Austro-Hungarian trench art pencil drawing on pink paper of a soldier in a ragged, many-times-patched uniform, labeled 'Bilder ohne Worte' (No Comment, or Picture without Words). Kaiser Karl who succeeded Emperor Franz Joseph is on reverse. The printed text on the reverse is in Hungarian and German.
Bilder ohne WorteNo Comment
"'I learn from a reliable source that France has issued the following notifications: We were already quite disposed to enter into discussion with Austria. Now we are asking ourselves whether Austria is still sound enough for the part it was intended to give her. One is afraid of basing an entire policy upon a state which is, perhaps, already threatened with the fate of Russia.' And Skrzynski adds: 'During the last few days I have heard as follows: It has been decided to wait for a while.'"
Excerpt from the entry for February 11, 1918 by Count Ottokar Czernin in his In the World War. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, Czernin headed the Austro-Hungarian delegation to the Brest-Litovsk peace conference between Russia and the Central Powers. Hundreds of thousands of workers in Austria-Hungary and then Germany went on strike in January, 1918 as hunger and war-weariness bit. With the German military refusing to evacuate occupied territory, and anticipating revolutionary activity across war-weary Europe, Russian representative Leon Trotsky had played for time through the month. On the verge of despair, Czernin recognized his country was on the verge of collapse.
In the World War by Count Ottokar Czernin, page 279, copyright © 1920, by Harper & Brothers, publisher: Harper and Brothers, publication date: 1920
1918-02-11, 1918, February, Bilder ohne Worte
