A mass of German troops bear an enormous egg striped in the black, white, and red of the german flag. Atop the egg, a cannon is fired by troops with a Hungarian flag. The target, diminutive in the distance, is Paris, Eiffel Tower gray against the brown city.
The watercolor is labeled,
Husvét . Páris piros tojása . 1918
Easter . Red eggs for Paris . 1918
The front of the card is postmarked 1918-04-05 from Melököveso.
The card is a Feldpostkarte, a field postcard, from Asbach Uralt, old German cognac. Above the brand name, two German soldiers wheel a field stove past a crate containing a bottle of the brandy under the title Gute Verpflegung, Good Food. Above the addressee is written Einschreiben, enroll, and Nach Ungarn, to Hungary. The card is addressed to Franz Moritos, and is postmarked Hamburg, 1918-03-30. A Hamburg stamp also decorates the card.
A hand-painted postcard by Schima Martos. , Germany on registered fieldpost card, 1918, message: Red Egg for Paris, Easter, 1918.
The German advance in Operation Michael in the March, 1918 nearly broke the Allied line, and threatened Paris, putting it once again in range of a new German supergun capable of hitting the city from 70 miles away.

Husvét . Páris piros tojása . 1918



Easter . Red eggs for Paris . 1918



The front of the card is postmarked 1918-04-05 from Melököveso

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Thursday, January 17, 1918

"By January 17, about 200,000 wageworkers had downed their tools in Vienna alone, though the walkout was less widespread in the Czech provinces. Greatly alarmed, the Emperor that day wired Czernin, 'The fate of the Monarchy and of the dynasty depends on how soon you will be able to arrange peace in Brest-Litovsk. . . . If peace is not concluded a revolution will break out here.'"

Quotation Context

Austro-Hungarian Kaiser Karl's telegram of January 17, 1918 was to the Empire's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ottokar Czernin, who was in Brest-Litovsk, Russia, leading the Austro-Hungarian delegation 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 and other cities. Leon Trotsky led the Russian delegation, and he and Vladimir Lenin fully expected that the example of the Bolshevik Revolution would spread across Europe. A peace settlement offered the hope of supplies from Russia and Romania.

Source

The Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy, 1914-1918 2 Volumes by Arthur James May, Vol. 2, p. 656, copyright © 1966 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, publication date: 1966

Tags

1918-01-17, 1918, January, Karl, Kaiser Karl, Czernin, Brest-Litovsk, strike, Vienna