Today -100: March 2, 1918: Of peace talks, barbed wire, Broadway lights, and kats

A rather unclear message from Brest-Litovsk leads the Russian government to believe that the Germans have broken off peace talks. At any rate, Germany plans to keep invading right up to the signing of the peace treaty. Petrograd prepares for a siege.

The Allies ask Japan to invade Russia to secure Allied interests – protecting weapons stores in Vladivostok, that sort of thing – and certainly not to help overthrow the Bolshevik government, furthest thing from our minds.

The Cologne Gazette “reports” that New York City is now completely surrounded by 1,000 km of barbed wire fencing and that Hoboken is now empty because all the Germans have been forced out.

Austria will start drafting 17-year-olds.

Broadway theaters are allowed to turn their lights on again, the warmer weather having mitigated the coal shortage.

I’d forgotten about the new literacy requirement for immigrants, passed over Pres. Wilson’s veto. Roberto Piccinini of the Bronx has his citizenship blocked because he spelled cat with a K.

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