Warsaw, Vienna and other central European cities during world war i in the light of recent literary works
Abstract
Based on six publications, covering the fortunes of Warsaw, Vienna, Salzburg and Nurnberg, the author discusses the situation and the role of Central European cities during World War I. What all three monarchies, in particular the Hapsburg Empire and Tzarist Russia, had in common was that they were unprepared for the outbreak of a war of European dimensions; additionally they had not consider their metropolitan and industrial centres to be support structures in the demanding times of war, but saw them as easily exploitable reservoirs of well qualified recruits, money and supplies.
The end result was the destructive exhaustion of their cities and in part the devastation of their economic potential. At the same time, the states transferred a whole number of demanding agendas and tasks (especially that of supply), yet they failed to create either material, or legal or financial preconditions for their fulfilment.
Only the Wilhelm Empire, out of the three Empires, succeeded (exceptionally - in the case of Warsaw) to establish a productive, not exclusively destructive occupational policy. In Warsaw, Nurnberg and especially in Vienna, extreme war deprivations and the radicalisation of the poor and also of the middle classes forced the ruling (non-socialist) parties to introduce a de facto policy of the welfare state. esituation in the metropolises was one of the determining factors shaping the face of the ensuing post-war republics.