“That is war!” said a man standing behind Johanna on the old market square in Salzburg on the evening of 28 June 1914. There, a crowd had gathered in front of Swatschek's bookstore around a notice announcing: “The heir to the throne and his wife murdered in Sarajevo.” As she later recalled, “the people kept silent, there was a deathly stillness, and because the sun was just going down, a suddenly changed light enveloped us too.”Footnote 1 For the then twenty-year-old Johanna Schuchter, the daughter of a bourgeois family and a future author, the news that Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Countess of Hohenberg, had been murdered during their visit to Austria-Hungary's recently annexed territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina set in motion a fateful development that a month later would drag the Habsburg monarchy and all of Europe into war.
While refracted through the knowledge of the ensuing events, the sense of foreboding captured in Johanna Schuchter's memoir contrasts with much of the imagery long associated with reactions to the outbreak of war. If popular representations of cheering, jubilant crowds greeting the outbreak of World War I still featured prominently in television and other media coverage of the hundredth anniversary commemoration during 2014, historians no longer believe that such pictures “speak for themselves.” Critical analyses of popular reactions to the outbreak of war in countries such as France, Germany, and Great Britain have moved away from simple notions of “war enthusiasm” being a universal experience.Footnote 2 As Gerhard Hirschfeld has noted, however, there has been comparatively little detailed empirical research on the outbreak of war in the state that started the conflict, Austria-Hungary.Footnote 3
Włodzimierz Borodziej and Maciej Górny justifiably observe in their new synthesis on the multinational empires of Central and Eastern Europe in World War I that “In recent years [the East] has attracted the attention of a substantial group of mainly American and German historians, but the density of research is still a long way off the volume of research on the course of the war in the West.”Footnote 4 Among these gaps in the historical literature on the Habsburg monarchy, the question of how the general population reacted to the start of war is especially notable. Despite growing attention to the subject, either coinciding with or inspired by the centenary of the war's outbreak,Footnote 5 there are few in-depth analyses of towns or regions in Austria-Hungary.Footnote 6
Based on accounts like Johanna Schuchter's, as well as chronicles, newspapers, and administrative sources, this article analyzes how the events in the summer of 1914 played out in the Crownland of Salzburg. Aside from emphasizing the complexity of emotions and the particular contexts of public reactions, our case study engages with the historiographies of World War I and the Habsburg monarchy in two principal ways. First, as John Deak has argued, many general histories of World War I draw on older views of the Habsburg monarchy without taking full account of new research.Footnote 7 Hence, this article connects the wider debate on the “spirit of 1914” to the key discussion in Habsburg scholarship about questions of loyalty and disloyalty.Footnote 8 As a vertical, personalized bond toward the emperor, loyalty, which is understood here as “the internal—and at the same time social—disposition to stand up for one another,” was not necessarily dependent on the whims of government policy at any given point in time.Footnote 9 Yet, the pressurized circumstances of the 1914 July crisis placed the concept of loyalty and the notion of a common solidarity at the forefront of public discourse. Historians need to pay greater attention to the transitional moment of 1914 to understand the ultimate fragmentation of the Habsburg state, not only because it was then that its authoritarian apparatus so openly began to exploit its powers but also because popular responses already signaled potential strains and fissures that deepened as the war progressed.Footnote 10 As Borodziej and Górny maintain, the ethnicized nature of responses to the war's outbreak in Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Germany meant that expressions of support for the war or acceptance of obligations were predicated on specific political and national agendas, which began to sharpen existing social and political tensions.Footnote 11
Second, we suggest that the summer of 1914 requires close evaluation in the light of debates about the relationship between the state and civil society in the Austrian half of the Habsburg state. Summarizing much recent research, Pieter Judson has stated that, “war destroyed the Empire of the Habsburgs over time by eroding any sense of mutual obligation between people and state; popular and dynastic patriotism withered away, calling into question the very raison d’être of empire.”Footnote 12 Thus, historians have focused on how the prewar “vibrant and evolving multinational empire” came to be “abandoned by its peoples” because of the subsistence crisis, discriminatory treatment of particular national groups, and the “assault on the nineteenth-century constitutional state and the rule of law.”Footnote 13
While such arguments carry substantial weight by highlighting the war's devastating societal impact and the substantial increase in the reach of the state, the implied caesura should not obscure the numerous continuities across the dividing line between peace and war, given that Austria-Hungary was no exception to the process of societal militarization across Europe before 1914.Footnote 14 A detailed look at regional society in the developing crisis of late July and early August 1914 reveals many continuities, whether in terms of the central function of the media and government institutions in influencing displays of “enthusiasm” in public spaces, or in terms of the population's general acceptance of the obligation to do its patriotic duty, notwithstanding the uncertainty and anxiety shown by ordinary people.Footnote 15 More particularly, continuity was also evident in the framing of the conflict as one between “Germandom” and “Slavdom,” especially as the regional press—with the Christian Socials at the forefront—vehemently called for firm action.
