Today -100: May 11, 1916: I haven’t any interest in ultimatums that fail to ultimate

Theodore Roosevelt comments on Wilson’s last note to Germany on submarine warfare: “I haven’t any interest in ultimatums that fail to ultimate.”

George Bernard Shaw protests the executions of leaders of the Easter Rising, who he says were prisoners of war and who had as much right to resist British rule as the English would if invaded by Germany. The executions, he says, are canonizing the prisoners. “It is absolutely impossible to slaughter a man in this position without making him a martyr and a hero, even though the day before the rising he may have been only a minor poet.” Ouch with the literary criticism, dude.

The British government finally admits that Francis Sheehy-Skeffington and two other journalists were executed at the Portobello Barracks before martial law was declared (i.e., illegally) and that they were ordered by a captain without the authorization of his superiors. He will be court-martialed...

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.