Today -100: August 22, 1914: Of indemnities, peace, linoleum, splashes, and chaunceys

Germany imposes a war levy of $40 million on Brussels and $10 million on Liège, in violation of the rules of war as codified by the Hague Conference of 1899.  Bakers in Brussels will be required to supply the Germany Army with bread, at local prices. Various other goods, including cars and horses, are being “bought” at fixed prices by the Germans. Prominent Brusselèèrs have been taken hostage against the good behaviour of the populace.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Peace in Santo Domingo.”  The first sentence elaborates: “Peace plans, supported by the guns of American warships and a regiment of marines, have been agreed upon by the warring factions in Santo Domingo.”  Because nothing says peace like American warships and marines.

Japan’s ultimatum to Germany over Kiautschou (which has expired, unanswered) is freaking out some Americans.  Sen. Jacob Gallinger (R-NH) offers a resolution supporting the territorial integrity of China, which is evidently threatened when Japan holds a piece of it but not when Germany does.  Gallinger thinks Japan intends to seize every Pacific island between Japan and San Francisco.  The US has told Japan that it “understands” that Japan will confine any military actions to Kiautschou and if it plans to go beyond that at any point it needs to consult with the US first.

The war has struck home for Americans: it may affect linoleum manufacturing, which depends on imports of burlap from Scotland, where all the workers are now off at war, and those plants are in turn dependent on jute from India, which was transported on German ships before the war.

Orville Wright, flying a hydroplane with an army lieutenant as passenger, splashes down unexpectedly in the Miami River (Ohio), and they have to swim ashore.

Theodore Roosevelt takes back his endorsement of the alliterative Harvey Hinman for governor of New York.  Hinman will be the Republican candidate, but now the Progressive Party has to find its own candidate.  One possibility is Chauncey J. Hamlin.  I don’t know who Chauncey J. Hamlin is, but he is our Name of the Day -100.  Chauncey J. Hamlin.

Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan says of the Constitutionalist victory in Mexico, “Watchful waiting wins in Mexico.”

This is a genuine advertisement at the bottom of the NYT’s front page:

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Today -100: August 21, 1914: Of triumphal entries, bayonet teeth, unimportant occupations, neutrality, and black popes

Venustiano Carranza enters Mexico City in triumph, occupies the National Palace, does the balcony thing, etc.

William Randolph Hearst is in negotiations with Tammany Hall to be the Democratic candidate for US senator from New York.

The Germans are said to be using bayonets with teeth on ‘em, the better to tear your skin.  On the other hand, Prussian bullets are extremely pointy and so are more likely to pass through bodies cleanly and not need to be extracted.

Belgian troops are retreating before the massive German influx.  The British embassy in the US claims that because the government had already left Brussels and the city was undefended, its occupation by the Germans “is not of great importance.”  The Brusselèèrs might disagree.

Fog(gy Demographics) of War of the Day -100: The German government is evidently circulating the claim that there are 33 million people of German descent in the US, so it will never go to war against Germany.

China, believing for some reason that if Japan gets hold of the German colony of Kiautschou, it might decide to keep it rather than handing it back to China like it says it will do – eventually – suggests that Kiautschou go instead to the United States, which would give it to China.

Germans from German East Africa (aka Tanganyika, now Tanzania) raid British Kenya and steal some cattle.

The US issues another neutrality proclamation, this one for the war between Germany and Belgium.  A reminder that this is still officially a bunch of separate wars.  Austria, for instance, hasn’t declared war on Belgium yet, but will in a day or two.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Germany supposedly shot a blind Alsatian bishop as a spy.

Unlikely Headline of the Day -100: “Death of Pope May Aid Peace.”

The Vatican is asking the warring European countries whether they will allow the cardinals to go to Rome to elect a new pope.  Presumably they will, but will be less accommodating to the guys who need to come to Rome to elect a new head of the Jesuits (who is called a Black Pope)(whoops, Wikipedia says that term is derogatory) to replace the one who died at the same time as Pope Pius.  That election may need to await the end of the war. (Spoiler Alert: it won’t.)

IWWer Becky Edelson is released from prison on a bond collected by her friends who were afraid she’ would fast to death.  Supposedly she has hunger-struck for 37 days and not been forcibly fed.

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Today -100: August 20, 1914: We are getting the best of it

Pope Piux X has died. Supposedly the 79-year-old pope died from heartbreak over his lack of ability to prevent the slaughter of the Great War.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day, Atrocities Division: Italians say they were forced out of Germany at gunpoint, starved along the way, and shot when they shouted “Viva Italia!” on being told they were finally being permitted to leave Germany.  German newspapers say that German women were dragged naked by their hair in Antwerp and elsewhere in Belgium and German children were thrown out of windows.  And the (London) Daily Mail repeats a Russian report that Czech and Polish troops in the Austrian army rebelled, shot down their officers, and held Prague for like a day before the Austrians retook the city and slaughtered and pillaged and raped and blah blah blahed.

Fog of War?  Germany purportedly tried to bribe Greece into entering the war on its side by offering it Serbian Macedonia and the Aegean Islands (which Greece already occupied in the last Balkan War, or maybe the one before that).  Greece rejected the offer after hearing that Germany was also offering the Aegean Islands (and Salonika) to Turkey if it joined them.

A French aviator drops leaflets on besieged Liège reading “Keep up your courage, people of Liège.  We are getting the best of it.”

A battle between Mexican horse thieves and Arizona sheriff’s deputies in Devil’s Canyon resulted in the deaths of two of the former and one of the latter.  Later in the day an ambush by the Mexicans resulted in one bandit being killed.  Then, a fight with a posse killed two on each side.  White residents of Ray then invaded the Mexican side of town, killing 7 more and driving the rest into the hills.  Whites are now looking for more Mexicans to kill, as is the custom.

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Today -100: August 19, 1914: Be neutral in fact as well as in name

Woodrow Wilson chooses Attorney General James McReynolds for the empty seat on the Supreme Court.  Mostly so he doesn’t have to deal with the thoroughly unpleasant McReynolds in Cabinet anymore.  There really doesn’t seem to have been any more thought behind it than that.  Wilson chose a lot more carefully for the next vacancy, appointing Louis Brandeis in 1916, which made for some awkwardness because McReynolds was a HUUUUGE anti-Semite.  Wouldn’t even talk to Jews, including fellow justices, or listen when a woman lawyer was speaking.

