Today -100: August 15, 1915: With no other inspiration save the thought of their afflicted land

Kaiser Wilhelm responds to the Pope’s letter about peace saying that of course he’s willing to negotiate peace – if the other side makes the first move.

It’s not just the German socialist party that is divided about the war. The National Liberal Party is also squabbling, with the more war-like members demanding the annexation of Belgium and parts of France (chiefly the ones with coal under them). This is interesting in that the government is trying to prevent any public discussion of Germany’s war aims. What Germany is fighting for is literally a state secret.

British press baron Lord Northcliffe will begin an organized campaign to introduce conscription.

The US, supported by the ambassadors of 6 Latin American countries (who don’t actually claim to be speaking for their governments), sends a letter – a “friendly appeal” – to various Mexican political leaders, generals and warlords. The letter suggests that they have simply failed to notice the deleterious effects of endless civil war “on the prestige and security” of Mexico and need only have those deleterious effects pointed out to them. It proposes a conference of delegates from the military factions, to be held “far from the sound of cannon, and with no other inspiration save the thought of their afflicted land,” to create a provisional government and hold elections. An answer is demanded within ten days.

Well, if that doesn’t solve everything, I don’t know what will.

Britain seized seven steamers from German owners and rechristened them the Hungerford, the Hunsdon, and other Hun-nish names.

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Today -100: August 14, 1915: Of chloroforming awakening consciences, and drinking races

Germany prohibits newspapers from publishing a statement by the anti-war socialists criticizing the pro-war socialists. The anti-warites say that the SPD executive “makes a mistake if it hopes to chloroform the rapidly awakening conscience of the workers with the phrase ‘the defense of the Fatherland’.” It points out that the government has used the pretext of the war to seize back every gain won by the workers over the last 50 years.

On Prohibition, the NYT says that “the drinking races have been the ruling races of the world”.

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Today -100: August 13, 1915: Who better?

The German government arrests anti-war Socialists on charges of high treason. Their high treason consisted of a pamphlet criticizing pro-war Socialists. The NYT doesn’t say how many were arrested or who they are, nor did it, near as I can tell, ever follow up, but I think we’re talking about the core members of the future Communist Party (KPD): definitely Clara Zetkin, maybe Rosa Luxembourg.

British Munitions Minister David Lloyd George declares 345 factories “controlled,” suspending labor rules and customs and limiting profits.

Woodrow Wilson will simply ignore Carranza’s letter telling them to butt out of Mexico’s affairs.

Headline of the Day -100:

W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage is published by William Heinemann.

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Today -100: August 12, 1915: Of roses and black-eyed beauties

Headline of the Day -100: 

Spillover from the Mexican turmoil. Gov. James Ferguson wants Wilson to double the size of the army on the border. In 2015 Texas governors are still concerned about being invaded, although by the federal government.

An unnamed German officer writes an article published in several German newspapers about how smoothly the occupation of Warsaw is going. Really, he says, the Poles are pretty relieved to be occupied by “German soldiers accustomed to order and discipline”. Hell, they’re being greeted as liberators: “Everywhere one turns one sees bright faces, and roses are thrown by black-eyed beauties. A fine rain does not keep the beauties of Warsaw indoors, although they have on diaphanous blouses with skylights.”

A French military court sentences Henri Racine, a perfumer, to perpetual banishment for selling essence of neroli and olive oil to a German perfumer. Racine will get that verdict overturned and get a new court-martial, which will sentence him to 5 years in prison.

The German Socialist Party (SPD) finally splits between its anti-war and pro-war factions.

That 1 million ounces of Bank of England gold arrives in the US, and they take every precaution transporting it to J.P. Morgan for safe-keeping,

including many armed guards and a decoy train.

The Rockefeller Institute says it has found what causes diabetes. And they’re right (for Type I, anyway).

Headline of the Day -100: 

Night telephone operators in Massachusetts work 12-hour shifts, which they say violates the 10 Hour laws. The company says they’re allowed to sleep after midnight – subject to being woken up by people who want to make phone calls – so it doesn’t count.

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Today -100: August 11, 1915: Trust German sense and justice

Sir Hiram Maxim, inventor of the Maxim gun and a shitload of other things, says he has invented a method to protect against poison gas, something about detonating incendiary bombs in the path of the gas, heating it and thereby forcing it to rise. The article doesn’t say what device he’s proposing be used to hurl the incendiaries; I’m picturing a sling shot.

