Having made hardly any provisions for feeding the civilian population, Germany embarked on the Great War in August 1914 by attacking Belgium and Northern France. Nobody really believed that the German population might be hit by a food shortage or that there was any danger of starvation. A general consensus prevailed that the war could and would not last long and that German resources would be sufficient for a short war period. The military staff had, nevertheless, since 1883 considered the possibility of an economic embargo and food blockade. From around 1906 the military authorities had been alert to the possibility of an economic blockade should there be a war, but no preparations were made. The disaster that ensued led to the death of more than 400,000 civilians through starvation between 1914 and 1918. Wrong decisions on the part of the war food office regarding food policies, such as the destruction of fat supplies in 1915 and the inability to regulate the distribution of food through pricing further aggravated the disaster. As a result, people in psychiatric institutions starved to death and there were hunger strikes that became increasingly politicized and radicalized, culminating in the revolution of 1918.
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