Today -100: October 24, 1914: Yet you’re still alive

Headline of the Day -100:  “GERMAN WOMEN SPIES MEET DEATH BRAVELY; Allies Shoot Many Suspects Whose Accent Betrays Their Teutonic Origin.”  Which doesn’t really sound like they’re shooting actual spies.  “So many spies have been caught in France recently that the possession of papers apparently in good order avails a man or woman nothing once an accusation has been made or suspicion aroused.  It is asserted that no German tongue can ever pronounce certain French words without betraying itself.”  Um, right.

There are demands in India that the British do more to protect Indian shipping from German attacks.  The Times of India calls for convoys and “alludes to the possible effect on the crude native mind of the [cruiser] Emden’s successes, which will seem to their humble intelligences an indication of German success in the naval war.”

Carranza says he’s willing to resign as chief executive, provided Pancho Villa doesn’t come to power - or get any of the credit for Carranza leaving.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Kaiser Wilhelm supposedly rebukes one of his generals, who retreated from the Marne, for not going down fighting: “You fell back, and yet you’re still alive.”

Haiti now has two people claiming to be president, Orestes Zamor and Davilmar Théodore.  Which are both fantastic names.

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Today -100: October 23, 1914: Got it by a mile

Former Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz is reported dead.  He isn’t.

The round-up and internment of German- and Austrian-born men in Britain is, not surprisingly, creating hardship among the wives and children left behind.  So it’s up to the US embassy, which is responsible for looking after those countries’ interests in Britain, to deal with them, dispersing funds from the German and Austrian governments.

Italy invades Albania.

The Constitutionalist military Convention names a cabinet, or five cabinet members anyway, but Carranza may ignore them.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Lille a Ruined City.”

In the NY governor’s race, District Attorney Charles Whitman accuses Gov. Martin Glynn of putting a convicted forger on the payroll in the Audit Bureau of the State Controller’s office on behalf of Tammany Hall, one Thomas Torpy.  Whitman’s campaign is very prosecutorial, talking about rooting out the various Tammany crooks, with as little discussion of actual governance issues as he can get away with.

Here is Whitman’s campaign song:

    Who is, who is, who is he?
    He is, he is, he is he
    He is in it, I should smile
    Whitman’s got it by a mile.

The NYT claims that the whispering campaign against Gov. Glynn for his religion (he’s the first Catholic governor of NY) is strictly a rural business – they’d never think of asking a man’s religion in the Big Apple.

In the first income tax returns, just 44 people declare themselves to have an income over $1 million, 91 between $500,000 and $1 million, out of 357,598 tax returns filed.  The income tax produced much less revenue than expected, and the Internal Revenue Bureau will start going after the tax dodgers – they estimate there are 140,000 of them.

Now the fun begins: guessing who the 44 plutocrats are.

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Today -100: October 22, 1914: Mud, mud, inglorious mud

With artillery playing a dominant role in the Great War, armies are finding an obstacle: mud. All that tromping of armies, with their horses and motor vehicles, has turned roads to shit.  Add rain and you’ve got mud, which bogs down the movement of artillery.

NY Gov. Martin Glynn, running for re-election, bravely comes out in favor of playgrounds.

Germany makes more complaints about France violating the rules of war: killing or mutilating wounded German soldiers, sniping at ambulances, etc.

Headline of the Day -100:  “German Ban Put on Hostile Poets; Outer Darkness for D’Annunzio and Maeterlinck as Lacking ‘Particular Genius.’”

Congress rejects a measure to support the cotton industry, whose exports have been hit badly by the war.

Italy is threatening to occupy Albania.

Russia ends the exemption of high school and university students from conscription.

A rather brief insurrection is suppressed in Portugal.

Another dead prince: Maximilian of Hesse-Kassel, the kaiser’s nephew, just before his 20th birthday. The Daily News (London) says his body was stripped and just left there and that he was shot in the back, possibly by his own men.

The US protests the British seizure of an American oil ship, the John D. Rockefeller.

