Getting to know the unknown soldier

On January 6, 1917 the new and young Austrian Emperor and King Karl I went to the Italian front and he witnessed with dismay the horrors of war. He started sending letters to Pope Benedict XV and his cousin Alfonso XIII King of Spain and even through his brothers in law to the King of Belgium, the thought that this war should be stopped , and that the continue bloodshed was unjustifiable. He dismissed his uncle Archduke Friedrich and Marshal Conrad von Hötzendorf because both of them were pro German and they wanted to continue the war, after this change in the High Command the casualties diminished a lot, to a third of all those who perished in 1916. One of the reasons of this decision as he wrote in his "memoires" and we can read it in the recent edited book "Zita Impératrice Courage" by Professor Jean Sévillia, was the horrendous situation in the trenches of the heroic Austro Hungarian, including Croatian and Czech troops. He issued a decree banning punishments to the troops and ordering officers to have the same kind of meals than the soldiers, he was the first to give the example. I will go to Prague soon, I hope that I will be able to see this pictures, I wonder if any editor will publish this pictures of this photographer, a diplomat based in Prague told me that were very impressive and it shows how much the Czechs fought for their Sovereign in WW1. This struggle was in spite that some "intellectuals" went to France and stab a knife in the back of all those who were loyal to the Dynasty until the collapse of the monarchy.

May we never forget their sacrifice.

Bent double, like oild beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards or distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost thier boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots,
Of gas shells dropping softly behind.

Wilfred Owen WW1 poet