They had all that land, why not use it to grow food?
>>18122507We did. Before modern agricultural technique, it just wasn't enough.
>>181225071 618 / 5 00017.5% of pre-war German imports were foodstuffs.The British blockade thus cut off the supply of fertilizers for agriculture, as well as a significant portion of foodstuffs.In addition, the German administration made many mistakes at the very beginning of the war.As early as 1915, the so-called Schweinenmord was committed, when the authorities, in a misguided move intended to "save" on the amount of grain available for human consumption, ordered the slaughter of approximately 9 million pigs!In the short term, this improved the availability of pork, but, as the article emphasizes, a "by-product" was a further decline in the availability of fertilizers, in the form of so-called manure, or "home-made dung!" Rebuilding the pig population in the following years under wartime conditions proved practically impossible.Bread rationing was initially introduced in Berlin in January 1915, and soon throughout Germany. Portions were limited to 250 grams per day. In the spring, cake baking was formally banned, and two official "meatless" days per week were introduced. Even earlier, in October 1914, so-called K-Brot, or war bread, was introduced, initially containing around 5% potato flour, soon to be increased to 10%. Already in January 1915, so-called KK-Brot was introduced, containing as much as 20% potato flour.Thus, in the first few months of the war, Germany faced a serious problem supplying its population with basic food.After the winter of 1916/1917, there was a potato harvest failure, which exacerbated the already difficult food situation.
>>18122507It's a small country compared to its population (slightly under 70 million people)
>>18122507Pretty hard to grow food for your civilian population when you're fighting a world war and need to conscript those farmers into the army and prioritize food for your soldiers.
>>18122507Should have attacked the Austrians and conquered the fertile Pannonian basin and resettled Germans onto it. Securing food supply and ridding inefficient Magyars who were confiscating Danube German farms and setting up poorly run Hungarian ones
>>18122909why didn't the Germans just attack Austria hungary in 1915 or 1916 IRL then?
>>18122909>>18122958Low IP posthttps://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/dualalli.asp
>>18122899I think it's hard for people to appreciate how much manpower pre mechanized farming took.
>>18122985Seriously, i grew up in a village and the idea of doing half the stuff we do without a shed of mechanisation just doesn't compute, no tractor, no mower, all having to be done either by hand or with a horse or an ox. Stuff that me and grandpa can do alone would take like 8 people
>>18122507Real life isn't Rune Factory, you don't just plant seeds and the plant autogrows. Food production is an industrial process where you input fertilizers to get food output. You need petroleum to make synthetic fertilizer.
>>18122507Germany was heavily dependent on its chemical fertilizer industry AND imported food. The fertilizers required imported materials to produce. Germany was about 50% overpopulated max beyond what the land can support. Bohemia also.
>>18122507I bet nobody alive at the time even thought of that, dude.
>>18123852This is why Hitler emphasised lebensraum so much, germans quite literally did need more living space just to feed themselves and not be an economic vassal of other counries. The people he was telling this to most likely did remember the hunger of ww1, so it would've had appeal.
>>18123865It was made redundant by major advances in ammonia fertilizers through the Haber process, Hitler was a retard.
>>18122530High quality post written in response to a bait thread: 0 (You)s. The irony would only become more delicious if this is ChatGPT generated.
>>18123889In the internet everybody can be bothttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory
>>18123889Schweinenmord is wrong (it would be Schweinemord). ChatGPT knows german.
>>18123865Lebensraum wasn't about agriculture so much as it was about achieving US-tier domestic market size that would make Germany economically autarchic.
>>18122507Poles potato might save them.
>>18123112I work in Australian agriculture and nowadays we manage to administer 1 million acres and 30 thousand cows with only 10 people on the team. Modern technology is fucking crazy stuff.
>>18122507Their food production wasnt industrial agriculture but subsistence farming, this does not scale well into a war economy where a plurality of young males who would be otherwise concerned with their own food needs are now taken out of society entirely and placed at the frontline, every other element of society needs to now carry the army on its back while also maintaining their existing duties.This is the actual problem developing nations face, it wasnt that Germany couldnt produce enough food, they could, but what they could not do was shift into industrial agriculture within the window of time WWI took place in.
Germany was an advanced country industrially but their agricultural sector was lagging behind and still in the previous century.
>>18124338>>18124273>>18124259Don’t Germany already have Ukrainian rich farmland by 1917?
>>18124343Some parts of Germany have good soil, other parts especially in the north do nit.
>>18123870No, that didn’t resolve it at all, you absolute buffoon. Fucking moron.
>>18124338It was more labor intensive and less gas powered than other countries, but that’s because Germany at that time had to import expensive petroleum to run the agri machinery. That issue slowed the transition to that form of agri. They eventually came around to it after WWII.
>>18124343In Eastern Europe, agricultural production also declined as a result of war destruction and the Russian revolutions, of course.Besides, during World War I, they were not as fanatical and cruel as they were during World War II, condemning entire countries to starvation.
>>18124606Great War shouldn’t never happen first place…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-cv0eqVBcA
>>18124606Flu cases after surviving starvation
>>18124343>>18124606Ukraine was also pre-industrial and was mainly overproductive subsistance farming, however even with their overproduction it wasnt enough.The Nazis never intentionally starved another country.They faced similar problems with agriculture in continental Europe being primarily subsistence.These problems were faced by everyone until large scale commercial farming replaced subsistence.
>>18122532thats why i try to wake up people to the fact that world is horrendously overpopulated, this is very dangerous, we rely on highly fragile chain of logistics and complex agriculture done with complex to maintain machinery, shipping fuel, fertilizers,...
>>18122530>Already in January 1915, so-called KK-Brot was introduced, containing as much as 20% potato flour.I guess they'd have to switch to corn flour to get the third K.
>>18124338>Germany was an advanced country industriallyNah, their agriculture didn't mechanize until after WW2 and the cars they produced were pure luxury products. The army didn't use horses on account of some weird fetish - they literally didn't have enough engines, but they had plenty of people who knew how to care and maintain draft animals.
>>18124015Not a real theory. People just want to make up excuses for their personal failures.
>>18127212You know that on Reddit bots don't even try to hide anymore ?
>>18122507How badly affected were they? I dont remember civilians dying of starvation but I guess it was only a matter of time?
>>18126004I sure Kingdom of Ukraine would industrialized if CP won WW1
>>18126997This has some effect on burthrates that the west cares so much about as well. People didnt used to be cogs that could be placed anywhere in a vast machine. Farmers and others needed large family's to provide labor to produce more resources. Also when you live on a farm children arent so great a burden financially. They end up producing more than they consume.
