First Year in Battle

Early on a Saturday morning, Mises stood ready for departure at Vienna's crowded Nordbahnhof station. He took the eight o'clock express to the city of Przemysl in his native Galicia, where he would join his unit, the field cannon regiment no. 30. The train had special compartments for officers, which made the long journey more comfortable, and thus he spent the day in the company of Ewald Pribram and Count O'Donell, who were both cavalry officers, and the physician Erwin Stransky, a fellow private lecturer at the University of Vienna. None of the young men would ever forget this journey. Stransky later recalled that Mises spoke about his native Galicia, its history, the peculiarities of its church architecture, etc. The time passed somehow and in the evening, around seven o'clock, Mises left the train in Przemysl, wishing his fellow travelers farewell.³ It was August 1, 1914.

The fighting did not start immediately. Austria-Hungary did not declare war until August 5, after the war between Russia and Germany had broken out. Even then there was no significant fighting for another two weeks. Both camps needed time to mobilize their forces. This should have been easier for Austro-Hungarian and German troops because of the shorter distances, but the Russians had apparently begun preparations much earlier—shortly after the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand on June 28.

The fundamental military problem for the Austro-Hungarian and German alliance was a three-front war with numerically superior enemies on all sides—in particular the sheer overwhelming numbers of the Russian army. In 1914, Russia counted a population of roughly 173 million, as opposed to 68 million Germans and 50 million inhabitants of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Because of the immensity of the Russian Empire, its 250 potential divisions could not be mobilized quickly. Still the Russian generals managed to throw eighty divisions into battle in the first few months. These troops confronted only ten German divisions and thirty-eight Austrian divisions, ninety out of 100 German divisions being bound up on the Western Front and eleven out of forty-nine Austro-Hungarian divisions stuck on the Southern Front in Serbia.⁴

The mission of the Austro-Hungarian troops on the Northern Front was to block the Russians in order to avoid a Russian invasion of the German plains, which lay almost defenseless. They could not retreat into the Carpathian Mountains, which were easier to defend, because the Russians could trap them there with only a small number of their troops and throw their main force into Germany. Hence, in spite of their numerical inferiority, the k.u.k. armies had not merely to resist, but to attack the Russians in an attempt to keep them in the Galician plains. The k.u.k. strategy was to wear the Russians down in a long series of battles. This strategy counted on the Austro-Hungarian Empire's comparative advantages of morale, training, education, and fighting spirit. After the war, Mises said of these relentless Austrian offensives that “the flower of the Austrian army was uselessly sacrificed.”⁵ He considered them “goalless and purposeless” and yet they did have a goal: to keep the Russians in Galicia as long as possible. In this, they succeeded. The human cost included many of Mises's relatives, friends, colleagues, and students.

The battles that followed brought death and destruction on an unheard-of scale. Modern science and technology had profoundly changed all aspects of war, from coordination, to equipment, to tactics and strategy, giving a central place to the use of high-powered and highly mobile artillery. Although the k.u.k. Army was better equipped than its enemy, it was numerically inferior and in almost constant retreat.⁶ By the end of September, more than 10,000 civilian refugees from Galicia had poured into Vienna⁷ and the k.u.k. Army had been thrown far back behind Przemysl and now stood with its back to the Carpathian Mountains. In the first few weeks and months of the war, almost no day went by that did not see entire k.u.k. batteries (about 100 men each) and even regiments (about 500) being wiped out.

Artillery was not only the main agent of destruction, but also one of the prime targets. Mises's battery constantly had to change position, often under fire. Heavy rainfall set in, hampered their movements, and proved that k.u.k. uniforms were not waterproof. There was no hope of relief any time soon from the military bureaucracy, so Mises resorted to private initiative: he had his mother send clothes for his men.⁸

He was himself the special object of motherly care through the army postal system. Adele von Mises sent her son: furred leather gloves, several electric lamps, matches, shoelaces, woolen clothes, camelhair pants and camelhair undergloves, aspirin, cigarettes, glasses and journals, Ludwig's favorite brand of suspenders, eau de toilette, soap, cognac, and tuna cans. Like an accountant, she kept lists of the things she sent and thus controlled both the punctual delivery and the consumption of her son, with a keen eye on his cigarette consumption.⁹ She also kept him informed about various events in Vienna, although she could not be too frank or go into too much detail because of the censor. Mises himself probably had access only to official or semi-official journals and newspapers. At the end of August 1914, he read that his beloved teacher, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk had died in Tyrol on a journey to Switzerland.¹⁰

Mail could take weeks to reach the soldiers, especially when troop movements were quick and frequent. In September 1914, correspondence was interrupted for three entire weeks and, most unusually, the press no longer ran any reports on Mises's regiment. When, to the great relief of his family and friends his name was eventually mentioned in the Neue Freie Presse,¹¹ Martin Nirenstein wrote him immediately: “this time too victory will be on the side of liberty.”¹²

