Zweibund — the Dual Alliance — Germany and Austria-Hungary united, were the core of the Central Powers, and here join hands. The bars of Germany's flag border the top left, and those of the Habsburg Austrian Empire and ruling house the bottom right.
Schulter an SchulterUntrennbar vereintin Freud und in Leid!'Shoulder to shoulderInseparably united in joy and in sorrow!
"Our main job was to bring rations up to the men on the front lines. The field kitchens were nearby, at the bottom of a ravine, or you could call it a precipice, next to which we were posted.You reached the bottom by a staircase which counted 500 steps, not one less. And they were 'poilu steps'—50 to 80 centimeters, each one. You couldn't be asthmatic and climb this gigantic staircase. It wasn't too hard in dry weather, but when the snow and ice and slick mud covered the steps, watch out for slippery spots! You had to grab onto roots and rocky outcroppings so as not to tumble all the way to the bottom.And the Boche lines weren't even a hundred meters from the last step of this staircase. Our outposts were only a few steps away from them."
Excerpt from the notebooks of French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas, formerly of the 296th Regiment. Barthas was writing in mid-December, 1917, after his regiment had been dissolved and its men assigned to other units, Barthas going to a regiment from Breton.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, pp. 346–347, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
1917-12-13, 1917, December, snow, French soldier, rationer