Woodrow Wilson addresses the nation, asking Americans to censor themselves in the name of neutrality:

The effect of the war upon the United States will depend upon what American citizens say and do. Every man who really loves America will act and speak in the true spirit of neutrality, which is the spirit of impartiality and fairness and friendliness to all concerned. The spirit of the nation in this critical matter will be determined largely by what individuals and society and those gathered in public meetings do and say, upon what newspapers and magazines contain, upon what ministers utter in their pulpits, and men proclaim as their opinions upon the street.
   
The people of the United States are drawn from many nations, and chiefly from the nations now at war. It is natural and inevitable that there should be the utmost variety of sympathy and desire among them with regard to the issues and circumstances of the conflict. Some will wish one nation, others another, to succeed in the momentous struggle. It will be easy to excite passion and difficult to allay it. Those responsible for exciting it will assume a heavy responsibility, responsibility for no less a thing than that the people of the United States, whose love of their country and whose loyalty to its government should unite them as Americans all, bound in honor and affection to think first of her and her interests, may be divided in camps of hostile opinion, hot against each other, involved in the war itself in impulse and opinion if not in action.
   
Such divisions amongst us would be fatal to our peace of mind and might seriously stand in the way of the proper performance of our duty as the one great nation at peace, the one people holding itself ready to play a part of impartial mediation and speak the counsels of peace and accommodation, not as a partisan, but as a friend. 

I venture, therefore, my fellow countrymen, to speak a solemn word of warning to you against that deepest, most subtle, most essential breach of neutrality which may spring out of partisanship, out of passionately taking sides. The United States must be neutral in fact, as well as in name, during these days that are to try men's souls. We must be impartial in thought, as well as action, must put a curb upon our sentiments, as well as upon every transaction that might be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle before another.

Wilson signs an amendment to the Panama Canal Act to give foreign-built ships US registry.  This will allow German ships which were caught on the wrong side of the Atlantic when the war started to be sold to Americans without being sunk by the British (who insist that the sales of the ships be permanent and not a ruse to avoid being sunk).

Evidently a couple of weeks ago Wilson rejected calls from President Carbajal (and even from a majority of his own cabinet) to send troops to Mexican City to “preserve order” during the Constitutionalist takeover.

The first British forces arrive in France. Field Marshal Kitchener warns the troops, “you may find temptation both in wine and women. You must entirely resist both temptations, and, while treating all women with perfect courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy.”

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times):  “Swordsmen on Aircraft.”
According to the LAT (and it’s smudged, so I may have the spellings wrong), “Georges Breitmayer and Rouselei Lorcieres, two of the most celebrated swordsmen in France, have enlisted to work machine guns aboard air craft.”

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: the German crown prince is reported wounded.

Fog of War: German troops reportedly burned the town of Bruzweiler and blew up its factories because a German patrol was fired on.  I can’t find evidence that this town ever actually existed.

Fog of War: The London Daily Mail claims that the German General Staff has warned against the “lunatic frenzy” in which automobiles suspected of carrying spies are attacked in Germany, resulting in the recent deaths of 2 officers, 3 chauffeurs, some soldiers, 2 civilians and an Austrian countess.

A letter to the NYT says that panhandlers are pretending to be stranded European army reservists asking for a loan for passage to go home and fight.

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Today -100: August 18, 1914: Of war and, you know, rumors of war

Turkish troops may be marching towards Greece.

Russia demands that Turkey grant its ships free passage through the Dardanelles.

The US is now in charge of the diplomatic interests of Russia, as well as those of every other country in the war except Serbia and Montenegro.

France and Russia come to an agreement whereby France will be nice to any Polish POWs from Austria it captures and Russia will be kind to any POWs it captures from Alsace-Lorraine.

The Belgian government abandons Brussels, moving to Antwerp.

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Today -100: August 17, 1914: Of ultimata and kings

Japan gives Germany an ultimatum: remove your navy from Japanese and Chinese waters and to turn over to Japan your colony (“concession”) in China, Kiautschou, “without condition or compensation.”  Japan will give it back to China, you know, eventually.

Austria, jumping the gun a little on annexing Russian Poland, names a King of Poland, the Archduke Karl Stephan.  This may be a rumor or someone floating a kite.  So Russia’s offering the Poles “autonomy,” and Austria is offering them... another Habsburg.

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Today -100: August 16, 1914: Russia expects from you only the loyalty to which history has bound you

The Panama Canal officially opens.

Former NY Gov. Sulzer, impeached last year, is chosen as the Prohibition Party’s candidate for governor, although he refused to sign a pledge of personal total abstinence (though he does claim to be a teetotaler).  “He advised the members of the committee that it would be poor politics to take any such step.  There were several who disagreed with him.”

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Germany is said to be imprisoning all Russians in the Reich, because Czar Nicholas threatened to send all Germans to Siberia.

Germans are taking mayors, prefects, priests etc of Belgian towns hostage to ensure the towns’ good behaviour.  They’ve supposedly executed a priest.  In each town troops enter they post a proclamation: “The Kaiser Liberator [!] is the champion of the small nations of Europe against the [unreadable, possibly despotic something] of barbarian Russia.”  Another story, which I can confirm, unlike the priest one, is that 11 men were shot in Linsmeau (the gruesome details given in the NYT I’m less sure about).

Russia promises autonomy to the Poles, as well as freedom of language and religion.  After the war, of course.  And the Poles will get “unity,” which either means Russia acquiring Austria’s and maybe Germany’s Polish provinces or possibly treating the Polish parts of Russia as a single unit.  “Russia expects from you only the loyalty to which history has bound you.”  In other words, they’ll still be ruled by the czar.  Also, the Russian army has been ordered not to harm any Poles.  Meanwhile the German Army, moving into Russian Polish territory, issues a proclamation which on one side of the page offers jewels to the Catholic Church and the Madonna, and on the other threatens to blow up any house from which someone fires at German troops.  Poles are meanwhile taking advantage of the weakening of Russian authority to re-establish Polish local governments.

The Russian government is telling all its soldiers and peasants that there’s a solar eclipse coming and that it’s a natural phenomenon, not an evil omen.  A likely story.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Belgian Boy Princes Saddened By the War.”

The Senate passes a bill to regulate opiates, although there’s a loophole for products with under 2 grains of opium, ¼ grain of morphine, or 1 grain of cocaine.  Which would be “soothing syrups” for babies, harmless stuff like that.

The Constitutionalist army enters Mexico City, without a shot fired.

Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands will live the “simple life” during the war.

