable demands of the hard-labor classes.
THE BUTTER AND FAT CARD OF DRESDENTHE BUTTER AND FAT CARD OF DRESDEN
Der Rat zu Dresden.Bezugskarte für ¼ kg (½ Pfd.)ButteroderMargarineoderSpeisefettoderKunstspeisefettin der Zeit vom 30.11. bis 27.12.15.
Scant as this daily fare was, it was not everybody who could add to it the allowance of meat. The unskilled laborer, for instance, did not earn enough to buy beef at from sixty to seventy-five cents American a pound, the cheapest cut being sold at that price. As a rule, he tried to get the small quantity of animal fat, lard, suet, or tallow which the authorities allowed him. But often he failed to get it. Potato soup andbread, and maybe a little pudding, would in that case make up the meal. If luck had been good there might also be a little jam or some dried fruit to go into the "pudding," which otherwise would be just plain wheat flour, of which each family was then given five ounces daily. If there were children to take care of, the wheat flour had to be left to them, for the reason that the quantity of milk allowed them was entirely too small, amounting in the case of children from three to four years to seven-eighths of a pint daily, with 1.76 pints the limit for any infant.
MILK CARD ISSUED TO NURSING MOTHERS AND THE SICK AT NEUKOLLN, A SUBURB OF BERLINMILK CARD ISSUED TO NURSING MOTHERS AND THE SICK AT NEUKOLLN, A SUBURB OF BERLIN
Lfd. Nr.Vor-u. Zuname: Straße Nr.
Lfd. Nr.
Vor-u. Zuname: Straße Nr.
Milchkarte für stillende Mütter und KrankeGiltig für den Monat November 1915
Der Inhaber dieser Karte ist während der Gültigkeitsdauer berechtigt, aus einem der auf der Rückseite bezeichneten Geschäfte der
Der Inhaber dieser Karte ist während der Gültigkeitsdauer berechtigt, aus einem der auf der Rückseite bezeichneten Geschäfte der
Meierei J. Schmidt Söhnezum Preise von 28 Pf. täglich 1 Liter Vollmilch zu beziehen.
Die Karte ist an jedem Tage beim Kauf der Milch vorzulegen und wird nach erfolgter Ausgabe der Milch durchlocht.Am letzten Gültigkeitstage ist die Karte gegen Umtausch einer neuen Karte in den Milchgeschäften zurückzugeben. Sind die Voraussetzungen für die Berechtigung der Milchentnahme fortgefallen, wird die Karte eingezogen.Neukölln, den —— 1915 Der Magistrat
Die Karte ist an jedem Tage beim Kauf der Milch vorzulegen und wird nach erfolgter Ausgabe der Milch durchlocht.
Am letzten Gültigkeitstage ist die Karte gegen Umtausch einer neuen Karte in den Milchgeschäften zurückzugeben. Sind die Voraussetzungen für die Berechtigung der Milchentnahme fortgefallen, wird die Karte eingezogen.
Neukölln, den —— 1915 Der Magistrat
Even this fare might have been bearable had it been supplemented by the usual amount of sugar. In the past this had been as much as six pounds per month and person; now the regulations permitted the consumption of only 2.205pounds per month and capita for the urban and 1.65 pounds for the rural population, while persons engaged at hard labor were allowed 2.75 pounds. Parents who were willing to surrender all to their children went without sugar entirely.
How these victuals were obtained by the woman of the household has already been indicated. Heretofore it had been necessary to stand in line for bread, fat, and milk, the latter two being usually obtained simultaneously at the Fat Central. The establishing of food zones—Rayons—had obviated that. The measure was a great relief, but since it governed no more than the distribution of these articles, much standing in line was still necessary. The disciplinary value of the food-line was still kept in mind in the distribution of potatoes, beets (Wrucken), wheat flour; now and then other cereal products, such as macaroni, biscuits, buckwheat flour, and oatmeal; meat when the city distributed it at or below cost price; fuel, coal-oil, sugar, and all groceries; soap and washing-powder; shoes, clothing, textiles of any sort, thread, and tobacco. Now and then dried fruits would be distributed, and occasionally jam, though with the ever-increasing shortage in sugar little fruit was being preserved in that manner. Once a week the solitary egg per capita would have to be waited for. One egg was not much to waste hours for, and usually people did not deem it worth while to claim it, if they had no children. The woman who had children was glad, however, to get the four, five, or six eggs to which her family wasentitled. It might mean that the youngest would be able to get an egg every other day. Such, indeed, was the intention of the government, and such was the purpose of the food-line. It would happen now and then that there were so many who did not claim their weekly egg that the woman with children got a double ration!
