Thunder At Twilight: Vienna 1913/1914

by Frederic Morton

  In the slums, dinner was a matter of makeshift and makedo. Horsemeat edged out even the cheapest cuts of pork. The "stale" counter in bakeries drew more customers than that selling fresh bread. Before the exhaust gratings of the great army laundries gathered nightly crowds, silent, ragged, fearful: The cold was holding off, but in case it came they wanted the warmth of laundry fumes. Others took refuge in the municipal warming rooms where they could rest, if not sleep, sitting upright on wooden benches; or they could try to crowd into the city's three Homeless Asylums-concrete warrens that offered straw cots and horse blankets. In 1913, vagrants had received such shelter half a million times in the fairy-tale metropolis of two million.

  Before the year ended, just under fifteen hundred Viennese had tried to end their lives. Over six hundred succeeded, including a thirteen-year-old boy who hanged himself and a seven-year-old boy who jumped out of a window. Of course, a high suicide rate was a venerable Viennese tradition. Just as traditional were the ways of masking that kind of death. Even if it was self-inflicted in a Catholic city, it must not be denied sanctified ground: The bereaved family would procure a doctor's certificate stating that the deed was done non compos mentis. And though the death be threadbare, the funeral must be nicely dressed: The family would obtain burial loans from a bank, arrange for time payments with the florist, the cas- ketmaker, the innkeeper. A last journey must brim with roses on a coffin of varnished wood with brass trimmings. And the wake must feature hearty wine and red meat in a well-heated inn.

  For a long time, though, innkeepers did not need to light stoves for warmth. In 1913, fall refused to become winter. In fact, as if smitten by nostalgia, fall appeared to turn back to spring. Temperatures clung to the Fahrenheit fifties. At the start of December the thermometer even pushed past sixty.

  There was no snow. Hence there was no call for snow removers. Thousands had hoped that their shoveling would earn them at least three kronen a day, a sum that would buy a stein of Pilsner for the shoveler and pig's knuckles with turnips for his family. To such people the mildness of the season simply meant more hunger.

  On the other hand, they could go hungry in air better than in other cities. It was warm enough on many days in November, and even during the first weeks of December, to take an almost summery walk into the Vienna Woods. Here, in the foothills of the Alps, whose lovely slopes rose at the very point where the grim streets stopped, here the balm had tricked primroses, marguerites, dandelions, cyclamens into new bloom.

  Since walking was free, whereas eating was not, a number of the jobless walked through the hills. Never mind that a little boy strolled along in shoes two sizes too big for him and laced with paper cord; or that his mother, bending down to search for some belated strawberry, wore a frock with a fire-sale stain. If you didn't look too closely, you saw a delightful Viennese tableau: citizens taking their weekday ease in an arcadia beyond time.

  Mid-December brought a brief bite of frost. But that added yet another scenic touch. Rime spangled the Vienna Woods. Nature became marquetry. The tiniest branch of bush or tree turned into a decorative detail, outlined in grained pearl. No matter how empty their stomachs, hikers moved through a landscape of jeweled pavillions.

  When the hikers returned to the city, the woods came with them. Each street had its grove of Christmas trees for sale. And each such grove had a pauper standing by to help more moneyed citizens carry home a strapping pine. The chore would get him a few coins. Could he be blamed if he helped himself to a tip in the form of a branch broken off on the sly? In his one-room flat, the branch did nicely as a Christmas tree. His children took turns at pressing their little noses against the wood's break-off point: It let them smell the yule scent of tree resin. For heat his family had the kitchen hearth and the window's dusty sun, so unseasonably strong this year; for gifts, perhaps overcoats, bargained out of the local usedclothes store, wrapped in bright paper Mother had saved from the Christmas presents of 1912.

  And if all that gave insufficient sustenance, Midnight Mass would give more. No parish church, humble or grand, lacked a creche. The Christ Child in the stable glowed with consolation: poverty was the cradle of grace.

