Today -100: August 20, 1914: We are getting the best of it

Pope Piux X has died. Supposedly the 79-year-old pope died from heartbreak over his lack of ability to prevent the slaughter of the Great War.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day, Atrocities Division: Italians say they were forced out of Germany at gunpoint, starved along the way, and shot when they shouted “Viva Italia!” on being told they were finally being permitted to leave Germany.  German newspapers say that German women were dragged naked by their hair in Antwerp and elsewhere in Belgium and German children were thrown out of windows.  And the (London) Daily Mail repeats a Russian report that Czech and Polish troops in the Austrian army rebelled, shot down their officers, and held Prague for like a day before the Austrians retook the city and slaughtered and pillaged and raped and blah blah blahed.

Fog of War?  Germany purportedly tried to bribe Greece into entering the war on its side by offering it Serbian Macedonia and the Aegean Islands (which Greece already occupied in the last Balkan War, or maybe the one before that).  Greece rejected the offer after hearing that Germany was also offering the Aegean Islands (and Salonika) to Turkey if it joined them.

A French aviator drops leaflets on besieged Liège reading “Keep up your courage, people of Liège.  We are getting the best of it.”

A battle between Mexican horse thieves and Arizona sheriff’s deputies in Devil’s Canyon resulted in the deaths of two of the former and one of the latter.  Later in the day an ambush by the Mexicans resulted in one bandit being killed.  Then, a fight with a posse killed two on each side.  White residents of Ray then invaded the Mexican side of town, killing 7 more and driving the rest into the hills.  Whites are now looking for more Mexicans to kill, as is the custom.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.