Austro-Hungarian soldiers celebrate the 30th birthday of Kaiser Karl, waving paper lanterns as one holds a framed portrait of the Emperor in an postcard promotion for a Festival for the Kaiser.
On lantern: Hoch unser geleibster KaiserKaiserfest der 99 Ger. im Hohenmauther Prater am 17 August 1917Hurrah for our beloved EmperorFestival for the Kaiser 99 Ger. im Hohenmauther Prater on August 17, 1917
"I have just received a letter from Statthalter N.N. which justifies all the fears I have constantly repeated to your Majesty, and shows that in the question of food-supplies we are on the very verge of catastrophe. The situation arising out of the carelessness and incapacity of the Ministers is terrible, and I fear it is already too late to check the total collapse which is to be expected in the next few weeks. My informant writes: 'Only small quantities are now being received from Hungary, from Rumania only 10,000 wagons of maize; this gives then a decrease of at least 30,000 wagons of grain, without which we must infallibly perish. On learning the state of affairs, I went to the Prime Minister to speak with him about it. I told him, as is the case, that in a few weeks our war industries, our railway traffic, would be at a standstill, the provisioning of the army would be impossible, it must break down, and that would mean the collapse of Austria and therewith also of Hungary. To each of these points he answered yes, that is so, and added that all was being done to alter the state of affairs, especially as regards the Hungarian deliveries. But no one, not even your majesty, has been able to get anything done. We can only hope that some deus ex machina may intervene to save us from the worst.'"
Excerpt from a telegraph to Austro-Hungarian Kaiser Karl from the Empire's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ottokar Czernin, sent January 15, 1918 from Brest-Litovsk, where Czernin lead the Austro-Hungarian delation in the Central Power peace negotiations with Russia. Czernin was increasingly a powerless bystander in the debate between the German and Russian delegates even as food riots and strikes broke out in Vienna. As Hungary withheld food from Austria, peace would offer the hope of supplies from Russia. A Statthalter is a governor.
In the World War by Count Ottokar Czernin, pp. 264–265, copyright © 1920, by Harper & Brothers, publisher: Harper and Brothers, publication date: 1920
1918-01-15, 1918, January, food, food supply, Romania, Karl, Kaiser Karl, Kaiser Karl's birthday
