Today -100: June 8, 1915: Of red-handed monks

German anti-Semitic newspapers want to restore the ban on Jewish army officers – after the war.

Gen. Pancho Villa may have been decisively defeated.

It mysteriously comes out that there is/was a secret treaty between Germany, Austria and Romania under which Romania can’t go to war with them until 1920.

A National American Woman’s Suffrage Association conference votes against militant tactics such as the recent “heckling” of Pres. Wilson and opposing Democrats in general for opposing a federal suffrage constitutional amendment.

The German occupation authority demands that 500 Belgians volunteer to work at their arsenal in Malines. None do. As punishment, the city’s entire business traffic by rail and canal is shut down.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Italian authorities arrest five monks for signaling military intel by way of reflectors from the windows of their monastery across the Adriatic to Austria.

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Today -100: June 7, 1915: Of passports, gas, and poison zeppelins

Two Americans who live in Dresden told a newspaper there that Wilson’s reaction to the Lusitania sinking makes them ashamed of their citizenship. So the State Dept revokes their passports.

Russia says German poison gas killed civilians, indeed wiped out whole villages down to the last chicken.

Headline of the Day -100: 

What’s the 1915 equivalent of “that would be a great name for a rock band?” I really don’t see a barbershop quartet calling itself the Poison Zeppelins.

Oh, and there are no, repeat no poison zeppelins.

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Today -100: June 6, 1915: Of astors, headaches, traitor monks, mob rule, and gas

2-year-old John Jacob Astor VI, born four months after his father, John Jacob Astor IV, died on the Titanic, on which he and his much younger wife Madeleine Talmage Force Astor were returning from their honeymoon, requires more to live on than the measly $20,000 a year the Surrogates’ Court is giving his mother out of the income of his $3 million trust, she tells the court. Why, she’s spent much more than that (mostly on their 5th Avenue mansion) out of the goodness of her heart and her own $7+ million inheritance. To be fair, she’ll lose that inheritance in a year when she remarries, because JJ 4’s will was kind of dickish that way.

Headline of the Day -100: 

So he was unable to finish writing his response to Germany’s response to his Lusitania Note.

The Danish Parliament votes for a new constitution, in which women not only have the franchise but also the right of election to the Parliament.

Headline of the Day -100: 

While the rest of the country is holding pro-Leo Frank meetings, one held in Atlanta cheers for his impending execution – close enough that Frank can hear them from his cell. The speaker says that giving in to the clamor of the rest of the country would be giving in to “mob rule.”

Headline of the Day -100: 

We’ve all been there.

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Today -100: June 5, 1915: Of zeppelin giants, spies, and poles

Headline of the Day -100: 

Oh, I don’t think so.

In a secret trial in London, two Germans named Muller and Hahn are convicted before two justices named Lush and Avory, which sounds like a bad pulp thriller, but then so much of the British justice system does. Muller is sentenced to death by firing squad, Hahn to life.

The Frankfurter Zeitung claims that arch-nationalist Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio is in fact... a Pole.

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Today -100: June 4, 1915: If we had a jingo in the White House, this country would now be at war with Germany

San Marino declares war on Austria! The Sammarinese army numbers nearly one thousand. Nearly. The NYT will print another story on the 8th saying that San Marino, “in an ardently picturesque manifesto... declares it draws the sword on the side of Italy.” And then doesn’t mention the republic’s no doubt ardently picturesque war effort at least through 1916.

Germany captures Przemysl.

Wilson’s warning to the Mexican factions to unite or face American action has the predictable (except to Wilson, I guess) effect: every side is now fighting harder than ever for dominance, hoping for American recognition.

The British Parliament meets for the first time under the new cabinet.  The NYT tells us “H.W. Foster was cheered when he answered questions about stockings” but fails to inform us as to what that was about, so I had to check Hansard:

Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD  asked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether there has been any rejection of hosiery supplied to the War Office since the War on account of its containing excessive moisture; and, if so, can he state the quantities so rejected?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. H. W. Forster)  There have been a few rejections on account of excessive moisture, but the quantity rejected forms a very small percentage of the total supplied. In most cases the excessive moisture was due to the socks having been scoured after finishing and sent out before they were dry.

Why there might have been cheering remains a complete mystery.

Parliament passes a bill to end the requirement that MPs appointed to cabinet positions have to resign and fight a by-election. This was supposed to be temporary, but like so many war measures...

