Trading sugar for soap behind the lines, 1918. A kilo of sugar is going for 1 1/2 kilos of laundry soap.
Original watercolor postcard by Schima Martos.

Caption, in both German and Hungarian:

Tausch im Hinterlande 1918 Cserebere

Für 1 kiló Zucker - 1½ kiló Waschseife

1 kiló cukorért - 1½ kiló Mososzappant

Exchange behind the lines, 1918 Swap

For 1 kilo of sugar - 1½ kilo laundry soap

1 kilo of sugar is - 1½ pounds of laundry soap



Reverse:

The card is addressed to Franz Martos, Mezökövesd, Hungary, postmarked from Helsinki (Helsingfors), Finland on 1918-11-05, and stamped again in Mezökövesd on 1918-11-18.

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Friday, January 28, 1916

"Dwindling real wages, long work weeks, and unsatisfactory food provoked mutterings and murmurings, and as early as 1915 discontent among miners flamed into short work stoppages. Yet, on an overall estimate, during the first half of the war, the industrial labor force toiled patriotically and sacrificially in the common cause of victory. . . .

. . . authorities in Austria-Hungary tended to imitate procedures devised in Germany. Unregulated, price levels of many commodities soared in the first flush of the war; then officials began to set maximum prices, though decrees were not rigidly enforced, profiteering and hoarding ran rampant, and costs went on advancing. A reporter for the Arbeiter Zeitung, in January, 1916, noticing a billboard displaying pre-war prices and figuring out that the same goods cost at least six times more, soliloquized, 'It makes one's mouth water . . . what a good thing that . . . the old advertisements have not been removed. It is such a good thing because they talk for peace.'"

Quotation Context

Two excerpts from Arthur May's study, The Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy 1914-1918, the end of Austria-Hungary and the House of Hapsburg ruling over it.

Source

The Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy, 1914-1918 2 Volumes by Arthur James May, Vol. One, pp. 337-338, 339, copyright © 1966 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, publication date: 1966

Tags

1916-01-28, 1916, January, food, inflation, prices, Austria-Hungary, Germany