Embossed postcard of the flag and coins of Russia, with fixed exchange rates for major currencies including Germany, Austria-Hungary, England, the Latin Monetary Union, Netherlands, and the United States of America. The Russian Ruble equaled 100 Kopeks. Tsar Nicholas II is on the obverse of most of the gold and silver coins; Tsar Alexander III is on the 7 1/2 ruble gold piece.
"'It's a great battle,' [Tsar Nicholas] said, 'and raging with the greatest fury. The Germans are making frantic efforts to break our line; they won't succeed and they can't remain long in their present positions. So I hope that before long we shall resume our advance. . . .. . . I don't know where we shall be able to get through. Between the Carpathians and the Oder, perhaps? Or between Breslau and Posen? Or north of Posen. It depends a great deal on the fighting now in progress around Lodz and in the neighbourhood of Cracow. But Berlin is certainly our sole objective. The fighting is equally violent on your side. This furious Yser battle is going in your favour. It's a serious reverse for the Germans, nearly as serious as their defeat on the Marne.'"
Entry from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, for Saturday, November 21, 1914. The speaker is Tsar Nicholas II who had asked Paléologue to visit him at the Tsar's palace at Tsarskoïe-Selo south of Petrograd for a frank but unofficial discussion that lasted two hours. They discussed their joint response should Germany or Austria-Hungary sue for peace, and the diminution of both empires, and of Turkey, they would demand. They discussed Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany — a 'comedian and a braggart' — and his actions immediately before Germany's declaration of war on July 28. They closed with the discussion above, and the tremendous battles underway, around Lodz on the Eastern Front, and Ypres, the second phase of the Battle of Flanders, on the Western Front.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. I by Maurice Paléologue, page 198, publisher: George H. Doran Company, publication date: 1925
1914-11-21, 1914, November, Paleologue, Paléologue, Maurice Paléologue, Maurice Paleologue, Battle of Lodz,