The Tories want all workers in munitions, mines, railroads and anything else that can be considered vaguely war-related to be put under government control, essentially conscripted, and all union regulations abrogated.

Emmeline Pankhurst goes further, holding a meeting to call for mandatory war service for everyone of both sexes. What war service is she performing, you might ask? Well, she’s campaigning for mandatory war service (with a secret subsidy from the government, although that probably starts later), and she plans to adopt some war babies and then pass them off to her subordinates when she gets bored. At another meeting announcing plans for a home for war babies, a Father Vaughan protests the idea that “because a soldier had had a bad time in the trenches he should be encouraged to have a good time here at the expense of morality.”

William Howard Taft, speaking at the Bryn Mawr commencement, says it’s good Wilson is president because “If we had a jingo in the White House, this country would now be at war with Germany.” I wonder who he might have in mind?

District Court refuses the federal government’s petition to dissolve US Steel as a monopoly. The government will appeal.

The commander of a German U-boat apologizes to the captain of a trawler he’d just sunk, saying he hadn’t realized it was Belgian. So that’s okay then.

29 French airplanes bombard the hq of the German crown prince.

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Today -100: June 3, 1915: The people and Government of the United States cannot stand indifferently by and do nothing to serve their neighbor

Headline of the Day -100: 

Woodrow Wilson orders Mexico to knock off all the civil warring, or the US “will be constrained to decide what means should be employed by the United States in order to help Mexico save herself and serve her people.”  For example, we might lend “active moral support” (i.e., an arms embargo on its enemies) to some strongman or strong-group, “if such may be found,” which can establish a functioning government. They’re thinking Gen. Eduardo Iturbide, mostly because he’s in Washington DC lobbying for the job. “Mexico is starving and without a Government,” Wilson says, so “the people and Government of the United States cannot stand indifferently by and do nothing to serve their neighbor. They want nothing for themselves in Mexico. Least of all do they desire to settle her affairs for her, or claim any right to do so. But neither do they wish to see utter ruin come upon her”. He telegraphs this statement to Carranza, Villa, Zapata, and Garza.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The Daily News (London) says that Turkish troops have revolted at Gallipoli, killing German officers. The alleged revolt was put down, allegedly, and its ringleaders allegedly executed.

Cesare Battisti, a member of the Austrian Chamber of Deputies from Trentino for the Social Democratic Workers’ Party, is tried in absentia and sentenced to death. In absentia because he left the country at the start of the war and has joined the Italian Army. He will be captured by the Austrians a year from now and hanged (twice) and garrotted.

German Ambassador to the US Count von Bernstorff meets Pres. Wilson and tells him that he has affidavits that the Lusitania was armed: from some guy with a German name (who will turn out to be a German secret service agent) who claims he saw cannons when helping a friend bring his trunks on board; a boarding-house keeper and a lodger who say another lodger, a steward on the Lusi, said he’d be safe because the ship had “four big brightly polished copper guns” (the steward will swear he’s never met the guy and never said any such thing); and some guy who totally spotted a cannon while standing on the docks). Wilson tells him that the US won’t discuss the details of the Lusitania case with Germany until it accepts the principle that innocent lives shouldn’t be taken on the high seas.

Amb. Bernstorff has a problem: with trans-Atlantic cables passing through British territory, he has no way of communicating privately with his government, which he believes underestimates feeling in the US about the Lusitania. He will soon make arrangements to send a Dr Meyer-Gerhard all the way to Berlin.

A German newspaper claims that the former prime minister of Italy Giovanni Giolitti has had to flee the country because of his opposition to the war. Pretty sure this is false.

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Today -100: June 2, 1915: This impudent excuse is typical of the Germans

Austria is refusing to offer Romania anything to stop it entering the war. It is thought that Romania and Bulgaria will soon enter the war and maybe even – and this would obviously be a game-changer – San Marino. (Granted the game that would be changed is Trivial Pursuit, but a game-changer is a game-changer).

The NYT notes that in the 9th century San Marino declared war against Charlemagne. And where is he now? Dead, that’s where he is.

There are so many countries at war (okay, 11, but that doesn’t count all their colonies and protectorates and commonwealths), that evidently no one noticed that one was on vacation:

In a massive zeppelin raid on London (which has previously been untouched), 120 bombs are dropped, starting fires, and killing 7 people. The Blitz this ain’t. More riots against and looting of German-owned shops ensue. Germany says the raid was in retaliation for the (French) aerial bombardment of Ludwigshafen am Rhein. Which the French said was in retaliation for German bombing raids on Paris. The Daily News says “This impudent excuse is typical of the Germans”.