Secretary of State Bryan says that foreign reservists living in the US cannot be forced to return to their home countries to serve in the military.

The State Dept also says that it would prefer banks not make loans to any of the warring countries.  While not having the power to block such loans, it says they are “inconsistent with the true spirit of neutrality.”  So J. P. Morgan won’t give France a loan, it will give it a “commercial credit.”

Headline of the Day -100:  “Horse Kicks Boy in Buggy.”  Sounds like a euphemism.

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Today -100: August 15, 1914: Of a half Asiatic and slightly cultured barbarism

Headline of the Day -100:  “3,000 in Forts Harass 250,000.”  Liège continues to hold out.

There was an article about censorship of war news in Russia yesterday, and one about Austria today. The civilians of both countries are being kept in absolute ignorance of who’s fighting where and how they’re doing.

Austria is evidently still trying to convince Italy that it is obligated by treaty to come to Austria’s aid.  This is only true if Austria is fighting a defensive war, but, Austria explains in a note to Italy, Britain declared war on it based on lies: “Austria’s war against Servia, an independent State, for a cause which did not affect international politics, cannot be considered as the cause for the present European war.”  And Austria’s declaration of war against Russia was purely defensive, because of Russian mobilization.

German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg also gives his interpretation of the causes of the war (hint: not Germany), asking the Americans to examine them with unprejudiced eyes: “The sympathy of the American nation will then lie with German culture and civilization, fighting against a half Asiatic and slightly cultured barbarism” (he means Russia).

Maj. Gen. von Bülow, brother of the former German chancellor, is killed in battle.  (Update: The Belgian story, which is a little too Boy’s Own to be true, will be that an 18-year-old Belgian soldier, the sole survivor of the Battle of Haelen, spotted a German officer reading a map, snuck up on him and shot him, then wore his uniform to slip through the German lines on his horse.  Also, there was $27,000 in cash in von Bülow’s pockets, which was appropriated for the Red Cross, and secret documents.)

German airplanes are reportedly dropping pamphlets on Russia’s Polish provinces, urging the Poles to revolt and promising them independence and liberty.

The NYT has stories asserting that the Russian Empire’s Finnish and Polish populations are entirely loyal to the Czar, no matter what you may have heard.

Turkey buys two cruisers from the Germans, and everyone (France, Britain, Russia, Greece, Italy) is quite upset by that.
The Austrian steamliner Baron Gautsch hits a mine off the Dalmatian coast and sinks, killing 150, half of its passengers.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: the London Times denounces rumors, including one that the Walton-on-the-Naze pier was blown up by the Germans. The rumor caused many holiday-makers to leave town.

Fog of War?  Supposedly the reason the Austrian Army hasn’t done much since the beginning of the war Austria started is that it’s been disintegrating into its constituent ethnic parts.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Fear Duty on New Clothes. Americans Who Lost Baggage on Continent Face a New Terror.”  Not a my-village-is-being-shelled terror, but an I-might-have-to-pay-40%-duties-on-clothes terror.

Married Canadian men volunteering for the war must get written permission from their wives.

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There is never an excuse for violence against police

Obama made a statement about the Ferguson, Missouri (or Fergy-MO) situation.

“It’s important to remember how this started. We lost a young man.”  We are sooooo careless like that.

“when something like this happens, the local authorities –- including the police -– have a responsibility to be open and transparent about how they are investigating that death, and how they are protecting the people in their communities.”  Well, the Fergy-MO PD shouldn’t be investigating it, as they have forfeited any credibility.  As for how they are “protecting” the people in their communities, well, there are few things as transparent in their intentions as machine guns and armored personnel carriers.

I just used the interjection “well” twice in that paragraph.  Can you tell I’m in the middle of reading Rick Perlsein on Reagan?

“There is never an excuse for violence against police...”  Self-defense against homicidal maniacs seems like a good excuse to me.

“And here, in the United States of America, police should not be bullying or arresting journalists who are just trying to do their jobs”.  But you’ll tell us in what countries it is okay for police to bully and arrest journalists, right?

“There are going to be different accounts of how this tragedy occurred.”  The police account, and the real one.

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Today -100: August 14, 1914: The future of Mexico is in the hands of God

Britain declares war on Austria.

The Netherlands, worried about a possible German invasion, flood some districts to a depth of three feet.

The paper continues to be full of smug stories about how badly the Germans are doing in Belgium.  The Morning Post (London) correspondent says, “Like an angry dog, faced by a porcupine with bristles, defiant at every point, the vaunted Prussian Army stands puzzled.”

From Punch:

(You can tell he’s German because of the sausages.)

Former Provisional President Francisco Carbajal didn’t resign before fleeing Mexico City, because Congress had dissolved and there was no one to resign to.  The rest of the cabinet has also vanished, as well as the federal army.  The army is declared officially dissolved, since you can’t have an army without a government.  That’s a bit worrying, since the former soldiers stripped the arsenals and took all the weapons with them. Says Carbajal: “The future of Mexico is in the hands of God.”

Secretary of State Bryan says that Americans should get passports before traveling abroad.  They cost $1.  He also advises that they should maybe stay out of countries which are at war.

Fog of War of the Day -100: The Daily Citizen (London) says German socialist leader Karl Liebknecht has been shot for refusing to serve in the military.  Nope.

The US Senate ratifies 18 of Bryan’s peace treaties.

The belligerent powers complain about US plans to censor wireless, noting that the British can get around it by simply sending their messages over the border to Canada for transmission.

Headline of the Day -100 (Memphis Commercial Appeal):  “Leg Dropped From Air. Hit a Negro At Prayer and Created More Consternation Than Any Other Event in History.”  In Mississippi, some men spotted a huge buzzard carrying something.  They shot at it, it dropped what turned out to be a white man’s leg onto the aforementioned negro, possibly scavenged from the battlefields of Mexico, and I don’t believe a word of this.

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Today -100: August 13, 1914: Of atrocities, safe shipping, mad princes, animated discussions, and monopolies

The French newspapers are accusing German soldiers of burning the Belgian village of Affléville and shooting three people who tried to put out the fire.  This one is actually true.

The British claim to have cleared the entire North Atlantic of German ships, so trans-Atlantic shipping should be entirely safe.  For some reason they fail to mention U-boats.

Britain bans the export of all foodstuffs.

The French government says German soldiers are shooting wounded French soldiers and are wearing Belgian uniforms.

Serb and Montenegrin troops mount a joint invasion of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia.