For many of these things certain days had been set aside. Potatoes could be drawn every other day, for instance, while wheat flour was issued every fourth day, meat on all "meat" days, fuel once a week, petroleum every two weeks, and sugar once a month. Shoes and clothing were issued only after the Clothing Central had been satisfied that they were needed. It was the same with thread, except silk thread, and with tobacco one took a chance. Other articles were distributed when they were available, a notice of the date being posted near some shop where the food-liners could see it. The arrival of "municipal" beef and pork was generally advertised in the newspapers.
In this manner, then, was the government ration obtained. To it could be added fresh, salted, and dried fish, when available, and all the green vegetables and salads one wanted—peas and beans in season; in their dry form they were hard to get at any time. For a while, also, sausage could be bought without a ticket. The government put a stop to that when it was found that much illicit trading was done with that class of food.
Many hours were wasted by the women ofthe household in the course of a month by standing in line. The newspapers conducted campaigns against this seemingly heartless policy of the food authorities, but without result. The food-line was looked upon as essential in food conservation, as indeed it was. In the course of time it had been shown that people would call for food allotted them by their tickets, whether they needed it or not, and would then sell it again with a profit. To assure everybody of a supply in that manner would also lead to waste in consumption. Those who did not absolutely need all of their ration did not go to the trouble of standing in a food-line for hours in all sorts of weather.
Subsisting at the public crib was unpleasant business under such conditions, but there was no way out. The food "speak-easy" was almost as much a thing of the past as was the groaning board of ante-bellum times, though it was by no means entirely eradicated, as the trial of a small ring of food sharks in Berlin on October 10, 1917, demonstrated. How hard it was for the several governments to really eradicate the illicit trading in food, once this had been decided upon, was shown in this case, which involved one of the largest caches ever discovered. There were hidden in this cache 27,000 pounds of wheat flour, 300 pounds of chocolate, 15,000 pounds of honey, 40,000 cigars, and 52,000 pounds of copper, tin, and brass. The odd part of the case was that to this hoard belonged also 24 head of cattle and 9 pigs.
Onthe same day there was tried in a Berlin jury court a baker who had "saved" 6,500 pounds of flour from the amounts which the food authorities had turned over to him. It was shown that the baker had sold the loaves of bread he was expected to bake from the flour. Of course he had adulterated the dough to make the loaves weigh what the law required and what the bread tickets called for. A fine profit had been made on the flour. The food authorities had assigned him the supply at $9 for each 200-pound bag. Some of it he sold illicitly at $55 per sack to a man who had again sold it for $68 to another chain-trader, who later disposed of it to a consumer for $80 a bag. There can be no doubt that this flour made expensive bread, but it seems that there were people willing to pay the price.
But forty cents for a pound of wheat flour was something which only a millionaire war purveyor could afford. All others below that class, materially, ate the government ration and stood in line.
Sad in the extreme was the spectacle which the food-lines in the workman quarters of Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest presented. Upon the women of the households the war was being visited hardest. To see a pair of good shoes on a woman came to be a rare sight. Skirts were worn as long as the fabric would keep together, and little could be said of the shawls that draped pinched faces, sloping shoulders, and flat breasts. There were children in those food-lines. Thinfeet stuck in the torn shoes, and mother's shawl served to supplement the hard-worn dress or patched suit. Everything had to go for food, and prices of apparel were so high that buying it was out of the question.
Once I set out for the purpose of finding in these food-lines a face that did not show the ravages of hunger. That was in Berlin. Four long lines were inspected with the closest scrutiny. But among the three hundred applicants for food there was not one who had had enough to eat in weeks. In the case of the younger women and the children the skin was drawn hard to the bones and bloodless. Eyes had fallen deeper into the sockets. From the lips all color was gone, and the tufts of hair that fell over parchmented foreheads seemed dull and famished—sign that the nervous vigor of the body was departing with the physical strength.
I do not think sentimentalism of any sort can be laid at my door. But I must confess that these food-lines often came near getting the best of me. In the end they began to haunt me, and generally a great feeling of relief came over me when I saw that even the last of a line received what they had come for.
The poorer working classes were not getting enough food under the system, nor were they always able to prepare the little they got in the most advantageous manner. While the effort had been made to instruct women how to get the maximum of nutriment from any article, and how to combine the allowances intoa well-balanced ration, results in that direction were not satisfying. Many of the women would spend too much money on vegetable foods that filled the stomach but did not nourish. Others again, when a few extra cents came into their hands, would buy such costly things as geese and other fowl. Cast adrift upon an ocean of food scarcity and high prices, these poor souls were utterly unable to depart from their cooking methods, which had tastiness rather than greatest utility for their purpose. The consequence was that the ration, which according to food experts was ample, proved to be anything but that.