Grover Cleveland’s widow Frances Preston is president of the Princeton branch of the New Jersey Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage and vp of the state branch. She says many women don’t want the vote and women don’t know enough about politics to cast intelligent votes.

The Georgia Prison Commission is considering Leo Frank’s plea for commutation. A delegation from the Atlanta region is present, including members of Mary Phagan’s family, former Governor Joseph Brown, and Solicitor General of the Blue Ridge Circuit Herbert Clay, who complains that non-Georgians have been reading “biased, I might say subsidized accounts.” I wonder jew he thinks is subsidizing those accounts? Who – I meant who he thinks is subsidizing those accounts.

Punch:

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Today -100: June 1, 1915: But all the same we're wanting more

The British government is suing the London Times for printing a letter by a retired Maj. Richardson (they’re also suing Richardson) under the Defense of the Realm Act (DORA). The letter called for conscription in Britain, saying that France is running out of military recruits. The prosecutor says this would give Germany a sense of confidence and depress the French and British. The case will be dismissed because the Germans already know about the French thing.

Germany admits having sunk the American oil tanker Gulflight 4 weeks ago. The commander of the U-boat that sank it says he thought it was British and didn’t notice the American flag until after he’d given the order to fire.

Germany calls out the last of its reserves – except in Bavaria, for some reason.

Headline of the Day -100:

A mountain range, not a follicly challenged person.

British recruiting posters issued some time this month:

Recruiting poster issued this month in Ireland:

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Today -100: May 31, 1915: We know ourselves to be free of any blame

The German reply to Wilson’s Lusitania Note fails to offer reparations or give guarantees for American lives and ships in the future. It claims that the Lusitania had concealed cannon (it didn’t, but that’s Germany’s story, and it’s sticking with it).

Some German newspaper views on the Lusitania: The Berliner Tageblatt: “We pity their hard fate with sincere hearts, but at the same time we know ourselves to be free of any blame.” It blames the British Admiralty, and Winston Churchill in particular, for telling the Lusi to fly an American flag on a previous voyage.

Latest Italian spy scare: Spies in the catacombs under Rome!

9 of the 10 deputy sheriffs on trial for shooting strikers at the Roosevelt fertilizer plant in January are convicted of manslaughter. They may all be tried again for one of the other strikers they killed. (In a bit they will be sentenced to terms of 2 to 10 years.)

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Today -100: May 30, 1915: Of pledges, and spy scares

French President Poincaré takes the pledge to abstain from spirits. Funnily enough, he doesn’t say a thing about wine.

Germany finally replies to Wilson’s Lusitania Note. It’s just a statement of “facts.” They will wait for the US’s response to those facts before making any further statement. They insist the Lusitania was armed and had ammunition in its cargo in violation of US law. They justify the sinking of the Falaba because all merchant ships have supposedly been instructed by the British Admiralty to ram subs (there’s even a reward for sinking a u-boat) and fly false flags.

Italians believe that there has been a vast espionage operation against them that includes every Austrian and German tourist who has ever taken a photograph and billboards which are actually coded directions for airships, etc.

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Today -100: May 29, 1915: Holy anger, Batman!

Next week, Woodrow Wilson will tell Mexicans to get their act together, or he’ll get it together for them. He’s specifically pissed off that Carranza’s men seized a relief committee shipment of corn intended for the starving people of Mexico City.

A surprise defense witness at the trial of those ten cops who shot up the strikers at the Roosevelt fertilizer plant in New Jersey in January: the secretary of the union, who turns out to be a police spy. The attorney general questions him: “You joined the union to sell it out, didn’t you? And in doing so, you sold your manhood, didn’t you?”

German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg says “Italy has now inscribed in the book of the world’s history in letters of blood, which will never fade, her violation of good faith.” He says Italy could have gotten everything it wanted without going to war and that distrust of Austria didn’t enter into it, because Germany guaranteed the concessions and everyone (Belgium aside) knows Germany’s word can totally be trusted. He says that Germany wages this war “not in hatred... but in anger – in holy anger.”

Lots of Italian princes are joining the army. I look forward to many false dead-prince rumors.

A special correspondent explains in the NYT why Italy went to war: Italians really don’t like Germans.

Italy and Britain are each offering contracts for any company in the US that can manufacture 1,000 high-power airplane engines, but US factories aren’t up to it, in part because they’re busy filling contracts for trucks and planes. I can’t imagine why Germans keep saying the US isn’t really neutral.