Britain will intern all unnaturalized German- and Austrian-born males age 17-45, evidently in response to last week’s anti-German riots.  Hundreds of arrests of “enemy aliens” have been made.

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Today -100: October 21, 1914: The Germans want to conquer what now?

Le Matin says that 35 French army cooks tricked 140 Germans into surrendering by pretending to surround them.

Tageblatt (presumably the German newspaper rather than the Luxembourger one) says that when the French took 3 German envoys prisoner, the kaiser threatened to kill 300 POWs unless they were released, which they were.

The NYT has “certain information” from “an authoritative source” that Germany is building 200 extra-large airplanes, each capable of carrying 1,000 pounds of bombs to drop on London.  The bombs will still have to be dropped by hand.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Villa Threatens to Seize Chiefs.”  While the Constitutionalist’s Convention of Military Chiefs meets to work out Mexico’s future, Pancho Villa moves troops worryingly close to where it’s being held.

Actual dead prince: Wolrad of Waldeck and Pyrmont, 22, killed in action in Belgium.

At the annual meeting of the American Bar Association, former Pres. Taft calls for making US treaties the supreme law of the land.  At present, the federal government can’t force states to abide by treaties, for example California’s discrimination against Japanese.

The upper house of the Prussian Diet debates German hat fashions (or maybe it’s just a meeting in the Diet building?)  One speaker (all of whom are unnamed, dammit) says it is the job of those who cannot fight to prepare for the consequences of war and the newly awakened German national feeling as it affects, you know, ladies’ hats.  “He predicted that the first consequences of the war would be a tendency to simplicity and a suppression of individuality.  Other speakers did not seem satisfied with this and declared that Germany must make fashions capable of conquering the international market.”

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Today -100: October 20, 1914: Of oaths, Latin, and riots

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: new Austrian soldiers are said to have to take an oath to the German kaiser as well as the Austrian emperor.  Seems unlikely.

The Haitian government has fled as rebels take Cape Haytien.  US Marines land, as was the custom.

Charles Taft, son of the former president, takes first prize in Latin in his Yale entrance exams, and if that doesn’t set you up to be... (checks Wikipedia)... mayor of Cincinnati, nothing does.

More anti-German riots in the London ‘burb Deptford. “The Prosecutor said that he regretted the necessity of appearing against citizens the object of whose attack had been German shopkeepers, but he explained that great damage had been done to English property as well.”  So do be more careful next time, rioters.

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Today -100: October 19, 1914: Hasn’t been kissed in forty years

Evidently there used to be a ban in international law on dropping explosives from balloons etc, but this expired in 1905.

France has recaptured Armentières.

In a letter to House Majority Leader Oscar Underwood, Woodrow Wilson expresses confidence about the November elections: “The voters of the United States have never failed to reward real service.”  He don’t know us very well, do he?

Anti-German riots in London, with attacks on bakeries, butcher shops, saloons etc owned by Germans.

The new Constitutionalist governor of Chiapas, Mexico bans confession, restricts mass to once a week, and orders priests to wear non-clerical clothes.

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Today -100: October 18, 1914: Of assassinations, murder, war taxes, and the World League for the Peace of Righteousness

Gen. Uribe-Uribe, the head of the Liberal Party in Colombia, is assassinated. With an axe.

The German Social Democratic Party newspaper Vorwärts is banned again.

France is expropriating German-owned businesses, including a department store.

The insurance industry newspaper The Spectator says that the murder rate in the US is increasing. 6,500 last year.

Rumor of the Day: The airplane flown by British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey’s brother is shot down and he is taken prisoner by the Germans.  I couldn’t confirm that Grey actually had any brothers still alive (following the unfortunate lion and buffalo incidents).

The “war tax” passes the US Senate, with no Republicans voting in favor, and a minor revolt amongst the cotton Southern Democrats.

Theodore Roosevelt has an article in the Sunday NYT about how silly Woodrow Wilson’s arbitration treaties are, and what would really preserve the peace is a tribunal of the great powers, a World League for the Peace of Righteousness, all pledged to militarily back the decision of a world court.

