Poemas del río Wang: Pink postcards 13

Date 11 Jan [1915]

Field post. 14.

Name of the sender: Károly Timó, 1st Infantry Regiment, 5th Battalion
Address of the sender: 6th company, 3rd platoon

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

Previous letters (gray dots):

• Felsőhunkóc, 4 January 1915
• Sztropkó, 31 December 1914
• Budapest, 23 December 1914
• Budapest, 21 December 1914
• Budapest, 11 December 1914
• Budapest, 2 December 1914
• Budapest, 28 November 1914
• Budapest, 27 November 1914
• Budapest, 18 November 1914
• Budapest, 27 October 1914
• Debrecen, 25 September 1914
• Szerencs, 28 August 1914

My dear son
I write these few lines in health, which I wish to you as well. We have suffered a lot from the great mud, but this is not such a big problem, let there be no bigger. Now we are in a village, we have a few days rest, and then we will start the work again. How are you at home, are you working? Have you received my letters? Now you can already write me. What are my parents doing? I ask because perhaps they do not receive my postcards. What do you hear about peace at home? Because I do not know anything. I greet you and everyone. Embraces and kisses from your loving Károly
bye bye, see us soon

[“From the Budapest headquarters we report to the soldiers of the First Infantry Regiment of Budapest, somewhere around the Dukla and Uzsok Passes, that the players of our literature fight with varying success on the war front.

Aladár Kuncz and Andor Németh missed the connection of the trains to the front, so they were interned by the enemy.
Mihály Babits, Béla Hamvas and Ernő Szép are already disillusioned with the rapid success. The latter still has his sword, but it wears a German inscription: Live and let live. The weapon itself will disappear only in a future, bigger war.
Béla Hamvas, this devout soldier gets along mentally quite well. Far away is the time, almost one year, when he, misunderstanding the offensive of some Brusilov, will collapse.
Géza Gyóni is continuously acquiring the ammunition for his defeatist poem in the fortress of Przemyśl. At least he is still living, but we suspect that he would hardly stand the circumstances of a possible captivity.
In the hinterland, Frigyes Karinthy and his influential acquaintances fight a successful war against the offensives attacking in the form of call-ups. Mihály Babits and the unruly Endre Ady have long been revised.
Regarding the request of private Károly Timó, special effort will be made to drown our soldiers in the mud, rather than in the frosty snowfalls coming with beautiful dreams. Unfortunately, in consequence I have to reply that snow-winged peace is yet to be expected. By the way, Endre Nagy diligently writes his field postcards to his wife, just like you, honorable Mr. Soldier.
On 10 January of this year I have inspected the exhibition of the Petőfi Museum of Literature on the fate of the Hungarian writers in the great war, and I decided to give one more year to this exhibition, full of all sorts of bad scribblers. Their Deckungs are a bit impractical, some exhibition labyrinths compiled by way of idealistic Potemkin walls, not nearly as practical, as ours in the previous post. If the next year takes place in this spirit, too, then I will have recourse to the competent authority, and have the exhibition closed on 10 January 2016.

And Károly! You braid-maker! If in the mountain passes you meet a certain soldier called Nick Bottom (the devil knows how he got such a civilian name), tell him that it will be good to take care of him!

Höfer, Lt.Gen.
Deputy Chief of the General Staff”

This part of the daily war reports somehow was not included in the published official version.]