Today -100: August 22, 1915: Of declarations of war, pales, fresh sacrifices, sublime days, and deaf drivers

Italy declares war on Turkey. Italy’s complaints: Turkey is fomenting revolt in the Italian colony of Libya, and it won’t let Italians leave Syria.

Russia loosens its restrictions on where Jews can live, since most of the Pale of Settlement is either occupied by German troops or an active war zone. They still won’t be allowed in Moscow or Petrograd or in the vicinity of the tsar’s various residences, because you have to have some standards.

Some people want the US to respond to the sinking of the Arabic by expelling the German ambassador. Theodore Roosevelt, not surprisingly, thinks this is not sufficient and would, indeed, be “a fresh sacrifice of American honor and interest.” he says the time for words has “long passed,” but doesn’t spell out what the US should do, although I think we can guess.

Germany captures the fortress Novo Georgievsk, or as Kaiser Wilhelm puts it, “It was a sublime day, for which I humbly thank God. The booty in Kovno has increased to 600 guns.” It’s not often you hear someone use the words “sublime,” “humbly thank God” and “booty” so close together, except maybe in rap songs.

A member of the Russian Duma named Alexandrof will be prosecuted for publishing an article before the war predicting war between Germany and Russia.

New Jersey’s DMV commissioner rules that deaf people can’t have driver licenses.

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