Headline of the Day -100:  “SERVIA'S MAD PRINCE HIT.; Wounded at Belgrade by Shell While Watching Bombardment.”  I didn’t even know Serbia had a mad prince.

Los Angeles Mayor Henry Rose asks “all good citizens to refrain from animated discussions of the war and its causes, or the merits and demerits of the nations engaged”.

Mexico: provisional prez Francisco Carbajal flees Mexico City, as was the custom for self-proclaimed presidents.

District Court orders the International Harvester Company broken up, as a monopoly in restraint of trade.  The court doesn’t find fault with most of its practices (except falsely advertising that one of the companies in the Trust was independent, to fool people boycotting the Trust into doing business with it), but says the setting up of the company in 1902 by the merger of five companies violated the law.  The NYT thinks the ruling is a blow against efficiency and large-scale production.

Warren D. Harding, as the NYT calls him, wins the Republican primary for US senator from Ohio.

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Today -100: August 12, 1914: Of silent wars, codes, mazatlans, war taxes, and last wars

Headline of the Day -100:  “NO BATTLE NEWS REACHING PARIS; Country Is Making War Silently.”  French war news, what little there is of it, doesn’t name individual units or generals, “indicating that there will be no war heroes until the war is over.”  (This article is a good example of how every story in the NYT that originates from one of the combatant countries takes up that country’s boasts and lies.  Evidently the French army will fight this war entirely on German soil, and the Germans can’t win against the French Army’s secret weapon – bayonets!)  France bans war correspondents except those of France and its allies, so no Americans.

Germany declares victory at Mülhausen, Alsace.  France denies that, and calls it Mulhouse.

Fog of War, Dispersed: Kaiser Wilhelm is still in his castle in Berlin, not leading his troops at the front.  he may be crazy, but he’s not stupid.

Germany asks Britain for permission to send telegraph messages in code to the US.  They may have more trouble with the US, which ordered the banning of military wireless messages (which it can do since such messages have to be relayed).

Mexico: the Constitutionalists occupy Mazatlan after the Federals flee.  Wasn’t there a major siege of Mazatlan a few weeks ago?  I’ve totally lost track of this.  15 Fed. officers and 2 soldiers are executed, and left all day in the, I assume, hot sun, as is the custom.

The US Border Patrol discovers a cable across the Rio Grande by which rifles were trollied into Mexico for Pancho Villa.

The US Congress will stay in session because it might need to pass what they’re calling a war tax, that is a tax to make up the tariff revenue lost due to the disruption in trade caused by the European war.

Headline of the Day -100:  “The Lusitania Safe.”  For now.  It arrives at Liverpool.

Switzerland, trying to buy respect for its neutrality, offers to take in the war wounded from every nation.

The America’s Cup race is put off until 1915.

The war still lacks a proper name.  The New York Sun suggests the Pan-European War.  The NYT thinks that’s too “learned” to catch on.  It hopes it will be called The Last War, since it’s beginning to look like H.G. Wells’ prophecies, but without atomic bombs.

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Today -100: August 11, 1914: Of Montene Grins, spies, and amnesties

Montenegrins (or as a typo in the NYT abstract puts it, Montene Grins, which is so much cheerier) capture Scutari, a town whose name I sort of hoped never to hear again after the Balkan Wars.

25,000 Americans are stuck in Germany.

France bans the publication of casualty lists.  And it sounds an awful lot like they don’t plan to contact the families of wounded or dead soldiers, but wait for them to make inquiries when they haven’t gotten a letter in a while.

Belgium has captured no fewer than 2,000 German spies, and shot 100 of them.  That’s a lot of spies.

France breaks off relations with Austria, claiming Austria broke its promise to stay out of the Franco-German war, because there are Austrian troops in Alsace.

Woodrow Wilson sends a commission to the Dominican Republic (consisting of the former governor of NJ, the ambassador to the DR, and a lawyer) to convey his plan for pacifying the country.  I’m sure the Dominicans will be thrilled.

The NYT is horrified at the notion that suffragists might not only ask politicians to support women’s suffrage, but to refrain from supporting other politicians who do not (after suffragists discover that NY gubernatorial candidate Harvey Hinman opposes their cause, they asked Theodore Roosevelt if he’d continue to back Hinman).

The British government orders the release from prison of all militant suffragists.  And a general amnesty for any past crimes, so Christabel Pankhurst can return from her Paris exile.  Some trades unionists in jail because of offenses related to strikes are also released.  No ordinary criminals.

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Today -100: August 10, 1914: A great work of revenge

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The Germans are (falsely) reported to be holding the governor of Liège and the bishop of Liège hostage, and will execute them if the forts continue to resist.

French troops have occupied Altkirch and Mülhausen in Alsace.  Gen. Joffre says that those troops are “pioneers in a great work of revenge” (for the defeat by Prussia in 1870).

French troops invade German Togoland from its colony Dahomey (now Benin) at the other end of Togoland from where British troops are invading from their Gold Coast colony.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit): A two-paragraph story reports in the first paragraph that Belgium has taken prisoner Prince George, nephew of Kaiser Wilhelm, and in the second paragraph that there is no such person as Prince George.

Fog of War: A two-paragraph story contains reports from two different sources saying that Kaiser Wilhelm is 1) driving to the front in Alsace, and 2) at Aix-la-Chapelle to join the army (probably not in a pick-up-a-rifle sort of way).

Fog of War??  A Belgian newspaper claims that the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg went to personally bar German soldiers entering the capital, and a German officer pointed a gun at her.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov tells the Duma that Austria started this war, and Russia’s conscience is clear.  Austria provoked internecine war between the Slavs, but “thanks be to God, she will not ruin the work of Slav unification.”

Dr. Roque Saenz Peña, President of Argentina, dies.

Two farmhands, a German and a Frenchman, employed at a farm in New Jersey, fight a duel over the relative merits of the armies of their home countries.  If you can call it a duel when they’re using shotguns and shooting from behind a cow shed and a chicken coop, respectively.  The German tricks the Frenchie into emptying his shotgun at a hat on a pitchfork, but they are stopped before anyone gets hurt.  “Both were reservists in their respective armies and it was believed a desire for target practice as much as anything else led them to fight.”

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Today -100: August 9, 1914: Thy mirth lay aside, thy cavil and play

Serbia declares war on Germany.

Austria invades Russia, burns some villages.

The war reaches Africa: British troops from the Gold Coast (now Ghana) attack German Togoland (now Togo) and seize Port Lome.

