Postcard of Kaiser Wilhelm II and Kaiser Franz Joseph, in the Secessionist style. Kaiser Wilhelm is wearing the uniform and shako of the Death's Head Hussars.
Völkerkrieg (people's war)1914; In Treue FestPeople's WarFirm in Loyalty
"Brusilov was particularly successful, moving deep into the Carpathians and threatening to debouch on to the plain of Hungary. But the Russians found it difficult to coordinate their strategy, because their two Army Groups, North-West and South-West Fronts, were operating in diverging directions, their communications with STAVKA (GHQ) at Siedlce were primitive and unreliable, and their experiences and wishes divergent. When the two Army Group commanders, Ruzsky and Ivanov, met with the Grand Duke at Siedlce on 29th-30th November, this divergence in experience and aspirations became evident. Ruzsky advocated a withdrawal almost the whole way to the west bank of the Vistula, so that he could regroup, resupply, make up his units which had been seriously battered by the fighting around Lodz, and await the German attack which he considered imminent. But to do so would bare Ivanov's flank, and therefore South-West Front would have to withdraw in company with its northern neighbors. To this Ivanov was utterly opposed; his forces had brought the Austrians to a halt north of Krakow, made considerable gains south and east of it, and taken prisoners in numbers which suggested Austrian morale was low, so he advocated a further offensive."
On the northwest front, the Russians had escaped encirclement in the Battle of Lodz when reinforcements from north and south first bolstered the Russians, then threatened to encircle large numbers of the German troops. The Germans broke through a gap and managed their own escape. Both sides suffered heavy losses in the battle. In the southwest, the Russians had enjoyed success against the Austro-Hungarians, and threatened to cross the Carpathian Mountains to strike at the Hungarian heartland and the Hungarian capital of Budapest.
Carpathian Disaster: Death of an Army by Geoffrey Jukes, page 41, copyright © Geoffrey Jukes 1971, publisher: Ballantine, publication date: 1971
1914-11-29, 1914, November, 1914-11-30
