Today -100: January 28, 1915: Of vetoes, cakes, canals, and long letters

The German occupiers sentence the wife of the Greek consul at Liège, Belgium to 3 years for helping Belgians escape.

Woodrow Wilson will veto the immigration bill because of the literacy provision, just as Taft did two years ago. He believes it would prevent entry of political refugees and others who would make good American citizens.

Kaiser Wilhelm claims to be setting an example by eating the same adulterated crap he’s forcing on his people. No cakes or whipped cream. And it’s his birthday too.

I’d totally forgotten that Italy still had a formal alliance with Germany and Austria, which didn’t kick in when those two countries went to war because it’s a purely defensive alliance. Anyway, as Italy is evidently now making preparations to go to war with Austria, Germany threatens to renounce the Triple Alliance and consider Italy an enemy if it doesn’t stop.

Turkish troops begin an attempt to seize the Suez Canal. It’s not going too well.

Mexico’s Provisional President Garza’s presidency gets more provisional as he flees Mexico City to establish a new capital at Cuernavaca.

British literary dude Edmund Gosse sent a letter to his friend, British literary dude Compton Mackenzie (neither of whose names is spelled correctly in the NYT) in Italy, only to have the censor complain that it was too long and threatening not to deliver such lengthy missives in the future.

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