In Austria, foreign military attachés noticed that the multilingual ideal was rarely attained in practice; theoretically, the men in a Slovenian regiment, for example, would speak Slovenian among themselves but be commanded in German. The troops therefore learned a few dozen phrases in German, but officers in such a regiment were expected to be fluent in Slovenian in order to explain complicated matters and build esprit de corps with their men. In reality, the largely German officer corps would lean hard on cheat sheets like Military Slovenian: A Handbook, which contained useful phrases including "Shut your mouth," "Don't speak unless spoken to," "Wait for me in my office," "No smoking in the stables," and "Do you still not understand?"
- from A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire, Geoffrey Wawro, 34-35
