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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.
Text:
Schulter an Schulter
Untrennbar vereint
in Freud und in Leid!'

Shoulder to shoulder
Inseparably united 
in joy and in sorrow!

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.

Image text

Schulter an Schulter

Untrennbar vereint

in Freud und in Leid!'



Shoulder to shoulder

Inseparably united

in joy and in sorrow!

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Sunday, June 23, 1918

"Now we undertake a strategic withdrawal — a strategic withdrawal always succeeds! (A few cries of 'Hurrah!' and scattered cheering.) And I have been certain from the start that the enemy will not prevent the manoeuvres we have envisaged for years and now been implementing for days. Our operations are being carried out according to plan. We have simply disengaged from the enemy and now we are drawing him after us! Then we'll give 'em a kicking! The men's morale is sky-high! Gentlemen, we shall be as firm as a rock and we shall never yield! The more opportunity we give the enemy to push forward, the more chance we have to wear him out! That is the tactic we put to the test on the Somme. That is the tactic which shall also succeed on the Piave. So, let's have no defeatist talk! God is on our side! We'd pull it off — against a world full of devils! The enemy — be assured, gentlemen — the enemy will shatter against us as against a bronze wall of flame —"

Quotation Context

Excerpt from one of the Prussian Colonel's speeches in Act V, Scene 55 from Karl Kraus's play The Last Days of Mankind. Much of the scene takes place over a ceremonial banquet of Austro-Hungarian (including Czech, Polish, Romanian, and Croatian) and German officers. In 1917's Operation Alberich the Germans had conducted a strategic retreat to a stronger, more easily defensible line. In the Battle of the Piave, launched on June 15, 1918, the Italians, with aid from their French and British allies, stopped the Austro-Hungarian offensive, and drove the attacker back to his starting line, inflicting roughly 120,000 casualties in the course of the battle.

Source

The Last Days of Mankind by Karl Kraus, page 538, copyright © 2015 Translation and Afterword Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2015

Tags

1918-06-23, 1918, June, Battle of the Piave, Piave, Zweibund