16 January 1918. Ottokar Czernin

Non-fiction

Project 1917 is a series of events that took place a hundred years ago as described by those involved. It is composed only of diaries, letters, memoirs, newspapers and other documents

Ottokar Czernin

Brest, Belorussia

Despairing appeals from Vienna for food supplies. Would I apply at once to Berlin for aid, otherwise disaster imminent. I replied to General Landwehr as follows:

“Dr. Kühlmann is telegraphing to Berlin, but has little hope of success. The only hope now is for His Majesty to do as I have advised, and send an urgent wire at once to Kaiser Wilhelm. On my return I propose to put before His Majesty my point of view, that it is impossible to carry on the foreign policy if the food question at home is allowed to come to such a state as now. Only a few weeks back your Excellency declared most positively that we could hold out till the new harvest.”

At the same time I wired the Emperor:

“Telegrams arriving show the situation becoming critical for us. Regarding question of food, we can only avoid collapse on two conditions: first, that Germany helps us temporarily, second, that we use this respite to set in order our machinery of food supply, which is at present beneath contempt, and to gain possession of the stocks still existing in Hungary.

I have just explained the entire situation to Dr. Kühlmann, and he is telegraphing to Berlin. He, however, is not at all sanguine, as Germany is itself in straitened circumstances. I think the only way to secure any success from this step would be for Your Majesty to send at once, through military means, a Hughes telegram to Kaiser Wilhelm direct, urgently entreating him to intervene himself, and by securing us a supply of grain prevent the outbreak of revolution, which would otherwise be inevitable. I must, however, emphatically point out that the commencement of unrest among our people at home will have rendered conclusion of peace here absolutely impossible. As soon as the Russian representatives perceive that we ourselves are on the point of revolution, they will not make peace at all, since their entire speculation is based on this factor.”

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Alexander Blok

The intelligentsia’s favourite pastime is to put up protests: they’ll occupy a theatre, close a newspaper, destroy a church – protest. It is the true sign of anemia: it means that they didn’t particularly like their newspaper or their church.

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Alexander Zamaraev

Totma, Vologodskaya guberniya, Russian Republic

At midday another snowstorm started, and it beat until morning. The Germans are agreed on a world which would look like this, which even befuddled our Bolsheviks. They are to take from us Poland, Lithuania, and Courland and, in return for the upkeep of prisoners, a monetary contribution, and our men must purge Galicia and part of Turkey. We are long going to have to bear this German yoke. The war left us a difficult legacy. Food alone is all that now occupies everyone’s minds.

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Winston Churchill

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Nicholas II

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