Postcard to k.u.k. Lieutenant Mises from his brother, Richard, a pilot in the Austrian army, 1914

Meanwhile, his brother Richard was stationed in Baden near Vienna. He was experimenting with aircraft motors, commanding a research unit comprised of several soldiers and a lieutenant.¹³ A professor of applied mathematics at the Prussian University of Strasbourg since 1909, his interests had centered on aviation. He had become a pilot himself and taught a university course on powered flight in 1913. With his army research unit, he constructed a 600-horsepower plane, which was put to use in 1915. The military research led to the publication of Fluglehre, which established Richard as one of the world's foremost aviation pioneers.¹⁴ But the young professor was impatient to get to the front, where the battles continued to be fierce and numerous.

In the first half of October, the united German and Austro-Hungarian armies had driven the Russians back, gaining about 60 miles, only to be driven back again after two weeks of Russian counterattacks. But time was running out for the Russians. The Austrian economy had retained a comparatively large degree of liberty that now increasingly weighed in on the side of the Austro-Hungarian army. The huge profits deriving from the production of war materials were not initially subject to excessive taxation and thus could quickly be reinvested to convert the structure of production to war needs.¹⁵ Many businessmen and industrialists had already started adjusting their plans and their investments to the new situation, and as usual these private ventures reacted quickly and efficiently to subsequent developments on the front. For example, in October 1914, some Austrian businessmen set up a factory to produce ammunition for captured cannons.¹⁶ But long-standing prewar government control of war-related industries did cause problems. Mises later explained:

Austrian industry not only had to deliver what the war required beyond peacetime provisions; it also had to catch up on what had been neglected in peacetime. The guns with which the Austro-Hungarian field artillery went to war were far inferior; the heavy and light field howitzers and the mountain cannons were already out of date at the time of their introduction and scarcely satisfied the most modest demands. These guns came from state factories; and now private industry, which in peacetime had been excluded from supplying field and mountain guns and could supply such material only to China and Turkey, not only had to produce the material for expanding the artillery; in addition, it also still had to replace the unusable models of the old batteries with better ones. Things were not much different with the clothing and shoeing of the Austro-Hungarian troops.¹⁷

The higher productivity of private enterprise increasingly came into play and helped bring about an important Austrian victory that ended a month-long battle near the Polish city of Lodz on December 6, 1914. A few days later, the Austro-Hungarian army won another significant victory at Limanova-Lapanow, about fifteen miles from Carl Menger's birthplace in Neu-Sandec. On December 12, the Russians were driven back more than thirty miles, in the course of which 30,000 Russian prisoners were taken.¹⁸ These events marked a decisive turning point on the Eastern war theater. After almost four months of intense fighting, the German and k.u.k. troops had balanced the initial numerical superiority of the Russians and in the coming months would drive them further back east. Richard wrote to Ludwig, in characteristic Mises-family understatement, that he was happy that “it goes better with the Russians.”¹⁹

Apparently, Ludwig even found time now to study the Ruthenian language, possibly to prepare for the establishment of a new local administration.²⁰ He also wrote frequently to Richard inquiring about the health of their mother, who had been suffering for some months from a foot injury. Richard reported that all cures had failed so far, and that he had also tried in vain to engage the world-famous physician, Professor Adler, with whom the Mises family had personal contact.²¹ The better news came from the front: Three days before Christmas, Richard and his old friends, Martin and Hugo Nirenstein, read in the Vienna press that Ludwig had been promoted to the rank of a k.u.k. Oberleutnant (First Lieutenant).²² Only two months later, Ludwig was again mentioned as the beneficiary of an “allerhöchste Belobigung”—the emperor had praised his achievements in battle.²³

There followed a brief period of stasis on the battlefield, and public attention turned to the decay the war was causing in the social fabric of the empire. In Vienna, the food supply shrank noticeably and the lines in front of the shops grew longer every day. Ludwig received desperate letters from his mother describing her struggles with Therese, the family cook, who had difficulties with the concept of wartime economizing.²⁴ And on the front, treason showed its ugly face when, on April 3 and 4, 1915, the infantry regiment no. 28 from Prague was captured without resistance.²⁵

Starting early May 1915, however, the German and Austro-Hungarian troops finally began their long march east. Not even Italy's May 23 entry into the war on the side of the Triple Entente (Britain, France, and Russia) could slow down the Central Powers' irresistible drive on the Northern Front. Within a month, they regained Przemysl and continued on, fighting the enemy forces far back into Russia.²⁶ The causes of this complete reversal of the balance of power in the east were mainly economic in nature. Mises later explained:

