THE AGRARIANS AND THE SHORTAGE OF FOOD
The Agrarians, or great landowners, both in Austria and Hungary were
largely responsible for the Great War. If commercial relations between
Austria and the Balkans had been satisfactory there would have been
no discontent. The Balkans are agricultural lands; large crops of
corn, vegetable products, and meat were produced. Hungary is also a
rich agricultural country, and supplies its own needs entirely, with a
surplus for Austria. Austria and Germany cannot exist on the produce
of their land. Both countries have densely populated manufacturing
districts that must be supplied with food. Hungary wished to obtain
the best prices for her commodities. She therefore objected to Balkan
products being imported. The goods had to enter over her railways.
She prevented their coming in by imposing vexatious restrictions and
refusing cargoes on all kinds of grounds. Austria would not forbid
the import of meat and other products directly. This would have
prejudiced her political relations with the Balkans. Nor did she wish
to discourage the Balkan peoples from breeding cattle. The shortage
of meat in Austria might force the Government to import it at any
time. So she took a most unworthy course. She allowed the Agrarians
to carry on their nefarious methods and thus earned the bitter hatred
of the Balkan peoples, especially of Servia and Montenegro. For some
years cattle-breeders in the Balkan countries did not realise why
their products were returned so frequently. Finally, discovering that
they were simply the playthings of the Agrarians, they ceased to breed
cattle and turned their vast pastures into corn land. The Agrarians,
men who travelled but little and had no grasp of the speed with which
innovations are introduced and new plans adopted in this century, were
sadly surprised and not a little dismayed when they discovered that
the Serbs and other Balkan countries had no more meat for sale. Every
summer there was a considerable shortage of meat in Austria and the
cities of Hungary. This was due to a number of causes insignificant
in themselves, but far-reaching as regards the history of Europe. The
butchers said the regular annual shortage was largely owing to supplies
being sent to Germany, to Bohemia, and the Tyrol in the tourist season,
when large quantities of meat were required for the foreigners who
came into the country. The real reason was that the country was being
drained of its best blood by emigration. Farmers were forced to kill
off their cattle because there were no shepherds to care for it. The
day of the small peasant-proprietor was over. He had left for the
States. It was found more profitable to grow corn than to keep cattle
for the market on the immense farms on the great Hungarian plains.
No one had realised that the Balkan States had rendered themselves
independent of Austria-Hungary, and that no supply would be forthcoming
even when the frontiers were thrown open. The Agrarians, when they
heard of the shortage, suggested that the people should do without
meat. Riots ensued, and violent scenes occurred in Vienna. The military
was brought out to disperse the crowd. Hungarian hussars were brought
from Budapesth to shoot on a crowd chiefly made up of Germans and
Slavs. As the soldiers rode forward to charge the people in front of
the Vienna Rathhaus, women climbed into their saddles, and, rendered
desperate by fear for their husbands and children, wound themselves
round the waists of the hussars, thus effectually preventing them
from using their swords. Some men had four women hanging from their
waists as they charged upon the crowd. The horses, trained for show
and parade, were very careful not to dislodge the extra riders and
advanced at an amble. The Hungarian officers who led the men tried
to incite them to show a different spirit, but although they charged
the crowd not more than a hundred civilians were seriously injured.
The men cut the air above their heads with their long sabres, and
although they were Hungarians and Magyars, and were faced by a crowd
they disliked and despised, humanitarian feelings were stronger
than the commands of their officers. Many people in Vienna that day
doubted whether conscripts would ever fight against the populace.
Before night, however, the spirit of the troops changed. The people,
desperate with hunger, put up barricades in some of the chief streets;
they tore down the gas lamps and set fire to the stream of coal-gas
thus released. They plundered the shops of unpopular tradesmen and
distributed eatables among the crowd. When the troops appeared they
were received by a shower of stones, while even the pavements were
torn up to provide missiles. The soldiers, thoroughly enraged, turned
a murderous fire upon the people. The city was put under martial law,
and everyone who ventured through the streets was searched for weapons.
