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!
"Sunday, February 14, 1915.From the Tilsit region on the Lower Niemen to Plotzk on the Vistula the Russian army is on the retreat on a front of 450 kilometres. It has lost its entrenchments on the Angerapp and all the defiles between the Masurian Lakes which were so favorable for defence : it is retiring hastily on Kovno, Grodno, Osowiec, and the Narev."
Entry from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, for Sunday, February 14, 1915. After this stark report, Paléologue wrote that the retreat gave the Russian monk Rasputin an opportunity to turn on his former patron Russian commander Grand Duke Nicholas who had helped introduce Rasputin into the royal family, but then turned against him, and asked the Tsar to do so as well.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. I by Maurice Paléologue, page 285, publisher: George H. Doran Company, publication date: 1925
1915-02-14, February, 1915