Another multi-zeppelin air raid on the coast of England, killing 14.

Carranza telegrams Argentina’s president complaining about that country’s participation in Wilson’s conference on Mexico’s future. “Argentina has made herself an accomplice in a crime against our race, which possibly may help to bring on a war between two American nations.”

Prince Leopold of Bavaria, who leads the troops that occupied Warsaw, issues a proclamation, calling on the remaining inhabitants to “undertake no hostile action, to trust German sense and justice...”  Speaking of German justice, the same proclamation says that the army is taking hostages. Leopold asks the Poles to inform on anyone planning actions against German soldiers. What’s the Polish for “Snitches get stitches”?

Disappointing Headline of the Day -100:

An oil steamer, not a furry Andean animal.

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Today -100: August 10, 1915: Of gold, soap, and suspicious pianists

The Bank of England ships gold bullion – rumored to be $100 million worth – to the US for safe keeping.

Soap is now expensive and hard to find in Budapest, because people are now eating the gross stuff, like the grease from boiling ham, that went into soap before the war. So I guess Hungarians no longer smell like boiling ham.

Secretary of State Robert Lansing says that a “very definite policy” on Mexico has been agreed on with six Latin American countries’ ambassadors, but he won’t say what it is.

Headline of the Day -100:

And I’m sure they’re darned grateful for being relieved of the burden.

Germany, increasingly desperate about Turkey’s military performance, tries again to bribe Romania to allow supplies to be sent through it to Turkey. This time the offer is 36 artillery batteries, ammo, and 2 million pounds of barbed wire.

Headline of the Day -100:

Natalia Janotha. She’s also a minor composer. And Polish. The British have mostly refrained from deporting or interning Poles. I don’t see that any reason was ever given for this particular deportation, but the 59-year-old pianist was evidently so dangerous that cops from Scotland Yard bundled her into a car and onto a ship out of the country without even giving her time to pack.

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Today -100: August 9, 1915: Of separate peaces

Russia rejects an offer of peace from Kaiser Wilhelm, it is reported (update: tomorrow the Danish royal family, who were said to be the intermediaries, deny this, for whatever that’s worth).

Serbia is willing (under pressure from the Allies) to return to Bulgaria the lands it acquired during the Second Balkan War, which is Bulgaria’s stated price for remaining neutral. Greece isn’t willing to give up its new lands.

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Today -100: August 8, 1915: So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye

The Italian submarine Nereide is sunk by the Austrian u-boat under the command of George von Trapp.

At the National Conference on Race Betterment, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, inventor of the corn flake and weirdo, calls for eugenics to create a “real aristocracy made up of Apollos and Venuses and their fortunate progeny” instead of the growing “aristocracy of lunatics, idiots, paupers, and criminals”. And “Every one of these lunatics possesses the right to vote even in States where women are not given the right of franchise.” Um, “even”? He wants the creation of a “eugenic registry” based on presumably compulsory annual medical inspections and connected in some unspecified way to marriage restrictions, because as we all know, without marriage people are physically incapable of becoming pregnant, that’s just a medical fact.

Emma Goldman is arrested in Portland for distributing illegal literature. The NYT doesn’t elucidate, but it was birth control literature.

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The Republican debate: Just the abortion bits

I’m going to confine my discussion of the Republican debate to one issue and two candidates who pulled talking points from their ass and pretended they were science.

Scott Walker supported his position opposing abortions even to save the life of the mother by flat-out denying that that ever comes up, claiming that “there are many other alternatives that can also protect the life of that mother. That’s been consistently proven.”

Huckabee, who is actually saner than Walker in allowing for a life of the mother exemption, thinks that “now that we clearly know that that baby inside the mother’s womb is a person at the moment of conception. The reason we know that it is is because of the DNA schedule that we now have clear scientific evidence on.”

“DNA schedule” is not a thing.

The Huckster also thinks fetuses have 5th and 14th Amendment rights and the president can just “invoke” those rights to declare abortion banned. Which is insane on so many levels. Beyond the lunacy of treating embryos and fetuses as legal people, those amendments limit governments and only governments. Oh, and the 14th amendment applies to US citizens, which it defines as “All persons born or naturalized in the United States”. Born, you peckerwood roadkill-eater.

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Today -100: August 7, 1915: Just two more years

US forces are now in control of the strategic buildings and whatnot in Port au Prince, and they’ve only had to slaughter a few Haitians.