Major Clarence Wiener offers to leave Harvard University $10 million in his will if they fire psych professor Hugo Münsterberg, a prominent advocate of Germany’s position in the war.  Wiener is remembered at Harvard for a rather brief undergraduate career and for once getting drunk and shooting a stuffed lion he kept in his rooms.  Münsterberg offers his resignation but Harvard refuses to accept it.  Also, they correctly disbelieve that Wiener actually has $10 million (he’s also not really a major) despite his invention of an expandable boot-tree.  Wiener in fact left nothing but debts when he hanged himself in 1932.

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Today -100: October 17, 1914: Vot you mean, you Gott dam fool?

Herbert Gladstone, son of William and until recently the governor-general of South Africa, tells the NYT that Salmon Maritz’s rebellion is insignificant.  One reason he gives why the Boers would never ally with Germany is the lesson of the Herero, who the Germans slaughtered in next-door Southwest Africa.  Gladstone doesn’t mention that the British sent soldiers to help the Germans put down the Herero.  Including Maritz.

War comes to Nyassaland (Malawi).  A British steamer, the Guendolen, is sent to capture a German steamer Von Pismann.  Except no one had informed the Germans that there was a war on, so when the Guendolen fired at it, missing the first three times, the skipper yelled, evidently in music-hall German, “Vot you mean, you Gott dam fool? If you fire again, you will hit the ship.”

The Germans are demanding that Antwerp, many of whose occupants have fled, provide the occupying troops every day with 21,000 pounds of potatoes, 1,000 pounds of meat, 2,000 bottles of wine and 85,000 cigars.

Or maybe Carranza hasn’t resigned.

Germany claims two British prisoners have admitted that dumdum bullets were issued to them.  They even have a photograph of two bullets, so it must be true.

The Russian Governor-General of Galicia plans to annex Eastern Galicia to Russia, while West Galicia will be part of a Kingdom of Poland, which will be part of the Russian Empire.  He says there is no need for compulsion in religion, “for the peasants pass over very easily to Orthodoxy.”  Fighting is said to be within 8 miles of Warsaw.

Press hysteria has forced London hotels to fire Germans and Austrians (there were a lot of German waiters).

Santa Rosa, California considers helping Belgian refugees immigrate and settle in Santa Rosa.

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Today -100: October 16, 1914: Of contagious diseases, submarines on choo-choos, arson in arsenals, buxtons, and spies

The Watch Committee of the navy town of Plymouth, England recommends reestablishing the old Contagious Diseases Acts requiring compulsory examination of prostitutes (and anyone the police suspected of being prostitutes) for venereal diseases, to preserve the health of sailors.  Women’s suffrage groups oppose this (as feminists and evangelicals and evangelical feminists did in the 19th century).

Louis Botha, South African prime minister, will personally lead commandos against Salmon Maritz’s rebellion.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The rumor in London is that the Germans plan to move submarines by rail to the French and Belgian coasts.

More fog, probably: a fire in the Austrian arsenal is said to have destroyed a just-completed dreadnought and six torpedo-boat destroyers; the fire is believed to have been set deliberately.

German troops occupy Bruges.

A British newspaper claims that German estimates of losses (killed, wounded, missing and POW) in France and Belgium at 700,000 men, and maybe 150,000 on the Russian front; Austrian losses are 500,000.

Noel and Charles Buxton, brothers from a political family, Noel a Liberal MP, are both shot by a Turk in Bucharest, on their way back from a mission to preserve Bulgaria’s neutrality in the war and planning to attend King Carol of Romania’s funeral.  Noel is shot in the leg, Charles in the lung.  Charles will be a major player in the sort-of-anti-war Union of Democratic Control.

Russia says that many of the German civilians in Poland have turned out to be spies and have been dealt with accordingly.

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Today -100: October 15, 1914: Of aerial assassinations, recaptured lycks, provisional prezzes, and rosy cheeks

While Boer leaders in South Africa aren’t openly joining Maritz’s rebellion, they aren’t denouncing it either.

