This commemorates the death of the emperor on 21 November 1916. He had reigned from 1848 - longer than Queen Victoria! An impressive individual, much loved by his people, he led a relatively spartan life which was full of tragedy, what with the suicide of his son, the assassination of his wife and the death by firing squad of his brother.

This commemorates the death of the emperor on 21 November 1916. He had reigned from 1848 - longer than Queen Victoria! An impressive individual, much loved by his people, he led a relatively spartan life which was full of tragedy, what with the suicide of his son, the assassination of his wife and the death by firing squad of his brother.

This commemorates the death of the emperor on 21 November 1916. He had reigned from 1848 - longer than Queen Victoria! An impressive individual, much loved by his people, he led a relatively spartan life which was full of tragedy, what with the suicide of his son, the assassination of his wife and the death by firing squad of his brother.

This commemorates the death of the emperor on 21 November 1916. He had reigned from 1848 - longer than Queen Victoria! An impressive individual, much loved by his people, he led a relatively spartan life which was full of tragedy, what with the suicide of his son, the assassination of his wife and the death by firing squad of his brother.

This cap badge, in what appears to be gilding metal, commemorates a cavalry unit, possibly of mixed German and Austrian composition, commanded by General Herberstein. The unit almost certainly served on the Russian Front. There is an Austrian eagle on one side and a German Imperial one on the other.

This commemorates the winter and spring campaign in the Carpathian mountains in 1915, when Austria battled manfully against Russian assaults, initially with very little German support. Austrian losses by this point reached nearly two million men in dead, wounded and taken prisoner.

This enamelled officer's badge would have been worn by personnel serving at the Grimmenstein Sanatorium in 1917. It is a magnificent example of what perhaps is the earliest display of Art Deco motif, predating the widespread use of this sort of imagery by some years.

This, I am fairly sure, is an Austrian example, though there is an outside chance that it could be generic, produced for both Austrian and German veterans. There is apparently a Hungarian example, very similar to this but with Hungarian wording on the cross and more detail, which makes it more likely that this badge is Austrian.

This may be merely a commemorative buttonhole for the first two years of the war, but the central position of the number 19 on a red ground within a white cross and the colour of the wreath in white metal suggests that this might be Archduke Franz Ferdinand's regiment number 19, a Hungarian regiment based on Gyor.

This commemorates the famous treaty between the Bolsheviks and the Central Alliance, by which Lenin agreed to a comprehensive peace which ceded most of the Baltic states, Poland and much of the Ukraine to Germany. This was the treaty which enabled the famous March offensive of 1918 to take place, which nearly won the war for Germany.