A hold-to-light postcard of the German and Austro-Hungarian victory (shortlived) over the Russians in the Uzroker Pass in the Carpathians on January 28, 1915. Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff, launched an offensive with three armies on January 23, including the new Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army under General Karl von Pflanzer-Baltin.
KarpathenSiegreiche Kämpfe am Uzroker-Paß28. Januar 1915 The CarpathiansVictorious fighting at the Uzroker PassJanuary 28, 1915Reverse:Message dated and field postmarked September 7, 1916, 29th Infantry Division.
"Storm and rain had uncovered the torn shreds of Austrian uniforms lying on the edge of shell craters.Behind Nová Čabyna entangled in the branches of an old burnt-out pine there was hanging the boot of an Austrian infantryman with a piece of shin-bone.Where the artillery fire had raged one could see forests without leaves or cones, trees without crowns and shot-up farmsteads.The train went slowly over the freshly-built embankments so that the whole battalion could take in and thoroughly savour the delights of war. At the sight of the army cemeteries with their white crosses gleaming on the plains and on the slopes of the devastated hills all could prepare themselves slowly but surely for the field of glory which ended with a mud-bespattered Austrian cap fluttering on a white cross."
Excerpt from Jaroslav Hašek's novel The Good Soldier Švejk. Švejk (or Schweik) was a foot soldier in an Austro-Hungarian Czech battalion on its way to the front lines on the Russian Front. Nová Čabyna is on the southwestern side of the Carpathian Mountains which the Russians had been trying to battle through since the beginning of the year, but with inadequate munitions to do so. By April, 1915, when Švejk was approaching the front, Austria-Hungary had suffered nearly 800,000 casualties in the mountains since the beginning of the year.
The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek, page 592, copyright © Cecil Parrott, 1973 (translation), publisher: Penguin
Carpathians, Carpathian Mountains, 1915, April, 1915-04-26
