Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire
Total War and Everyday Life in World War I

Collapse of the Habsburg Empire from the perspective of everyday life in the capital city.

Maureen Healy (Author)

9780521831246, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 May 2004

352 pages, 20 b/w illus. 5 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.703 kg

'I think it is a wonderful piece of scholarship. It radiates imagination and insight on every page, whether the subject is food riots or the image of the 'imperial father' … it represents a superb, exciting addition to the fast-growing cultural history of the First World War.' Roger Chickering, Georgetown University

Maureen Healy examines the collapse of the Habsburg Empire from the perspective of everyday life in the capital city. She argues that a striking feature of 'total war' on the home front was the spread of a war mentality to the mundane sites of everyday life - streets, shops, schools, entertainment venues and apartment buildings. While Habsburg armies waged military campaigns on distant fronts, Viennese civilians (women, children, and men 'left at home') waged a protracted, socially devastating war against one another. Vienna's multi-ethnic population lived together in conditions of severe material shortage and faced near-starvation by 1917. The city fell into civilian mutiny before the state collapsed in 1918. Based on meticulous archival research, including citizens' letters to state authorities, the study offers a penetrating look at Habsburg citizenship by showing how ordinary women, men and children conceived of 'Austria' in the Empire's final years.

List of plates
List of maps, figures and tables
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Introduction
Part I. Politics and Representation: 1. Food and the politics of sacrifice
2. Entertainment, propaganda and the Vienna War Exhibition of 1916–17
3. Censorship, rumours and denunciation: the crisis of truth on the home front
Part II. State and Family: 4. Sisterhood and citizenship: 'Austria's women' in wartime Vienna
5. Mobilizing Austria's children for total war
6. The 'fatherless society': home-front men and imperial paternalism
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: First World War [HBWN], Social & cultural history [HBTB], European history [HBJD]