As a case study, the small Alpine Crownland of Salzburg is of interest for a number of reasons. Bordering on the German Empire, to which the province had close economic and political ties, Salzburg's population was almost exclusively Catholic and German-speaking.Footnote 16 Aside from a few urban centers, such as the eponymous capital and the nearby town of Hallein, it was mainly characterized by small-scale subsistence agriculture. Outside the towns, where National Liberals were in the ascendancy and Social Democrats had a sizeable following, Christian Socials dominated the political scene at the provincial level after the turn of the century.Footnote 17 The province's relative national-linguistic homogeneity contributed to making German nationalism a key cultural and political trope among the social elites. Cultural and national associations emulated the wider ideological concern among German speakers about their position within Cisleithanian society, even though here the “Slavic other” existed merely as an abstract threat, deployed as a tool for political mobilization.Footnote 18
This provincial setting cannot be seen as representative of the wider Habsburg monarchy, in which local circumstances greatly influenced the multiplicity of responses to the outbreak of war.Footnote 19 Undoubtedly, however, the regional perspective provides insight into a hitherto underresearched dimension of the war's outbreak, given the fact that the relevant literature tends to concentrate on centers of power and urban areas, rather than the kind of political, social, and cultural “peripheries” in which many of Austria-Hungary's population lived. Indeed, it is precisely the great variety of regional political milieus and socioeconomic landscapes characteristic of multinational polities that makes detailed case studies necessary if we are to build up a convincing history of Austria-Hungary that is not simply written “from the center outward,” but rather integrates the perspectives of historical actors at the ground level.Footnote 20
Our approach encompasses a broad range of source materials to incorporate a multiplicity of perspectives from different localities and the countryside. Within their accepted limits, egodocuments, together with local newspapers, institutional reports, and chronicles, offer a deeper insight into local perceptions of the war's outbreak, as well as revealing the arenas—both public and private—in which emotions were expressed.Footnote 21 Although often overlooked as sources for the period under examination, chronicles were usually embedded in organizational structures but were frequently written by “amateur” writers from and for the people connected to these structures. Best described as a chronological report of incidents related to the personal, spatial, or institutional sphere of production, the chronicles used here differed in their functions.Footnote 22 Chronicles from institutions such as schools or gendarmerie command posts possess an official character because they derive from formal obligations to document the main happenings affecting a specific work environment.Footnote 23 By contrast, private “family” or “house” chronicles more closely resemble memoirs or diaries. In recognizing the difficulties inherent in using chronicles and memoir material either partly or entirely written after 1914, we maintain that they cannot be discounted as purely “after-the-fact” (re-)constructions, not least because they give insights into personal emotions—particularly those of women—that otherwise are not accessible to historians. Moreover, they are especially useful for examining the period after the imposition of censorship in late July 1914.
The article analyzes in turn local reactions to key moments in the summer of 1914: the Sarajevo assassinations on 28 June, the phase from Austria-Hungary's ultimatum to Serbia on 23 July to its declaration of war on the latter five days later, and the subsequent period of mobilization and escalation of conflict in the first week of August. In conclusion, we provide a differentiated summary of the investigation's main findings and return to the wider discussion.
“A Horrendous Piece of News”
As elsewhere in Central Europe, Sunday, 28 June was a beautiful day in Salzburg, and many of its residents were enjoying the prospect of an extended weekend holiday, the next day being the Catholic feast of Saints Peter and Paul. High school student Wilhelm Promok went to a fair in the municipal district of Schallmoos, organized by the local branch of the German School Association (Deutscher Schulverein).Footnote 24 General store owner Alexander Haidenthaller and his wife visited Bad Ischl, where Emperor Francis Joseph had just embarked upon his annual summer residency.Footnote 25 Citizens of the market town of Saalfelden gathered to listen to a concert.Footnote 26 And the voluntary fire brigade in Oberndorf, by the Bavarian border, was celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation.Footnote 27
News of the assassinations spread quickly and had a chilling effect on everyone's mood. Wilhelm Promok recorded in his diary that he had been sitting at an inn, waiting for his father, when the news broke:
Then the innkeeper came over and said: “The heir to the throne and his wife have been murdered in Sarajevo!” We did not want to believe it, but as we heard the news from every mouth, we had to believe it. Then we went home. As we came to the Schallmoos fair, it had become quieter. The music had stopped, and everyone was talking about the grisly assassination.Footnote 28
As in Schallmoos, festivities stopped abruptly everywhere. The firemen and merrymakers in Oberndorf called a halt to the celebrations and everyone headed home with anxious feelings.Footnote 29 The pious Catholic and patriot Alexander Haidenthaller was greatly shocked, noting in his diary: “What a horrendous piece of news [spread] around midday! Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife have been murdered in Sarajevo. General misery was to be seen on the faces of the population in Ischl.”Footnote 30 Conveying a similar mood, the Saalfelden school chronicle recorded:
The sweet airs of our well-trained music band resounded [and as] it commenced with its second set, suddenly the joyful tunes fell silent and the audience looked at each other in astonishment, as if asking, what happened? But the tense wait did not last long [before] they were told the saddest thing a patriot could ever learn. A musician got up on a chair, so he could be seen by everyone, and announced that the music had to be stopped, because a telegram had just arrived: “His Imperial and Royal Highness, the most serene Archduke, heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand and his supreme wife, Her Highness Duchess Sophie von Hohenberg have fallen victim to a nefarious attack in Sarajevo.” The news made a deep impression. During this evening, one heard nothing but great consternation and indignation about this crime.Footnote 31
The descriptions from Salzburg most obviously call to mind Stefan Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday. Zweig's afternoon reverie in the spa town of Baden was interrupted by the sudden cessation of music in the park. He described the agitated scenes before suggesting that much of the commotion had ceased by the evening. The music resumed as a kind of normality returned; Zweig implied that there was little love lost for the murdered archduke.Footnote 32
In Salzburg, however, the news made a deeper impact than Zweig's memoirs suggest, as numerous local chronicles testify. For example, the gendarmerie in Taxenbach noted the “great dismay among the entire population.”Footnote 33 The parish priest in St. Georgen subsequently wrote about the “enormous commotion” and “tense expectation [about] what Austria may do.”Footnote 34 Moreover, the resumption of routine did not diminish the sense of shock. The “general misery” did not cause Alexander Haidenthaller to cancel his plans for a stroll on the esplanade in Gmunden before returning to Salzburg late at night, tired but satisfied with a day spent in the company of friends. Yet, the tone of his diary leaves no doubt about his outrage regarding the murder, or of his foreboding about what might transpire. He drily reckoned with hostilities before the onset of the harvest.Footnote 35
Nevertheless, the question remains how precisely to evaluate the initial sense of shock and the somber mood in Salzburg. After all, Austria-Hungary was a monarchical society, in which respect for Emperor Francis Joseph and the Habsburg dynasty was widespread, even if the degree of emotional engagement with dynastic patriotism varied across the dual state's territories.Footnote 36 From this point of view, the genuine sense of horror at the violent death of members of the imperial family represented a “normal” reaction to an unexpected, sudden event. The official statement by the head of the provincial government (Landeshauptmann), Alois Winkler, can be seen in this vein. On 30 June, Winkler, who was also canon of Salzburg Cathedral, spoke to the specially convened provincial government “with great sadness” and “lent emotional expression to the outrage about the shameful deed.”Footnote 37 Reactions such as this, including the sending of telegrams of condolence—a gesture of solidarity repeated in hundreds of towns and villages across the monarchy—and the holding of commemorative masses, occurred whenever members of the imperial family died.Footnote 38
Stock responses and standardized wording naturally accompanied solemn events of this kind. In Vienna, for example, many theaters closed their doors on the evening of 28 June and numerous meetings or events were cancelled or postponed. Yet, “appropriate” behavior of this kind does not allow us to assume that all concerned were equally affected by what happened.Footnote 39 Bearing this in mind, reactions in Salzburg to the Sarajevo murders perhaps lacked the emotional component evident in responses to the assassination of Empress Elisabeth in 1898.Footnote 40 Franz Ferdinand had been a divisive figure in Salzburg due to his conservative interventions in town planning in the provincial capital, which alienated much of the progressive bourgeoisie. Similarly, his hunting activities in the Bluntau valley, where he owned a castle, closed off access to hiking routes and footpaths, meaning that tourists, alpinists, and some farmers resented the restrictions involved.Footnote 41 By contrast, political Catholics felt the imperial connection lent prestige to Salzburg, and the Christian Social press mentioned the “incalculable economic damage” the Golling area would suffer as a result of the archduke's loss.Footnote 42 Overall, however, the expressions of grief among the population do not seem to have extended beyond the norm for such occasions.
