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!
"9.1.15 Parade at 8 a.m. I take four men to dig communication trench. Work until 5 p.m. and reach billet at 6.30 p.m. The trenches are now waist deep in water, part of section returned early, being soaked through, breast-high. My party had to run the gauntlet on returning across the open in preference to coming through the trenches!"
Entry for January 9, 1915 from the pocket diary of Corporal. A Letyford, 5th Field Company, Royal Engineers, writing of the flooded marshland in Flanders. For the prior days of the month, his brief entries about water that is knee-deep, that is four feet deep, that is waist-deep. He and his men build a dam against water that is running from German trenches, they fix pumps, build a bridge, and rebuild it after it is 'knocked into the stream.' It rains constantly, and the men are covered in mud. German troops fire on them as they work.
1915, The Death of Innocence by Lyn Macdonald, pp. 19, 20, copyright © 1993 by Lyn Macdonald, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1993 (Great Britain); 199
1915-01-09, 1915, January
