Today -100: April 9, 1917: Of sticking to Germany, vexing workmen, sedition, and Prussian reform

Austria breaks diplomatic relations with the United States.

Two suspected Germans are arrested in Corona, Alabama for attempting to induce negro miners to quit their jobs and come to Mexico. Two black men are also arrested for treason in Ashford, Alabama for urging blacks to revolt and “stick to Germany.”

Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, promises that unions won’t strike or press any demands of any kind during the war. He does not explain why union members should continue paying dues.

Headline of the Day -100: 

The Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviet is functioning as an alternative source of authority in Petrograd, which is very vexing to the administration. And the workers are not producing supplies for the soldiers because they’re so busy attending meetings.

Francis Widmar, the editor of the anarchist newspaper New Era, is arrested in Paterson, New Jersey, along with his printer, for sedition for putting out a pamphlet calling for a general strike against war.

Under pressure from Socialists at home and the example of the Russian Revolution abroad, Kaiser Wilhelm promises some constitutional reforms in Germany and Prussia – after the war is won. He commits to ending the three-tier franchise system and introducing the secret ballot in Prussia, but fails to mention universal suffrage or equal suffrage, leaving the way for some people to have more than one vote.

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Today -100: April 8, 1917: Rise up! rise up, crusaders, to meet the hosts of Hell!

Orders are issued to militia sentries to shoot anyone who ignores orders to halt. Two men are indeed shot by the New Jersey National Guard, and a marine guarding a lighting plant on Long Island shoots up an automobile, killing a 12-year-old Boy Scout.

The crews of seized German ships, being held as prisoners of war on Ellis Island, discover to their horror that there is no booze.

Cuba declares war on Germany.

And so, I guess, do the Boy Scouts:

The Secret Service is investigating German-language and other anti-war newspapers.

Aleksandr Kerensky suggests Germans overthrow the Hohenzollerns if they want peace.

With the one-year anniversary of the Easter Rising coming up, the British ban all meetings and processions in Dublin.

Atrocious Doggerel of the Day -100:

Etcetera.

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Today -100: April 7, 1917: It’s War!!

Woodrow Wilson signs the war declaration, and it’s away we go. (Yes, Congress alone has the authority to declare war, but they wanted to do it in a form he’d also have to sign). The only actual acts of war seem to be the seizure of 91 German-owned ships, many of whose crews sabotaged them as soon as they heard about the declaration of war, and an order to arrest 60+ alleged spies. This is done without a court order under the president’s powers derived from the Alien Enemy Act of 1798, one of the Alien and Sedition Acts. FDR used it to intern Japanese-Americans.

The war proclamation warns non-naturalized Germans in the US to preserve the peace and says that if they do they won’t be rounded up. Oh, and they can’t have guns or radios or aircraft or ciphers or invisible writing materials or come within a half-mile of any fort, navy ship, munitions factory etc etc or write anything attacking the government or any of its policies. It will be pointed out that this half-mile radius includes the heart of Manhattan surrounding the state arsenal on 35th.

William Jennings Bryan, 57, asks Wilson to enroll him as a private.

Pro-war suffragist leaders forgive Jeanette Rankin for voting against the war. There is some debate about whether she cried after or while announcing her vote.

The Tobacco Merchants’ Association objects to a provision in the Chamberlain Military Bill banning the sale of tobacco at army and navy training facilities, contrasting it with the benevolent policy of European nations which “encourage” and even supply tobacco to their soldiers.

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Today -100: April 6, 1917: It’s War!

At 3:12 a.m. today, Congress voted 373 to 50 to declare war on Germany (“that a state of war between the United States and the Imperial German Government which has been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared”). The war formally begins at the more civilized hour of noon. (Update: wait, no, it only goes to the Senate at noon.)

Jeanette Rankin (R-Montana) utters the first words spoken in Congress by a female member: “I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war. I vote no.”

The no votes largely came from the Midwest, with its many ethnic Germans. 9 of the 50 are from Wisconsin. And 4 from Mississippi for some reason. 32 were Republican, 16 Democrat, 1 Socialist and 1 independent.

Clarence Miller (R-Minnesota), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, claims during the debate that there is a paragraph of the Zimmermann Telegram, not previously made public, in which Germany offers to establish a submarine base in Mexico, and supply Mexico with unlimited weaponry and German reservists from the US. He even reads it out, ending with “Arrange to attack all along the border.” This is a lie, and is immediately contradicted by Secretary of State Lansing. Miller refuses to accept that, saying he “got it from a man who is in a position to know.”

Headline of the Day -100:

Headline of the Day -100:

Funny thing is, that headline is not wrong.

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Today -100: April 5, 1917: Freedom is the messiah

Headline of the Day -100: 

Count Michael Borzatovsky, recently arrived from Russia, in his room in Baltimore. Was he shot by a German spy? Did he accidentally shoot himself getting undressed?

The latter.