This was further evident when churches and public institutions, including schools, which were soon to close for the summer break, held memorial services for the murdered couple, usually a week to ten days after their death.Footnote 43 Most newspaper reports concentrate on the official perspective on these events, briefly listing the attendant dignitaries and soberly recording the ceremonies.Footnote 44 The primary school chronicle in Mühlbach am Hochkönig briefly noted that a service was held on 3 July, while the equivalent chronicler in St. Johann im Pongau simply recorded that the school participated in the service held in the parish church on 6 July and no lessons were held that day.Footnote 45 A distinctly routine acknowledgment of the occasion is preserved in the register of daily masses from the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter in the center of Salzburg's old town. Brother Leander listed the special prayers pro crudeliter occisis Franc. Ferdin. (“for the cruelly killed Franz Ferdinand”) that were held alongside other prayers for “various deceased.”Footnote 46
The potential political implications of the event had yet to be clarified for provincial society. If some feared the possibility of war, like Haidenthaller or the man behind Johanna Schuchter in Salzburg's old market square, this was hardly surprising given the tensions in the Balkan region since 1908, particularly following the Balkan Wars of 1912–13 and Austro-Hungarian partial mobilization at the end of 1913. Indeed, Haidenthaller had already anticipated in 1908 that developments in the region would lead to war involving Austria-Hungary.Footnote 47 Nor were such feelings confined to Salzburg, for immediate apprehension about the consequences of the Sarajevo murders likewise accompanied the interruption of the annual congress (Slet) of the Czech Sokol gymnastic movement, held in Brno/Brünn.Footnote 48
In Salzburg, rather than any “prowar” mood being evident among the majority of the population at the beginning of July, the initial concern was rather more with the monarchy's future.Footnote 49 Members of the social elite directed their expressions of solidarity and patriotism primarily toward the aged Emperor Francis Joseph. As Salzburg Mayor Franz Ott's telegram to the Viennese court avowed, it was “from the depths of their hearts” that the population of Salzburg “unanimously” assured their “deepest and most heartfelt sympathies for the immeasurable pain, which confronts our much-tried monarch.”Footnote 50 Similarly, Franz Schoosleitner, head of the Salzburg Farmers’ Federation (Bauernbund) and deputy Landeshauptmann, sent an “expression of warmest sympathy … to the steps of the Most High throne,” emphasizing “the firmly dynastic sentiments of this Federation” and “the deeply felt grief of the Salzburg peasantry.”Footnote 51
If the initial reaction to the events in Sarajevo included shock at the nature of the crime, the regional press then played a significant role in stirring up fears about the “Slavic menace.”Footnote 52 This instigation reflected feelings in the Christian Social camp, which had close ties to Franz Ferdinand, although German National papers also forcefully expressed such sentiments. Outrage characterized the early editions after the murders, coupled with a critical undertone that implied that the government had been too soft in its approach to the gathering danger. The Christian Social Salzburger Chronik remonstrated on 29 June that Franz Ferdinand was a victim of the regime's weakness and immediately called for “a ruthless policy of the iron fist.”Footnote 53 For the Chronik, Serbia's guilt was a given, with Russia's hand suspected behind it all. The National Liberal Salzburger Volksblatt likewise had no hesitation in condemning the “deed by Slavic murderers,” claiming that “Belgrade dispatched” them.Footnote 54 In this respect, the Salzburg papers differed little from their counterparts in the Viennese press.Footnote 55 Only the Socialist paper, the Salzburger Wacht, adopted a critical tone, in line with its generally antimilitarist stance in the years before 1914.Footnote 56 The paper saw the assassination as being rooted in nationalism, which had unsettled the peoples of Austria-Hungary “for decades.” Rather than weakness, it was the “reactionary” nature of Austro-Hungarian policy that had prevented a peaceful solution to the nationalities question.Footnote 57
In short, the Christian Social and German National press set the tone for the intensive discussion of events in the next days, but it was above all the former that acted as the frontrunner in voicing the need for firm action. Its obituary piece on 2 July endorsed Franz Ferdinand's vision of “a great, powerful, happy Austria,” while also reflecting on the mistakes made at the time of the 1908 Bosnian crisis, when a “system of softness” and peace-seeking had prevailed. Already implicitly raising the question of annexation, and thereby reflecting views in the Foreign Ministry and military, the Salzburger Chronik asked whether “Serbia and Montenegro can compensate for the loss that Austria has suffered?”Footnote 58 Reports in various newspapers drew out the political implications, as well as the full pathos of the family drama. The Christian Social peasant fortnightly Salzburger Volksbote drove the point home:
The monarch, whose brother was shot in 1867, whom a dreadful fate robbed of his only son in 1889, and from whose side an anarchist's hand violently tore his precious wife, must now stand grieving at his nephew and heir's coffin too, whom a heinous boy has cowardly murdered.Footnote 59
As the media statements demonstrate, the battle over the assassinations’ political meaning was already underway in the regional press, even if the full repercussions were not yet evident for the Salzburg population. Much as in Graz, where the campaign for municipal elections added spice to the media discourse, the papers staked out their positions in line with regional political allegiances.Footnote 60 Thus, the Social Democratic Salzburger Wacht refrained from using flowery prose to depict the deceased, though it still expressed sympathy for the family members. At the same time, it did not hesitate to remind the public how dispensable human life was in other sections of society. It produced statistics on the number of fatal work accidents before reflecting on the fate of working-class children who had also suddenly become orphans: “Capitalism has pushed so many thousands of children into poverty; and will those who otherwise pass heartlessly by and whose hearts have now been softened by the crime of Sarajevo, now also take the murderer Capitalism to task?”Footnote 61 Interestingly, this critical tone contrasted with the less combative stance adopted by the main party paper, the Vienna-based Arbeiter-Zeitung.Footnote 62 In doing so, it also demonstrated the relative openness of discussion in this first phase of reaction to the events of the summer of 1914 in contrast to the situation later on in July.Footnote 63
