The three kings or wise men (Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar) follow the Star of Bethlehem bearing gifts for the infant Jesus, passing German soldiers round a fire on their way. Rather than the traditional offerings of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, one king carries a box of Leibniz cookies. One king raises the star before them, giving the scene a stage-set quality. From a series of war advertising cards for Bahlsens Leibniz Cookies. Illustration by HDiez.
Leibniz KeksLeibniz CookiesHDiezReverse:H. Bahlsens Keksfabrik, Hannover.Message dated December 26, 1915, and field postmarked the 28th, the 8th Bavarian Reserve Division.
"My informer B———, who has friends in the Okhrana, tells me that the leaders of the various socialist groups held a secret session a fortnight ago in Petrograd, as they did last July. Once again the chairman of the conference was the 'labour' deputy, Kerensky. The main purpose of the meeting was to consider a programme of revolutionary action which the 'maximalist,' Lenin, at the present time a refugee in Switzerland, recently expounded to the Zimmerwald International Socialist Congress. . . .(1) The uninterrupted defeats of the Russian army, the disorder and inefficiency in public administration, the terrible rumours about of the Empress and the Rasputin scandals have ended by discrediting tsarism in the eyes of the masses. . . .Kerensky is said to have closed the debate with this practical conclusion: 'The moment we see the supreme crisis of the war at hand, we must overthrow tsarism, seize power ourselves and set up a socialist dictatorship.'"
The participants unanimously agreed that 'the nation is utterly sick of the war' and 'economic difficulties are still accumulating and steadily growing worse.' Russia would be obliged to make a separate peace, but one made by the Imperial Government would be reactionary and monarchical, therefore it must be a democratic and socialist peace. The Okhrana was the tsarist secret police, the Department for Protecting Public Security and Order.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 145, 146, publisher: George H. Doran Company
1916-01-06, 1916, January, Kerensky, Lenin, revolution, Switzerland, Okhrana, socialist, Rasputin, Alexandra