Russia repeals all laws that discriminate on the basis of religion. Rabbi David Philipson of Cincinnati says this solves the Jewish problem and eliminates the need for Zionism. “Freedom is the messiah,” he says.

The US Senate continues to debate going to war, increasingly testily. George Norris (R-Nebraska) says declaring war would “put the dollar mark on the American flag.”  Sen. James Reed (D-Missouri) accuses him of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Sen. James Vardaman (D-Mississippi), who opposes entry, complains about the atmosphere in the Capitol, “supercharged with the spirit of prejudice, hate and love. ... Self-assumed superiority of mind, intolerance and bigotry are attributes of little minds”. That’s James Fucking Vardaman, possibly the biggest racist in the Senate.

The New York Legislature creates a state police force. Its purpose seems to be to break strikes so the National Guard doesn’t have to and more people will be willing to join the Guard.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The Morning Post (London) reports that it’s heard from German bankers that Kaiser Wilhelm is sick and will totally die soon.

Two countries with very different approaches to rationing:

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Today -100: April 4, 1917: International nuisances are the worst kind

Former President Taft says if the US is invaded, it will be through Mexico. He considers Carranza “not the most reliable person imaginable” and Mexico “an international nuisance.”

The US is not at war with Germany yet, because Robert La Follette is filibustering it. The NYT says “There is, of course, but one explanation of Mr. La Follette’s conduct; which one it is we have not the least idea.”

The NY State Senate is holding contempt hearings into New York City Mayor John Purroy Mitchel, for accusing Minority Leader Robert Wagner of “working in the interest of Germany”. Mitchel, who denies their jurisdiction over him but attending the hearing out of, um, politeness, says he never meant to accuse Wagner of treason.

Municipal elections in Chicago are won decisively by the Democrats, reversing the results of 1915. And Springfield votes itself dry, along with five other Illinois towns; one dry town goes wet.

The Kaiserin (Mrs. The Kaiser Wilhelm) will sell some of her jewels in the Netherlands to give the cash to charity. The fate of the Romanovs is having a salubrious influence on the other royals of Europe.

Frederick Pethick-Lawrence runs for Parliament in the South Aberdeen by-election on behalf of the anti-war Union of Democratic Control on a platform of peace by negotiation. He loses 10 to 1. P-L, who went to jail for the suffragist cause before the war, will eventually be elected as a Labour MP, rising to the Cabinet under Attlee and before that official leader of the opposition during World War II, meaning he was head of the few Labour MPs who didn’t join the Coalition and was the guy who stood across from Churchill at Prime Minister’s Questions.

100,000 political prisoners are leaving Siberia. By sledge, mostly. Blacksmiths have been busy removing people’s shackles.

There is a record demand for flags. Flag companies can’t keep up.

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Today -100: April 3, 1917: The world must be made safe for democracy

Woodrow Wilson addresses Congress.

He twice calls them “gentlemen of the Congress.” Dude, Representative Rankin is sitting right there.

The bulk of his justification for going to war is based on submarine warfare. The Zimmermann telegram gets a single sentence, and of course there’s the “make the world safe for democracy” thing, but mostly it’s about making war to vindicate the United States’s god-given right to sell stuff, including munitions, to one side in a war. “The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.” Interestingly, he doesn’t mention the Lusitania.

He expresses surprise that Germany actually meant to implement unrestricted submarine warfare when it said it was going to implement unrestricted submarine warfare: “I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to the humane practices of civilized nations.” He explains how his previous idea for responding to this, putting guns and Navy gunners on commercial ships, proved insufficient:

But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all.

That’s Woodrow Wilson for you: trying to make entering a brutal war sound like an exercise in logic. Indeed, “We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion.” So with that said,

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it

It’s not clear how far he intends to go in “accepting the status of belligerent.” He talks about sending massive quantities of resources to the Entente and cooperating with them in unspecified ways. Also, “the organization and mobilization of all the material resources of the country”, and increasing the military immediately to 500,000 men by conscription. But is he sending them to the trenches of Western Europe? Unclear at this point.

But there’s good news for Germans: “We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering this war.” But we will have to kill quite a few of them. #SorryNotSorry.

There’s a sentence in the address I can’t for the life of me figure out: “Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest.”

He explains why Germany must be violently democratized: “A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honor, a partnership of opinion. ... Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.” [the copy of the speech I linked to says “Only free peonies...” Which is a very different sort of war.]

He asks, “Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia?”

Saint Woodrow calls for a gentle, humanitarian bloodbath: “The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind.”

He says Austria, while adhering to Germany’s u-boat policy, “has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas,” so he won’t be asking for a declaration of war on them at this time (that will come in December).

“It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance.”

---

And as if having war declared on them isn’t enough:

Speaking of armed neutrality, a u-boat sinks the armed US steamship Aztec off the French coast.

Since Congress is back in special session, the suffragettes of the Congressional Union resume their picketing of the White House. “The women want to take their part in the responsibilities of government,” Alice Paul says.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Lenin arrives at the Finland (railroad) Station in Petrograd.