Once the initial news of the murder had been absorbed, the press gradually returned to regular politics, local events, and the onset of the tourist season's peak period.Footnote 64 This reflected the carefully constructed appearance of “normality” pursued by the Austro-Hungarian government as the decisive moves toward war against Serbia were being made.Footnote 65 In Salzburg, from around 5 July onward, much of the Christian Social paper's attention was consumed with the forthcoming enthronement of the new prince archbishop, Balthasar Kaltner.Footnote 66 In a similar way, the National Liberal Volksblatt turned its focus back to other matters; the main headline on 5 July dealt with customs duties on grain,Footnote 67 while more detailed reporting on the events in Sarajevo moved to the inside pages. Nevertheless, German nationalist sentiment also came to the fore in the paper's demand on 8 July for an end to French classes in Salzburg's schools because French journalists were allegedly daring “to glorify and to find understanding for the bloody deed of Sarajevo.”Footnote 68 Thereafter, leading articles on 9 and 10 July respectively invoked German Chancellor Theobold von Bethmann Hollweg's notion of “a decisive struggle between Germandom and Slavdom” and proclaimed “the end of our patience” toward Serbia, which marked a shift away from the specific events in Sarajevo toward European affairs as a whole.Footnote 69
Ongoing developments, such as the sudden death of the Russian ambassador in Belgrade and the unstable situation in Albania, meant that the Balkan region stayed highly newsworthy,Footnote 70 but the media discourse otherwise reflected on the general international situation rather than making particular proposals for action. Moreover, the regional press gives little indication about the popular mood in the aftermath of the assassinations. Nearly all the chronicles, diaries, and memoirs are likewise silent during the middle weeks of July 1914. People returned to daily activities, even if uncertainty lingered in the air. In the town of Radstadt, as late as 25 July, the local gymnastics association sought permission for their annual gymnastic display to take place on the town square, almost as if things would continue as normal—even though two days previously Austria-Hungary had sent its uncompromising ultimatum to the Serbian government.Footnote 71
The Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum
When the ultimatum was published on 23 July, a debate that had been largely silent for much of July resumed as the German-language press in Austria addressed the political and military consequences of the Sarajevo murders.Footnote 72 As Wolfgang Kruse has noted for Germany, the flare-up of prowar agitation in the bourgeois press, the publication of newspaper special issues, and the spreading of rumors all fostered a tense, agitated atmosphere.Footnote 73 Although published opinion clearly cannot be equated with popular opinion, newspapers functioned as the key source of information and thereby played a central role in shaping how responses in the public sphere were expressed.Footnote 74
Albeit with different emphases and motivations, both the leading papers in the region greeted the ultimatum positively. The National Liberal Salzburger Volksblatt hailed the news on 25 July with the headline, “Finally—a manly step,” and asserted that “all friends of Austria will appreciate [it] with sincere joy and a sigh of relief after the prolonged, anxious pressure.”Footnote 75 Similarly, the Salzburger Chronik commented: “At last! With this sigh of relief all honest Austrians have accompanied our government's decisive step.”Footnote 76 The Christian Social paper adopted wholesale the Viennese government's standpoint, vehemently pushing a hardline position. Petronilla Ehrenpreis’ study of the German-language Vienna-based press argues that the capital's leading papers did not express a frenzied lust for war but rather conveyed a feeling that firm action needed to be taken to resolve the problematic relationship with Serbia. It was a question of the monarchy's existence, for which the risk of war had to be accepted.Footnote 77 In this respect, the Salzburger Chronik stood at the forefront of the chorus calling for a resolute stance, and this certainly found an echo among its core clientele. Thus, the author of the parish chronicle in St. Georgen retrospectively summarized the local mood in the aftermath of Sarajevo as being a “general wish” that Austria “would show itself to be strong and not to put up with it anymore.”Footnote 78
Elsewhere, members of the conservative-patriotic nexus sought to help create a consensus around government policy. Johanna Schuchter's memoirs show how this worked in Salzburg on the day of the ultimatum. An animated crowd was discussing developments in front of the editorial offices of the Salzburger Volksblatt, when “suddenly a servant from the court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany struck up the Prince Eugene song, the crowd enthusiatically joined in and now boisterous cheers for the emperor and Austria interrupted the long series of patriotic songs, which everyone sang until they were hoarse.”Footnote 79 Rather than being spontaneous, the burst of enthusiastic endorsement for the government's action was engineered by an employee of the cadet line of the Habsburg dynasty that had taken up residence in Salzburg, where it sponsored patriotic actvities; several court employees were members of a local military veterans’ association.Footnote 80
On 26 July, the Chronik struck up the kind of tub-thumping later mercilessly satirized by Karl Kraus in The Last Days of Mankind:
In Austrian veins there flows the old heroic blood, which is accustomed to victory. We know no fear! Should the elderly emperor, revered on all sides, call his peoples, then all the nations will hurry to the colors. It is a question of the honor of the most beloved imperial house and the fatherland, the atonement for the murder of a prince, it is a question of the reputation of the state and the protection of civilization (Kultur) against the breach of international law and barbarism!Footnote 81
At the same time, the Christian Social paper could not resist making a dig at its Socialist opponents, who were already obliged to toe the line in the face of censorship: Social Democracy had “become quite tame in Austria as a consequence of the necessary emergency measures.”Footnote 82
The Austrian Social Democrats were against an escalation of the crisis, and on 22 July the Salzburger Wacht still criticized the “noisy Austrian policy” and “warmongers.”Footnote 83 In a further critique of the belligerent atmosphere, the paper commented three days later: “Since yesterday, there rings through the Christian and chauvinist press: War, War, toward Serbia, revenge for Belgrade's murderers! And in the pubs, the philistine, who will never have to enlist, is screeching and repeating the war-mongers’ arguments without any thought.”Footnote 84 However, the rest of the article was confiscated. In consequence, local Social Democrats, following the Viennese leadership, sought to tread carefully so as not to endanger the party organization.Footnote 85