Never let it be said that the war isn’t affecting Americans too: many New York restaurants’ chefs are returning to France to fight, and the NYT is On It!

World War I will produce some great war poetry.  This, by the British Poet Laureate Robert Bridges, is not an example of that:

    Thou careless, awake!
      Thou peacemaker, fight!
    Stand, England, for honor,
         And God guard the right.

    Thy mirth lay aide,
      Thy cavil and play,
    The foe is upon thee
      And grave is the day.

    The monarch Ambition
      Has harnessed his slaves,
    But the folk of the ocean
      Are free as the waves

And it goes on like that.

Elsewhere, the NYT informs us that Serbia’s poetry is the most warlike in Europe.

The NYT correspondent briefly detained in Berlin as a suspected English spy has left the country and it’s probably a complete coincidence that today’s NYT headlines include “Berliners Turn Into Furies” and “Berlin Mad; Paris Quiet.”

The Netherlands, while officially neutral, is granting a harbor near Rotterdam to the Vulcan Company, which is evidently acting for Germany.  The Netherlands’ legal jurisdiction over the harbor will be limited.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Count Albert du Mun, a Conservative French MP, says he heard that some Danish children were pulled off a German train for shouting “Vive la France!” and shot.

The Sunday NY Times helpfully explains the latest art movement, Vorticism:  “What is Vorticism? Well, like Futurism, and Imagisme, and Cubism, essentially it is nonsense.”

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Today -100: August 8, 1914: Singing Germans are the worst kind

The Germans, still losing huge numbers trying to take Liège, Belgium, ask for a 24-hour armistice so they can retrieve their wounded and dead.  France awards Liège the Legion of Honor.  Germany says their failure to capture the city was not a defeat but “a unique act of heroism in the history of war and a sign of the heroic gallantry of our troops.”

The NYT notes that German cavalry haven’t been much seen in the Liège Siège Siege, but that motor trucks have changed warfare.

French troops have entered Belgium.

And Germany. Well, Alsace; France might argue about whether Alsace is Germany.

Montenegro declares war on Austria.

Germany and Austria are trying to bribe Italy to join the war with “territorial compensation.”  Tomorrow’s paper says this means colony(ies) (as opposed to Nice and Savoy, my first thought), but doesn’t say what colonies.  Tunisia would be my guess.  Anyway, Italy says no, claiming public opinion wouldn’t allow it.

Censorship is more stringent in Germany than, say, France, but the NYT (whose Berlin correspondent has already been arrested as a suspected spy and then released) did manage to get this story through: “Germany Goes Singing to War.”

The British Parliament passes the first Defence of the Realm Act (DORA), giving the government wide powers to prevent spying and, well, any other activity the government didn’t like.  Under another act passed 3 days ago, enemy aliens will have to register with the police and need permits to live in many prohibited areas.  Mass internment won’t be implemented until 1915, though.

Japan seems to have entered the war, sending ships to Tsingtao, the German-“leased” port in China (leased the same way Guantanamo is leased from Cuba).

Three negroes are lynched in Monroe, Louisiana in two separate lynchings for the same crime.

Mexican Federalists say they’ll fight the Constitutionalist entry into Mexico City unless concessions are made.  Constitutionalists say unless the city is surrendered, they will invoke an 1863 law and execute acting Pres. Carbajal and other officials.

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Today -100: August 7, 1914: I am confident that the ancient war-like spirit still lives in the German people

First Lady Ellen Wilson is dead. Congress was asked to cheer her up on her deathbed by passing her pet bill to clean up the alleys of the District of Columbia, and they did so yesterday, but she died anyway (Bright’s disease).

Austria declares war on Russia.

China declares neutrality.

Massive German bombardment of Liège, Belgium is beginning to destroy the forts protecting it.  Germans continue to lose thousands of troops in what was supposed to be a walkover on the way to Paris.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Le Figaro reports that Lt. Günter Freiherr von Forstner, whose thugishness in Zabern, Alsace created such a storm last December, has been captured by the Belgians.  He hasn’t been.

US immigration officials are considering whether to stop some of the European men returning to fight who are leaving their families behind and destitute.

The French Army is put under the command of Joseph Joffre.  “[I]t is a common saying in the army that when Gen. Joffre has once made up his mind nothing will force him to change it.”  Because mental inflexibility is just what you’re looking for in a supreme commander.  He also, the NYT informs us, has a “massive head,” the better to resist penetration by new information.

French Prime Minister Viviani appeals to the women of France to bring in the crops.

Kaiser Wilhelm appeals to all Germans (he means male Germans) capable of bearing arms to do so.  “I am confident that the ancient war-like spirit still lives in the German people”.  Spoiler Alert: it does.  “I know, if needed, each and all of you would die like heroes.”  What’s the German for “wait, what?”

André Michelin, of the French tire company and the guides, offers prizes of up to $20,000 for heroic acts by French military aviators.  Payable to their survivors, if they die all heroically.

The British Parliament votes a £500 million war budget, unanimously, and to increase the army by 500,000 men and the Royal Navy 67,000.

The ban on the importing of arms into Ireland is lifted.

Ramsay MacDonald, the future prime minister and bastard, resigns as leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party (the Labour MPs) because he more or less opposes the war.

So how are the British suffragists taking all this war stuff?  Most of their weekly papers are out today.  Today’s issue of the Women’s Social and Political Union’s paper, The Suffragette, shows how abruptly Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst reversed their position.  Christabel exults that by this war, “a man-made civilisation, hideous and cruel enough in the time of peace, is to be destroyed.”  She portrays the war as Nature’s and God’s vengeance on a people who held women in subjection, although the price of war, she says, will be mainly paid by those women.  This issue was printed but never distributed, because by the time publication day rolled around, she’d changed her mind and now supports the war.  Really supports the war.  Really REALLY supports the war.  It’ll be a few months before The Suffragette appears again, when it will be devoted to accusing certain members of the Liberal government of being insufficiently war-like and possibly German.

In the non-militant National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies’s Common Cause, President Millicent Garrett Fawcett says, “Let us show ourselves worthy of citizenship, whether our claim to it be recognised or not.”  But in the militant Women’s Freedom League’s The Vote, President Charlotte Despard says the “war hysteria” is a sign that materialism and physical force, the very things the women’s suffrage movement has been fighting, still rule.  Despard is the sister of Field Marshal Sir John French, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, and will repeatedly embarrass him by her anti-militarism throughout the war.  Heh heh.  Sylvia Pankhurst, in tomorrow’s Women’s Dreadnought, says that all the women’s organizations of the world call for peace (obviously, she’s not been talking with her mother and sister lately), but men-made governments “rush heedless on to war.”

