'Street Life, 1916' by Hans Larwin, a native of Vienna and painter of the war on multiple fronts, including the home front. A bread line, chiefly of women, waits along the shopfronts to buy bread. To the left, a policeman stands guard.
Hans LarwinStraßenbild 1916Street Life, 1916Reverse:Galerie Wiener Künstler Nr. 681.Gallery of Viennese Artists, No. 681.W.R.B. & Co, W. III.
"More than 2000 women had rioted in Vienna's public market on 11 January; 5 days later 25 000 stood in line at the main meat market. It was not unusual for buyers to line up at markets the night before; many fainted in the process. While the best hotels and butcher shops had beef and port for sale to their regular (and wealthy) clients, the markets in the working-class districts had only horse meat on hand. Butchers there complained bitterly that they were forced to sell at fixed prices. Soup kitchens were besieged by patrons, many of them Landser on leave. Countless 'soldiers in rags' went door to door begging food. The capital's populace, in the words of the police, was on the point of starvation and rebellion."
Food shortages were acute in Austria-Hungary in January, 1918, and a strong impetus for the country to conclude peace with Russia in the negotiations at Brest-Litovsk. Austria-Hungary had not recovered from the loss of its rolling stock in the battles of 1914, Hungary withheld food supplies from the rest of the empire, and the failure to agree treaties prevented transportation of food from the breadbaskets of Russia and Romania. Landser is a colloquial expression for Landwehrmann, the Austrian home or territorial guard.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, pp. 363–364, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
1918-01-11, 1918, January, famine, food riot, food shortage, food line, bread line