While French President Raymond Poincaré was visiting Gen. Joffre at Romilly-sur-Seine last week, a German aviator tried to assassinate him from the air.  He missed and was shot down by a French plane.

Portuguese troops are mobilizing, possibly to fight Germans in Africa.  Yesterday there were false reports that it had declared war on Germany.

Headline of the Day -100 That is Not a Euphemism:  “Germans Recapture Lyck.”

The Austrians have Sarajevo locked down tight for the trial of the 22 alleged conspirators in the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

France says Germany took 4,000 French boys aged 15 to 17 from occupied territories and sent them to Germany, to prevent them eventually joining the French army.  I guess this counts as long-term thinking.

Carranza resigns as provisional president and is replaced by Gen. Antonio Villareal.  Which is what Pancho Villa wanted, so he’ll be totally satisfied now, probably.

The bill to give the Philippines greater autonomy and a more representative government, leading to very eventual independence, passes the House 211-59.  The Senate is not expected to get to it this session.

French and British troops drive the Germans out of Ypres.  It just occurred to me that the English pronounced it Wipers but I don’t know how the Germans pronounced it.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The Germans claim to have found papers left behind by the Belgian General Staff in its hasty retreat from Brussels that show a 1906 agreement for British troops to be invited into Belgium in the event of a war between France and Germany, which justifies the German invasion because Belgium never intended to keep its vaunted neutrality.  Britain denies there was ever any such agreement.  There wasn’t.

The Georgia Supreme Court denies Leo Frank a new trial.

Christabel Pankhurst shows up in New York, her first visit to America, to help the suffrage cause here.  The NYT says she has “rosy cheeks and she looked very pretty as she came off the boat yesterday.”  Do they describe her clothing in great detail? Of course they do.  They think she’s about 23, which would mean she started her suffrage activism when she was 12.  She tells the Times that “The suffragettes in England are in favour of the war.”  However she does find the timing of the war unfortunate, coming when the British government couldn’t have “held out” against her much longer.

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Today -100: October 14, 1914: Of bayonet battles, governments-in-exile, universities-in-exile, dead princes, bombs, and miscegenation markets

Headline of the Day -100: “SERBS WIN BAYONET BATTLE.”  Not a euphemism (probably).

The Belgian government moves to Le Havre, France.

The University of Louvain, which the Germans burned, will operate out of Cambridge for the time being.

German troops capture Ghent, Belgium.  The American vice consul lends his car to get wounded Belgian soldiers to the train station to be evacuated before the Germans arrive, something the Belgian authorities hadn’t bothered to provide for.

There’s a rebellion in South Africa, in northern Cape Province, bordering on German South-West Africa, led by Lt. Col. Salmon (or Salomon) Maritz, who was a Boer military leader in the Boer War and until this week was in the South African army.  Maritz and many of the officers and men under his command go over to the Germans (who promote him to general).  He will proclaim a provisional government for an independent South Africa and invite South Africans to take up arms.  Well, white South Africans.  The government declares martial law.

German troops are expected to capture Warsaw soon.  As was the custom.

Finally: a story of a prince dying in battle that’s actually true.  Prince Oleg, son of the Grand Duke Konstantine.  A Romanov.  21.

And another! The Vossiche Zeitung of Berlin says that both Crown Prince Alexander and Prince George of Serbia have been shot, the latter receiving a mortal wound.  I don’t think Alexander was ever shot, but George definitely was, seriously but not fatally (he died in 1972).

Bombs explode in St. Patrick’s Cathedral and St Alphonsus’s Church.  Since the latter is where Frank Tannenbaum, the IWW leader, was arrested last spring, it is assumed the Wobblies are responsible.

The LA Times has an expose of the “San Pedro miscegenation market.”  White women and Japanese men have taken to being married by a ship’s captain outside the 3-mile limit to evade California’s law against inter-racial marriage, which it doesn’t because marriages performed by ship’s captains don’t count, according to the California Supreme Court.  Better would be going to Washington state or Canada, which don’t ban such marriages.  California law banned banning whites from marrying blacks or mulattos in 1850; “Mongolians” were added in 1880, and Filipinos in 1933, days after the state supreme court ruled that Filipinos were Malays rather than Mongolians.  The law was overturned by the state Supreme Court in 1948 (on a 4-3 vote).  Note that Hispanics counted as white under the law (in fact, the 1948 case was of a Latina woman married to a black man).

