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Postcard image of Kaiser Wilhelm II and Kaiser Franz Joseph, in the Secessionist style. The men are in a hexagonal lozenge, an image that may have been drawn from them riding in a carriage. Kaiser Wilhelm is wearing the uniform and shako of the Death's Head Hussars. Above the image, the word "Völkerkrieg" (people's war); below "1914; In Treue Fest" (fixed in loyalty).

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.

Image text

Völkerkrieg (people's war)

1914; In Treue Fest



People's War

Firm in Loyalty

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Monday, November 1, 1915

" — During the last few years a prominent manufacturer in the Rue d'Avron has been loudly complaining of German competition declaring that it could not last, that we must have a war without delay. He had four sons. The war broke out. Three sons were killed, the fourth was carefully posted ten miles behind the line. But even there a shell reached him and killed him. His father and mother have committed suicide.

 — An echo of the attack of the 25th September. A colonel received the order to attack. He noticed that the artillery had not made adequate preparations, that his regiment would simply be massacred. He telephoned to H.Q., which replied : 'It is not your business to argue about your orders, but to carry them out.' The colonel went over the top alone and was killed."

Quotation Context

Entries for November 7, 1915 from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government. The attack of September 25, 1915 was the Champagne-Artois Offensive, French Commander Joseph Joffre's great offensive in the autumn of 1915. The offensive failed.

Source

The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 116, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934

Tags

1915-11-01, 1915, November,