Today -100: January 29, 1915: Of zeppelins, valkyries, duels, birthdays, and fertilizerers

Carranza recaptures Mexico City.

Russia will put a captured zeppelin crew on trial for bombing an undefended town.

The opera house in occupied Lille gives a performance of Wagner’s Die Walküre in honor of Kaiser Wilhelm’s birthday. The French locals are invited but refuse to go.

Peru’s foreign minister resigns in order, I guess, to fight a duel, in which he is seriously wounded. The NYT doesn’t feel a need to find out the cause of the duel, or to follow up the story.

The French War Office announces: “On the heights of the Meuse, opposite the French position at Eparges, German soldiers during the celebration yesterday of Kaiser Wilhelm’s birthday began singing the Marseillaise to the accompaniment of fifes and drums. A violent fire from the French troops silenced them.” So probably no present either.

Headline of the Day -100: “Offer Strikers More Pay.” This is the New Jersey fertilizer plant where deputy sheriffs shot up strikers, killing five. The NYT seems to have conveniently forgotten that the fertilizerers are striking against a pay cut, so the “more pay” being offered by the company is actually a 10% pay cut rather than the 20% pay cut. The union rejects the offer.

Fertilizerers is the word for people who work in a fertilizer factory, right?

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