@Gargantua:
:)
You’re people are starving! What are you going to do to balance the equation, and feed the masses?
Now, that depends on whether I care about them starving.
If I don’t - then it’s not a problem. Letting them starve is a method applied by such leaders as Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong. And it worked for them: they stayed in power for a long time, until their own deaths in fact.
If I do - then I’ll need to fire myself from office for gross incompetence. My people were obviously not starving before, or there wouldn’t be so many of them. So as their leader, I must have messed up pretty badly. Did I send all the peasants to the front to fight? Or did I make war with a former trade partner that I needed badly for food imports? Or did I neglect to stockpile food while still at peace? In each case, I’ve obviously handled the preparation for this war very poorly.
My successors might consider various measures, such as:
(a) Rationing. This seems like a very obvious thing to do.
(b) Making domestic food production a priority and assigning more people to it if necessary.
© Eating all the remaining cattle and not raising any new until the food situation improves.
(d) Finding new trade partners. Neutral or friendly countries could provide some relief.
(e) Stealing some food from conquered lands, but only as a last measure. Former enemies should become new subjects.