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Today -100: April 2, 1917: Unimpressed

The NYT’s Berlin correspondent reports: “Everybody knows that within a few days America will declare war against Germany, but no one seems particularly impressed by it.” He also says there is little American news in the German newspapers, and what there is is mostly extracts from French newspapers, which are more propaganda than fact. Germans are far more concerned with the prospects for constitutional reform in both Prussia and Germany.

A mob in Baltimore break up a meeting of the American League Against Militarism and are in turn violently attacked by the cops.

Czar Nicholas’s entourage is imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress because of a supposed plot amongst various grand dukes & grand duchesses to proclaim Grand Duke Nicholas as the new tsar.

Polish members of the Russian Duma resign, because Poland is independent now, right?

Vermont, tired for some reason of elopers coming to their state to marry, passes a law requiring couples from other places than where their license is issued to wait 5 days before the ceremony. There’s an exemption for soldiers.

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Today -100: April 1, 1917: History is now marching with seven-league boots

Some Socialist deputies in the German Reichstag are openly calling for a republic. SPD deputies just voted against the budget (with its new taxes), which is something they used to do before the war. They’re also not happy that the military is ordering newspapers not to print anything favorable about the Russian Revolution. Georg Ledebour tells the Reichstag, “We regard a republic as a coming inevitable development in Germany. History is now marching with seven-league boots.”

Sheboygan, Wisconsin will hold a referendum tomorrow on whether the US should go to war. Women will have the vote. (Results:  4,177 to 17 against; non-German-Americans boycotted the vote.)

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The Providence Journal, a key cog in the British disinformation wars, claims that German u-boats have been dropping off mail in the US, thousands of letters which a New York banker with “Austrian affiliations” has re-mailed all over the country. With sabotage/espionage instructions, is the implication.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Well, Chicagoans are famously a full-size people.

The US purchase of the Danish West Indies is complete, 50 years and one day after the purchase of Alaska for 1/3 the price. So how does that work? Denmark is getting a piece of paper it can exchange for $25 million in gold, which it will keep in New York banks for the time being, the trans-Atlantic crossing being a trifle risky lately. The three islands will now be called the Virgin Islands of the United States of America. I must have missed when that decision was made.

The New York Legislature will make another attempt to require driving licenses for operators of motor vehicles in New York City. There won’t be a driving test or anything like that, but those convicted of reckless driving can have their license revoked.

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Today -100: March 31, 1917: Let the spy hunts begin!

NYC high school principals are ordered to hold a “patriotic meeting” on April 2nd. But the School Board is running into difficulties in implementing its plan to fire pacifist teachers: that wouldn’t actually be legal. Yet. The Board is now asking the Legislature for a law requiring an oath of allegiance, on pain of dismissal.

German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann defends the eponymous telegram, saying the offer of alliance was to be made to Mexico only in the event of a US-German war. Which isn’t quite true, since he sent a second telegram two days after Wilson broke off diplomatic relations, telling the ambassador to Mexico to make the approach immediately. Since British Naval Intelligence hadn’t made this telegram public (or, indeed, told the Americans about it), Zimmermann thinks, wrongly, that it wasn’t intercepted. He says Carranza was never actually approached, which is a lie.

The Reichstag votes to appoint a committee to investigate whether to democratize the constitution a bit. Making the cabinet responsible to the Reichstag rather than to the kaiser, that sort of thing. Of course this is a stalling action, but the Russian Revolution has created pressure, not only from German lefties, but from the fact that the war now looks more like a bunch of parliamentary democracies, more or less, fighting a bunch of, well, not democracies.

The Russian government says the Polish people should decide on their own form of government in an independent state, although it still talks about that Polish state being “bound to Russia by a free military union.” Germany, meanwhile, finding very few Poles joining the puppet military of its puppet Polish kingdom, is planning to start conscripting them.

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: March 30, 1917: If this action warrants an increase of bloodshed, we shall not have to bear the burden of responsibility for it

The British Parliament is working on a bill to let the military re-examine men previously rejected for service as unfit, as well as men discharged for wounds, to use them behind the lines. Winston Churchill suggests taking married men in their 40s rather than convalescents.

German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg tells the Reichstag that Germany does not want war with the United States. He says that if Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare – which was adopted entirely in self-defense – leads the US to declare war, “if this action warrants an increase of bloodshed, we shall not have to bear the burden of responsibility for it.”

Russia: women will be allowed to take any governmental job.

Neutral Spain is put under martial law to prevent a general strike. The economy is in a shambles in part because Germany has sunk a lot of Spain’s shipping. There is also tension over the fact that the majority of the population is neutralist or pro-Allies while the government, army, and clergy are pro-German.

Lloyd George tells a deputation of suffragists (which the London Times describes as “picturesque”) that he realizes that the minimum age of 30 or 35 being proposed for women voters is illogical and without justification, but they should just shut up and accept it because reasons. Emmeline Pankhurst says sure because reasons.