By the end of July, most of the Salzburg press greeted the prospect of war with Serbia in a broadly patriotic, progovernment fashion and directed their proactive stance against Serbia in the first instance. In the few days between the ultimatum and the escalation of the European crisis, all papers assured their readers that this would be a short, localized conflict that would bring a swift victory.Footnote 86 The emphasis on localization indirectly implies local journalists were aware that a wider war was a genuine source of popular concern. The headline in the second edition of the Chronik issued on 28 July, announcing the declaration of war, was worded to forestall anxieties. First comes the reiteration of the localized, specific nature of the conflict: “The War with Serbia.” The second line acknowledges public apprehension, before the third and final part of the headline seeks to offer reassurance: “Never fear! Austria's resoluteness” (Nur keine Angst! Die Entschlossenheit Oesterreichs).Footnote 87
While the press sought in this way to frame public responses to the international crisis, there was, by this point in time, barely any possibility left to oppose the coming war openly. With the Austrian parliament prorogued since March 1914, from 25 July onward a series of imperial decrees based on the §14 Emergency Clause of the Fundamental Law of the State (Staatsgrundgesetz) suspended or dramatically limited citizens’ rights of free speech and freedom of assembly. The measures also subjected civilians to trial in military court for all political and criminal offenses that might impede the mobilization and introduced rigid censorship of the press and private letters.Footnote 88 The enactment of the 1912 War Requirements Act placed workers and industries under military discipline and allowed the army to requisition goods deemed vital for the mobilization.Footnote 89
All this meant that publicly voiced opposition, let alone peace demonstrations, was not an option for the Austrian Social Democratic Party, unlike in Germany.Footnote 90 The rapid imposition of censorship curbed public debate more drastically than in other countries, and local authorities sometimes used their newly acquired powers in an exceptionally rigid way.Footnote 91 Articles that could be printed in the Viennese Arbeiter-Zeitung were confiscated in Salzburg, and even the Christian Social Salzburger Chronik complained about the uncompromising censor.Footnote 92 In addition, the government had already instructed provincial authorities on 22 July that “Serbophile and anti-militarist manifestations may occur. Such manifestations, whether they be assemblies, [in] the press, or in any other form in public … must be ruthlessly suppressed, using all legal measures and, in particular, employing the full powers of the executive.”Footnote 93 A case soon arose when the railway worker Matthias Kaufmann was publicly heard shouting, “Up with Serbia, Down with Austria!” in the district of Zell am See on 26 July; he was arrested the next day and promptly charged.Footnote 94
On balance, as Alexander Watson has observed, across Austria-Hungary these repressive measures “proved, against expectations, to be largely unnecessary.”Footnote 95 In Salzburg, with a few isolated exceptions, the authorities reported that the partial mobilization (decreed on 25 July) went unimpaired, with no organized public opposition.Footnote 96 Nevertheless, reservations were evident, and a sense of “enthusiasm” is hard to discern before the actual process of general mobilization began (ordered on 31 July). In the egodocuments or chronicles for this period, some contemporaries, such as the abbot of St. Peter's Abbey, merely took note of the ultimatum and declaration of war without much comment.Footnote 97 By contrast, Elise Kirchner, a teacher's wife in Neukirchen in the Salzburg area of Oberpinzgau, noted on 29 August: “On 23 July Austria presented Serbia with an ultimatum, on 25 July in the evening, war was declared on Serbia, now misery is here.”Footnote 98
General Mobilization and European War
Once Serbia had rejected the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum, the highly charged atmosphere in towns and cities across the Habsburg monarchy intensified further. As Bernhard Thonhofer remarks with regard to Graz, the ensuing sense of agitation encompassed both excitement and apprehension, which developed in different directions when it became clear that the conflict was escalating across Europe.Footnote 99 Analysis of the complex interplay between the public performance of duty and individual responses in Salzburg shows how the special dynamics of the moment created a fevered, volatile, almost “carnivalesque” atmosphere, especially in the towns or larger villages with rail stations, where crowds gathered.Footnote 100 Moreover, as the state apparatus swung into operation, expectations of conformity and sharpened attentiveness to what officials termed “incorrect” or “disloyal” behavior added extra edge to the situation.Footnote 101
The combination of stricter censorship and the emergency circumstances meant that the press adopted a more unified stance toward the war. Having previously downplayed the possibility of a European war, after 1 August the Salzburger Chronik was obliged to confront an evidently unwelcome issue. It now explained Russia's “saber-rattling” as a means of obviating internal revolution. The paper squarely placed the blame for the escalation of the crisis on St. Petersburg and interpreted the conflict in racial terms: “One evidently wants to unleash the world war of Slavdom against Germandom.” To minimize the alarm, the Chronik pointed to Russia's internal difficulties since the Russo-Japanese War and the likelihood of Japanese or Chinese intervention.Footnote 102 Interestingly, the Chronik expressed less concern about the prospect of a wider war compared to its sister paper in Tyrol, which earnestly hoped that a general war could be avoided.Footnote 103 For the Salzburger Chronik, however, the mobilization of German arms seemed to remove doubts, as it reassured its readers on 4 August.Footnote 104
From the other side of the political spectrum, the stance taken by their colleagues in Germany in voting for war credits and the Viennese party leadership's declaration in favor of “the German nation” encouraged Social Democrats in Salzburg to support the war effort “against the Russian archenemy.”Footnote 105 As the Salzburger Wacht proclaimed: “We, who have generally been opposed to the war, will fight with all our force against blood-stained Tsarist Russia. We prefer to die a thousand times rather than become victims of those who have been the greatest enemy to European civilization itself.”Footnote 106 By 6 August, therefore, the Salzburg press was uniformly supporting the war—rabidly so in the case of the Christian Social Chronik, more conditionally so in the case of the Social Democratic Wacht.
