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!
"He spoke without rhyme or reason about how the front stood two months ago in the south and east, about the importance of exact communications between individual units, about poison gas, shooting at enemy aeroplanes and catering for the men in the field. Then he passed to conditions about the troops.He spoke of the relationship of the officers to the men, of the men to the N.C.O.s, of deserting to the enemy at the front, of political events and of the fact that fifty percent of the Czech soldiers were 'politically suspect."
The antihero of Jaroslav Hašek's novel the Good Soldier Švejk, was part of a battalion crossing Galicia on its way to battle the Russians in March, 1915. Švejk (or Schweik) has been laxly manning the telephone, missing and delaying messages. Like his character Švejk, Hašek was an Austro-Hungarian Czech, significant numbers of whom deserted to the Russians.
The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek, page 421, copyright © Cecil Parrott, 1973 (translation), publisher: Penguin
1915-03-28, March, 1915