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Today -100: October 13, 1914: Of internment, re-election, and horses

The Belgian army has successfully retreated to Ostend.

The Netherlands is interning the Belgian and British soldiers who fled across the border.  The Morning Post blames First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill for the disaster of Antwerp, for sending in too small and too under-trained a force, and says Churchill shouldn’t be interfering in military decisions anyway.

It comes out that in February 1913, President-elect Wilson wrote to Rep. A. Mitchell Palmer, getting Palmer & the D’s to block consideration of a constitutional amendment, passed by the Senate, to restrict presidents to a single six-year term (even though that was a plank in the party platform he supposedly ran on).

Austrians, facing high food prices, are eating a lot of horse meat.

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Today -100: October 12, 1914: Your turn will come

The Germans inform the residents of Antwerp who fled that they have two days to return to their homes (and live under German rule) or their houses will be seized for billets and their furniture removed.

The scalawags in the German Luftwaffe (or whatever it was called in 1914) drop a pennant on Paris, “We have taken Antwerp; your turn will come.”  Also incendiaries which set the roof of Notre Dome on fire.

The US and Panama agree that warships from belligerent countries taking on supplies or coal in Panamanian waters will be banned from doing it again for 3 months.

The Carranza-Villa fighting spills across the border.  Some of Villa’s men accidentally crossed into Arizona at night and were interned by the US Ninth Cavalry, a negro unit (“dusky troopers,” the NYT calls them).  In the ensuing battle between the Mexican factions, bullets and shells accidentally-on-purpose hit Naco, AZ, and some American soldiers are shot.

The US missed its own deadline to evacuate Vera Cruz, and is now placing conditions on Carranza (they say asking questions, but Mexicans will know gringo commands when they hear them), including guarantees for the safety of refugees, foreigners, and priests, and handing over the customs money the US has been collecting since occupying the customs house to France to settle the debts of previous regimes.

Pasquale Amato, the Metropolitan Opera baritone, just returned from the Continent, was detained by Austrian officials at the border because he had contraband – Italian newspapers.  He gave an impromptu acapella performance of the prologue to Pagliacci to convince them he was who he said he was.  Spy or singer? You be the judge:

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Today -100: October 11, 1914: Those who come after us shall be free from such terror

Antwerp surrenders, following a 40-hour bombardment.  The Belgian army is fleeing, headed by King Albert.  It hopes to reach Ostend.  Refugees are streaming into Holland, including inmates of insane asylums.

To some extent, the capture of Antwerp shows the failure of German strategy.  The whole point of invading Belgium, following the Schlieffen Plan, was to sweep through it on the way to capture Paris.  Since Antwerp was a fortress which would take some work and time to destroy and since it wasn’t blocking their transportation and communications line, they could simply bypass it.  But the push to Paris has halted, so the Germans are stuck in Belgium and have to deal with it now.

The German Governor-General of Belgium, Field Marshal Baron von der Goltz, orders Belgians to accept German currency.  “This is causing trouble at Brussels.”

Portugal is rumored to be about to join the war on Britain’s side.

Romania might be as well, following the removal of one major obstacle: King Carol I of Romania dies, at 75. His nephew Ferdinand will be the new king.  Ferdinand is a Catholic, and was only allowed to become the heir-presumptive (after his father and older brother demurred) after agreeing that his children would be raised Orthodox.  The Catholic Church excommunicated him for that, but later relented.

Annie Robinson, who was a stewardess on the Titanic, jumps to her death from a steamer in heavy fog.  Better to have taken the hint and stayed off boats.

Headline of the Day -100 That’s Probably Not a Euphemism:  “British Admire German Gunnery.”