With their wide circulation, the Volksblatt and Chronik played a decisive role in the medial escalation occurring from the end of July onward, seeking to shape the public mood through repeated evocation of “enthusiasm” in their pages.Footnote 107 A typical report by the Chronik described how people at the rail station in Hallein gave cigarettes and food to the soldiers, who moved off “against the enemy with enthusiasm and confidence.”Footnote 108 Reflecting its broader outlook, the Volksblatt devoted many of its headlines to the international situation, later seeking to bolster confidence by talking up the progress of the German armies in the west.Footnote 109
The commotion caused by the onset of war undoubtedly created a “buzz” that was heightened in the urban centers.Footnote 110 Here, too, set-piece rituals created a folkloristic atmosphere, which triggered internalized patterns of behavior based on dynastic loyalty and acceptance of patriotic duty. In the public sphere, large swathes of the population responded in late July and early August 1914 in the ways learned through the repetition of imperial birthday and name-day celebrations, Corpus Christi parades, and other patriotic activities in previous decades.Footnote 111 While implying that the sentiment was not necessarily universal, Alexander Haidenthaller observed such mechanisms at work as war was declared: “Partial jubilation and the stormy declaration announced how united all the peoples are with our beloved ruler. The streets sounded with the Imperial anthem, the German song [Die Wacht am Rhein], the Prince Eugene song, and many other patriotic songs that bound all hearts together.”Footnote 112 Haidenthaller's diary entry demonstrates the strong receptiveness of the provincial petty bourgeoisie to the patriotic moment, as well as to German national sentiments. Although Haidenthaller personally distanced himself from the radical nationalism embodied by organizations such as the German School Association,Footnote 113 many reports show how the singing of German national and Austrian patriotic songs went hand in hand. The well-known Stiegl beerhall was bursting at the seams as imbibing citizens struck up the aforementioned songs, but also the old Prussian national anthem (Heil dir im Siegerkranz) in a patriotic gathering on Saturday, 1 August.Footnote 114
Similar crowd dynamics were again evident when a great field mass was held on one of the main squares in Salzburg, the Mirabellplatz, before the departure of troops from the 59th Infantry Regiment “Archduke Rainer,” one of the “home regiments” for Salzburg and Upper Austria. The day lived long in the memory of nine-year-old Hella Lechner, daughter of a tax official, who decades later recalled in an interview:
Then it was the marching off and they had a field mass on the Mirabellplatz. And that was so moving, you know, everything was decorated, and on the weapons too…. [A]nd then all the soldiers kneeled down and then they stood up and sang “Father, I call you” and “I once had a comrade.” I haven't forgotten it my whole life. And then we ran with the soldiers to the station, and then they were loaded into the carriages. On the first of these occasions, people shouted out hail victory (Sieg Heil), and there was such an enthusiasm that a young person today cannot imagine it.Footnote 115
Likewise looking back many years later, farmer Josef Lausenhammer, a young man at the time of mobilization, readily admitted in his memoirs how he got caught up in the mood: “I have to say in advance that when the war broke out, I, as many others, was very patriotic and adventurous”—while also adding, with the benefit of hindsight, “one can rightly say: who is young is stupid.”Footnote 116
Such memories testify to the power of mass spectacle, enhanced by singing, music, and the religious framework, as well to the feeling of solidarity emerging from the onset of war. Yet, equally, there is the impression that such “enthusiasm” was circumscribed in two key respects. First, it was chronologically limited, the response above all to an orchestrated, one-off occasion, in which numerous factors contributed to the resonance of the troops’ departure: the official nature of the field mass, a sense of anticipation, and—not to be forgotten—the liberal dispensing of free beer to the young recruits milling around the regional capital. Reflecting on the latter aspect, Georg Feichtenschlager recalled the departure of troops from Salzburg: “It was no wonder if the 59ers and 41ers [from the home garrison regiment] were put into a warlike mood.”Footnote 117 Moreover, the ephemeral nature of this mood is evident, as Mark Cornwall has also suggested for the southeastern provinces of Cisleithania.Footnote 118 Hella Lechner observed that, with rising casualties, troop departures soon became sad occasions and soldiers were no longer sent off from the main station but rather loaded into cattle wagons at a suburban junction.Footnote 119 Hence, the precise chronological moment and a particular setting determined whether a “positive” response was forthcoming.
Second, the “enthusiasm” was limited spatially and socially. The most receptive social cohort was that of young, unmarried men, with the distinction between town and countryside seemingly less important than age and gender. Women, married men, and older generations tended to be more anxious and often showed no enthusiasm, even if they accepted the workings of fate. The gendarmerie constable in the small market town of Rauris wrote in his logbook, that “after the mobilization was proclaimed … a somewhat depressed mood can be noted among the population, since a large number of married men and fathers are about to be conscripted. A more enthusiastic mood only came up among the young, unmarried folk.”Footnote 120 Confirming this impression, Berta Pflanzl, a former servant girl born in 1882, wrote in her diary about 1 August, which she observed from the vantage point of Salzburg town center: “An eventful day! General mobilization. Terrible commotion in the town, one only sees weeping people. ‘War!’ What a frightful word!”Footnote 121
Amidst all the hurrahs and the pomp, it should not be forgotten that the men had gathered at army barracks and train stations because they were legally obliged to do so. Whereas war volunteering was an important, albeit overemphasized, phenomenon in neighboring Germany,Footnote 122 no such large-scale rush to the colors can be observed in the Habsburg monarchy, and the handful of cases of war volunteering in Salzburg remained exceptional.Footnote 123 A variety of evidence, especially—but not only—from the countryside, indicates the mixed feelings or trepidation about the war. In Lofer, in the northwest of Salzburg, the local chronicler wrote: “Although some unmarried [men] performed songs and joyful comedies, for most of the conscripts, the farewell was very hard and plentiful tears were shed.”Footnote 124 The chronicle firmly brings out the wrenching pain of farewell: “The departure from the post square was sad and moving, and tears flowed profusely, although the unmarried ones still sang jolly songs and all were convinced of a quick end to the war and hurried hopefully to the colors. Lofer had seldom seen such sad days!”Footnote 125
Georg Feichtenschlager, too, noticed farewells “amidst tears and sobbing” away from the bravado of other colleagues.Footnote 126 That young men were emotionally affected by the departure is testified by Josef Habersatter Jr., son of an enterprising farmer outside Radstadt. In the early 1920s, he told the family chronicler of his sadness when taking leave from his hometown and family on 1 August and the fear that he might never see his “beautiful, dear homeland” again. Joining up with the 41st Field Artillery Regiment in Salzburg, where he was in barracks for two weeks, on 16 August Habersatter met his father again at the rail station, “where the most difficult leave-taking occurred.”Footnote 127
