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!
"Your opinion on our policy as contained in your Serbian report is always appreciated by me, and I am sure that the Imperial Chancellor feels the same way about it. Nor do I hesitate to admit that many of your remarks are justified. But after all, we are allied to Austria; hic Rhodus, hic salta. There may also be different opinions as to whether we get all our money's worth from an alliance with that ever disintegrating composition of nations beside the Danube, but there I say with the poet — Busch, I think it was — 'If no longer you like your company, look for another, if any there be.' And, unfortunately, we have not yet been able to arrive at a relationship with England that promises complete satisfaction, nor could we, after all that has passed, arrive at it, if, indeed, we shall ever be able to do so."
Beginning of a private letter of July 18, 1914 from German Secretary of State Jagow to German Ambassador in London Lichnowsky.In one of Aesop's tales, an athlete boasts of a jump he once made in Rhodes and the many witnesses who could confirm it. A companion responds, 'Here is Rhodes; jump here.' Isaiah Berlin writes that it was misunderstood by Hegel and Marx, one of whom may be Jagow's source. Here, it most likely means, Dance with the one you brought to the dance.
July, 1914; the Outbreak of the First World War; Selected Documents by Imanuel Geiss (Editor), page 122, copyright © 1967 Imanuel Geiss, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1967
Austria-Hungary, Austria, 1903, Cram's Railway Map, Cram, Cram's, Austro-Hungarian Empire, The Austro-Hungarian Empire
