Today -100: January 2, 1919: Of incontestable rights, German towns, royal marriages, and the emperor’s old clothes

French Foreign Minister Stephen Pichon asserts France’s “incontestable” rights in Armenia, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, which are based “on historic conventions and on more recent contracts.” The historic conventions go back to the Crusades, or something, while the “more recent contracts” means the 1915 secret treaty with Britain, which may or may not be the first time everyone else (including the populations of Armenia, Syria, etc) are hearing about them, in which the two colonial powers divided up the Ottoman Empire between themselves.

Germany declares martial law in Posen, claiming it is because of pogroms against Jews, but Poles say the disturbances were started by German soldiers shouting “Posen is a German town” and singing Deutschland über Alles, which provoked a riot to which the soldiers responded with machine guns.

British newspapers are discussing the marriage prospects of the Edward, the 24-year-old Prince of Wales, now that there are fewer royal families to interbreed with than there used to be. The Daily Express thinks it would be great if he’d marry an American. Spoiler Alert: the Daily Express is wrong.

Headline of the Day -100:

Kinky.

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