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"Budapest, 1918: protesters break windows at the Imperial German Consulate General for Hungary." Hand-painted watercolor postcard by Schima Martos, showing the shield of the Imperial German Consulate General for Hungary bearing the imperial eagle between two broken windows, glass still falling to the ground.
Chosen Boy, a 1918 watercolor by Paul Klee. From Paul Klee: Early and Late Years: 1894-1940. © 2013 Moeller Fine Art
German soldiers in winter overcoats. The message on the reverse is dated December 11, 1917.
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!'
French folding postcard map of Verdun and the Meuse River, number 9 from the series Les Cartes du Front. Montfaucon is in the upper left and St. Mihiel at the bottom.
"The rejoicings [in Austria-Hungary] lasted throughout the following days until stilled by the fateful tidings of the decision taken at Homburg. The whole Empire revolted in horror against resuming hostilities with Russia, and the anti-German sentiment, never deeply hidden in these days, flared up with dangerous rancour. Austria-Hungary had suffered much from her overbearing ally in the four years of war, and the realization of her own military inferiority to Germany did nothing to soften the antagonism, which was rapidly increasing. Particularly resented was Germany's assumption that Austria-Hungary would have to collaborate in her annexationist adventures, and the entire Dual Monarchy cried out against further sacrifice." ((1), more)
"2.21. Yesterday the golden wedding anniversary of Their Majesties, we were on duty, with the usual crash. Tonight the entire camp is without light. Went to bed with the chickens. Nothing more consoling in sight.2.21. This week we had three fatal casualties; one man smashed by the propeller, the other two crashed from the air! Yesterday, a fourth came ploughing with a loud bang into the roof of the workshop. Had been flying too low, caught on a telephone pole, bounced on the roof of the factory, turned a somersault, and collapsed upside down in a heap of wreckage. People came running from all sides; in a second the roof was black with mechanics in working clothes. Stretchers, ladders. The photographer. A human being pulled out of the debris and carried away unconscious. Loud cursing at the by-standers. First-rate movie effect. This is how a royal regiment celebrated a royal wedding. In addition, three smashed airplanes are lying about in the vicinity today. It was another fine show." ((2), more)
"On 6 February [1918], we returned to Lécluse, and on the 22nd, we were accommodated for four days in the cratered field left of the Dury-Hendecourt road, to do digging work in the front line. Viewing the position, which faced the ruined village of Bullecourt, I realized that part of the huge push which was expected up and down the whole Western Front would take place here.Everywhere there was feverish building, dugouts were constructed, and new roads laid. The cratered field was plastered with little signs stuck in the middle of nowhere, with ciphered letters and numbers, presumably for the disposition of artillery and command posts. Our aeroplanes were up all the time, to keep the enemy from getting a look. To keep everyone synchronized, on the dot of noon every day a black ball was lowered from the observation balloons, which disappeared at ten past twelve." ((3), more)
"Let us beware of becoming the slaves of our own phrases. In our day wars are won not by mere enthusiasm, but by technical superiority. Give me an army of 100,000 men, an army which will not tremble before the enemy, and I will not sign this peace. Can you raise an army? Can you give me anything but prattle and the drawing up of pasteboard figures? . . . If we retire to the Urals we can resist the pressure of the Germans for two or three weeks, then after a month's delay we shall sign conditions which are a hundred times worse. You must sign this shameful peace in order to save the world Revolution, in order to hold fast to its most important, and at present, its only foothold—the Soviet Republic. . . ." ((4), more)
"This place is called Le Chalet. There was a real little village: dugouts, cabins, hangers, little chalets, supply dumps, and a tacot train station. Night and day there was an intense level of activity, and this just a few hundred meters from the German listening posts! But the sharp declivities of the valley's terrain didn't permit the German gunners, clever as they were, to drop a shell on us.But one detail was hardly reassuring: all the trees were dead. A hideous yellow coating covered their trunks, clearly indicating that a deadly cloud of poison gas had passed by here." ((5), more)
(1) Leon Trotsky, head of the Russian delegation to the Brest-Litovsk peace conference with the Central Powers, left the negotiations on February 10, 1918 saying Russia would not sign Germany's proposed peace treaty, but would withdraw from the war. Three days later the German High Command met at Homburg in western Germany to determine the response. The conference included Kaiser Wilhelm, Germany's Supreme War Lord, the duumvirate of Generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, Major General Max Hoffmann, commander of the German Eighth Army on the Russian Front, and Baron Richard von Kühlmann, Germany's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from August 6, 1917 to July 9, 1918. At the beginning of 1918 Austria-Hungary was desperate for peace and the food a treaty promised.
Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace; March 1918 by John W. Wheeler-Bennett by John W. Wheeler-Bennett, page 233, publisher: The Norton Library, publication date: 1971, first published 193
(2) Entries from the diaries of Swiss-German painter Paul Klee for February 21, 1918. The artist served with the air corps, varnishing the wings and fuselages of airplanes, transporting airplanes to the front, and, at the beginning of 1918, working as assistant paymaster, a position that meant he no longer needed to fear being transferred to the front, and that left him time to read and work. His 1918 watercolor 'Chosen Boy' is one of several works that shows a bird, feet splayed, plunging headfirst to earth.
The Diaries of Paul Klee 1898-1918, Edited, with an Introduction by Felix Klee by Paul Klee, pp. 387–388, copyright © 1964 by the Regents of the University of California, publisher: University of California Press, publication date: 1968
(3) German Lieutenant Ernst Jünger on some of the preparations for what he referred to as German commander Erich Ludendorff's, and Germany's, 'mighty do-or-die offensive'. It would be Operation Michael, launched on March 21. Bullecourt, France, had been the site of battles on April 11 and from May 3 to 16, 1917 between the Germans and Australians.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, pp. 221–222, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(4) Vladimir Lenin speaking to the Petrograd Soviet and the Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets on the night of February 23–24, 1918, attempting to persuade the members to sign peace terms demanded by Germany. Leon Trotsky, head of the Russian delegation to the Brest-Litovsk peace conference with the Central Powers, left the negotiations on February 10, 1918 saying Russia would not sign peace terms laid down by Germany, but would withdraw from the war. In the following days Trotsky and Lenin debated whether the Germans would accept this situation or resume hostilities. On the 16th General Hoffmann, military head of the German delegation, delivered his response, ending the armistice. Two days later the Germans resumed the war, violating the terms of the armistice which called for a seven-day notice of termination, and advancing against little to no resistance.
Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace; March 1918 by John W. Wheeler-Bennett by John W. Wheeler-Bennett, page 260, publisher: The Norton Library, publication date: 1971, first published 193
(5) Excerpt from the notebooks of French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas writing of the end of February, 1918. Barthas served much of the war in the 296th Regiment, one implicated in the army mutinies of the spring and early summer 1917. The regiment had been dissolved and its men assigned to other units, Barthas to a regiment from Breton. Since the beginning of the year he had been in the Argonne, moving into the relative protection of the Meurissons ravine on February 21.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, page 362, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
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