Lord Haldane, the Lord High Chancellor (and former secretary of war), declares Britain’s war aims: “The terms of peace will be that the dominant spirit of militarism, which has perverted every talent of the German nation, will be crushed and broken, so that those who come after us shall be free from such terror.”  In case you thought Britain didn’t have concrete war aims.

The German Army has more than 150 Jewish officers now, compared to none before the war.

House Republican leader James Mann of Illinois wants to force every congresscritter onto the record on women’s suffrage.  He is a recent convert to the cause.  His attempt quickly turns into a slanging match, much of which is subsequently expunged from the record, between Mann and Thomas Heflin (D-Ala.), whose sexism is matched only by his racism.  Mann introduces an amendment to the Philippines Bill to introduce women’s suffrage in the Philippines; it loses 84-58.

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Today -100: October 10, 1914: That’s a lot of shells

Germany captures Antwerp (update: maybe).  They can now use it as a base for zeppelin attacks on London.

A couple of doctors in the Philippines discover the mosquito responsible for transmitting malaria.  The doctors aren’t mentioned in malaria’s Wikipedia page, though.

Supposedly, French President Poincaré’s country house in Sampigny has been hit by 48 German shells.

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Today -100: October 9, 1914: Of schoolboy soldiers, loyal Poles, and name changes

Headline of the Day -100:  “German Schoolboys Enrolled for Army.”  16-year-olds.

Austria indicts 25 for the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

The German Anti-Polish Union says that Polish soldiers in the German army have been so loyal that it will dissolve itself at once.

One of Pancho Villa’s generals, Maclovio Herrera, revolts against him, claiming Villa had his brother, another Constitutionalist general, executed.

The director of the Berlin Royal Museums says that all those looted artworks are being moved to Germany only temporarily for their safety.

Britain bans German and Austrian residents of the UK from changing their names, as many have done, to something less likely to get their shops burned down.

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Today -100: October 8, 1914: Of shootouts, yaps, peripatetic governments, and submarines

Barney Bertsche, politician and gangster, convicted last year of fraud in connection with a “clairvoyant trust” – picture the criminal underground portrayed in Fritz Lang’s “M” but with fake clairvoyants and wiretapping and blackmail instead of fake crippled beggars – engages in a gun-battle in Chicago with some cops trying to take him in.  Bertsche, two cops, an arsonist and another friend of Bertsche are all shot.  The cops may have been trying to kill Bertsche to shut him up about the cops on his payroll.  For more, see here (pdf).

Japan captures an island with the obviously made-up name Yap, in the Caroline Islands, which Germany bought from Spain in 1899 for about $5 million.  The astonishing thing is that the LA Times didn’t use the headline “Japs Take Yap.”

The Belgian government, which moved from Brussels to Antwerp at the start of the war, now has to flee to Ostend.  The next step may be to London.

A few days ago an Italian retired naval lieutenant commandeered one of his country’s submarines, saying he’d explain later why he needed it. He landed it at Corsica.  A letter he left behind has been found saying that it was a protest, or something, against Italian neutrality.  The French will give the sub back.

Ivor Novello publishes the first great World War I song, “Keep the Home Fires Burning.” Here’s a 1915 recording by James F. Harrison and below that the Oh What a Lovely War version.

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Today -100: October 7, 1914: Of clocks, fun & suicide, jaluits, mines, and monticellos

An ill wind etc: American clockmakers are poised to take over the hole in the British clock market left by the loss of German imports.

Theodore Roosevelt and Republican candidate for governor of New York Charles Whitman dispute over whether, during the NYC mayor race a year ago, while Whitman, who ultimately lost, was  negotiating a deal with other candidates not to run for governor if elected mayor, he was simultaneously secretly negotiating with Roosevelt for TR’s support for Whitman as a fusion candidate for governor.  I’d have thought that made Roosevelt look just as sneaky and under-handed as Whitman.

Pancho Villa imports 10,000 rifles through the port of San Antonio.  The Carranza side is also buying up arms in the US.  Swell.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Children’s Fun Causes Suicide.”  A porter in a London hotel kills himself after children taunt his daughter – fun! – for being German.