The Boy Mayor of NYC issues a proclamation calling on New Yorkers not to parade in sympathy with any of the European combatants.  And no flags anywhere except American flags.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Natives Fight Over Roosevelt’s Hair.”  After he got a haircut in Brazil.

Name of the Day -100: Mina Van Winkle, President of the Women’s Political Union of New Jersey.  Supposedly, the suffragists in the state are trying to convert the wife of Gov. Fielder to the suffrage cause in order to get her to persuade him.  Not the most feminist tactic ever.

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Today -100: August 6, 1914: Of dogfights, ethnic cleansing, glasses, Liège sieges, kitcheners, and boxers

First Lady Ellen Wilson is sick.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The Daily Telegraph claims Italy is about to declare war on Austria.

More Fog of War??  Supposedly a German aviator and a Belgian aviator shot at each other, with revolvers.  No one was hurt.  I don’t think this really happened, but if it did it would have been the first ever aerial dogfight.

The Mexican Federal government’s council of war, consisting of 112 generals, which seems like a lot of generals to me, decides to surrender Mexico City unconditionally.

After anti-German rioting, Antwerp will expel all German residents.

The US may soon have a shortage of good-quality glasses lenses, as these come from Germany.

Belgium’s doing pretty well in the first battles.  It won’t last.  Germans besiege Liège, and if the Belgians didn’t want that to happen, they should have named it something less rhymey.

Britain claims that Germany had promised that it would not take territory from mainland France, but made no such promise about its colonies.

For the past few months, Prime Minister Asquith has also held the post of secretary of state for war, since J.E.B. Seeley resigned over the Curraugh Mutiny.  Now Britain needs a real one and it will be Horatio Herbert Kitchener, inventor of the concentration camp during the Boer War, as it probably says on his calling cards.

War measures in Austria: food price-gouging punishable by up to 1 year imprisonment; marriages may be performed without publication of bans.

Woodrow Wilson asks Austria, Germany, France, Britain and Russia if they’d like his help in ending the war, under the Hague Convention for settling international disputes (he didn’t ask Serbia, which is not a signatory).

Headline of the Day -100:  “French Repulse Germans.”  As is the custom.

The Lusitania has turned around and is coming back to some US port, fleeing two German cruisers.

LA Times columnist Harry Carr asks the important and not at all silly question:

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Today -100: August 5, 1914: With clear conscience and clean hands, we grasp the sword

Britain declares war on Germany, with 4 hours’ notice, at 11 p.m. on the 4th. It would have been midnight, when Britain’s ultimatum to Germany to leave Belgium expired, but by then the German ambassador had given back his passport preparatory to leaving the country, which was taken as a No.

Germany declares war on Belgium, invades.

Woodrow Wilson issues a neutrality proclamation.

William Howard Taft calls the war “a retrograde step in Christian civilization.”

300 to 400,000 people congregate in New York’s Times Square to read the NYT bulletins and celebrate, because everyone loves a retrograde step in Christian civilization. “While waiting for bulletins to be posted the crowds indulged in oratory and argument without limit. Almost every one in Times Square was either explaining just what the European situation was to a small audience or listening as one of an audience to some one else’s explanation. ... Each man talked as if he had done nothing since the Franco-Prussian war except study European geography, history, politics, and armament. When two debaters met it was a clash of incompatible but respectively unanswerable argument. ... There were arguments in German, French, Italian, Hungarian, and English, accented with the tongues of all these countries, but there was no attempt by any one to transfer the seat of war from Europe to Times Square.”

French Prime Minister René Viviani explains to the Chamber of Deputies that France “did not seek the war. Since war was forced upon her, she will defend herself against Germany and any other power which, not yet having made known its sentiments, takes part by Germany’s side”.

Kaiser Wilhelm gives his own speech about how hard Germany tried to avoid war, but Russia gave way “to an insatiable nationalism” and France, well you know what those people are like, with their “old hopes and long-standing malice.” Funny how no one sought the war and yet here we are.

Guess which leader said this: “In enforced self-defence, with clear conscience and clean hands, we grasp the sword.” Find the answer at the bottom of this post.

Germany is banning aliens currently in Germany, including American tourists, from leaving the country until military mobilization is complete.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: France says Germany executed a Mr. Samain, former President of the French War Society, who lived in Metz (in Lorraine), and it imprisoned all the other members of the Society.

Prince Roland Bonaparte (grandson of Napoleon I), 56, offers to join the army as a soldier, but Pres. Poincaré tells him it’s illegal for a member of any of the deposed royal families (France has three) to join the military.

Headline of the Day -100: “War May Prevent Balloon Race.”

The Lusitania leaves NY for its normal run to Liverpool.

H.G. Wells has an op-ed in the NYT. Evidently the Germans are the Morlocks, or something. “The victory of Germany will mean the permanent enthronement of the war god over all human affairs. The defeat of Germany may open the way to disarmament and peace throughout the earth. ... Never was war so righteous as is the war against Germany now”. That said, “Europe’s quarrel is with Germany as a State, not with the German people, with the system, not with the race.” Fortunately, “The German is not naturally a good soldier.” Compared with, you know, the French. According to mister big-shot futurologist.

Talks between the Mexican Federalist government and the Constitutionalists on how to peacefully transfer power break down over the fact that the Carranza wants an unconditional surrender, and Carbajal had some, you know, conditions. Mostly regarding amnesty.

Pancho Villa declares himself independent of Carranza.

---

Answer: It doesn’t matter which leader said it, it could have been any of them.

Oh, okay, it’s Kaiser Wilhelm.

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Today -100: August 4, 1914: Let every man look into his own heart and feelings and construe the obligations for himself

Czar Nicholas says “Russians will rise like one man and will repulse the insolent attack of the enemy.” Insolent attacks are the worst kind.

Belgium rejects Germany’s ultimatum.

Switzerland is fully mobilized, with every mountain pass and railway bridge guarded, and every means of locomotion seized by the government, down to bicycles. No apology by the Times for its story yesterday that Germany had invaded.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: 1) German authorities supposedly captured a French doctor and two assistants trying to poison the wells near Metz with cholera. The doctor is court-martialled and shot. Supposedly. 2) Germany invades the Netherlands. Or not.