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Today -100: March 29, 1917: No one can now contend that we are yielding to violence what we refused to concede to argument

Albert Staub, head of the Atlanta branch of the American Red Cross, calls for a purge of “disloyal” members because SOMEONE poisoned a batch of bandages and put ground glass in dressings in New Jersey. (Update: Staub will deny ever having said anything about poison).

British Prime Minister David Lloyd George declares himself in favor of women’s suffrage. Actually, NYT, he always claimed in the past to be in favor, even while plotting to undermine it. Rather more remarkable is former prime minister Asquith’s announcing his conversion, claiming that his previous vehement opposition was always based on “expediency” but that women’s war work has proved them worthy etc etc and “we have had no recurrence of that detestable campaign which disfigured the annals of political agitation in this country, and no one can now contend that we are yielding to violence what we refused to concede to argument.” Lloyd George also goes on and on about women munition workers. Parliament votes in favor of the Speakers’s Conference’s recommendations for changing the franchise, which include reducing the residency requirement, a complicated experiment in proportional representation in a few constituencies, and other provisions. Women’s franchise will be on unequal terms, with a minimum age that hasn’t been settled on yet, probably 30 or 35.

The Nebraska State Senate votes down partial women’s suffrage.

Headline of the Day -100: 

By “invading,” the NYT means “are looking for work.” Long Island businessmen are not happy about it.

German Food Dictator Adolf Tortilowicz von Batocki-Friebe says the state needs to seize the entire food supply of Germany.

Germany is threatening to intern American relief workers in Belgium for 4 weeks before letting them go home, to keep them revealing military news.

The witch hunt begins: Alexander Fichlander, a school principal in Brooklyn, is rejected for promotion because he’s a pacifist who refused to sign the loyalty pledge. George Wingate, a Civil War general who is on the Board of Education, leads the charge against Fichlander and wants to fire any teacher who expresses pacifist views, even if only outside the schoolhouse. Oh, and maybe make them take a loyalty oath.

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Today -100: March 28, 1917: Of cobblers, Canadian concentration camps, literacy, and tango pirates

Alexis Korvanov, a former Russian general and political exile who has been working as a cobbler in New York, sails for home. I don’t think he’ll do did much when he gets there.

While the NYT doesn’t give the name of the ship Korvanov sailed on, it might well have been the Kristianiafjord, whose more famous passenger is Leon Trotsky. Certainly the date is right. The Kristianiafjord will dock in Halifax, where Canadian authorities will detain him for a month alongside interned German POWs, as he later described in the chapter of his memoirs entitled “In a Concentration Camp.” He spent the month trying – with some success – to convert the Germans to revolutionary socialism.

Forced by the law Congress passed over Wilson’s veto to make prospective immigrants take a literacy test, the Labor Department says it will use the Bible, not for religious reasons but because it has been translated into every language, including Klingon.

Former President Taft calls the Russian Revolution and the fall of the Romanovs “the first great triumph of this war.”

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: March 27, 1917: Of Russian Jews, declarations of war, Belgiums, and crying czars

Russia will grant full equality to Jews, eliminating educational, residential and other restrictions. Which also means that the passports issued by the US to American Jews will now be honored. Under Taft, the US abrogated its treaty with Russia over this issue.

The Wilson administration is debating whether to ask Congress, at its special session next week, to declare war rather than have it declare that a state of war is already in existence. Evidently in all US history, Congress has only ever done the latter. By directly declaring war, rather than saying that the war began, for example, with the sinking of the Housatonic on February 3rd, the US can later demand compensation for the ships sunk right up to the time the US declared war.

Secretary of War Newton Baker says Germans in this country won’t be interned. If they behave.

Germany will start administering Belgium as two separate countries.

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: March 26, 1917: Of spy fever, redeployments, and of course polo

A Swedish man is arrested for sketching the Brooklyn Bridge. And a guest at the Hotel Majestic in New York is investigated by the police after a guest becomes suspicious that he is operating an illicit wireless transmitter. He is in fact testing electrical medical equipment before demonstrating it to doctors, which is his job.

Germany has been withdrawing troops from positions on the Western Front in order to mount a major offensive against Russia.

The head of the Polo Association says polo should not be stopped if war is declared.

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Today -100: March 25, 1917: Everyone hates a finicky war

Woodrow Wilson orders the US ambassador to Belgium to leave Belgium along with all other consular officials and the Commission for Relief, since the Germans are sinking all the ships bringing relief supplies anyway.

Theodore Roosevelt says he can raise a division of soldiers and have it in France in 4 or 5 months. And then he went off to “hunt devilfish.”

Headline of the Day -100:

The Russian Provisional Government fires Grand Duke Nicholas as army commander-in-chief.

In the German Reichstag, socialist (SPD) deputy Fritz Kunert blames Kaiser Wilhelm and Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg for starting the war and says he’d be proud if Germany made such progress as Russia has.