In Berlin the so-called war kitchens were introduced. A wheeled boiler, such as used by the army, was the principal equipment of these kitchens. Very palatable stews were cooked in them and then distributed from house to house against the requisite number of food-card checks. The innovation would have been a success but for the fact that most people believed they were not getting enough for the coupons they had surrendered. The stew could not be weighed, and often there would be a little more meat in one dipperful than in another. There was grumbling, and finally the women who were giving their time and labor to the war kitchens were accused of partiality. The kitchens were continued a while longer. They finally disappeared because nobody cared to patronize them any more. It is possible, also, that people had grown tired of the stew eternal.
TheVolksküchen—people's kitchens—and thosewar kitchens which were established when the war began, operated with more success. The public was used to them. They were located in buildings, so that one could eat the food there and then, and their bill of fare was not limited to stews. Being managed by trained people, these kitchens rendered splendid service to both the public and the food-regulators. I have eaten in several of them and found that the food was invariably good.
A class that had been hit hard by the war was that of the small office-holders and the less successful professionals, artists included. They were a proud lot—rather starve than eat at a war kitchen or accept favors from any one. The hardships they suffered are almost indescribable. While the several governments had made their small officials a war allowance, the addition to the income which that gave was almost negligible. At an average it represented an increase in salary of 20 per cent., while food, and the decencies of life, which this class found as indispensable as the necessities themselves, had gone up to an average of 180 per cent. The effect of this rise was catastrophic in these households. Before the war their life had been the shabby genteel; it was now polite misery. Yet the class was one of the most essential and deserved a better fate. In it could be found some of the best men and women in Central Europe.
Devoted to the régime with heart and soul, this class had never joined in any numbers the co-operative consumption societies of Germany and Austria-Hungary, because of their socialistic tendencies. This delivered them now into the hands of the food shark. Finally, the several governments, realizing that the small official—Beamte—had to be given some thought, established purchasing centrals for them, where food could be had at cost and now and then below cost. Nothing of the sort was done for the small professionals, however.
Photograph from Henry Ruschin TRAVELING-KITCHEN IN BERLIN A food-conservation measure that failed, because the people grew tired of the stew dispensed by the "Food Transport Wagon."Photograph from Henry RuschinTRAVELING-KITCHEN IN BERLINA food-conservation measure that failed, because the people grew tired of the stew dispensed by the "Food Transport Wagon."
Photograph from Henry Ruschin STREET TRAM AS FREIGHT CARRIER As horses and motor fuel became scarce the street traction systems were given over part of each day to transporting merchandise.Photograph from Henry RuschinSTREET TRAM AS FREIGHT CARRIERAs horses and motor fuel became scarce the street traction systems were given over part of each day to transporting merchandise.
Menand women of means came to the rescue of that class in the very nick of time. But a great deal of tact had to be used before these war sufferers could be induced to accept help. It was not even easy to succor them privately, as Mrs. Frederick C. Penfield, wife of the American ambassador at Vienna, had occasion enough to learn. To alleviate their condition en masse, as would have to be done if the means available were to be given their greatest value, was almost impossible. Shabby gentility is nine-tenths false pride, and nothing is so hard to get rid of as the things that are false.
But there were those who understand the class. Among them I must name Frau Doctor Schwarzwald, of Vienna, whose co-operative dining-room was a great success, so long as she could get the necessary victuals, something that was not always easy.
I had taken a mild interest in the charities and institutions of Frau Schwarzwald, and once cameneargetting a barrel of flour and a hundred pounds of sugar for the co-operative dining-room and its frayed patrons. I announced thefact prematurely at a gathering of the patron angels of the dining-room, among whom was Frau Cary-Michaelis, the Danish novelist and poetess. Before I knew what was going on the enthusiastic patron angels had each kissed me—on the cheek, of course. Then they danced for joy, and next day I was forced to announce that, after all, there would be no flour and no sugar. The owner of the goods—not a food shark, but an American diplomatist—had disposed of them to another American diplomatist. I thought it best to do penance for this. So I visited a friend of mine and held him up for one thousand crowns for the co-operative dining-room. That saved me. I was very careful thereafter not to make rash promises. After all, I was sure of the flour and sugar, and so happy over my capture that I had a hard time keeping to myself the glad news as long as I did, which was one whole day. In that dining-room ate a good percentage of Vienna's true intellectuals—painters, sculptors, architects, poets, and writers all unable just then to earn a living.