If localities were on a rail line, departures from home usually took place within a ritualized framework, which provided structure to a moment that constituted a greater emotional test than the declaration of war. Some chroniclers from the gendarmerie seemingly felt obliged by their institutional role to put a patriotic, positive gloss on what was a much more ambivalent situation. In Tamsweg, for example, the chronicle recorded: “The departing troops were accompanied to the station to the ringing sounds of music from the civic riflemen's corps and by a great crowd of people from the surrounding area. There, the imperial anthem was sung by everyone present before the boarding of the train. The mutual farewells followed, in the confidence of a successful outcome in the conflict against our enemies.”Footnote 128
On the one hand, however, at this precise point in time recruits still assumed they were departing for a Balkan war (the reality of a world war only dawned for them from 3–4 August onward). On the other hand, a local paper, the Tauern-Post, described the same scenes in Tamsweg in a very different way, saying that everywhere there were anxious faces to be seen when eight hundred reservists departed on 1 August; the reporter said mobilization had “torn holes into family life” and that fathers found the departure hard to master.Footnote 129 One newspaper report about 1 August in Salzburg likewise picked up on the ambivalence behind the carefully staged departure ceremony: “While the youth displayed a real enthusiasm on the day, one also saw serious faces. Family fathers who had to leave wife and children resigned themselves to what could not be altered.”Footnote 130
As Jiří Hutečka has suggested, soldiering men were obliged to perform the role prescribed by “hegemonic masculinity,” which meant the avoidance of publicly displaying emotion.Footnote 131 By contrast, women were allowed—perhaps expected—to do so. The Salzburger Volksblatt speaks of women in Hallein weeping as they rushed back home from work after news of the general mobilization arrived on 31 July.Footnote 132 The recollections of Josef Habersatter Sr. paint a similar picture: “On 1 August, I was in Forstau and when I came home, I was told that war was declared. Everywhere the women were lamenting and crying. On 2 August, it was a Sunday, the troop train departed, and it was deeply moving, because so many fathers of families had to go.”Footnote 133
Viewed from a gender-historical perspective, therefore, the whole notion of “enthusiasm” requires substantial revision.Footnote 134 Further testimony comes from Barbara Passrugger, a peasant woman from Filzmoos whose memoirs recounted the differing reactions regarding her step-brothers’ experiences with the military. Earlier in 1914, they had been called up for regular military service and all had celebrated the young men passing muster. Yet, when they had to join up at the outbreak of war, she recalled: “I felt that everything was sadder than before, when they came home from being passed fit for service. Mother cried, and I cried too, although I could not then understand the import of it all.”Footnote 135
In addition to anxieties about the menfolk leaving, people throughout the province had immediate practical concerns. Telling is the sober tone present in the St. Georgen parish chronicle:
On 31 July, general mobilization in Austria. In the evening the order arrived and was posted up in public.… The day was fine, the whole day wheat was brought in, as if one had felt that on the next day the men must go to war. 1 August, Saturday: everything is getting ready for the mobilization. Those called up appear in the morning to receive the sacrament, even in the afternoon some come.Footnote 136
As well as the turn to the church for support, this chronicle indicates how, for many ordinary agricultural workers, the war was a burden—one that had to be accepted but not welcomed. Thus, Josef Buchsteiner, farmer on the Ellmau estate in the district of St. Johann im Pongau, recorded in the annual entry for 1914 in his “house book”: “The mobilization declared on 1 August also hit us hard. The lumberjacks had to report for duty and our good servant Zwisler had to go straightaway. It seemed as if everything came to a stop.… No consideration was given to the farmers at that time.”Footnote 137 Josef Perwein, a prospering farmer in Pongau district and Christian Social deputy to the Salzburg Diet and Austrian parliament, had been shocked by the murders in Sarajevo, perhaps particularly so because he was personally acquainted with the victims. Yet, despite his political connections and acceptance of the need for war, Perwein had nothing to say about an enthusiastic mobilization:
August 1 was the first day of mobilization for all troop units and the militia. Many men had to report straightaway to their regiments, and the militia—among them many farmers and tradesmen—had to report for defensive duties. Which brought forth much calamity at the current harvest-time, in many households the woman is now alone at home with the children.Footnote 138
In practice, the effects of the war on most of the rural population were soon evident. In some regions, such as the Lungau, about one-tenth of the male population was immediately drafted into the army at the most work-intensive time in the agricultural year.Footnote 139 Small farms suffered from the recruitment of peasants and laborers, as well as from the forced requisition of horses under the watchful eyes of the gendarmerie.Footnote 140 Relatively few were the wealthier farmers who could initially profit from the situation. Josef Perwein noted in his diary the good prices obtainable for horses, while also remarking that “the prices for cattle are currently not bad, since cattle for slaughter are in high demand due to the war.”Footnote 141
However, the majority of the population immediately felt a rise in foodstuff prices, as people were hoarding supplies and merchants, bakers, and innkeepers charged more.Footnote 142 Although newspaper reports praised the displays of patriotism for the departing troops, such statements were somewhat undercut by immediate appeals for social and economic solidarity. Acknowledging that in Salzburg, too, “the seriousness of the hour” was making itself felt, the Salzburger Volksblatt warned against an “unnecessary inflation of prices,” appealing to all concerned—whether famers or urban businesses—to maintain fair prices for consumers.Footnote 143 At the same time, there was great concern about the possibility of an imminent financial crisis. The first days of the war saw a rush on banks as people withdrew their savings, creating a significant cash shortage for local banks. Reports told of attempts to exchange paper money into coinage and of merchants or shopkeepers who refused to accept paper money, anticipating its devaluation.Footnote 144 The authorities tried to counter this financial panic by asserting the security of financial deposits and the stability of the currency. From early August, they issued numerous appeals against hoarding and speculation.Footnote 145