Austrian Gen. Moritz von Auffenberg, who was fired after losing the Battle of Rawa at the start of the war, is arrested, the NYT says as a political criminal, but actually for helping a friend profit from insider (and top secret) information when he was minister of war in 1912. Embarrassingly, the government only just found out about this – four days after the Emperor made him a baron. He will be found not guilty by a military tribunal.

Headline of the Day -100 Which Is Not a Euphemism, Probably: 

The NYT calls the Austrian 42-centimeter gun an elongated version of Big Bertha, which the Times calls Thick Bertha, both of which sound like a Berlin cabaret act, but not as much as the name in German: Dicke Bertha. Anyway, a German correspondent claims that Russian troops go insane from fright during the 90 seconds between the gun firing and its shell arriving on target. The Austrians are very proud of their big gun (cough), and claim that they invented it all by themselves without copying Dicke Bertha, it’s just pure coincidence.

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Today -100: May 28, 1915: This is, perhaps, the very time when I would not care to arouse the sentiment of patriotism

Headline of the Day -100: 

A ship, not the actual royal person. A mine-layer, it blows up while docked in Sheerness, England, killing 352 crew and dockyard workers. Pieces of the ship, severed heads and whatnot land up to 9 miles away. A boot, a collar and tie, and a pound of butter fall into the garden of a woman in Rainham, four miles away. A court of inquiry will suggest that maybe in the future the Royal Navy train people a little better before letting them prime mines.

Also hit by an explosion: the US steamer Nebraskan, off the coast of Ireland. It’s still not clear if it was an accident or a torpedo, but it was in fact a torpedo. A German one. The Nebraska is only damaged. It will be sunk for good by another U-boat in two years.

The Germans are now using poison gas on the Eastern front as well as the Western.

Speaking of poison gas, 18 French airplanes drop bombs on the BASF factories in Ludwigshafen, where explosives and poison gas are produced. This is the first ever strategic aerial bombardment. 12 are killed. The French say their planes all returned unharmed, the Germans say they captured 2 of them (later they’ll also claim to have shot down 4 more), and anyway their bombs did little damage.

King Alfonso of Spain offers the use of a palace to the pope if he has to flee Italy.

Woodrow Wilson has stopped giving any speeches, blaming the press for focusing unduly on the “There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight” line in his speech in Philadelphia two weeks ago. Why, he says, he didn’t attach any particular importance to that line at all, himself, and is surprised everyone else does. When asked whether he could just give a speech about patriotism (for Independence Day), he replies, “This is, perhaps, the very time when I would not care to arouse the sentiment of patriotism.”

Theodore Roosevelt falls off a horse and breaks a rib.

Maurice Benjamin Medbury, a rich antique jewelry dealer who died on the Lusitania, leaves behind two wives, one in California and one in London.

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Today -100: May 27, 1915: But born they are

Headline of the Day -100:

Interesting to see the Times using the term “birth control,” coined by Margaret Sanger just the year before. Anyway, this is a public meeting at the Academy of Medicine at which “The terms used were as frank as those of the lecture room of the medical schools in spite of the fact that the men and women present in about equal proportions were not of the profession”. Dr. Abraham Jacobi (a pioneering pediatrician and former president of the AMA who was a political prisoner in Germany after the 1848 Revolution and a friend of Marx and Engels) calls for elimination of the NY law making it illegal for anyone (including doctors) to give out birth control information. He makes the case on eugenic grounds, saying that hereditary epileptics, idiots, etc “should not have been permitted to be born.” Also, children of poor people, who get insufficient feeding, coarse clothing, and live in congested, cold or overheated tenements. “Would it be wise on the part of the children not to be born? Surely, but born they are”.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Edward Whitaker bans the Commissioner of Licenses from preventing the showing of the 1914 movie The Ordeal, which the National Board of Censors thought might upset German-Americans. Whitaker says there’s no such thing as German-Americans, there’s just Americans: “What has lately become known as hyphenated citizenship has no color or standing.” He also says the commissioner should ignore the self-appointed National Board of Censors.

New York state’s Committee on Elementary Schools rejects Major Sidney Grant’s complaint about the students of PS 165 in Brooklyn singing “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier.”

In an editorial entitled “For Liberty and Democracy,” the NYT finds it significant that Italy entered the war because the people clamored for it and forced the government to respond, while the German and Austrian emperors didn’t even consult the people. “Italy’s war is an Italian war; Germany’s war is a Potsdam war. ... Aside from Russia [!], the war is one between autocracy and democracy; between the peoples and the Kings”. I call bullshit.

