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!
"The Union of Zemstvos and the Union of Towns, the great private associations which have worked so hard together since the war began to supply the army and the civil population, were to meet in congress at Moscow next week. The police have just forbidden that congress, though the two Unions represent all that is most sound, sincere and energetic in Russian Society! . . .A friend of mine, who has come from Moscow and called on me yesterday, told me that the public there is furious with the Empress. In drawing-rooms, shops and cafés, it is being openly said that the Niemka, the 'German Woman,' is about to ruin Russia and must be put away as a lunatic. As to the Emperor, men do not stop at remarking that he would do well to reflect on the fate of Paul I."
Excerpts from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, for Saturday, December 23, 1916. The Union of Zemstvos and the Union of Towns, along with the Russian Duma, offered alternatives and challenges to the Autocrat Tsar Nicholas II whose German-born wife, Empress Alexandra, was widely believed to be sympathetic to Germany. Russian Tsar Paul I was assassinated in 1801.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. III by Maurice Paléologue, page 121, publisher: George H. Doran Company
1916-12-23, 1916, December, Union of Zemstvos, Union of Towns, Zemstvos, Tsar Nicholas II, Nicholas II, Tsar Nicholas
