Pink postcards 7

Name of the sender: Károly Timó, 1st Hungarian Royal Infantry Regiment
Address of the sender: 3rd Substitute Battalion, 2nd Section

Address: To the honored Miss Antónia Zajác
3rd district, Kis-Korona Street 52
Budapest

on 2 December

My dear son.
I have just come from Szt.Lőrinc, the exercise. It was pretty tiring, because I also carried the equipment. I was all ready to shoot. It is heard that we will spend even Christmas here, if nothing happens. Because we get the grey [uniform] on the 15th. How are you? I feel good, I only miss that di-jew. You know him, don’t you? Today I wanted to come home, but the whole battalion is banned from going out, because we are confined to barracks. But on Sunday I will come out, if possible. If not, then as we agreed last week, that is, come at five, but first look in on us.
What is your mother doing? Is she already well?
There is no more news, so I close my lines.
Kisses and embraces from your loving Károly.
Greetings to your mother, Veronika and Mariska.
Be good, you go-er.

Previous letters (indicated in grey on the map): • Budapest, 28 November 1914 • Budapest, 27 November 1914 • Budapest, 18 November 1914 • Budapest, 27 October 1914 • Debrecen, 25 September 1914 • Szerencs, 28 August 1914

“This day is a feast”

[The vague and groundless rumors only add to the uncertainty of the soldiers. If on 15 December they get the grey, that is, the marching uniform ready for the front, then there will not be enough time to leave before Christmas. Or, on the contrary, there is enough time to be delivered to the front before the holiday.

On the northern front perhaps they slowly succeed to force back the Russian troops over the ridge of the Carpathians. This is why they are still waiting in the barracks, albeit in grey, and secretly hoping that the substitute battalions, marching sections, marching battalions, insurgents, and other units indecipherable for the civilians, trained to fill up the 1st Hungarian Royal Infantry Regiment, will remain in Budapest until Christmas.

After so long a time it is difficult to find out what those affectionate abbreviations mean. We do not even try.


And finally a photo, also from the bottom of a shoebox. It represents those mentioned in the farewell at the end of the postcard: to the left, the ever-ailing mother, and to the right, Antónia (Janka). The two girls in the middle are Mariska and Veronika (or vice versa?)]

Next postcard: 11 December 1914