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A gleeful Russian Cossack skewers Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph in Galicia, the Empire's northeastern region isolated from the rest of the country by the Carpathian Mountains. The caption is a play on words echoing the name of the mountain range in telling Franz Joseph, 'it seems your soldiers took to their heels.' After twin defeats in the Battles of Gnila Lipa and Rava Russka, the Austro-Hungarian Army lost the great fortress at Lemberg, and was being driven out of Galicia and back through the Carpathians. Russia's attempts to break through the Carpathians continued through April 1915, with heavy losses on both sides. The Austro-Hungarians, with German support, held.
German postcard map of the Romanian theater of war, with map labels in Bulgarian added in red. From north to south the labels are Russia, the Austro-Hungarian regions of Galicia and Bukovina, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and, along the Black Sea, the Romania region of Dobruja. Romania's primary war aim was the annexation of the Austro-Hungarian region of Transylvania, with its large ethnic Romanian population.
A crazed Great Britain urges a broken Russia, a nose-picking, dozing Italy, and a sullen France to continued offensives in a German postcard imagining the November 6, 1917 Entente Ally Conference of Rapallo after the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo. The Battle, also known as the Battle of Caporetto, was a disastrous defeat for Italy and the first Austro-Hungarian offensive on the Isonzo Front. The Austrians had significant German support.
Chosen Boy, a 1918 watercolor by Paul Klee. From Paul Klee: Early and Late Years: 1894-1940. © 2013 Moeller Fine Art
Sleepless Nights, by Kriwub. France standing by her bed, arm raised against a giant German soldier watching her through the window. A Zeppelin passes in the distance. Someone has written the years of sleepless nights in blue: 19-14-15-16-17 and perhaps -18.
". . . With the Ukrainians, who, despite their youth, are showing themselves quite sufficiently grown to profit by the situation, negotiations are proceeding but slowly. First they demanded East Galicia for the new 'Ukrainia.' This could not be entertained for a moment. Then they grew more modest, but since the outbreak of trouble at home among ourselves they realized their position and know that we must make peace in order to get corn. Now they demand a separate position for East Galicia. The question will have to be decided in Vienna, and the Austrian Ministry will have the final word.Seidler and Landwehr again declare by telegram that without supplies of grain from Ukraine the catastrophe is imminent. There are supplies in the Ukraine; if we can get them the worst may be avoided.The position now is this: Without help from outside, we shall, according to Seidler, have thousands perishing in a few weeks." ((1), more)
"Some Russian units were turned back [by the Romanians] without major bloodshed. However, several large-scale pitched battles occurred. At Galaţi, the 9th ID and 10th ID of the IV Siberian Corps engaged the Romanian 4th ID in two days of fighting on 20–21 January 1918. After experiencing some success and taking a number of Romanian prisoners, the Russians were thrown into disorder by a determined Romanian use of bayonets, artillery, and fire from Danube monitors. This convinced the 9th ID to submit to disarmament and seek refuge in German lines to the west on 22 January." ((2), more)
"While we stand under the menace—and perhaps on the eve—of the most powerful effort which the enemy has so far attempted against us, there exists no general plan for the operations of the Coalition in 1918." ((3), more)
"I know that I shall meet my fateSomewhere among the clouds above;Those that I fight I do not hate,Those that I guard I do not love;My country is Kiltartan Cross,My countrymen Kiltartan's poor;No likely end could bring them lossOr leave them happier than before.Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,A lonely impulse of delightDrove to this tumult in the clouds;I balanced all, brought all to mind,The years to come seemed waste of breath,A waste of breath the years behindIn balance with this life, this death." ((4), more)
"— the 23rd. Still waiting for the great offensive. 'They give us the programme and the date as if it were a special performance at the Opéra,' writes Anatole France from Antibes. We are also expecting an air raid on Paris. The newspapers themselves are reviving this fear by the renewed warnings. . . .— the 23rd. An announcement has been made of the restriction of the bread ration to ten ounces. All preceding orders have been cancelled. There is fear of an outbreak of discontent among the working classes. Workmen and farm-hands consume two pounds of bread a day. Cakes have also been abolished, but the tea-rooms substitute cream buns and croquettes, which use up other equally scarce materials, such as butter, milk, and sugar." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from the entry for January 4, 1918 by Count Ottokar Czernin in his In the World War. Opposition to the November, 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and revolutionary calls for self-determination led regions of Russia to seek to break from Russia as independent nations aligned with ethnic populations. Ukraine laid claims to Galicia in northeastern Austria-Hungary, and were bolstered by food riots and strikes in Vienna. Minister of Foreign Affairs Czernin headed the Austro-Hungarian delegation to the Brest-Litovsk peace conference between Russia and the Central Powers. Ernst Seidler von Feuchtenegg was President-Minister of Austria from 1917 to 1918. General Ottokar Landwehr von Pregenau headed a common Austro-Hungarian food agency that was unable to resolve the challenges facing the Empire.
In the World War by Count Ottokar Czernin, page 267, copyright © 1920, by Harper & Brothers, publisher: Harper and Brothers, publication date: 1920
(2) Romania entered the war on the side of the Entente Allies on August 27, 1916, and was overrun by Central Power forces by the end of the year, driven out of Wallachia and Dobruja and back to Moldavia where the Russians held the Allied line. After rebuilding with support, training, and weapons from France, the Romanian army returned to battle in July, 1917, in joint Russian-Romanian offensives. After the Bolshevik Revolution in November, 1917, Russian soldiers, in many instances, simply left the front, sometimes pillaging. Romania tried to organize and disarm departing Russians, sometimes unsuccessfully.
The Romanian Battlefront in World War I by Glenn E. Torrey, pp. 268–269, copyright © 2011 by the University Press of Kansas, publisher: University Press of Kansas, publication date: 2011
(3) General Maxime Weygand, the French military representative to the Allied Supreme War Council, writing to French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau on January 22, 1918. The Allies had created the Council at the Rapallo conference in November, 1917, giving it responsibility to oversee the general conduct of the war and make recommendations to the Allied governments. Since the Bolshevik Revolution that same month and the armistice and subsequent peace negotiations between Russia and the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk, the Allies had been anticipating a German offensive in the west bolstered by forces moved from the Eastern Front.
The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, translated by Col. T. Bentley Mott by Ferdinand Foch, pp. 238–239, copyright © 1931 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Co., publication date: 1931
(4) 'An Irish Airman Foresees his Death' by William Butler Yeats. Major Robert Gregory, the son of Lady Gregory, died January 23, 1918.
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats by William Butler Yeats, page 135, copyright © 1983, 1989 by Anne Yeats, publisher: Collier Books MacMillan Publishing Company
(5) Entries for January 23, 1918, from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government writing in Paris. Corday wrote frequently about the luxury available in the French capital that was denied the less fortunate and the soldiers at the front. Since the Bolshevik Revolution in November, 1917, and the armistice and subsequent peace negotiations between Russia and the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk, the Allies had been anticipating a German offensive in the west bolstered by forces moved from the Eastern Front. Anatole France was a French poet, novelist, and journalist, and a friend of Corday who appears numerous times in Corday's diary. Antibes is on the French Mediterranean coast.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, pp. 309–310, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
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