  And then the city gathered itself up for the festive brink: New Year's Eve. December 31, though colder than most days preceding, was windless, crisply pleasant, luminous with stars. Following custom, a great crowd roistered toward the huge square in front of St. Stephen's Cathedral. The streets were parties on the go. Many merrymakers wore paper chains extravagantly colored, from which hung fantasy pendants. As they trooped toward St. Stephen's, men began to exchange hats with women-especially with those they did not yet know. The closer they came to the great church, the more ladies pranced along in top hats, the more men sashayed in frilly chapeaux. Onlookers from buildings along the way applauded, laughed, waved bright sheets from windows.

  By eleven-thirty the square was full: It milled and whirled with dancing couples. At a quarter to twelve, they slowed. At five to the hour, they became quiet. All faced the Cathedral and looked up.

  Up there, way up in the long looming of the gothic tower, hung Christendom's most formidable bell. Called "die Pummerin" (the Boomer), it had been forged in 1711 of the iron of one hundred and eighty Turkish cannon captured and melted down after the Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa had abandoned his siege of Vienna in 1683. For nearly two centuries afterwards the Boomer's deep, monumental voice had rung in solemn occasions; the entire cathedral, from spire to nave to gargoyle, had shaken to the swinging of its tonnage. Walls had begun to show cracks, and the city fathers, forced to protect the church from its bell, had stilled the Boomer in 1867. At every New Year's Eve since then a rumor would go through the streets: the Cardinal had persuaded the Mayor to let the Boomer speak this one night.

  And now the first tremendous peal struck through the moment of midnight at the stars. Was it die Pummerin after all? The roar of the True Faith? The clarion of ancient victory? No one in the crowd had time to judge. Within seconds, a thousand other church bells across the city clanged into a chorus. The sound overwhelmed the night sky and shivered constellations.

  Gradually, after five minutes, the metal tongues stopped calling. Before the last echo died into the firmament, before the kissing and whooping started on the ground, there was a moment's silence.

  A new presence had descended on the roofs.

  The year 1914.

  12

  When thrust into a fresh expanse of future, the viennese sought comfort in omens. They had a long-established New Year's pastime. Into an ice bucket filled with cold champagne they would throw molten bits of lead, and then, with a pair of tongs, hold up each bit for interpretation. From the shape into which the lump congealed they would extract clues to things to come. It was a game of fascinating ambiguities. Never had it been played more intensely than during the wee hours of that newest January first.

  Very soon an event auspicious beyond doubt pleased the Imperial House. The young Archduke Franz Joseph became father of a healthy baby girl. She was baptized Her Imperial and Royal Highness, the most serene Adelheid Maria Josepha Sixta Antonia Roberta Ottonia Zita Charlotte Luise Immaculata Pia Theresia Beatrix Franziska Isabella Henriette Max- imiliana Genoveva Ignatia Markus d'Aviano von Habsburg. Twenty-one names garlanded a six-pound infant. Twenty-one more to strengthen dynastic continuity.

  Fifty-two Viennese killed themselves that month. Most of them were poor and quite a few of them must have been prompted by the weather. On January 7, the full rigors of winter fell on the city at last. A blizzard, huge and angry, smothered the streets. A series of icy gales followed, blasting away for days.

  The snow did provide jobs for shovelers. But many more were put out of work because the unrelenting, unending arctic gusts forced the closing of construction sites. Nearly every day police blotters recorded the finding of frozen bodies of indigents: in an unused bowling alley; in a crude tent by the banks of the Danube; even in an abandoned mausoleum in the Central Cemetery.

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bsp; All this did not dampen toasts to the baby Archduchess in loyalist taverns all over town. Nor did it diminish the flow of congratulations from the world's ruling families to the Hofburg. Even the King of Serbia sent a telegram. Three days later, though, a statement of a rather different nature issued from Belgrade. The Serbian Crown Prince Alexander and the Serbian Prime Minister Panic would go to St. Petersburg "to discuss the international situation."

  In Vienna, the Chief of Staff General Conrad deemed the visit a further hardening of the Serb-Russian coalition against Austria. In his eyes the development fit a larger pattern. Conrad's French counterpart, General Joseph Joffre, was already in St. Petersburg to expedite a loan of 550 million French francs. Why? For the explicit purpose of modernizing Russia's western railroad system, so vital in speeding troops to any war between a Russian-French-English entente and the GermanAustrian alliance.