The great technical superiority that the armies of the Central Powers had achieved in the spring and summer of 1915 in the eastern theater of the war and that formed the chief basis of the victorious campaign from Tarnów and Gorlice to deep into Volhynia was... the work of free industry, as were the astonishing achievements of German and also of Austrian labor in the delivery of war material of all kinds.... The army administrations of Germany and Austro-Hungary knew very well why they did not give in to the pressure for state ownership of the war-supplying enterprises. They put aside their outspoken preference for state enterprises, which would have better suited their world view, oriented toward power policy and state omnipotence, because they knew quite well that the great industrial tasks to be accomplished in this area could be accomplished only by entrepreneurs operating on their own responsibility and with their own resources. War socialism knew very well why it had not been entrusted with the armaments enterprises right in the first years of the war.²⁷

In early August, Lemberg was retaken, much to Mises's relief, and he was finally granted a two-week leave. On August 16, he went from the front to Krakow and took the next train to Vienna. He had spent more than a year on the front, survived against the odds, but looked as fresh and vigorous as ever, though a hip injury had plagued him for months. He helped himself with considerable quantities of Salicyl, the fever and pain reliever his mother sent him.²⁸ When he started asking for higher doses, she refused to send more, demanding that he return home and stay in bed.²⁹ The family had already lost his cousin, the physician Max Landau, who died of infection from examining so many typhus cadavers.³⁰

Mises did not yet know that he had finished the hardest and most dangerous phase of his military service. After the leave, he would return to the front for about six weeks, and then again from December 1916 to December 1917. But none of these expeditions brought him even close to the chaos he had known in the first months on the Northern Front.

Some time late in 1915, Mises was relieved from active duty and sent to the city of Sopron, in Hungary, where he stayed for about two months, trying unsuccessfully to recover from his hip injury, but happy to be alive. He had survived the worst and finally enjoyed the gratitude and admiration of the civilian population, who celebrated the returning troops as heroes.³¹ When he received another medal for outstanding performance before the enemy—the signum laudis in silver—the imperial praise for the unpretentious “Reserve Lieutenant whom everybody knows and loves” was enthusiastically reported in the press.³² The reason for his popularity was his reputation as an officer who cared for and took care of his comrades-in-arms.³³

DESCRIPTIONS OF MISES'S WAR MEDALS

(from left to right)

1. Militär-Verdienstkreuz (Cross for Military Merit). Awarded to officers in peace time for distinguished service through zeal and perserverance and in war time for valour and fine leadership. Obverse: German cross with the word “Verdienst” at the center. Swords signify involvement in battle.
2. Signum Laudis in silver (Medal for Military Merit in Silver). Awarded for repeated actions worthy of the Royal praise. Obverse: Portrait of Franz Josef and the words “emperor of Austria, king of Bohemia etc. and Apostolic king of Hungary” (in latin, with abbreviations). Swords signify involvement in battle. Reverse: The words “signum laudis” (latin for “sign of praise”) within laurel wreaths.
3. Signum Laudis in gold (Medal for Military Merit in Gold). Awarded for exceptional merit in war or peace. Obverse: Portrait of Franz Josef and the words “emperor of Austria, king of Bohemia, and Apostolic king of Hungary” (in latin, with abbreviations). Swords signify involvement in battle. Reverse: the words “signum laudis” (latin for “sign of praise”) within laurel wreaths.
4. Karl-Truppenkreuz (Karl-Troops Cross). Awarded to all troops who served in the field against an enemy for a minimum of 12 months and participated in at least one battle. Obverse: “grati—princeps et patria—Carolus imp et rex” (thankful, prince and fatherland—Charles, emperor and king) Reverse: Two crowns and C (probably for Charles) and “vitam et sanguinem—MLCCCCXVI” (life and blood—1916).
5. Signum Laudis in gold (Medal for Military Merit in Gold). General Campain Medal. Obverse: Portrait of Franz Josef and the words “emperor of Austria, king of Bohemia, and Apostolic king of Hungary” (in German, with abbreviations). Reverse: The words “signum laudis” (latin for “sign of praise”) within laurel wreaths.
6. Kriegserinnerungsmedaille (War Commemorative Medal). Instituted 1932–1933. Awarded to all who served in the First World War. Medal in gold accorded by the Republic of Austria. Obverse: An eagle sitting on a shield with the republican colours of Austria and the words “für Österreich” (for Austria). Swords signify involvement in battle. Reverse: The letters “1914–1918” surrounded by laurel wreaths.
7. Diamond Jubilee Cross. Celebrating Franz Josef's 60th anniversary 1848–1908. Golden cross. Obverse: Portrait of Franz Josef, at the center of the cross.
8. Hungarian Commemorative Medal of the First World War. Instituted May 1929 by the Regent, Admiral Horthy. Awarded to those who served in the first World War. Obverse: A crest under the crown of Charlemagne. Reverse: Steel helmet and the inscription “pro deo et patria—1914–1918” (for God and fatherland—1914–1918).