Agricultural Regions in Lower Austria during World War I

The project analyses regional agricultural development during the "Great War".

Funding

Institute of Rural History (own project in cooperation with the Provincial Archive of Lower Austria)

 

Duration

January – June 2014

 

Principal Investigator

Ernst Langthaler

 

Researcher

Martin Bauer

 

Description

During World War I the performance of the Austrian-Hungarian agriculture was declining dramatically due to a lack of labour, draught animals and mineral fertilisers, as well as a lack of governmental regulations. This project traces the agricultural development during the conditions of a ‘total war’ on a regional level, based on unpublished and hitherto unevaluated cultivation and harvest statistics of Lower Austria. The results will be presented at the conference Fern der Front – mitten im Krieg. Alltagsleben im Hinterland 1914–1918, at Schallaburg, 30.06. – 02.07.2014. This project is also the pilot for a more extensive research project on the agricultural and food history of World War I.

 

Project publications

Martin Bauer, Alles für die Hauptstadt? Agrarwirtschaft im Land um Wien während des Ersten Weltkriegs, in: Elisabeth Loinig u.a. (Hg.), Fern der Front - mitten im Krieg 1914-1918. Alltagsleben im Hinterland , St. Pölten 2016. pdf-icon2.jpg(1113 KB)