I was not always so unsuccessful, however. For another circle of down-at-the-heels I smuggled out of the food zone of the Ninth German Army in Roumania the smoked half of a pig, fifty pounds of real wheat flour, and thirty pounds of lard. Falkenhayn might command that army at the front, but for several days I was its only hero, nevertheless. But in food matters I had proved a goodbuscalerobefore.
The food craze was on. Women who neverbefore in their lives had talked of food now spoke of that instead of fashions. The gossip of thesalonwas abandoned in favor of the dining-room scandals. So-and-so had eaten meat on a meatless day, and this or that person was having wheat bread and rolls baked by the cook. The interesting part of it was that usually the very people who found fault with such trespass did the same thing, but were careful enough not to have guests on that day.
In the same winter I was to see at Budapest an incident that fitted well into the times.
I was one of the few non-Magyars who attended the coronation dinner of King Charles and Queen Zita.
The lord chief steward brought in a huge fish on a golden platter and set it down before the royal couple. The King and Queen bowed to the gorgeously attired functionary, who thereupon withdrew, taking the fish with him.
We all got the smell of it. I had eaten breakfast at four in the morning. Now it was two in the afternoon and a morsel of something would have been very much in order. Since seven I had been in the coronation church. It was none too well heated and I remember how the cold went through my dress shirt. But the fish disappeared—to be given to the poor, as King Stefan had ordained in the yearA.D.1001.
In a few minutes the lord chief steward—I think that is the man's title—reappeared. This time he carried before him a huge roast. (Business as before.) For a third, fourth, fifth, andsixth time the high functionary paraded enticing victuals through the hall without coming down to business. It was a lonesome affair, that dinner, and everybody was glad when the King had taken a sip of wine and the cries of, "Eljen a kiralyi," put a period to that phase of the coronation.
How well that ceremony fitted into the times!
King Charles wanted to be impartial, and a few days later he inspected the dining-car attached to the train that was to take his brother Maximilian to Constantinople. In the kitchen of the car he found some rolls and some wheat flour. He had them removed.
"I know, Max, that you didn't order these things," he said to his brother. "The dining-car management has not yet come to understand that no favors must be shown anybody. If the steward of the car should by any chance buy flour in Bulgaria or Turkey, do me the favor to pitch him out of the window when the car is running, so that he will fall real hard. That is the only way in which we can make a dent into special eating privileges."
By the way, there was a time when the present Emperor-King of Austria-Hungary and his Empress-Queen had to live on a sort of sandwich income, and were glad when the monthly allowance from the archducal exchequer was increased a little when the present crown-prince was born.
But that is another story.
It never rains but it pours.
It was so in Central Europe. Not alone had the production of food by the soil been hamstrung by the never-ending mobilizations of labor for military purposes, but the means of communication began to fail from the same cause.
If it takes a stitch in time to save nine in ordinary walks of life, it takes a stitch in time to save ninety, and often all, in railroading. The improperly ballasted tie means too great a strain in the fish-plate. It may also mean a fractured rail. Both may lead to costly train wrecks.
But the makeshifts employed in Central Europe averted much of this. Where the regular track gangs had been depleted by the mobilizations, women and Russian prisoners-of-war took their places. But the labor of these was not as good as that given by the old hands. There is a knack even in pushing crushed rock under a railroad tie. Under one tie too much may be placed and not enough under another, so that the very work that is to keep the rail-bed evenlysupported may result in an entirely different state of affairs. Two ties lifted up too much by the ballasting may cause the entire rail to be unevenly supported, so that it would have been better to leave the work undone altogether.
Thus it came that all railroad traffic had to be reduced in speed. Expresses were discontinued on all lines except the trunk routes that were kept in fairly good condition for that very purpose. Passenger-trains ran 20 miles an hour instead of 40 and 45, and freight-trains had their schedules reduced to 12. That meant, of course, that with the same motive power and rolling stock about half the normal traffic could be maintained.
But that was not all. The maintenance departments of rolling stock and motive power had also been obliged to furnish their quota of men for service in the field. At first the several governments did not draw heavily on the mechanicians in the railroad service, but ultimately they had to do this. The repair work was done by men less fitted, and cleaning had to be left to the women and prisoners-of-war.
Soon the "flat" wheels were many on the air-braked passenger-cars. It came to be a blessing that the freight-trains were still being braked by hand, for otherwise freight traffic would have suffered more than it did.
I took some interest in railroading, and a rather superficial course in it at the military academy had made me acquainted with a few of its essentials. Close attention to the questionin the fall of 1916 gave me the impression that it would not be long before the only thing of value of most Central European railroads would be the right of way and its embankments, bridges, cuts, and tunnels—the things known collectively asBahnkörper—line body.