  In his memos to the Emperor, General Conrad detailed his warnings together with two requests: (1) to strengthen garrisons along Austria's border with Russia, and (2) to obtain authority for the Ministry of War to draft more conscripts for a longer period of time, in order to match the recent French law lengthening service from two to three years.

  This was how the head of the war party reacted to the first stirrings of the new year. But in his audiences with the Emperor, the Crown Prince refuted Conrad's points with his own, in his own pungent style: (1) Talk of impending war between the Great Powers was criminal nonsense; it so happened that the Duke and Duchess of Portland would be Franz Ferdinand's guests at Konopiste in March; at that time Duke and Crown Prince would plan details of a visit to Austria by King George of England in September to shoot roebuck with Franz Ferdinand-after a respectful courtesy call on Franz Joseph, of course. So much for Western hostility against Austria! (2) It was precisely the swelling of Austrian garrisons at the Russian border that gave idiot hotheads in Paris and St. Petersburg a pretext to heat up the military mood in their countries. That sort of cannon-waving was not policy-it was stupidity.

  Franz Joseph listened to the arguments of both men. Then he acted-like Franz Joseph. His government did introduce a bill in parliament that would extend the present conscription law; he did not increase the permanent garrisons by the Russian border.

  To the Viennese such news was routine hissing and scuffling in the corridors of power. Politics were not uppermost in the town's mind during that first arctic month of 1914. The very poor kept busy fighting their way through the daily crisis of survival-to stay warm, to stay fed. Others, more fortunate, prepared for the excitement of the carnival.

  Of course a number of young men did have to pay attention to military matters. Anticipating the more comprehensive conscription bill (it would harvest 32,000 more recruits annually), General Conrad tightened draft implementation. The long hand of his apparatus reached an Austrian who had already thought himself safely escaped.

  Shortly after New Year's, the War Ministry's Conscription Bureau succeeded at last in tracking down the whereabouts of Adolf Hietler [sic]. On the afternoon of January 18, a German detective entered Schleissheimerstrasse 34 in Munich and found on the third floor, in a room sublet by a tailor, the man he wanted. He arrested Hitler for violating the military service regulations of an allied state. The next day the fugitive was brought to the Austrian Consulate where he was ordered to report to the Army Induction Center of his native province, Upper Austria, in Linz.

  Whereupon Hitler sat down to write one of his most voluble and mendacious letters. The real reason for evading the Austrian draft had been his revulsion against serving as "a pure German" in the multiracial Habsburg forces. Yet the petition he now addressed to the Linz Magistracy, Section II, ascribes his failure to register to the monetary and spiritual straits of a loyal, impoverished, high-minded youth with lofty artistic aspirations:

  the main reason making it impossible for me to honor your summons is that it has not been possible for me to muster the sum necessary for such a journey at such short notice.

  In the summons my profession is specified as "artist." Although I have a right to that designa tion, it is nevertheless only conditionally appropriate. While it is true that I am earning my keep as a painter, I do so only since I am entirely without assets (my father was a government official) and therefore require an income to finance my education. I can devote only a fraction of time to financial gain since I am still completing my education as an architectural painter. Therefore my earnings are extremely modest, just sufficient for subsistence purposes. I submit as proof of the above my tax returns and request that you will be good enough to return the same to me. My income is estimated at 1200 marks at the very best, an estimate that is too high rather than too low, and does not mean that I earn 100 marks a month. Oh no. My monthly income is subject to great variation but is very poor at the moment because the art trade sort of suffers winter doldrums at this time in Munich…

  Concerning my failure to register for the army in the fall of 1909, I hope you will have the kindness to realize that this was for me an immeasurably bitter time. I was an unexperienced young man without financial support, and too proud to accept subsidies or to ask for them. Without any help, dependent only on my efforts, the few kronen I earned barely sufficed for a room to sleep in. For two years I had no companion other than worry or penury, no comrade except continually gnawing hunger. I have never known the beautiful word "youth." Even today, after five years, I retain souvenirs of that time in the form of chilblain sores on my fingers, hands, and feet. And yet I cannot recall the period without a certain satisfaction, since I am now past the worst. Despite my wretchedness and despite the dubious surroundings in which I had to suffer it, I did keep my name free of stain. I have maintained a spotless record in the eye of my conscience and in the eye of the law-except for that one omitted military registration, the necessity for which I was not even aware of.