The US rejects Germany’s proposed protocols interpreting the 1799 and 1828 US-Prussia treaties in ways that would allow all German nationals in the US (well over a million of them) to go about their business with no restrictions in the event of a war.

If war is declared, Princeton will immediately suspend all athletics. But they probably won’t shut down the whole university for the duration (or let in women).

Headline of the Day -100: 

Something about paprika, right?

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Today -100: March 24, 1917: Of recognition, safe czars and nervous kaisers, and humanity and good neighborship

Now that the US has broken the ice, Britain, France and Italy recognize the new Russian government.

Russia will abolish the flogging and chaining of prison inmates.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The British press reports, no doubt on the best authority, that Kaiser Wilhelm has had a nervous breakdown.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Fight fiercely, Harvard.

Germany will reduce the bread ration by one-fourth. The meat ration, however, will be increased (they’re killing animals to save on fodder).

Having sunk a bunch of Dutch ships, Germany offers, “on considerations of humanity and good neighborship,” to pay indemnities for the dead crew members and to help shipowners buy German ships after the war. The Netherlands tells them to go fuck themselves. It is also likely to ban US merchant ships when Wilson puts cannons on them.

The Nivelle Offensive is going well. For now.

The Justice Dept is taking a census of all Germans in El Paso, with an eye towards internment.

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Today -100: March 23, 1917: And we’ve been friends ever since

The US recognizes the new Russian government, the first country to do so.

Russia says it will end the death penalty “in the near future.” Also, there will be women’s suffrage.

A u-boat sinks an oil tanker owned by Standard of New Jersey, the Healdton, off the Netherlands, its destination. No warning given. 7 Americans dead.

New York City’s Boy Mayor John Purroy Mitchel accuses State Senate minority leader (and future US senator) Robert Wagner of “working in the interest of Germany.” Wagner – and yes that is a German name – is not best pleased. This is part of a fight over how much the US government will pay the Rockaway-Pacific Corp (a subsidiary of Southern Pacific Railroad) for land on Rockaway Point which it intends to fortify.

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Today -100: March 22, 1917: Taking a man’s part

Woodrow Wilson calls Congress into an extra session for April 2nd, earlier than he’d previously announced, presumably to ask it to declare war on Germany.

It is expected that the US will not just independently start fighting Germany, but will operate in conjunction with the Entente nations, perhaps in a formal alliance, perhaps not. Okay, that may sound obvious, now, but the US hadn’t made a military alliance with another country since the War of Independence, and not getting into “entangling alliances” or interfering in Europe was kind of important to the US’s national self-image, the Monroe Doctrine and all that.

They’re talking about not being able to field an army for a year or so (although Theodore Roosevelt, naturally, wants to send an expeditionary force of whatever size as soon as possible), without anyone suggesting that the war might be over by then.

Henry Stimson, Taft’s secretary of war, demands that the US take “a man’s part” in the European war.

Lots of men, not just those in the military, are practicing military drilling, and would like the government to provide them with some rifles to play with. 600 had been drilling on Governors Island (Manhattan) with broomsticks, but have recently upgraded to wooden rifles.

Czar Nicholas and Mrs. Czar are under arrest.

New French Prime Minister Alexandre Ribot says “We are resolved to wage with the utmost vigor and to a victorious end the terrible war into which we were drawn by inexcusable aggression.” He will do so, he says, by giving a totally free hand to Gen. Robert Nivelle. This should go well.

Headline of the Day -100: 

I believe you mean “differently abled.”

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Today -100: March 21, 1917: Feeble war but war

Wilson’s Cabinet meets. They are virtually unanimous in favor of war, some of their penises fully erect in anticipation. Wilson is still hesitating, saying he abhors both Germany’s militarism on land and Britain’s militarism at sea.

Republican leaders give speeches at the Union League Club about the international situation, all saying the same thing. Charles Evans Hughes: “Germany is now making war upon the United States, making war with a ruthless barbarity.” (Ruthless barbarity is the worst kind of barbarity). Theodore Roosevelt: “Germany is making war upon us and we are not striking in self-defense. Armed neutrality under these circumstances is feeble war, but it is war.”

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: March 20, 1917: Any American citizen who is now pro-German is a traitor to this country

The Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote upholds the Adamson 8-Hour Act regulating railroad work conditions, including the enforcement of compulsory arbitration on RR companies and workers. Which gives the unions their 8-hour-day victory but introduces the worrying principle that the right to strike in such an industry is limited by the public interest. Some of the ruling seems to be railroad-specific, so Congress might not have quite so many powers over an industry whose functioning was not a vital “public service” affecting interstate commerce.

Theodore Roosevelt, you will be surprised to hear, wants war with Germany. “Any American citizen who is now pro-German is a traitor to this country”. He doesn’t like pacifists either, or armed neutrality, which “is only another name for timid war”. “Germany is already at war with us. The only question for us to decide is whether we shall make war nobly or ignobly.”