When I first made the acquaintance of Central Europe's railroads, I found them in a high state of efficiency. The rail-bed was good, the rolling stock showed the best of care—repairs were made in time, and paint was not stinted—and the motive power was of the very best. Efficiency had been aimed at and obtained. To be sure, there was nothing that could compare with the best railroading in the United States. The American trainde luxewas unknown. But if its comforts could not be had, the communities, on the other hand, did not have to bear the waste that comes from it. Passenger travel, moreover, on most lines, moved in so small a radius that the American "Limited" was not called for, though the speed of express-trains running between the principal cities was no mean performance at that.
It was not long before all this was to vanish. The shortage in labor began to be seriously felt. There were times, in fact, when the railroad schedules showed the initiated exactly what labor-supply conditions were. When an hour was added to the time of transit from Berlin to Vienna I knew that the pinch in labor was beginning to be badly felt. When one of the expresses running between the two capitals wastaken off altogether, I surmised that things were in bad shape, and when ultimately the number of passenger-trains running between Vienna and Budapest was reduced from twelve each day to four, it was plain enough that railroading in Austria-Hungary was down to one-third of what it had been heretofore—lower than that, even, since the government tried to keep up as good a front as possible.
In Germany things were a little better, owing to the close husbanding of resources which had been done at the very outbreak of the war. But to Germany the railroads were also more essential than to Austria-Hungary, so that, by and large, there really was little difference.
The neatly kept freight-cars degenerated into weather-beaten boxes on wheels. The oil that would have been needed to paint them was now an article of food and was required also in the manufacture of certain explosives. So long as the car body would stand on the chassis it was not repaired. Wood being plentiful, it was thought better economy to replace the old body by a new one when finally it became dangerous to pull it about any longer.
It was the same with the passenger-cars. The immaculate cleanliness which I had learned to associate with them was replaced by the most slovenly sweeping. Dusting was hardly ever attempted. From the toilet-rooms disappeared soap and towel, and usually there was no water in the tank. The air-brakes acted with a jar, as the shoes gripped the flat surface of thewheels, and soon the little doll trains were an abomination, especially when, for the sake of economy, all draperies were removed from the doors and windows.
The motive power was in no better condition. The engines leaked at every steam and water joint, and to get within 60 per cent. of the normal efficiency for the amount of coal consumed was a remarkable performance. It meant that the engineer, who was getting an allowance on all coal saved, had to spend his free time repairing the "nag" he ran.
Constantly traveling from one capital to another, and from one front to the other, I was able to gauge the rapid deterioration of the railroads. To see in cold weather one of the locomotives hidden entirely in clouds of steam that was intended for the cylinders caused one to wonder how the thing moved at all. The closed-in passenger stations reminded me of laundries, so thick were the vapors of escaping steam.
Despite the reduction in running-time, wrecks multiplied alarmingly. It seemed difficult to keep anything on the rails at more than a snail's pace.
To the freight movement this was disastrous. Its volume had to be reduced to a quarter of what it had been. This caused great hardship, despite the fact that the distribution and consumption zones had put an end to all unnecessary trundling about of merchandise. In the winter the poor freight service led to the exposure of foodstuffs to the cold. It was nothing unusual to findthat a whole train-load of potatoes had frozen in transit and become unfit for human consumption. Other shipments suffered similarly.
In countries that were forced to count on every crumb that was a great loss. It could not be overcome under the circumstances.
In the winter the lame railroads were unable to bring the needed quantities of coal into the population centers. This was especially true of the winter of 1916-17. Everybody having lived from hand to mouth throughout the summer, and the government having unwisely put a ban on the laying-in of fuel-supplies, there was little coal on hand when the cold weather came. Inside of three weeks the available stores were consumed. The insistent demand for fuel led to a rush upon the lines tapping the coal-fields. Congestion resulted, and when the tangle was worst heavy snows began to fall. The railroads failed utterly.
Electric street traction shared the fate of the railroads. To save fuel the service was limited to the absolutely necessary. Heretofore most lines had not permitted passengers to stand in the cars. Now standing was the rule. When one half of the rolling stock had been run into the ground, the other half was put on the streets, and that, too, was shortly ruined.
The traction-service corporations, private and municipal alike, had been shown scant mercy by the several governments when men were needed. Soon they were without the hands to keep their rolling stock in good repair. Mostof the car manufacturers had meanwhile gone into the ammunition business, so that it was impossible to get new rolling stock. Further drafts on the employees of the systems led to the employment of women conductors, and, in some cases, drivers. While these women did their best, it could not be said that this was any too good on lines that were much frequented. Travel on the street cars became a trial. People who never before had walked did so now.