  I beg most humbly that my petition be received in this spirit and sign

  most respectfully yours

  Adolf Hitler

  artist

  Here is a picture of deprivation raised by a man who unbeknownst to anyone around him-pocketed the comfortable income from two legacies. In style, his self-portrait to the authorities resembles the stilted landscapes Hitler was selling at the time in Munich (earning a bit of extra money he didn't need since he lived below his means). In emotionality this supplication recalls his rantings in Vienna's Mannerheim. But now he was using a well-calculated Austrian mixture of protocol and pathos, make-believe and baroque deference. It worked.

  The Linz magistracy granted his request to appear at the Salzburg Induction Center since that venue was closer to Bavaria and "the journey therefore more affordable to the petitioner." And at Salzburg, following a physical examination on February 5, 1914, the Hitler file was closed with the conclusion: "Unfit for military or auxiliary service; too weak; incapable of bearing arms."

  13

  Safely back in Munich, Hitler continued doodling his way toward destiny. At the same time two young Bosnians joined him in an eerie partnership. The three never met. Hitler stayed in Bavaria. The other two lived in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo; yet during those early months of 1914 they took the first decisive steps toward triggering the first global war without which the man in Munich could never have started the second.

  The zealotry of the two in Bosnia ran opposite to that of the one in Bavaria. His obsessive nationalism was German; theirs, Slav. Still, all three had trouble with the Vienna authorities, and all three were art-minded malcontents. Only the Bosnians' esthetics-in contrast to Hitler's-were anything but Victorian.

  At twenty-three, the older of the Bosnian pair, Danilo Ilia seems to have been a rather complicated radical, alloying as he did his nationalism with Marxist and anarchist leanings. He supported himself as proofreader for the Serbian-language paper Srpska Rijee in Sarajevo. Tall, attenuated, neurasthenic, he always wore a black tie "as a constant reminder of death." His stomach ulcer kept him as convenie
ntly out of General Conrad's army as "weakness" kept out Hitler. Ilia cultivated unorthodox modern literature. Early in 1914 he spent much of his spare time translating into Serbo-Croatian Maxim Gorki's The Burning Heart, Oscar Wilde's essays on art and criticism, Leonid Andreyev's The Dark Horizon, Mikhail Bakunin's The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State. At the same time others among the Young Bosnians, the secret society of which he was part, translated Kierkegaard, Edgar Allan Poe, and Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself."

  Ilia had been introduced to the works of Nietzsche by a fellow Young Bosnian barely eighteen years old named Gavrilo Princip. Princip, a slight youth with a high, furrowed forehead and eyes of a startling pale blue, was taciturn, restless, absorbed in books and given to actions baffling to his family. He had little patience for the banalities of the Commercial High School into which his parents had placed him. Like Ilia, he savored the darker writers. For his nickname he chose "Gavroche" after Victor Hugo's boy-hero in Les Miserables. Besides Nietzsche, he idolized the most pessimistic of Serb poets, Sima Pandurovic.

  But Ilia and Princip did not gloom the day away in literary introspection. Like the other Young Bosnians they wanted to implement the rebel's view of society, as conjured in their favorite literature, with rebellious action. They aimed to free the Serbs of Bosnia from the dead hand of the Church, from stale tradition and primitive custom, from everything that stifled the unfolding of the individual and the emancipation of women. Above all, they wanted to tear away the shackles put on their people by the Austrian Empire. They burned to unite all Slavs now under the Habsburg's yoke and join them with their brethren in Serbia and Montenegro into one free and glorious South Slav state.