75-year-old Alexandre Ribot is the new French prime minister (again).

British Prime Minister David Lloyd George will move a parliamentary motion of congratulations to the Russian Duma for the new revolutionary government, which was formed, he says, “for the express purpose of carrying on the War with increased vigour.” He is heckled throughout by Irish MPs.

Russia announces home rule for Finland.

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Today -100: March 19, 1917: They are war itself

Germany sinks the City of Memphis. A ship, not the actual city. An American ship. Also the Illinois and Vigilancia.

The NYT declaims: “By the repeated acts of Germany a state of war exists between that country and the United States. No declaration has preceded it. The acts of Germany are not to be looked upon merely as a provocation to war, they are war itself.”

Pres. Wilson has not resubmitted his Cabinet members for re-confirmation by the Senate for his second term, as previous presidents have done as a matter of custom if not law.

The new Russian foreign minister, Pavel Milyukov, instructs Russian diplomats to tell anyone who’ll listen that Russia intends to stay in the war until the bitter, bitter end. He also explains to them, tsarist holdovers as they all are, that the Revolution was a good thing.

Maj. Gen. Frederick Maude issues a proclamation to the people of Baghdad, which British forces captured last week, saying they’ve come not as conquerors but as liberators, so that’s good.

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Today -100: March 18, 1917: Gracious! What does all this mean?

Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich did not abdicate after all. But he says he will only accept the czarship if offered by an elected body representing the will of the people. Don’t hold your breath, Mike.

French Prime Minister Aristide Briand and his cabinet, the third during this war, resign. Mostly caused by disagreements over military strategy.

The railroad unions postpone their strike 48 hours (although by the time that order is received in some places, the workers are already striking). The Supreme Court may issue their ruling on the constitutionality of the Adamson 8-Hour Act during that period, which matters to the owners but not so much to the unions, which say that their demands are the same regardless.

A dispute between a teacher, Marie Siebert, and a 14-year-old student, Harry Roper, at Central High School in D.C., goes public. She hangs a picture of Kaiser Wilhelm in her classroom, and he keeps turning it to the wall.

There were 3,541,738 motor vehicles registered in the US at the end of 1916, up more than a million from 1915.

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Today -100: March 17, 1917: How do you say “Buh bye” in Russian?

Czar Nicholas formally abdicates, not in favor of his son (he also abdicates his son), but his brother Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich. Who then abdicates after nearly 15 hours. The Romanov dynasty is now over, after three centuries of “the greats,” “the terribles,” and “she fucked a what?”s.

The new Russian government (specifically the new Justice Minister, Alexander Kerensky) promises universal suffrage, amnesty for all political prisoners, freedom of speech and the press, abolition of religious & national restrictions (Jews can be lawyers now), etc.

Woodrow Wilson sends representatives to appeal to the “patriotism” of railroad companies and unions to avert a strike over the former’s refusal to obey the Adamson 8-Hour Act.

Tomorrow -100 is Sunday, and churches will be asking parishioners to sign pledges of loyalty to the president.

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Today -100: March 16, 1917: Revolution

Headline of the Day -100:

From a confluence of bread rioting, strikes, military mutinies, some of it the results of plots, some of it not, and a regime that had lost all legitimacy through its inability to feed its population, prosecute the war effectively or keep its soldiers supplied with food, clothing, and ammunition, plus the suspected pro-German sympathies of various members of government and the incompetence and/or batshit craziness of others (plus the influence on the tsarina of the late Rasputin).

Czar Nicholas II finally resolves the whole tsar/czar dilemma by becoming just plain Nick, abdicating in the face of a revolution about which the world outside Russia has heard so few concrete details. In theory, he will go into exile, leaving behind his 12-year-old hemophilic son Alexei as the new tsar, with his brother the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich acting as regent. Or, you know, not.

The NYT is reporting that Interior Minister Alexander Protopopov (a follower of Rasputin, who Protopopov thinks is still giving him advice from beyond the grave) has been killed, which he hasn’t. He has, in fact, turned himself in to the Duma in order to escape being killed by the revolutionary mob. The Bolsheviks will execute him (the syphilis probably would have done for him fairly soon anyway).

The new prime minister appointed by the Duma to head the provisional government is Prince Georgii Lvov, who is associated with the Constitutional Democrats (Kadets).

The British government is said to be pleased at the overthrow of the weak tsar and the ouster of various allegedly pro-German officials, and expects that Russia will now fight Germany much more effectively. Andrew Bonar Law tells Parliament that Russian discontent was not caused by opposition to the war but to it not being carried out “with that efficiency and energy which the people had expected.”

The NYT also welcomes “The New Birth of Russia”: “The Russian people, through trusted leaders in the Duma and men of loyalty and enlightenment outside the Duma, have assumed the direction of affairs in the Empire.” They say the Revolution is mainly aimed at “Germanophile treason and conspiracy,” because everything is about German “plots” for the NYT now.

