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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.
'Street Life, 1916' by Hans Larwin, a native of Vienna and painter of the war on multiple fronts, including the home front. A bread line, chiefly of women, waits along the shopfronts to buy bread. To the left, a policeman stands guard.
German and Russian soldiers fraternizing during the 1917 Armistice. Handwritten notes on the back include 'Deutsche Russische Verbrüderung' — 'Rus — Waffenstillstand 1917' — 'German Russian brotherhood' and 'Russian Armistice 1917.'
Women workers in a German munitions factory. The man on the right is holding a cigarette.
King Albert of Belgium decorates Willy Coppens, Belgium's Ace of Aces. Coppens describes this June 30, 1918 ceremony, in which he was awarded the Ordre de la Couronne in his memoir Flying in Flanders.
"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." ((1), more)
"—The 29th [January, 1918]. To-day begins the restriction to ten ounces of bread. Queues have been lining up in front of bakeries for several days. They were laying in stores. There were brawls at Versailles. This sudden restriction is said to have been caused by the shortage in Italy. Italy was threatening to make peace unless she was supplied with flour. So supplies have been sent to her. . . .Stirring events, declares Longuet, are brewing in England. Glasgow is a seething hotbed of revolt. The London engineers, like the Clyde workmen, have demanded immediate peace negotiations." ((2), more)
"There is no doubt that the revolutionary happenings in Austria and in Germany have enormously raised the hopes of the Petersburgers for a general convulsion, and it seems to me altogether out of the question now to come to any peace terms with the Russians. It is evident among the Russians themselves that they positively expect the outbreak of a world-revolution within the next few weeks, and their tactics now are simply to gain time and wait for this to happen. The conference was not marked by any particular event, only pin-pricks between Kühlmann and Trotzky." ((3), more)
"Unrest came to a head in January 1918, when a wave of strikes swept the Reich. The strikes, like those earlier in the Dual Monarchy, were driven by three major concerns: hunger, cold, and war weariness. But, again as in the Austro-Hungarian case, the strikers also had political motives: suffrage reform in Prussia, speedy conclusion of peace negotiations with the Bolsheviks at Brest-Litovsk then being held up by German demands for territorial gains, and an end to the domestic 'state of siege' that had existed since August 1914. The strikes were to highlight the desperate plight of labour, not to simulate the Bolshevik example in Petrograd. They were led in the main by so-called 'revolutionary foremen' elected by workers in individual factories and not by leaders of either of the two socialist parties." ((4), more)
"On February 1 [1918], a thick fog lay over the aerodrome. . . .Lieutenant Vertongen, wishing to keep his appointment at Furnes, left the ground at Beaumarais in a machine that had to be taken up to the front. Georges took off in another, but landed again at once, because of the fog. René Vertongen went on, flying practically at ground-level along the mouth of the channel there and its two breakwaters. He was at once enveloped in the fog, and turning a little left-handed, estimated that he had passed the second breakwater, and came down. Had he still been over the shore he would have seen the ground, but he was over the glassy water and, seeing nothing in the uncertain light, flew straight into it. Alas, that such a skilled pilot as Vertongen should have braved death—and met it thus!" ((5), more)
(1) 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
(2) Entries for January 29, 1918, from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government writing in Paris. Corday wrote frequently about the luxury available in the French capital that was denied the less fortunate and the soldiers at the front. France and Great Britain propped up Italy after the destruction of its Second Army in the Battle of Caporetto, sending men and supplies. The Bolshevik Revolution in November, 1917, and the armistice and subsequent peace negotiations between Russia and the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk had raised hopes for peace across Europe, hopes dashed by Germany's refusal to evacuate occupied Russian territory. Glasgow, Scotland, had seen strikes early in the war. In January, 1918, workers had struck in Vienna and other cities in Austria-Hungary, and in Kiel, Berlin, and other cities in Germany.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 311, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(3) Excerpt from the entry for January 30, 1918 by Count Ottokar Czernin in his In the World War. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, Czernin headed the Austro-Hungarian delegation to the Brest-Litovsk peace conference between Russia and the Central Powers. Hundreds of thousands of 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 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. Richard von Kühlmann was Germany's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and civilian head of a German delegation that was controlled by the military. He seems to have enjoyed sparring with Trotsky, to the dismay of Czernin, who recognized his country was on the verge of collapse. Petersburg is the Russian capital of Petrograd.
In the World War by Count Ottokar Czernin, page 273, copyright © 1920, by Harper & Brothers, publisher: Harper and Brothers, publication date: 1920
(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 and subsequent peace negotiations between Russia and the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk 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. The Bolshevik Revolution began in Petrograd, the Russian capital.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, page 378, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
(5) Willy Coppens, Belgium's greatest ace in World War I with 37 victories, all but two of them observation balloons, on the death of Lieutenant René Vertongen on February 1, 1918. A pilot before the war, Vertongen had trained several of the pilots in Coppens's squadron. Earlier in the war, he had gotten lost in fog, and landed in neutral Netherlands, where he was interned, but later escaped. Furnes was the wartime seat of the Belgian government.
Flying in Flanders by Willy Coppens, page 131, publisher: Ace Books, publication date: 1971
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