Today -100: December 20, 1916: No one is duped by Germany’s manoeuver

French Prime Minister Aristide Briand says the Allies will offer a united rejection of Germany’s proposal for peace talks. “No one is duped by Germany’s manoeuver,” he says. He rejects the idea that the war was imposed on Germany, insisting that Germany, in fact, decided on this war 40 years ago, it’s on their Google Calendar and everything.

David Lloyd George has been prime minister for a while but he’s been too ill for public appearances. Now makes a speech to Parliament pissing on Germany’s offer of peace talks. “There has been some talk about the proposals of peace. What are those proposals? There are none.” (He’s not wrong). And going to a conference without having seen German proposals in advance would be “putting our heads into a noose with the rope end in the hands of the Germans.” He says Britain’s terms are “restitution, reparation, guarantees against repetition,” which is a B- attempt at alliteration.

Lloyd George will set up a registration for national non-military service under Birmingham mayor Neville Chamberlain, possibly leading to industrial conscription if enough volunteers do not come forward.

Prohibition fails in the Boston elections, by a larger margin than last year. And the Senate deadlocks on whether to hold a referendum on prohibition in Washington DC. Before the measure failed, an amendment was accepted to let women vote in the referendum.

Headline of the Day -100:

French flying ace Louis Robert de Beauchamp, who died a couple of weeks ago, is said to have done this last year.

Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington arrives in New York. She plans to tell the American people all about how the Brits murdered her husband during the Easter Rising in Dublin. The authorities refused her a passport, but she got here anyway. “I used my experience as a suffragette, and as one who has been in jail and knows the stupidity of the English policemen, to elude the spies and come to New York City”.

Australia bans the Industrial Workers of the World.

Stanley Millstein and Charles Kumrow, young men (19 and 20) convicted for murder (separate murders) insisted on being executed early so their funerals could be held before Christmas.

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