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Photograph of two German soldiers in spiked helmets and fur coats, standing in the snow, dated January 24, 1918. A short translation from the reverse: “. . . The Russians are already gone. They are right. We should do the same . . . " (translation, Thomas Faust). © John Shea
Nautical chart of the Kiel Fjord on the Baltic Sea, leading to Kiel, one of the home ports of the German Baltic Fleet. Just north of Kiel is the entrance to the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, which crosses the Jutland Peninsula in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, and carries traffic to the mouth of the River Elbe on the North Sea.
England's Distress: Postcard map of England and Ireland with the restricted zone Germany proclaimed around the islands, showing the ships destroyed by submarine in the 12 months beginning February 1, 1917.
Map of the Ottoman Empire showing the travels of Rafael De Nogales, Inspector-General of the Turkish Forces in Armenia and Military Governor of Egyptian Sinai during the World War, from his book Four Years Beneath the Crescent.
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.
"The Russians are already gone. They are right. We should do the same." ((1), more)
"On 25 January [1918] the workers of the Torpedo Yard in Kiel walked off their jobs to protest the Navy's decision to send several of their 'foremen' to the front as punishment for public demonstrations for food. Within 72 hours, the number of strikers had reached 24 000. By 28 January they were joined by tens of thousands of workers in Berlin; 2 days later the police estimated the number at 185 000 from 299 factories. Daily food consumption had fallen from 3000 calories in peacetime to just 1400 by 1918." ((2), more)
"January 26th [1918].—The last day of two monotonous weeks of 3-in-the-morning réveillé and doing uncongenial navvy work, although there was plenty of interest, much of it painful, in the political game in which the conduct of the war was floundering. In notes and letters I made seven references to politics during the fortnight. The peace feelers, which began to be protruded in 1916, had been protruded further and more actively during recent weeks. . . . In Eastern Europe Germans and Bolsheviks split hairs over Poland and the Baltic lands. At home Mr. Lloyd George, as Prime Minister, found unlimited scope for his genius for intrigue, and for short-sighted deals and expedients. The wretched Irish-Ulster imbroglio was up again; there were fresh talks along old lines, and it was being said that the Prime Minister had tried to diddle both sides." ((3), more)
". . . as the months passed, the subterranean rumblings of Revolution in the vast Empire of the Czars sounded louder and more menacing; and on the horizon, sown with shadows and lightning, the dark silhouettes of Lenin, Kaledin, Trotsky, and Skoropadky waxed more distinct. Finally, the formal and definite order for the Russian evacuation of the Caucasus was published. Our Second Army raised camp in order to go to the province of Aleppo, which was to serve henceforth as their base and zone of operations, in the event of a disembarkation or formal advance of the English by way of the Euphrates.This was the state of affairs, when, toward the middle of January [1918], we lined up in front of the Mardin Gate to receive Nihat Pasha, the new General of the Second Army." ((4), 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." ((5), more)
(1) Part of the message on the back of a photograph of two German soldiers in spiked helmets and fur coats, standing in snowy woods, holding their rifles with bare hands, dated January 24, 1918. After Russia's February 1917 Revolution, which abolished the death penalty in the army, loosened the Army's command structure, and promised the transfer of land to the peasants, many soldiers simply left the front. This intensified after the failed Kerensky Offensive in July and the subsequent suspension of all Russian offensive actions. The Bolshevik Revolution in November promised an end to the war, and an armistice and peace negotiations between Russia and the Central Powers followed swiftly. In January, 1918, however, the negotiations at Brest-Litovsk were at a stalemate. Translation by Thomas Faust, ebay's Urfaust.
We should go too, publisher: Unknown, publication date: 1918-01-24
(2) 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. Kiel, the German Empire's major port on the Baltic Sea, was connected to the North Sea by the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, pp. 378–379, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
(3) Excerpt from the entry for January 26, 1918 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J. C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and fellow soldiers who served with him. Negotiations in Brest-Litovsk between Russia and the Central Powers raised hopes on both sides that peace would come soon, but in late January the talks were at a stalemate, in part over Germany's refusal to evacuate occupied Russian territory. There were attempts to extend conscription in Ireland from Ulster to the rest of the island, highly unlikely in the aftermath of the Easter Rebellion of 1916.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, pp. 435–436, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(4) Excerpt from the memoir of Rafael de Nogales, a Venezuelan mercenary and officer in the Ottoman Army. The Bolshevik Revolution took place in November, 1917, bringing to power Vladimir Lenin, determined to end Russia's involvement in the war. In January, 1918, Leon Trotsky was negotiating peace with the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk. The Russians had defeated the Ottoman Empire in the Caucasus Mountains in the Battle of Sarikamish at the beginning of the war, and advanced into eastern Turkey in the following years. At the beginning of 1918, Allied, primarily British, forces were advancing northwards along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia, and along the Mediterranean coast in Palestine and Syria. The Mardin Gate is in Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey.
Four Years Beneath the Crescent by Rafael De Nogales, page 394, copyright © 1926, by Charles Scribner's Sons, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1926
(5) 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
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