As was to be expected, the country roads were neglected. Soon the fine macadamized surfaces were full of holes, and after that it was a question of days usually when the road changed places with a ditch of deep mire. The farmer, bringing food to the railroad station or town, moved now about half of what was formerly a load. He was short of draft animals. Levy after levy was made by the military authorities. By the end of 1916 the farms in Central Europe had been deprived of half their horses.
It has been said that a man may be known by his clothing. That is not always true. There is no doubt, however, that a community may well be recognized by its means of transportation. Travel in every civilized country has proved that to my full satisfaction. I once met a man who insisted that if taken blindfolded from one country into another he would be able to tell among what people he found himself, or what sort of gentry they were, merely by traveling on their railroads. To which I would add that he could also very easily determine what sortof government they had, if he had an ear for all the "Es ist Verboten," "C'est défendu," and "It is not allowed" which usually grace the interiors of stations and car.
Travel was the hardest sort of labor in the Central European states. I was obliged to do much of it. And most of it I did standing. I have made the following all-afoot trips: Berlin-Bentheim, Berlin-Dresden, Berlin-Cologne, Vienna-Budapest, and Vienna-Trieste, and this at a time when the regular running-time had become 80 to 150 per cent. longer.
The means of communication of Central Europe had sunk to the level of the nag before the ragman's cart. The shay was not good-looking, either.
But the wear and tear of war did not affect the means of communication alone. Every building in Central Europe suffered heavily from it. Materials and labor for upkeep were hard to get at any time and were costly. Real property, moreover, suffered under the moratorium, while the constantly increasing taxes left little in the pocket of the owner to pay for repairs. As already stated, paint was hard to get. Exposed to the weather, the naked wood decayed. Nor were varnishes to be had for the protection of interior woodwork.
Many manufacturing plants had to be closed, first of all those which before the war had depended upon the foreign market. The entire doll industry, for instance, suspended work. In other branches of manufacture the closing-downwas partial, as in the case of the textile-mills. Not alone had the buildings to be neglected in this instance, but a great deal of valuable machinery was abandoned to rust. As the stock of copper, tin, and brass declined the several governments requisitioned the metals of this sort that were found in idle plants and turned them over to the manufacturers of ammunition. While the owners were paid the price which these metals cost in the form of machinery parts and the like, the economic loss to the community was, nevertheless, heavy.
Farm implements and equipment also suffered much from inattention. Tens of thousands of horses perished at the fronts and almost every one of them meant a loss to some farm. The money that had been paid for them had usually been given back to the government in the form of taxes, so that now the farmer had lost his horse or horses in much the same manner as if some epidemic had been at work. Valuable draft and milk animals were requisitioned to provide meat for the armies. In certain districts the lack of vitriol had resulted in the destruction of vineyards and orchards.
To give a better picture of what this meant, I will cite the case of an acquaintance who is somewhat of a gentleman farmer near Coblentz, on the Rhine.
When the war broke out this man had in live stock: Five horses, eight cows, forty sheep, and a large stock of poultry. He also had several small vineyards and a fine apple orchard.In the winter of 1916-17 his stock had shrunk to two horses, two cows, no sheep, very little poultry, and no vineyard. The apple orchard was also dying from lack of Bordeaux mixture.
In January, 1917, I obtained some figures dealing with the wear and tear of war in the kingdom of Saxony. Applying them on a per-capita basis to all of the German Empire, I established that so far the war had caused deterioration amounting to $8,950,000,000, or $128 for each man, woman, and child. In Austria-Hungary the damage done was then estimated at $6,800,000,000.
These losses were due to absence from their proper spheres in the economic scheme of some 14,000,000 able-bodied men who had been mobilized for service in connection with the war. This vast army consumed at a frightful rate and produced very little now. To non-productive consumption had to be added the rapid deterioration due to all abandonment of upkeep. The Central states were living from hand to mouth and had no opportunity of engaging in that thorough maintenance which had been given so much attention before. All material progress had been arrested, and this meant that decay and rust got the upper hand.
Men getting much physical exercise in the open air consume much more food than those confined. In cold weather such food must contain the heat which is usually supplied by fuel. All of which is true of the soldier in a greater degree. This, and the fact that in army subsistence, transportation and distribution are usually coupled with great difficulty, made it necessary for the Central Powers to provide their forces chiefly with food staples.
Before the war about 35 per cent. of the men mobilized had lived largely on cereals and vegetables. Little meat is consumed by the rural population of Central Europe. For the reasons already given, that diet had to make room for one composed of more concentrated and more heat-producing elements. Bread, meat, fats, and potatoes were its principal constituents. Beans, peas, and lentils were added as the supply permitted. In the winter larger quantities of animal fats were required to keep the men warm, and in times of great physical exertion the allowance of sugar had to be increased.
