Italian poet/playwright/proto-fascist/pilot Capt. Gabriele d'Annunzio leads 9 planes (8?) on a 700-mile mission to drop 50,000 pamphlets on Vienna, which he wrote himself but didn’t bother to get translated. In them he informs the Viennese, “On this August morning, while the fourth year of your desperate convulsion comes to an end and luminously begins the year of our full power, suddenly there appears the three-color wing as an indication of the destiny that is turning. ... On the wind of victory that rises from freedom's rivers, we didn't come except for the joy of the daring, we didn't come except to prove what we could venture and do whenever we want, in an hour of our choice.” In other words, we can bomb Vienna if we want to.
R. H. Bruce Lockhart, acting consul general in Moscow, and members of his staff are arrested by the Soviet authorities. The British claim it is in reprisal for the landing at Archangel. In fact, Lockhart and Sidney “Ace of Spies” Reilly (not arrested) had been plotting a coup against the Soviet regime and the assassination of Lenin.
The British at Archangel, Murmansk and Vladivostok put out a declaration that the Allies have only invaded “as friends to help you save yourselves from dismemberment and destruction at the hands of Germany” and they don’t intend to impose a government on Russia (hah!). “Our one desire is to see Russia strong and free, and then to retire to watch the Russian people work out their own destinies.”
The US Food Administration lifts restrictions on beef consumption, including rationing to households and limits in restaurants.
Nothing about the Battle of Amiens, then? It seems to have been rather important.
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