Germany publishes the Willy-Nicky telegrams to “prove” that Russia never negotiated in good faith because it was mobilizing its army at the same time.

Germany’s incursions into France have been limited to small sorties evidently intended to provoke France into being the first to declare war, because they’re still playing that game. The French government issues a declaration of a state of siege, which it says will continue for the duration of the war – so it is using the word war, just not declaring it.

Germany claims that while its soldiers have refrained from crossing the border at all, the French have made full-scale attacks on border posts – without having the common decency to declare war first. They also claim France has violated Belgium’s neutrality by its aeroplanes overflying Belgium to bomb railroad lines in Germany. “In this way France has opened the attack upon us and has established a state of war which has compelled the German Empire to take defensive measures for the security of its territory.” Germany claims that 80 French soldiers tried to sneak into Germany wearing Prussian uniforms.

British Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey, in a tour de force speech to Parliament, admits that Britain is not bound by the Entente to join France in war, “but for years we have had a friendship with France. But how far that friendship entails obligation, let every man look into his own heart and feelings and construe the obligations for himself.” He says that Entente military cooperation in the past has created a moral obligation, because France removed its fleet from the western coast to the Mediterranean, trusting in the UK to have its back: “the friendship which had grown up between the two countries has given them a sense of security that there was nothing to be feared from us. The French coasts are absolutely undefended.” It was an argument that had persuaded some of the holdouts in the Cabinet, except for John Burns (president of the Local Government Board) and Viscount John Morley (Lord President of the Council), who have resigned. Morley was the last Liberal in office who had held office under Gladstone (whose massive biography he wrote). Britain is waiting for a couple of red lines (which haven’t been stated publicly, or communicated explicitly to Germany) to be crossed before entering the war: 1) German naval attacks on the French coast, or 2) violation of Belgian neutrality.

“Brave little Belgium” has gone down in myth as the reason Britain was morally obligated to enter WW I, because under the Treaty of London (1839) all the European powers, including the German Confederation, agreed to maintain the new country’s neutrality. This is not what the British Cabinet thought just a few days ago, when after discussion it concluded that the treaty did not create an obligation on individual signatories to go to war to defend Belgian neutrality, but was a collective obligation. But that was then. In his last talk with the British ambassador, on this date, German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg asked why Britain would go to war over a mere “scrap of paper.” For the next four years Britain will spin endless propaganda out of that one.

In his speech Grey went on to say, “It is said we might stand aside and husband our resources in order to intervene in the end and put things right. If in a crisis of this kind we ran away from our obligations of honour and interest with regard to the Belgian treaty, I doubt whether whatever material force we might possess at the end would be of much value in face of the respect we should have lost. If we engaged in war we should suffer but little more than if we stood aside. We are going to suffer terribly in this war whether this country is at peace or war, for foreign trade is going to stop.”

John Redmond, leader of the Irish Nationalists, assures Parliament that all those soldiers currently in Ireland can now safely be removed because, hey, the Nationalists and the Loyalists have all these guns now and can be trusted to defend Ireland against invasion.

The US will act in the interests of German and Austrian subjects in countries with which they are at war.

The US Senate passes a resolution that “deeply deprecates the war between certain European powers”.

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “‘Be Calm!’ Says Wilson.” Woodrow Wilson tells reporters, “the European world is in a highly excited state of mind, but the excitement ought not to spread to the United States. So far as we are concerned, there is no cause for excitement.”

Headline of the Day -100 again (LA Times): “Some Do Not Care For It. Many Aliens Seek to Dodge War By Naturalization.” Many Europeans in Los Angeles are taking out naturalization papers. Especially Austrians and Russians. Because they don’t care for war.

Mobs attack stores which raised prices in Brussels and Paris.

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Today -100: August 3, 1914: The lamps are going out all over Europe

Labour MP Keir Hardie calls for a general strike against the war.

Germany refuses to answer Britain’s question as to whether it will respect Belgium’s neutrality. Then it orders Belgium to allow and facilitate the movement of German troops through the country.

Russia invades Germany.

Germany invades France. No one’s declaring war, France because that would make it a defensive war for Germany, and Italy would be obligated by treaty to join on Germany’s side; Germany because that would make it an offensive war by Germany, and Italy would not be obligated to join it, and also because the leftist Social Democratic Party might not fall into line.

Introducing a new rubric under which I will post bullshit stories, propaganda, and rumors reported as facts: Fog of War of the Day -100: “Switzerland Now Invaded by Germans, Basle Seized.”

Who Knows If It’s Really True Stories of the Day -100: 1) French aviator Roland Garros shoots down a German airship. 2) German soldiers shoot down a French plane.

Montenegro mobilizes its army.

Germany orders foreigners to leave its tiny colony in China, Kiao-Chau (Kiautschou).

A NYT editorial begins: “With vast satisfaction does each of the Powers prove to itself that it is the injured party, the victim of aggression by another, that it desires peace above all, but is unwillingly forced to self-defense.” The Times says history will know the real cause, but doesn’t hint at what it thinks that cause might be.

The LA Times sees the bright side: “The United States must feed and clothe Europe: Now is the time to get busy and raise things. Our Industries will hum and big money will be made.”

European countries are calling on men in their army reserves who are currently in the US and elsewhere to return, promising to reimburse them later. The NYT is able to interview an Austrian captain, who will sail home tomorrow, cutting short his vacation with the in-laws in the US. “Austria is entering into no war of conquest or aggrandizement. She does not want nor covet Servian territory. She enters a war for peace, paradoxical as it may seem. Servia is, and has very long been, an irritant in the internal and external affairs of the Dual Monarchy. Only peace can come by crushing the Slav. Then we may have peace for fifty years.” And you were worried that Austria didn’t have lofty motives.

Some American tourists are stuck in Europe, including 3 US senators. With a cash shortage, some are having to leave Paris hotels with their bills unpaid (in some cases being forced to leave their luggage, Paris hoteliers not being the most trusting people in the world, as I can say from experience). So many US teachers tour Europe during the summer that there is concern they may not make it back by the time school starts up.

One thing the war isn’t interfering with: arms-smugg]ing into Ireland. 10,000 rifles arrive in Ballyshannon for the Nationalists.

British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey later quoted himself as having said to a friend on this day, “The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”

I can’t think of any way of slipping this in subtly, but Grey’s wife was killed after being thrown by a horse, and both his brothers died while hunting in Africa in separate incidents, his elder brother eaten by a lion and his younger trampled by a buffalo.

