Authors

Discussion

The energy crisis has been a recurring subject of public, media, and academic debate in recent years. While certain cases—such as the 2022–2023 crisis or the global oil shocks of the 1970s—have been extensively studied, others remain comparatively underexplored. One such neglected episode is the coal crisis during the First World War. We argue that the coal shortage, particularly in the winter of 1916–1917, constituted a pivotal moment in the escalation of a general war crisis in urban centres, a significance that existing scholarship has yet to fully acknowledge. Survival in cities depended not only on food but also on coal, which was indispensable for maintaining essential infrastructures such as waterworks, bakeries, and mills. The disruption of coal supplies therefore rendered urban populations acutely vulnerable, while also exacerbating food shortages through interdependent supply chains. Across continental Europe, this crisis gave rise to distinct national media narratives that simultaneously sought to assign blame and propose remedies. This paper examines how the Central European press reflected wartime experiences of energy crises and disruptions, with particular attention to whether discernible narrative patterns emerged—and, if so, which ones predominated in context of the WW1, shortage of food and question of distribution between capitals, cities and countryside.