Austria-Hungary: Women's Role In World War I

Women were not drafted for World War I in Austria-Hungary. However, they were heavily involved in the war effort. In late July 1914, an appeal circulated widely in the Viennese press, urging women to perform service in the time of war and calling for women's unity, women's energy, and women's work. Women from all walks of life were asked to put aside their differences and perform war service as Austria's women.

Women took on traditionally masculine activities, serving as doctors, nurses, combatants, and caregivers. They also took on new roles in the workforce, especially in war production and agriculture. Women from all social classes and ethnicities were involved in the war effort, including Jewish women, who saw their war work as an opportunity to serve Austria and their fellow Jews simultaneously.

In addition to working in hospitals and on the battlefield, women were also present in the resistance movement and provided support on the home front. They visited troops, grew food, and conserved resources.

Women in Austria-Hungary were encouraged to perform service in the time of war and to put aside their differences

In July 1914, an appeal circulated widely in the Viennese press, urging women to "perform service in the time of war" and reminding them that they had to put aside their differences and display the "strongest solidarity" among themselves. This marked the beginning of World War I as a potential turning point in women's relationships with each other and with the state. Across the political spectrum, noble, bourgeois, and working-class women, Christian and Jewish, German-speaking, and others, were asked to put aside their differences and perform war service as "Austria's women.".

The Austro-Hungarian army had already begun to employ women auxiliaries for housekeeping and administrative duties before 1917. After 1917, however, the military had to significantly increase the number of women in its ranks. Between 1917 and 1918, between 36,000 and 50,000 women were working as auxiliaries on the front. Women often expected that they would gain better access to supplies if they worked for the army.

The women auxiliaries did not enjoy a good reputation: they were depicted as sexually and morally loose, immoral and adventurous. As the female auxiliaries and ‘Etappenhelferinnen’ – unlike the highly revered Rot-Kreuz-Schwestern [Red Cross nurses] – were not working in caring or nursing roles, they undermined the image of the motherly, loving and caring wartime woman that had prevailed. By working in the military, such women threatened the dichotomy of masculine front and feminine home, and with it, the gender system that the logic of war had given rise to.

Women were employed in the war effort in traditionally male roles, such as manufacturing and agriculture

Women in World War I took on traditionally male roles in the workforce, with many entering the manufacturing and agricultural sectors.

Manufacturing

Women were employed in the manufacturing of weapons and munitions. In Britain, women worked in munitions factories, making shells, explosives, aircraft, and other materials. They were known as "Munitionettes" or "Canaries" due to the yellow skin they got from working with toxic chemicals. Women also worked in munitions factories in the United States, Germany, and Austria-Hungary. They faced dangerous and repetitive work, long hours, and exposure to toxic chemicals. Despite the risks and challenging conditions, women were drawn to these jobs by the opportunity to serve their countries, gain independence, and earn higher wages.

Agriculture

With many men away at war, women took on agricultural work to provide for their families and support the war effort. In Serbia, rural women took on physically demanding tasks such as ploughing, planting, harvesting, and stacking hay, often under the supervision of occupying forces. In Bulgaria, women worked primarily in agriculture but also in other sectors, facing food shortages, fuel shortages, and rising inflation.

Women also took on new roles in the workforce, including as doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, translators, and combatants

Women took on new roles in the workforce during World War I, including as doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, translators, and combatants.

Doctors

Women physicians faced obstacles in putting their hard-earned skills to work. When rejected from service in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, many sought other opportunities to serve the war effort. They worked as civilian contract surgeons, with the Red Cross or other humanitarian relief organizations, and even in the French Army. The Medical Women's National Association, for example, raised money to send their own doctors overseas to work in hospitals run by the American Red Cross. By the end of the war, nearly 80 women doctors from this organization were working in the devastated regions of Europe, caring for civilians and soldiers and treating diseases such as influenza and typhoid.

Nurses

Nursing was a role that was already associated with women due to their previous engagement in wars. In Serbia, for example, twenty-five female doctors were positioned in military hospitals in the rear area, while the majority of their colleagues were stationed in field hospitals. Notable foreign missions were the British mission of Lady Louise Paget, the Russian mission of Countess Maria Trubeckaja, and the mission of Mrs. Anne St. Clair Stobart.

During the last Allied offensive in the summer and fall of 1918, many women doctors, nurses, and aides operated near the front lines, providing medical care for soldiers wounded in combat.

Ambulance Drivers

The automobile age was just getting underway in World War I, and motorized ambulances became key to medical treatment on the battlefield. Many women who knew how to drive volunteered to go overseas to serve as ambulance and truck drivers or mechanics. They delivered medical supplies, transported patients to hospitals, and drove through artillery fire to retrieve the wounded.

