Today -100: February 26, 1918: He was in favor of revolutionary phrases before he was against them

Lenin writes in Pravda that the only people who think it was possible to refuse the German terms are “those who are intoxicated by revolutionary phrases. ... Only a blind man or men infatuated by phrases can fail to see that the policy of a revolution war without an army is water in the bourgeois mill.” He talks a lot about “phrases” and the men who love them. He means Trotsky.

The Wisconsin State Senate votes 26-3 to condemn Sen. Robert La Follette’s failure to support the war, and all others who “have failed to see the righteousness of our nation’s cause”.

Japan will send troops into Siberia to aid the Cossacks against the Bolsheviks. It will change that rationale to something a little less blatant in the days ahead.

An earthquake in China earlier this month is reported to have killed 10,000. Think there’ll be a follow-up to today -100’s 3-paragraph story? (Spoiler Alert: Nope, at least not by March 4).

Headline of the Day -100:

Not a metaphor!

And a new issue of The B.E.F. Times (formerly the The Wipers Times) is out.

The British trench paper suggests suggests that “there is so much that might be improved, and so many little inconveniences which might be done away with, if there were a better understanding on both sides.” It offers some ground rules for shelling:

1. No shelling will take place between the hours of 11 pm and 7 am.
2. Parties wishing to shell will notify their opponents of the exact hour and place to be shelled by sending over a dud T.M. [trench mortar] at a stipulated spot with a note inside.
3. Any sheller sending his obus [shell] into any H.Q. or dug-out will forfeit two turns.
4. A shellee on being struck by his opponent will immediately retire from the contest. ...
7. Unlimited whisky to be supplied at the 19th hole by the losing side.

Fake ad from Souvenir Manufacturing Company (“To please your best girl, it is clear, You must procure a souvenir.”)

German shoulder straps: 1s each or 10s a dozen
Ditto, Bloodstained: 1/6 each of 15s a dozen
Shell holes, complete: 50s each
Duckboards – English: 5s each
Ditto German: 10s each
Iron crosses: 6d a gross
Our specialty: bullets carefully fixed in bibles (for maiden aunts)

And Royal Pinolia Coy advertises products to preserve manly beauty such as “Our patent bomb-tongs... No more broken nails.”

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