Since at first the army produced no food at all, the civil population had to produce what was needed. With, roughly, 42 per cent. of the soldiers coming from the food-producing classes, this was no small task, especially since the more fitted had been called to the colors.
The governments of Central Europe realized as early as in the spring of 1915 that the army would have to produce at least a share of the food it needed. Steps were taken to bring that about. The war had shown that cavalry was, for the time being, useless. On the other hand, it was not good military policy to disband the cavalry organizations and turn them into artillery and infantry. These troops might be needed again sooner or later. That being the case, it was decided to employ mounted troops in the production of food. Fully 65 per cent. of the men in that branch of the military establishments of Central Europe came from the farm and were familiar with the handling of horses. That element was put to work behind the fronts producing food.
No totals of this production have ever been published, to my knowledge, so that I can deal only with what I actually saw. I must state, however, that the result cannot have been negligible, though on the whole it was not what some enthusiasts have claimed for it.
I saw the first farming of this sort in Galicia. There some Austro-Hungarian cavalry organizations had tilled, roughly, sixty thousand acres, putting the fields under wheat, rye, oats, andpotatoes. When I saw the crops they were in a fair state of prosperity, though I understand that later a drought damaged them much. The colonel in charge of the work told me that he expected to raise food enough for a division, which should not have been difficult, seeing that three acres ought to produce food enough for any man, even if tilled in a slovenly way.
Throughout Poland and the parts of Russia then occupied the Germans were doing the same thing. What the quality of their effort was I have no means of knowing, but if they are to be measured by what I saw in France, during the Somme offensive in 1916, the results obtained must have been very satisfying.
One of the organizations then lying in the Bapaume sector was the German Second Guards Substitute-Reserve Division—Garde-Ersatz-Reserve-Division. I think that the palm for war economy must be due that organization. In my many trips to various fronts (I have been on every front in Central Europe, the Balkan, Turkey, and Asia) and during my long stays there I have never seen a crowd that had made itself so much at home in the enemy country.
The body in question had then under cultivation some sixteen hundred acres of very good soil, on which it was raising wheat, rye, barley, oats, beans, peas, lentils, sugar-beets, roots of various sorts, and potatoes. It had made hay enough for its own draft animals and had sold a large quantity to neighboring divisions.
At Gommecourt the division operated a well-equippedmodern dairy, able to convert into butter and cheese the milk of about six hundred cows. Its output was large enough to supply the men in the trenches with all the butter and cheese they could reasonably expect. A large herd of pigs was kept by the division, and as General von Stein, the commander of the sector, now Prussian Minister of War, informed me at a table that offered the products of the division at a luncheon, the organization was then operating, somewhere near the actual firing-line, two water-mills, a large sugar-plant, and even a brewery. Coffee, salt, and a few other trifles were all the division received from the rear.
It was then the middle of August, so that I was able to see the results of what had been done by these soldier-farmers. I can state that soil was never put to better use. Cultivation had been efficiently carried out and the crops were exceedingly good.
One of the most vivid pictures I retain from that week in "Hell" shows several German soldiers plowing a field east of Bucquoi into which British shells were dropping at the time. The shells tore large craters in the plowed field, but with an indifference that was baffling the men continued their work. I have not yet been able to explain what was the purpose of this plowing in August, except to lay the knife at the root of the weeds; nor can I quite believe that this end justified exposing men and valuable animals. At any rate, the thing was done.
The case cited represents the maximum thatwas achieved in food production by any army organization, so far as I know. But that maximum was no mean thing. That division, at least, did not depend on the civil population for food.
Several trips through Serbia and Macedonia in the same year showed me what the German "economic" and occupation troops had done in those parts.
On the whole, the efforts at food production of the "economic" troops—organization of older men barely fit for service in the firing-line—had not been fortunate. The plan had been to put as much soil under crops as was possible. For this purpose traction plows had been brought along and whole country sites had been torn up. Though the soil of the valleys of Serbia is generally very rich, and the climate one of the best for farming, the crops raised in that year were far from good. Some held that it was due to the seed, which had been brought from Germany. Others were of the opinion that the plowing had been carelessly done, leaving too much leeway to the weeds. Be that as it may, the work of the economic companies was not a success.
The occupation troops did much better, however. Together with the Serbian women they had cultivated the fields on the intensive principle. Yields had been good, I was told.