Finally, the agitated mood found outlet in aggressive form, too, with chauvinism and paranoia occurring contemporaneously with displays of patriotism.Footnote 146 The authorities warned civil servants, gendarmerie, and the police to be on the lookout for possible spies or saboteurs, which in effect only further stoked anti-Slav feelings and in several areas led to widespread denunciations, as Martin Moll has extensively documented for Styria.Footnote 147 Throughout the province, as elsewhere in the Habsburg monarchy and Germany, this led to a wave of citizens’ self-mobilization.Footnote 148 In rural areas in Salzburg, people blocked traffic, hunting for spies and supposedly gold-laden cars on their way from France to Russia.Footnote 149 In the district of Neumarkt, for example, eager attempts to block the passage of potential Russian spies led to a beer truck being parked across the road every time a car approached.Footnote 150 Locals set up road blocks as they suspected fleeing spies and pro-Serb agitators,Footnote 151 often believing, as the citizens of Krimml apparently did, that “every foreigner can or should be arrested.”Footnote 152
In inns and beer gardens, drunkenness and overzealous patriotism might easily descend into violence against anyone who expressed doubts or criticism, as occurred in numerous towns of the Habsburg monarchy in July and August, whether Linz, Vienna, or Trieste.Footnote 153 In Straßwalchen, the tense atmosphere showed its ugly side on 20 August, when the brewer Josef Tax gave his opinion on the early days of the war in an inn. He told other guests, “Don't be so stupid, Russia will win and don't believe in the newspaper reports.… All those who have now joined the army, are stupid blokes.” He further asserted that, if called to arms, he would rather break his rifle over his knee than shoot at someone. He was promptly beaten up by those present before being arrested and investigated by the police.Footnote 154 There are several other accounts in local newspapers of people being attacked, beaten, or in one instance even killed when they expressed dissenting opinions or rejection of the war.Footnote 155 Hence, the increased authoritarianism of the state and the repression of dissent that would shape Austro-Hungarian society in the ensuing years emerged in congruence with the views of certain sections of the population that appropriated the rhetoric of “defending the fatherland” against all perceived enemies.
Conclusion
Taking Salzburg as a case study, this article has made an in-depth empirical contribution to the still underresearched experience of social groups and local communities in the Habsburg monarchy at the outbreak of World War I. As we have shown, support for the war varied, but across the province the population generally accepted that it should fulfill its duty. However, as Christian Geinitz has suggested for Freiburg, commitment to the war effort does not simply equate to enthusiasm.Footnote 156 While Christian Social and German National elites in Salzburg adopted a positive attitude and the authorities and press sought to create an “enthusiastic” atmosphere, this was met with an ambivalent response among much of the population. People did not on the whole embrace the move to war with unreflecting enthusiasm, contrary to what was long assumed in the scholarship on Austria-Hungary, usually on the basis of evidence from social elites and intellectuals.Footnote 157 Much as Benjamin Ziemann argues for rural southern Bavaria, the broad mass of rural workers and peasant farmers reacted with skepticism and anxiety about what the war would bring.Footnote 158
Notably, the National Liberal and, above all, the Christian Social press pushed for “firm action” early on and consciously tried to steer public opinion in this direction. By contrast, the Social Democrats’ antiwar position collapsed at the start of August. Together with the early imposition of repressive measures, this meant that there was no forum for the expression of opposition to government policy. If the leading role of the Christian Socials in the push for war has generally been underplayed in the literature, the implications of the institutional and media-based efforts at influencing public opinion must also be viewed with regard to the interchange between different areas of Austria-Hungary as the war unfolded. Despite general calls in the media for the peoples of the Habsburg monarchy to come together, in practice war was accompanied by an evident “Slavophobia” in Salzburg. This built on earlier political developments but accelerated and led to the consolidation of conservative-patriotic and German national sentiments as the war progressed.Footnote 159 In respect of the young, male demonstrators calling for decisive action in Berlin and Vienna, Alexander Watson cautions against dismissing them simply as “aggressive chauvinists,” given that there was a “strand of opinion” among Vienna's upper classes “which considered that Serb provocations had gone far enough.”Footnote 160 Yet, however one evaluates the strategic justifications for a more “forward” policy, within the Habsburg monarchy's provinces with German-speaking populations the appearance of “German chauvinism” is hard to deny, and it came across as such to nondominant ethnic groups.Footnote 161
At the same time, the close analysis of Salzburg clearly shows a generational and gender cleavage in responses to the outbreak of war—again, a point that has been underplayed in much of the previous literature. Whereas many young, single men, especially in the regional capital but also in rural areas, got caught up in a mood of anticipation and adventure, fathers with families to care for, wives, and the children of recruits reacted to the outbreak of the war with anxiety and fear. This tallies with Pavlina Bobić's findings about parish priests’ assessment of the mood in rural, Slovene-speaking areas of Cisleithania, as well as samples from Austrian Silesia and Galicia cited by Alexander Watson.Footnote 162 In this respect, the grassroots perspective of this case study enables a clearer differentiation between private emotions and public performance. The participation in public field masses or the accompanying of recruits to the barracks or the train station constituted public actions in which citizens responded to the general atmosphere, marked by rapidly accelerating developments that seemed to be outside of their control. Yet, participation in these rituals cannot simply be equated to an enthusiastic welcome of the war when reports and private testimony about such events are so varied.
Equally, the dynamics of mobilization proved ambivalent. While many valued the sense of solidarity created by the emergency, it is evident that the newspaper rhetoric of a “Slavic threat” and the repressive actions of the state meant that alternative voices were not heard—or if they were, violence might be used against anyone who stepped out of line. The setting up of roadblocks and the hunt for spies may have derived from patriotic spirit but were just as much—if not more—an expression of anxiety, part of the “collective hysteria” of mobilized society, as Borodziej and Górny have termed it.Footnote 163
Ultimately, it was the case that, without being able to take the story further here, in Salzburg—as in neighboring Tyrol—deep disillusionment with the war set in very rapidly during the autumn of 1914 as deprivation, government impositions, devastating early losses on the battlefields, and the call-up of reservists hit home.Footnote 164 Many women and men had recognized the seriousness of the situation from the outset or soon after the hectic scenes of early August had passed. Already on the twentieth of the month, reflected Alexander Haidenthaller in his diary, “the times are so earnest and difficult that it is barely possible to use the pen for anything else other than the current situation.”Footnote 165