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Today -100: August 2, 1914: We are German brothers and nothing else

Germany declares war on Russia, after demanding it stop mobilizing its army. And it asks France, So whaddaya gonna do about it? That is, Germany demands to know France’s intentions, and gives it a deadline to explain them.

Germany asks (somewhat more politely) the intentions of Italy, its supposed ally in the Triple Alliance. Italy, which also has contradictory secret treaties and understandings with just about everybody else, says that since this is isn’t a defensive war, it’s not obliged by treaty to join Germany and Austria, and will remain neutral.

Kaiser Wilhelm makes another speech from his castle window: “When I enter upon a fight let all party strife cease. We are German brothers and nothing else. All parties have attacked me in times of peace. I forgive them with all my heart.” Isn’t that sweet of him?

France orders full mobilization, but says “Mobilization is not war.” Really, says the cabinet’s proclamation, it’s actually “the best means of assuring peace with honor.”

The French cabinet is reshuffled to butch it up (although not as butch as the article says – Georges “The Tiger” Clemenceau is offered a post but refuses). Théophile Delcassé, who dislikes Germany almost as much as Pres. Poincaré, is the new minister of war.

Greece orders full mobilization. May go to war with Bulgaria.

Russian and German troops shoot at each other (the Russians started it) along the border near Prostken. No one is hurt.

Germany invades Luxemburg. It will claim that this is not a hostile act, but a defensive seizure of Luxemburg’s rail lines (defensive in that France might have tried to seize the lines first).

Germany signs a secret alliance treaty with Turkey pledging the latter to support Germany if Russia declared war on it.  But not if Germany declared war on Russia, which it would.

German ships try to cut the telegraph cables between Germany and Russia (via Denmark), but fail.

Germany orders the return of its automobiles from the exhibition at Malmö, Sweden.

France says it will respect Belgium’s neutrality – if everyone else does.

Norway declares neutrality. Sweden declares neutrality.

The Admiralty asks Welsh coal miners if, given the world situation, they could give up their holiday next week. The miners say no.

Not everyone in the Women’s Social and Political Union is obeying the cease-fire order: someone puts dynamite in the cathedral at Lisburn (Ireland).

NAMING THAT WAR: The phrase “world war” appears, in the Westminster Gazette.

Woodrow Wilson denies a report that he said the war would be good for American business.

The home of the owner of the Youngstown Telegram is dynamited. The paper is prohibitionist and anti-police, so presumably this was done by drunk cops.

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Today -100: August 1, 1914: The sword is being forced into our hand

French socialist leader Jean Jaurès is assassinated. He is shot at the Café du Croissant by Raoul Villain, a 29-year-old who dislikes his opposition to war. In the morning the newspaper Sociale had suggested that Jaurès be nailed to the wall at the same time as the mobilization bulletins. Villain also intended to kill Joseph Caillaux if he wasn’t caught while killing Jaurès, but he was. He will be held without trial until 1919, when he will be acquitted (his lawyers argued he merely wanted to ensure that France would win the war and mistakenly thought Jaurès would have opposed it) and Jaurès’s widow ordered to pay the costs of the trial. Eventually Villain will settle in Spain, where he’ll be murdered early in the civil war, evidently by Republicans who had no idea who he was, because irony.

Russia orders full military mobilization (the previous “partial” mobilization wasn’t that partial anyway, because the military had no plans for such a thing).

Austria orders full military mobilization in response to Russia ordering full military mobilization.

Germany declares a state of war, or a state of impending war – at any rate something war-ish but a step below declaring war (I guess the Germans have as many words for types of war as Eskimos do for snow). Also declaring whatever-this-is: Bavaria, which has to do so separately because of something in Germany’s weird constitution. The kaiser issues a statement calling Russian mobilization an act of “unpardonable disloyalty,” which seems like an odd choice of word until you remember the kaiser and the czar are cousins (in fact, Tsar Nicholas had scotched an order for general mobilization on July 29 after receiving a telegram from the kaiser, one of the famous “Willy” and “Nicky” telegrams)(which were in English, by the way). Wilhelm makes a speech from the window of his palace: “A fateful hour has fallen for Germany. Envious people on all sides are compelling us to our just defense. The sword is being forced into our hand.” Again, he’s still claiming to be trying to avert war. Mostly through bluster, as was the custom.

One odd way in which Germany prepares for war: Prince Oskar, Kaiser Wilhelm’s fifth son, gets married a month earlier than planned.

Germany signs a secret treaty of alliance with Turkey.

Austrian destroyers nearly capture Montenegro’s royal yacht, but it speeds away to Corfu.

The German ambassador to Russia, the Graf von Pourtales, asks Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov if Russia would refrain from war if Austria promised not to annex any of Serbia. Sazonov, who probably recognized what Pourtales was trying to slip past him – that Austria’s allies Romania and Bulgaria would do the carving up of Serbia – says that Russia would not permit Serbia’s “execution”.

The Jewish Chronicle (London) opposes Britain joining the war: “Why should England send the flower of her manhood to defend Russian interests, to sustain an effete and barbarous autocracy on its tottering throne?” (Why indeed? On a somewhat blurred page of today’s NYT I misread a subheadline as “Czar Has Culled 4,000,000 Men” – and I wouldn’t put it past him.) An editorial in the liberal Daily News argues, “If we crush Germany in the dust and make Russia the dictator of Europe and Asia, it will be the greatest disaster that has ever befallen Western culture and civilization.”

Similarly, George Bernard Shaw, in a letter in the Daily Citizen, says “The alliance between the revolutionary Government of France and the reactionary Government of Russia is a monstrous and unnatural product of cosmopolitan finance.” However, he says, “If war is madness, we should have thought of that before. It is no use piling up armaments and blustering for years and then, when the first shot is fired, suddenly joining the Quakers. We have made our bed and must lie on it.”

The NYT thinks that the rules of war will keep this whole thing civilized. There won’t be attacks on civilians, looting, bombing of undefended towns or buildings, shooting of surrendering soldiers, abuse of POWs, or unusually cruel weapons. The Times admits that none of that was true during the two Balkan Wars, but “The Balkan States are not fully civilized. War provokes savagery, but a war involving the great Powers would be fought with due restraint.” So that’s okay then.

The Women’s Social and Political Union calls off the militant campaign, due to the international situation.

Headline of the Day -100: “Hit By Gore With Cane. Blind Senator Smashes Stick Over Former Critic’s Head.”

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