The Russian ambassador to the US, George Bakhmeteff, can shed no light on events in Russia (a country he will not, I believe, ever see again).

An Alien Registration Bill is introduced in the New York Legislature permitting the governor to require aliens from a country with which the US is or might soon be at war to register and requiring hotels, boarding houses etc to tell the police about any alien guests.

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Today -100: March 15, 1917: Of quasi-civilization, loyalty censuses, algonquins, conscienceless rascals, and boy scouts

China breaks diplomatic relations with Germany and seizes German ships.

Hubert Lyautey resigns as French minister of war after 3 months in the job. He refused to discuss the production of war planes, even in a closed session of the Chamber of Deputies, and deputies shouted at him until he resigned, or something like that. Lyautey had been the colonial governor of Morocco, where he “brought the Moroccans into a state of quasi-civilization,” which it turns out wasn’t really the best background for running a modern war.

New Yorkers are signing pledges of support for the president in the present crisis in a highly organized “loyalty census.”

A German u-boat sinks the American steamship Algonquin. It fired without warning, but all the crew escaped, no doubt while making lacerating witty comments about the experience and not spilling even a drop of their martinis.

The NYT has no news about anything that might be happening in Russia, and is reduced to quoting a Swedish engineer just returned home from Petrograd who says that reports of outbreaks are exaggerated. Phew.

Netherlands, scared of its large neighbor, sentences the editor of the Amsterdam Telegraaf for endangering the Netherlands’ neutrality by writing “In Central Europe there is a group of conscienceless rascals which caused this war.”

Germany says it is halting the deportations of Belgians to Germany.

The Boy Scouts will not take part in actual military operations in event of war, says the National Council of the Boy Scouts after, presumably, considering it.

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Today -100: March 14, 1917: If we sink an American ship, we shall get war

War Paranoia of the Day -100: The NYT claims that Germany is trying to “involve [South America] in a general war as well as to infuse into the countries there a distrust for the United States”. Uruguay would “play the role of Serbia” in this all-out war.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Johann von Bernstorff, the expelled German ambassador to the US, asked by a reporter whether there will be war between the US and Germany, says “If we sink an American ship, we shall get war. If not, I suppose we can avoid it.” He thinks it’ll be okay if Germany sinks a British ship (like the Laconia) with Americans onboard. He says it was just silly of the US to have gotten so worked up about the Zimmermann telegram, since Mexico would only have been approached if the US declared war on Germany. Actually, the instructions to the ambassador to Mexico said to talk to the government if it looked like the US would declare war, i.e., in advance. And there was a second telegram ordering immediate contact.

The Navy “guards” that will be put on American commercial ships to operate the cannons will work on the assumption that any German u-boat they see will sink them without warning; they are authorized to shoot at u-boats without warning. War by “wacky misunderstanding.” The guards will be placed even on ships carrying munitions.

Railroad workers’ unions are arranging a strike to get the RR companies to follow the Adamson 8-Hour Law (the owners say they won’t obey the law until the Supreme Court rules on it), and to resolve this before any war is declared. Both sides will now accuse the other of being unpatriotic, as was the custom.

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Today -100: March 13, 1917: Odious yokes are the worst kind

The US announces that merchant ships whose owners ask for guns will be given them, and Navy crews to operate them, crews under their own orders rather than those of the ship captain. The US pretends that this arrangement preserves those ships’ status as civilian and not belligerent under international law. Germany, of course, disagrees.

Cuban police search the house of a former secretary of justice and find – hidden in the hollow base of a statuette, no less – documents supporting the recent failed rebellion and proclaiming “Germany has promised your freedom from the odious yoke which weighs on the country,” by which is means the Platt Amendment which the US forced on Cuba giving the US the right to intervene militarily in Cuba whenever it feels like it.

Tsar Nicholas the Last suspends both the Duma and the Council of the Empire.

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Today -100: March 12, 1917: Is it a Menshevik blizzard or a Bolshevik blizzard?

The British capture Baghdad, and that part of the world never gives anybody any trouble ever again.

Yesterday was Sunday, and jingoism issued forth from many flag-bedraped pulpits across the land. Dr. Charles Aubrey Eaton of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church, for example, denounced “poor pussy pacifists.” I don’t understand Christianity.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Newspapers have been banned. Because a lack of information will totally assuage the worries of a starving populace.

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Today -100: March 11, 1917: Of Nissen huts, armed ships, poison darts, and food riots

The NYT has a short article about Nissen huts, those pre-fabricated portable semi-circular buildings usually associated with the Second World War, but which were put into use by the British Army in 1916.

Austria says it has granted autonomy to occupied Albania. In other words, it plans to conscript Albanians.

If Wilson arms private commercial ships, and he seems to have decided that he can just ignore the 1819 law, they will be authorized to fire on German u-boats without warning even if those subs haven’t done anything hostile. The administration says this still counts as self-defense since the German government has said its subs can do the same. And Germany said that armed ships are not civilian ships with the rights that would go along with that status It’s almost like both these countries want to go to war with each other.

