Zweibund — the Dual Alliance — Germany and Austria-Hungary united, were the core of the Central Powers, and here join hands. The bars of Germany's flag border the top left, and those of the Habsburg Austrian Empire and ruling house the bottom right.
Schulter an SchulterUntrennbar vereintin Freud und in Leid!'Shoulder to shoulderInseparably united in joy and in sorrow!
"Telegrams arriving show the situation becoming critical for us. Regarding questions of food, we can only avoid collapse on two conditions: first, that Germany helps us temporarily, second, that we use this respite to set in order our machinery of food-supply, which is at present beneath contempt, and to gain possession of the stocks still existing in Hungary.. . . I must, however, emphatically point out that the commencement of unrest among our people at home will have rendered conclusion of peace here absolutely impossible. As soon as the Russian representatives perceive that we ourselves are on the point of revolution, they will not make peace at all, since their entire speculation is based on this factor."
Excerpt from a telegram to Austro-Hungarian Kaiser Karl from the Empire's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ottokar Czernin, sent January 16, 1918 from Brest-Litovsk, where Czernin lead 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. Leon Trotsky led the Russian delegation, and he and Vladimir Lenin fully expected that the example of the Bolshevik Revolution would spread across Europe. Austria-Hungary had not recovered from the loss of most of its rolling stock in the battles against Serbia and Russia in 1914. Hungary withheld food from the rest of the empire, and a peace settlement offered the hope of supplies from Russia and Romania.
In the World War by Count Ottokar Czernin, page 266, copyright © 1920, by Harper & Brothers, publisher: Harper and Brothers, publication date: 1920
1918-01-16, 1918, January, Hungary, revolution, food, famine, revolution