Unfortunate Headline of the Day -100:

 

Headline of the Day -100: 

150 lepers have been secretly (and presumably forcibly) removed from a Manila hospital from which they’ve taken to coming and going as they please, to the leper colony on the island of Culion.

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Today -100: May 26, 1915: Of cabinets, neutrality, and bitter Germans

The new British cabinet is formed. Asquith remains as PM, Grey as foreign secretary, and Lord Kitchener as hapless minister of war. Lloyd George moves from the Exchequer to the new post of Minister of Munitions, temporarily until he gets the shells shortage sorted (say that three times fast). He will be replaced by Reginald McKenna. Tory leader Bonar Law is brought in as colonial secretary and Austen Chamberlain (brother of Neville, son of Joseph) gets India. Churchill is replaced at the Admiralty by former PM Arthur Balfour. Churchill will be the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancashire, which is the equivalent of a waiter being tipped a nickle, or maybe it’s the equivalent of being sent to the naughty step. Ulster leader and pre-war treasonist Sir Edward Carson will be attorney general; Irish Nationalist party leader John Redmond refuses to take any Cabinet position. Lord Haldane is out as Lord Chancellor because rabid newspapers and idiots have been attacking him as supposedly pro-German. And there’s a member of the Labour Party in government for the first time, Arthur Henderson as president of the Board of education.

Portugal’s prime minister João Chagas resigns for health reasons – being shot in the head last week seems not to have agreed with him.

Italian troops invade Austria.

Headline of the Day -100:

Wilson’s special commissioner, Duval West, who has returned from investigating conditions in Mexico, reports that he has no idea who’s going to win power down there and recommends just doing more of the same – watching and waiting and selling arms to anyone who can afford them – because that’s working out so well.

Headline of the Day -100: 

They seem to think that US neutrality isn’t really very neutral, what with all the munitions being sold to Germany’s enemies.

I’ve noticed an increase in the use of the word Teutons when describing Germans + Austrians.

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Today -100: May 25, 1915: Perfidy whose like history does not know

Italy declared war on its own schedule, but most of the initial military moves seem to have been initiated by Austria, including aerial bombing of Venice.

Italy seizes $20 million worth of Austrian and German ships in Italian ports (even though they’re not at war with Germany?).

Germany declares war on Italy, the NYT claims, incorrectly.

The Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph issues a manifesto to his troops, calling Italy’s forsaking of its previous allies “perfidy whose like history does not know.” I dunno, history knows a lot of perfidy. And Franz Joseph knows a lot of history. He actually led troops against the Habsburg Empire’s rebellious Italian subjects during the 1848 revolutions and was emperor when Italy finally won its independence in 1860, because he is just that fucking old.

Sidenote: We don’t use the word perfidy enough any more.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Britain says the Germans are now chaining artillerymen to their machine guns.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: 50 Italians are supposedly shot as spies in Trentino after a railroad bridge is blown up.

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Today -100: May 24, 1915: Of wars, Saxons, crimes against humanity, beards, and telescribes

Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary (it won’t declare war on Germany until August 1916).

On paper, the Italian military looks pretty strong and likely to break the stalemate in the war. 3.3 million soldiers, a surprising number of airplanes, a reasonably good navy. In practice, though, they will kind of suck and won’t significantly affect the outcome or duration of the war.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The British claim that Prussian troops fired on Saxons trying to surrender. The official report says “The fact that the victims of this slaughter were Saxons was a source of regret to us, since Saxons always have proved more chivalrous and less brutal than either Prussians or Bavarians.”

Headline of the Day -100: 

Britain, France and Russia tell Turkey to stop massacring Armenians, and say they will hold members of the government responsible. They term Turkish actions “mass murders” and “a crime against humanity and civilization” – this seems to be the origin of the term “crime against humanity.”

French soldiers are complaining about an order that soldiers at the front must be clean-shaven (because of lice, presumably).

Thomas Edison invents the telephone answer machine, which he calls a telescribe, although he thinks the primary function of this telephone-with-a-recording-phonograph thing will be for businessmen to have an accurate recording of their business conversations.

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Today -100: May 23, 1915: Of bikes, war & legs, Georgia matters, bossism, and Charlie Chaplin vs The Dancing Girls

Germany bans all bicycle-riding in Belgium.