The official British investigation into the Dardanelles campaign is made public, and it’s surprisingly honest about the incompetence of military leaders, although it places a lot of blame on the conveniently late Lord Kitchener.

A British court finds Alice Wheeldon, her daughter and son-in-law, guilty of a plot to assassinate Lloyd George and Arthur Henderson. With poison darts, no less. Her other daughter is acquitted. Sentences of 10, 5 and 7 years, respectively, are imposed. Their lawyer tried to suggest that the government’s failure to produce as a witness the “mysterious secret government agent known as Gordon” was somehow suspicious. And indeed, “Gordon” was in fact a paid government agent, had made it all up, was a convicted blackmailer, had been committed for insanity, all of which might have been seen as a little suspicious by the jury, had they known about it. The lawyer probably didn’t help anything by suggesting that in Gordon’s absence, the defendants should be subjected to trial by ordeal. Since Wheeldon was a suffragette before the war, Emmeline Pankhurst is allowed to testify, not because she has any evidence, just to deny that the WSPU ever plotted to assassinate Lloyd George (although they did blow up his house that one time). Indeed, now, Pankhurst says, “The Women’s Social and Political Union regards the Prime Minister’s life as of the greatest value in the present grave crisis, and its members would if necessary to do so, take great risks themselves to protect it from danger.”

In response to food riots, the Petrograd municipal government is given control of all food supplies in the district. What’s the Russian for “too little, too late”?

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Today -100: March 10, 1917: Of fats, quarantines, censi, and Joan II: this time it’s personal

Woodrow Wilson calls a special session of Congress for April 16th.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Germany finally releases the American crew members of the Yarrowdale, which they’ve been holding since December (except for 4 or 5 they say are sick). And we finally hear what disease they’ve been “quarantined” for – spotted fever.

New York Gov. Whitman supports a bill for a census of the military resources of NY, including women who might be conscripted into war work as well as men.

Emmeline Pankhurst repudiates another of her daughters – that’s the word she uses, “repudiates,” in a letter to the prime minister of Australia, where Adela has been organizing anti-war meetings.

Headline of the Day -100:

Oh good, because that sort of thing always goes well. The unnamed Joan wannabe is invited to visit the bishop at Poitiers, who tries to expose her as a fraud by exchanging robes with an ordinary priest, but she sees right through the ruse, and... this is beginning to all sound made-up, isn’t it? The Church now has her “in a religious home in Paris under ecclesiastical surveillance.”

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Today -100: March 9, 1917: Of wirelesses, plots, pacifists, boy disloyalists, war crimes, and zeppelins

In the continuing ostracization of senators who filibustered the Armed Ships Bill, Sen. Moses Clapp (R-Minnesota) is disinvited from addressing a men’s Bible class.

The US government leaks to the press that there exists a secret wireless connection between Mexico and Germany, free of the benevolent censorship the US imposes. Actually, it seems that the Mexican wireless station, which was intended to keep the Mexican government in touch with its far-flung armies, isn’t strong enough to transmit to Germany but it can receive.

Headline of the Day -100:

In the pro-war propaganda campaign in the US, the Zimmermann Telegram is portrayed as just one strand in a complex, insidious web of German plots. That word gets used a lot. Too much, really, when you consider how quickly it loses meaning when you repeat it: plot plot plot plot plot plot. It should also be noted that the Zimmermann thing only came into play if the US declared war on Germany, in which case, Germany asks, were we not supposed to seek allies? it’s kind of what you do in war. Of course “it’s what you do in war” is also their excuse for invading Belgium, using poison gas, and sinking ships without warning, but I think they are genuinely puzzled that other people refuse to see these things through the same “pragmatic” lens they do.

Another “plot” mentioned in that story, which as far as I know is fictional, was a German attempt to persuade Mexico to annex Guatemala.

Headline of the Day -100: 

400 US Marines land in Santiago, Cuba, allegedly at the request of its Civil Governor and at the orders of Commander Belknap on his own authority, without orders from the Navy.

The NYT welcomes Columbia University’s un-American activities committee, saying every school and college should have one: “We do not charge that such doctrines are taught in Columbia or elsewhere, but where does the noisy brood of boy disloyalists, anarchists, pacifists, come from?”

Irish Nationalists in the British Parliament respond to Lloyd George’s statement that Ulster won’t be coerced into joining a Home Rule Ireland. They say this “would involve denial of self-government to Ireland forever.”

Russia complains about violations of the rules of warfare by its enemies, including poison gas, explosive bullets, poisoned wells, the misuse of Red Cross flags and flags of truce, throwing bombs at sanitary trains, and the sinking of a hospital ship by a Turkish sub.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Bulgarian Prime Minister Vasil Radoslavov is said to be planning to pull Bulgaria out of the war if it isn’t over by summer.

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, inventor of the you-know-what, dies at 78.

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