Translators

In the U.S., bilingual women were recruited to serve as telephone switchboard operators on the Western Front. They were sworn into the Army Signal Corps and nicknamed the "Hello Girls". Despite their bravery and focus under pressure, they did not receive veteran status or benefits upon returning to the U.S. after the war. It wasn't until 1977 that the few surviving women telephone operators received recognition of their veteran status.

Combatants

In Serbia, women served in volunteer units of the Serbian army and fought in battles such as Cer, Drina, and Kolubara. Women also served in the Finnish Civil War, the Russian Civil War, and in the Russian "Women's Battalion of Death".

Women in Austria-Hungary were subject to food shortages and were asked to limit their consumption of meat, wheat, and fats

Women in Austria-Hungary were subject to food shortages during World War I. The causes of the food shortages were more or less related to the war. The Russian occupation of parts of Austrian territory, including Galicia, which accounted for about a third of the country's grain harvest, dried up an important source of domestic food supply. The mobilisation of resources for the war effort led to a persistent labour shortage, a lack of draught animals, and a scarcity of mineral fertilisers. The substitution of domestic fertilisers and the mobilisation of soil nutrients by additional application of lime proved ineffective. The labour supply was dwindling, and the assignment of prisoners of war was not an efficient solution to the lack of domestic farm labourers.

The food shortages were also due to the inefficient institutional framework of coordination between the separate Austrian and Hungarian authorities. The 1850 customs union allowed Hungary to deliver its food surpluses to Austria, but this was not obligatory. No arrangements were made to meet the food requirements of the armed forces and civilians in the event of war. The Joint Food Committee, formed in early 1917, was largely toothless and lacked power over the national food administrations in the two halves of the empire.

The struggle for food reached beyond the Austrian-Hungarian conflict, affecting the provincial, regional, and local levels. Market-oriented farmers under-reported actual harvests, withheld grain stocks from official distribution channels, and sold outputs at higher prices on the black market. The emergence of a "shadow economy" aggravated the inequality of food distribution. The state's attempts to address the food shortages, such as the foundation of central food agencies and the implementation of central public-private organisations for food distribution, had limited effects due to a lack of executive power and incompetence, overload, and corruption.

The deteriorating production and unequal distribution of food resulted in declining consumption quotas. The average consumption of bread grains per person in the Habsburg Empire decreased steadily compared to the pre-war level. Stark differences emerged between the two halves of the monarchy, with the Austrian civilians' quota in 1917 probably 30% below that of their Hungarian counterparts. The authorities attempted to tackle scarcity and unequal allocation of food by rationing basic foodstuffs, but the amounts allocated by the food ration cards were rarely available in retail stores.

The daily experience of scarcity and unequal distribution of food reinforced the impression among city dwellers of being victimised by selfish, incompetent, and corrupt perpetrators. This popular feeling delegitimised the official propaganda of civilians' sacrifice at the "home front". The struggle for food fostered the fragmentation of Viennese wartime society, leading to accumulated denunciations, disputes, and violence within and between socioeconomic, ethnic, and religious groups.

Women were not drafted for World War I in Austria-Hungary, but they did serve as volunteers and paid employees

In the lead-up to World War I, women in Austria-Hungary were called upon to "perform service in the time of war" and reminded of their duty to suppress their "differences" and display the "strongest solidarity" among themselves. Women from all walks of life were asked to put aside their differences and perform war service as "Austria's women."

During the war, women in Austria-Hungary took on new roles in the workforce, notably in war production and agriculture, to fill the gap left by men who were fighting. They also provided support on the front lines as nurses, doctors, ambulance drivers, and translators.

In 1917, due to a considerable lack of soldiers who were fit to fight, the imperial Ministry of War had to rely on female assistance. 'Female auxiliaries' were deployed to take over certain duties from men so that the latter could join the fighting troops. Between 1917 and 1918, between 36,000 and 50,000 women worked as auxiliaries on the front, performing tasks such as technical assistants, office staff, telephonists, stenographers, cooks, seamstresses, and housekeepers.

Women signed up for military auxiliary service for various reasons, including patriotism, the opportunity to earn a good wage, and to gain better access to supplies. However, female auxiliaries did not enjoy a good reputation and were often depicted as sexually and morally loose, immoral, and adventurous.

In addition to serving as auxiliaries, women in Austria-Hungary also volunteered for combat roles in the Serbian army, putting on uniforms and engaging in traditionally masculine activities. They lived in harsh conditions that required physical strength, energy, initiative, resourcefulness, leadership, and the execution of orders. Women who fought in the Serbian army included Milunka Savić, Antonia Javornik, Sofia Jovanović, and Živana Terzić.

Overall, while women in Austria-Hungary were not drafted for World War I, they played a significant role as volunteers and paid employees, contributing to the war effort on the home front and the battlefield.

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