The National American Woman’s Suffrage Association asks the Congressional Union to stop working for a federal suffrage amendment in New York until after the referendum on a state amendment in November. NAWSA is complaining that “War has been declared upon the National by a new militant organization which enjoys autocratic leadership and a philosophic irresponsibility to the suffrage movement in the various States.” By “the suffrage movement,” they of course mean themselves, evidently expecting to be able to issue orders to the CU even after kicking it out.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Were those her only two options?

Nat Harris, governor-elect of Georgia, says that the issue of Leo Frank and clemency “is entirely a Georgia matter”. Isn’t that what you guys used to say about slavery?

Theodore Roosevelt wins the libel suit brought against him by the alliterative “Boss” Bill Barnes. TR claims his victory is the death-knell of political bossism.

Coney Island opens for the summer. Live dancing girls have been replaced as attractions by Charlie Chaplin movies.

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Today -100: May 22, 1915: Of welcomed wars, eastern passes, gas attacks, tea & typhus

Headline of the Day -100:

Oh, of course they bloody do.

Headline of the Day -100:

Admittedly, I initially read that as “Eager to Hold Easter Passes,” which is a more interesting headline.

Scotland Yard is warning that future zeppelin attacks on London might feature gas attacks, so be sure to close your windows. In fact, aerial gas attacks will remain well beyond German capabilities.

The Northcliffe newspapers in Britain are attacking Lord Kitchener in the hopes of seeing him removed as secretary of war in the reshuffle, mostly on the perfectly correct charge that he was sending ordinary shrapnel shells to the front, which are completely ineffective against German fortifications, rather than high-explosive shells.

Germany is now calling up men up to 45.

French soldiers will now be issued tea during warm weather. And will continue to get their half-liter of wine ration, because French people.

Headline of the Day -100:

Typhus sounds bad, Urumiah sounds worse. “He had a bad case of Urumiah.”

Woodrow Wilson’s daughter Eleanor Wilson McAdoo has a daughter, Woodrow’s second grandchild, named after the president’s late wife Ellen. This Ellen will marry actor Rafael Lopez de Onate (aka Ralph Novarro) while still in her teens (and he was 38). Her parents objected and tried to get the marriage stopped as violating California laws against interracial marriage, forcing Novarro to prove that he was of Spanish rather than Filipino blood. The marriage lasted two years. She died at 31.

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Today -100: May 21, 1915: Wow, war, what a surprise

The Italian Parliament votes 407 to 74 to allow the government to declare and wage war.

Emmeline Pankhurst calls for martial law in Britain and conscription for men and women.

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Today -100: May 20, 1915: Short people got no reason to live

Prime Minister Asquith announces that Tories will indeed be brought into the government, but gives no details except that he and Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, who is rapidly going blind, will retain their jobs. Everyone is speculating about who will get what job, and asking whether it is allowable for Lord Reading to become Lord Chancellor, because the lord chancellor is the “keeper of the king’s conscience” and Lord Reading is... a Jew.

Asquith gives a speech, in which he thanks the colonies for all the cannon fodder, saying “It is safe to say that there is no part of the British Empire but would suffer annihilation rather than become subject to any other sovereignty.” The colonies respond, “Sure, any time, wait, did you say annihilation?”

Britain reduces the minimum height for soldiers to 5’2” (from 5’5” before the war) and raises the maximum age to 40. The maximum height (6’2”) was abolished at the start of the war.

Germany ends prisoner exchanges with Britain, because German submarine crew prisoners are supposedly being mistreated.

It’s been the practice of every country in this war to publish a book, named after a color, justifying its position. Now, in preparation for joining the fun, Italy publishes a Green Book with documents about its negotiations with Austria, although the point they seem to be trying to make is that the Austro-Hungarian negotiators “failed to realize that Italy was firmly determined to enter the war if she was unable to obtain satisfactory territorial concessions by diplomatic action.” The monsters! They must be crushed at any costs!

Italians in Rome are expressing their displeasure with Austria and Germany by playing their phonographs pointed towards their consulates. Heavy metal, one assumes.

Headline of the Day -100:

Did this really happen? Did the Germans really hang the mayor of Jaslo for flying a Russian flag? Who knows?

Suffragists have been going to places Woodrow Wilson is visiting and trying to talk to him about women’s suffrage. Other suffragists think this is very rude. The NYT contributes a rather predictable editorial.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100:

They’re still recovering Lusitania corpses from the sea, 12 days later.

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