Walking the streets was a dangerous pastime for strangers, as sentries
only challenged once and shot if the command to halt were not complied
with. Similar riots on a larger scale took place in Budapesth. They
were suppressed in a more brutal manner than those in Vienna, while
in Prague the situation became so alarming that a revolution was
feared. It was then that the Agrarian party became alarmed, and agreed
to a suggestion for the importation of frozen meat from Argentina. A
committee of officials and experts was sent to Argentina to arrange for
the sending of frozen meat to Trieste. The Argentine Government was
ready to comply with all the very intricate demands and requirements
of the Austrian Government, and, being unversed in the history
of the Balkans, believed that Austria was capable of a perfectly
straightforward deal. One party of the Government, seeing the gravity
of the disturbances, really wished to alleviate the sufferings of the
people by the importation of frozen meat. The Agrarians, on whose head
the blood-guilt of the European war really rests, played the same
unstatesmanlike trick upon Argentina as they had successfully carried
out in the case of the Balkans. The first load of meat duly arrived. It
was sold immediately. This did not suit the short-sighted Agrarians,
who immediately began a plan for the defeat of the innovation. With the
consent of the Government they began an agitation against frozen meat.
Butchers circulated stories that it was unsound, and as it was sold
at prices that corresponded very nearly with those of fresh meat, it
naturally remained on their hands. This was seized upon as an excuse
by the Government to stop the import of any more meat. Even then the
Government could not act with common straightforwardness. The cargo was
allowed to come, and turned back at Trieste. The boat ran over to an
Italian port, where the meat was sold without difficulty. But Austrian
credit had suffered largely. The political relations with Argentina
were strained, and the country lost many a good customer through her
dishonesty. This mattered little to the Agrarians, who got good prices
for their meat.
Another attempt was made to introduce sea-fish for popular consumption.
The Government put a quick goods train service on from the Adriatic,
and with cars especially constructed for keeping fresh fish in ice
through the hot nights. This did not suit the Agrarians, who had
immense breeding-places for carp and who reared trout in their
streams. As was to be expected, the trains were delayed, and the fish
reached Vienna and Budapesth in a state unfit for food. No statesman
in Austria-Hungary raised his voice against this trickery. No one
cared whether the people starved or not, provided the Agrarians were
satisfied. Archdukes, who might have raised their voices and have made
them heard, were themselves engaged in trade. They had immense dairies
and other establishments, where the produce of their lands was sold.
Their interests were contrary to those of the people and to those of
the country at large. They sided with the Agrarians in what was a
crisis in their own history and that of their country. Meat riots were
succeeded by disturbances about house accommodation. In order to keep
up rents, regulations preventing the building of new blocks of flats
were made in both Vienna and Budapesth. Similar enactments existed in
many other large cities in Austria-Hungary, but they pressed hardest
of all in the capitals. The landlords, freed from healthy competition,
not only demanded high rents, but they refused to accept tenants with
children. Men well able to pay high rents were forced to go from house
to house begging the porter to show them flats, and were turned away
time and time again simply because they had the misfortune to have a
family consisting not of six healthy children, but of one quiet child
of ten. At one period things were so bad that a workman with six
children, who had been unable to get accommodation anywhere, camped out
with his family on the Graben, the chief promenade in the very centre
of the city. Others knocked up wooden shanties on Crown land near the
mountains. At last the city decided to put up a number of sheds for the
accommodation of persons who had been expelled from the flats because
they had children. In Budapesth things were much worse. There were
riots, and the effigies of unpopular landlords were burned. Troops were
called out and rioters shot, but this brutal suppression of the working
class only increased the irritation felt against the Government. It was
clear even to the uninitiated that affairs were reaching a climax. The
discontent that had begun in the working classes was quickly spreading
to the small employé and even to the professional classes and officers
in the army. This was due not only to lack of food or accommodation,
but to the enormous increase in the cost of living, which had its root
in the alarming rise in taxation. This taxation was due to the two
mobilisations during the Annexation crisis and the Balkan wars, which
had cost Austria-Hungary many millions. The discovery that many things
essential to an army were lacking had led to reckless expenditure. Not
only had money been spent on legitimate needs, but immense swindles
had been perpetrated in connection with army supplies. Highly-placed
personages had been connected with these incidents which consequently
were never properly sifted, those most deeply implicated having the
power to prevent investigation. Further, mistakes on a vast scale were
made. The type of cannon recommended for the army, and supplied to all
the regiments, proved to be quite useless when employed in frontier
skirmishes. It was replaced by new weapons at enormous cost. Other
occurrences of the same kind led to the Budget being far above the
yearly income of the State. It became apparent to all responsible for
the conduct of the State that something must happen. The strain was too
great--a breakdown somewhere was inevitable.