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.
Image text: 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.
Trading sugar for soap behind the lines, 1918. A kilo of sugar is going for 1 1/2 kilos of laundry soap.Original watercolor postcard by Schima Martos.
Image text: Caption, in both German and Hungarian:Tausch im Hinterlande 1918 CserebereFür 1 kiló Zucker - 1½ kiló Waschseife1 kiló cukorért - 1½ kiló MososzappantExchange behind the lines, 1918 SwapFor 1 kilo of sugar - 1½ kilo laundry soap1 kilo of sugar is - 1½ pounds of laundry soapReverse:The card is addressed to Franz Martos, Mezökövesd, Hungary, postmarked from Helsinki (Helsingfors), Finland on 1918-11-05, and stamped again in Mezökövesd on 1918-11-18.
I've killed many Germans, but never women or children. Original French watercolor by John on blank field postcard. In the background are indolent Russian soldiers and Vladimir Lenin, in the foreground stands what may be a Romanian soldier who is telling the Russians, 'You call me savage. I killed a lot of Boches [Germans], but never women or children!'
Image text: T'appelles moi sauvage !. Moi, tuer Boches beaucoup, mais jamais li femmes et li s'enfants !You call me wild. I killed a lot of Boches [Germans], but never women or children!
A color map of Germany before and during the war from a French postcard, including the German states, views of the Reichstag in Berlin and the Rhine. Alsace and Lorraine are in the southwest.
Image text: Allemagne, Duitschland, Mer du Nord, Mer Baltique, Russie, Hongrie, Autriche, Suisse, France, Belgique, Pays Bas
"It is difficult to imagine terrain less suited to a massive winter campaign than the Eastern Carpathians. The mountains, though not in themselves particularly high, are steep-sided, intersected by very few passes and even fewer passable roads, blocked by snow during the colder days, and by mud during the occasional daily thaws. Many thousands of the troops on both sides died of exposure during the winter, and the entire campaign in the end proved inconclusive.The first offensive was an Austrian attack with twenty divisions on the Dukla, Lubka and Uzhok passes, and a simultaneous assault on the easterly Verecke and Wyszkow passes . . ." ((1), more)
"Dwindling real wages, long work weeks, and unsatisfactory food provoked mutterings and murmurings, and as early as 1915 discontent among miners flamed into short work stoppages. Yet, on an overall estimate, during the first half of the war, the industrial labor force toiled patriotically and sacrificially in the common cause of victory. . . . . . . authorities in Austria-Hungary tended to imitate procedures devised in Germany. Unregulated, price levels of many commodities soared in the first flush of the war; then officials began to set maximum prices, though decrees were not rigidly enforced, profiteering and hoarding ran rampant, and costs went on advancing. A reporter for the Arbeiter Zeitung, in January, 1916, noticing a billboard displaying pre-war prices and figuring out that the same goods cost at least six times more, soliloquized, 'It makes one's mouth water . . . what a good thing that . . . the old advertisements have not been removed. It is such a good thing because they talk for peace.'" ((2), more)
"The men are starting to look human again, they can cut their hair, shave, put on clean underwear and mend their clothes and clean their guns. The officers spend all day drinking and playing cards. They get their batmen to get self-distilled vodka from the rear or buy up triple-strength eau de cologne which does just as well.There is nothing to read, just some old newspapers. But Borov got hold of a whole pile of new editions. They accuse the Government of greed, indecision and secret negotiations with the Germans. We read all this in secret. Zemlianitsky says, 'It's time to finish off this war, brothers!'" ((3), more)
"A meeting of the Turners' Union was held on January 27 [1918] in Berlin to which all the principal industries sent representatives. On the proposal of Richard Müller the meeting unanimously resolved to call a general strike for the following day. On January 28, therefore, four hundred thousand workmen in Berlin and the outlying districts laid down their tools; while on the same day four hundred delegates, representatives of all the industrial unions in Berlin, met as a Berlin Workmen's Council in the Trades Union building in order to formulate the strikers' demands. . . . The strikers demanded above all else a speedy conclusion of peace without annexations, and a radical democratization of the whole governmental system in Germany. They further demanded the abolition of martial law and the auxiliary services law in addition to a political amnesty and improved rationing." ((4), more)
(1) Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf had lost Galicia and Bukovina, Austria-Hungary's northeastern provinces in 1914, and hoped to regain them in a winter offensive. He also hoped to end the threat of the Russians advancing through the passes of the Carpathian Mountains, which would put them in a position to strike Budapest, the Hungarian capital.
Carpathian Disaster: Death of an Army by Geoffrey Jukes, page 45, copyright © Geoffrey Jukes 1971, publisher: Ballantine, publication date: 1971
(2) Two excerpts from Arthur May's study, The Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy 1914-1918, the end of Austria-Hungary and the House of Hapsburg ruling over it.
The Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy, 1914-1918 2 Volumes by Arthur James May, Vol. One, pp. 337-338, 339, copyright © 1966 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, publication date: 1966
(3) Russian soldier Dmitry Oskin writing in January, 1917. Russian Prime Minister Protopopov was . . . The Empress Alexandra, wife of Tsar Nicholas II, was believed to favor Germany, and possibly actively forwarding its interest. Oskin writes that new recruits, primarily Ukranian, continue to arrive. On being given lentils for lunch, they start a food riot.
Intimate Voices from the First World War by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, page 289, copyright © 2003 by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, publication date: 2003
(4) Workers in Austria-Hungary and then Germany went on strike in January, 1918 as hunger and war-weariness bit. Hopes for an end to the war that arose from the December, 1917 armistice between Russia and the Central Powers were dashed on January 12 when German military representative General Max Hoffman made it clear Germany would not evacuate occupied territory on the Eastern Front. Anticipating revolutionary activity across war-weary Europe, Russian representative Leon Trotsky played for time. On January 25, workers of the Torpedo Yard in Kiel, the German Empire's major port on the Baltic Sea, went on strike. Richard Müller was a leader of the Turners' Union in Berlin. The auxiliary services law of December, 1916 required every German between the ages of sixteen and sixty to perform war service.
Imperial Germany; The Birth of the German Republic 1871–1918 by Arthur Rosenberg, page 211, publisher: Beacon Press, publication date: 1964