In Macedonia the fields had also been put to use by the Germans, Austro-Hungarians, and Bulgars. The last named, familiar with the cultivation of the tobacco plant, were exchanging with the others tobacco for grain. Food productionwas also attempted by the Austro-Hungarians on the Isonzo front. But since they were fighting on their own territory in districts which still had their civil population, there was little opportunity, all the less since the soil of the Carso and Bainsizza plateaus, and the mountainous regions north of them, is not suited for agriculture on a large scale. Everydoline—funnel-shaped depression—of the Carso had its garden, however, whence the army drew most of the vegetables it consumed.
The food that was being raised for the army never reached the interior, of course. If an organization produced more than what it consumed, and such cases were extremely rare, it sold the surplus to the army commissaries. It took men and time to cultivate the fields, and these could not always be spared, especially when the losses in men were beginning to be severely felt and when the opponent engaged in offensives. It had meanwhile become necessary to throw, several times a year, divisions from one front to another, and that, too, began to interfere with the scheme, since the men no longer took the interest in the crops they had taken when they were established in a position.
I spent considerable time with the Ninth German Army operating against the Roumanians late in the fall of 1916. Much booty in food fell into the hands of that organization, among it some eleven hundred thousand tons of wheat and other grains.
Bread was bad and scarce in the Central states.When it became known that so large a quantity of breadstuff had fallen in the hands of the Centralist troops, people in Berlin and Vienna already saw some of it on their tables—but only in their minds. Falkenhayn and Mackensen issued orders that not a pound of breadstuff was to be taken from the war zone they had established, which comprised all of Roumania occupied, Transylvania, and the Dobrudja district. Nor could other food be exported to the Central civilian population. Whatever was found in the conquered territory was reserved for the use of the troops that had been employed, and the surplus was assigned to the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Bulgarian commissaries-general.
The quantities taken, however, were large, and six months later, when all needs of the armed forces had been met, the civilian populations were remembered so far as it was prudent to do so. To give that population too much might have resulted in a lessening of production at home, and that was something which could not be invited.
This policy was followed always. I know of no instance in which it was abandoned, even when the clamor for bread at home was loudest. The army came first in all things, much in the manner of the driver of a team of mules.
But it was not selfishness alone that gave rise to this policy. It served no good purpose to ship into the interior food that would later be needed by the troops. That merely increased the burden of the railroads, first by the transport of the booty homeward, and later by shippingback food as the troops needed it. Keeping the food where it was found obviated this traffic entirely.
On the whole, the Centralist troops never fared poorly in subsistence. It had become necessary to reduce the bread ration from 500 grams (18 ounces) to 400 grams (14 ounces) per day, but this was made good by increasing the meat and fat ration. Enough to eat was the surest way of keeping the war popular with the soldiers.
Since it is very easy to exaggerate the value of food production due to the army, I will state here specifically that this production took care of little more than what the men consumed in excess over their former diet. Their normal consumption was still borne by the civilian population, and, as the losses on the battle-field increased, and the reserves had to be employed oftener, food production in the army fell rapidly, though at present this condition appears to be discounted by the food produced in Roumania, Serbia, and Poland. The area involved is large, of course, but the surplus actually available is not great. The population of these territories has dwindled to old men, boys, and women, and their production is barely able to meet actual needs. The little that can be extracted from these people does not go very far in the subsistence of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria. These countries have together a population of, roundly, one hundred and fifteen millions to-day, of which not less than ten million of the best producers areunder the colors, thereby causing a consumption in food andmatérielthat is at least one-third greater than normal—munitions and ammunition not included.
But the army had much to do with food in other directions. It controlled inter-allied exports and imports and was a power even in trade with the neutrals of Europe.
The relations between Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey were essentially military. They were this to such an extent that they almost overshadowed even the diplomatic services of these countries. For the time being, theMilitärbevollmächtigte—military plenipotentiary—as the chief communication officer was known, eclipsed often the diplomatic plenipotentiary. Militarism was absolute. The civil government and population had no right which the military authorities need respect.
All commercial exchange passed into the hands of these military plenipotentiaries. The diplomatic service might reach an agreement for the exchange of food against manufactured articles, but finally the military saw to it that it was carried out. They bought and shipped, and received in turn the factory products that were thequid pro quofor the food and raw material thus secured.
In Roumania, so long as she was neutral, theEinkaufstelle—purchasing bureau—was indeed in the hands of civilians. As a neutral, Roumania could not permit German and Austro-Hungarian officers to be seen in the streets intheir uniforms. They were, for all that, members of the army. For the time being, they wore mufti, nor did their transactions show that they were working directly for the army. The food that was bought was intended for the civilian population, naturally. But it has always been hard to keep from any army that which it may need. The same sack of wheat may not go to the military commissaries, but what difference will it make so long as it releases for consumption by the army a like quantity of home-grown cereals?