The Japanese seize Jaluit, an island or atoll or something in the German colony in the Marshall islands, which is part of German New Guinea.  Japan claims it doesn’t intend to keep Jaluit.

France has begun mining the Adriatic, because Austria is mining the Adriatic.

The French government will return to Paris from its Bordeaux sojourn. (Er, eventually.)

A district court judge removes Lewis Duncan, the socialist mayor of Butte, Montana, and Sheriff Tim Driscoll, from office, supposedly for inadequately reacting to the miners’ strike (and the various accompanying dynamitings) earlier this year.  I’m going to speculate that Anaconda bought itself a district court judge, as was the custom.

There has been talk for years about the nation acquiring Monticello.  Pres. Wilson approves the idea, but not necessarily the idea of presidents using it as their summer home.

Joseph P. Kennedy, the 26-year-old president of the Columbia Trust Bank, marries Rose Fitzgerald.

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Today -100: October 6, 1914: Of eyes and dyes, underwear, searchlights, and moltkes

Britain is running out of glass eyes – the best ones came from Germany.  Another opportunity for American business.

American textile firms, however, are being hurt by the German ban on the export of chemicals, which includes dyes.

While Woodrow Wilson wants presidential primaries to be held in every state on the same day, he admits there won’t be time enough to put this into effect for 1916.

Headline of the Day -100:  “TAKES OVER ALL UNDERWEAR.; War Office Forbids Leicester Makers to Sell Goods Privately.”  So to speak.

For some reason, British royal proclamations about the war, which at first described the war as being with the German and Austrian empires, now talk about a war with the German and Austrian emperors.

I think I mentioned notices going up in London saying don’t shoot at the airships, they’re ours.  We now know that what was going on was experiments in detecting airships.  It seems that searchlights can illuminate them even in the heaviest London fog.

Kaiser Wilhelm fires Helmuth von Moltke as chief of the army general staff because of some combination of incompetence, a nervous breakdown, and lack of sufficient obsequiousness to the kaiser (or as the NYT puts it, “the Kaiser wished to subordinate sound strategy to his spiteful desire to attack England”).  He will be replaced by Erich von Falkenhayn, the Prussian Minister of War.

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Today -100: October 5, 1914: Of red eagles, aloof Romania, peace prize winners, and fires in crowded theaters

Kaiser Wilhelm supposedly offers to award the Order of the Red Eagle (second class) to the first aviator who drops explosives on London, with lesser prizes to those who bomb other cities or battleships.

Essad Pasha arrives in Albania’s then capital Durrës with a small army, so he’s probably totally the king now.  Or the puppet of Serbia and Italy, as the case may be.  He’ll take what he can get.

Aloof Headline of the Day -100:  “Rumania to Hold Aloof.”  Won’t enter the war just yet.  There are reports that Bulgaria and Turkey have agreed to attack Romania if it does enter the war, and to divide up large slices of Romanian and Serbian territory (Romania and Serbia both gained a lot of territory in the Balkan Wars).

France says the German story about wounded German soldiers having their noses and ears cut off is a fabrication to distract from their ruthless destruction of Orchies.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Peace Leader Urges a War to the Finish.”  French senator Baron Paul-Henri-Benjamin d’Estournelles de Constant, winner of the 1909 Nobel Peace Prize for his work at the Hague peace conferences, wants Prussian militarism crushed, crushed I tell you!

Yesterday was Sunday, the day for the prayers for peace Pres. Wilson called for.  At St Patrick’s in New York, Cardinal Farley sort of prays for peace, which he says can only come if Christianity triumphs.  The only real cause of this war, he says, was the neglect of the Church and of Christianity by the nations of Europe.  “Almost every nation in Europe was persecuting the Church, trampling on its rights, driving it into the corners of the land.  And now they are paying the penalty.  They are suffering for their sins against God.”  Especially France.

He seems nice.

The NY state fire marshal bans the use of explosives in movies, because they might start fires in theaters.  Wait, what?  Well evidently they were creating sound effects in movie theaters synched to the film (war scenes being popular just now).  Yes, I could see how that might start a fire.

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