Frederick Davenport, a former Republican member of the New York State Senate and the Progressive Party candidate for lieutenant governor in 1912 and governor in 1914, defects back to the Republicans, saying all Progressives should do the same. He’ll eventually get back into the State Senate and then the US Congress.

London insurers are writing policies that will pay if peace does not come by September 30, 1917.

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Today -100: August 6, 1915: So full of a glory so pure that it will forever illumine the human race

The German Army moves into Warsaw, which the NYT notes is the 3rd largest city in the Russian Empire. There was no battle; it was a strategic retreat by the Russians, after they stripped the city of everything useful and blew up all the bridges over the Vistula.

Kaiser Wilhelm is reported to plan making Poland (that is, the Polish lands previously divided between Russia, Germany and Austria) a semi-autonomous state under joint German-Austrian-Polish rule.

The French parliament celebrates the anniversary of the start of the war. President of the Chamber of Deputies Paul Deschanel, manic pixie dreamgirl that he is, says “This year has been so full of a glory so pure that it will forever illumine the human race. It has been a year in which France, the France of Joan of Arc and Valmy, has risen, if possible, to even greater heights.” A statement by President of the Republic Raymond Poincaré is read, praising the unity of France at greater length than seems strictly necessary, and saying that “on the victory of France and the Allies rests the future of civilization and humanity.”

Ignatius Timothy Trebitsch-Lincoln, former missionary and member of the British Parliament, is arrested in New York on a charge of being a fugitive from justice from Britain, where he is wanted for forgery, although he says that that’s just an excuse because he’s actually a spy for Germany (he was born a Hungarian citizen), a charge for which he could not be extradited. He will be extradited and be put in a British prison until 1919, then deported. He’ll spend the next few years hanging around fringe right-wingers (including Hitler), happily selling their secrets to any government that would pay. Then he’ll become a Buddhist monk, because of course he will, and found a monastery, although it sounds like he was mostly in it for the chicks and dough, and announced that he was the new Dalai Lama. Although he worked for the German and Japanese secret services, he also wrote a letter to Hitler protesting the extermination of the Jews, so Germany asked the Japanese to poison him (he was in Shanghai) in 1943. The end.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Naked Headline of the Day -100: 

Aussies, of course.

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Today -100: August 5, 1915: Of beaten villas, airplanes, ill-feeling, three revolutions, no waiting, and hard dictators

Pancho Villa’s wife leaves Mexico, saying Villa knows he’s beaten.

H.G. Wells wants a fleet of a thousand aeroplanes to fight the war. Planes, he says, fit the individualistic character of the English and French, while Zeppelins are typical of the Germans, with large crews working in unison under orders.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle says that while the Napoleonic, Crimean and Boer wars were followed by no ill-feeling, the beastly conduct of the Germans in this war means they won’t and indeed shouldn’t ever be forgiven. No more German tourists in London, no English art students in Munich, etc.

British Colonial Secretary Andrew Bonar Law says after the war the Dominions (Canada, Australia, South Africa) would have a role in governing the British Empire (spoiler alert: they won’t).

There are three revolutions going on in Portugal.

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Today -100: August 4, 1915: Of rocks, blockades, godfathers, and eggs

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: the Italian army is said to have killed over 10,000 Austrian soldiers by rolling rocks down hills at them.

The Providence Journal claims that Gen. Huerta’s attempt to sneak into Mexico and try to take back power was actually a German plot, a plot thwarted by... the Providence Journal.

Word reaches Paris that Turks slaughtered all the males in the Bitlis region of Armenia, then drove 9.000 women and children to the banks of the Tigris river, shot them and dumped the bodies in the river. Which is true.

Britain finally responds to Woodrow Wilson’s note complaining about the enforcement of the blockade of Germany. Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey says, yeah, we’re gonna keep doing what we’re doing.

Kaiser Wilhelm loosens his weird rules for when he’ll be a godfather. He does it for seventh sons for some reason, but previously they had to be the 7th son from both parents. Henceforth, they only have to be the 7th son of the mother.

Headline of the Day -100:

French cardinals respond to the pope’s call for peace and his offer of mediation with a call for a day of prayer for French victory.

A month ago, we are just finding out, Woodrow Wilson sent a plan to fix Mexico to 6 Latin American countries. Secretary of State Lansing will now hold a conference with the ambassadors of those countries. The details of the Wilson plan are unknown, except that it will discard Carranza, Villa and Zapata, and in some way pretend to adhere to the constitution, perhaps by naming as president whoever the highest-ranking surviving member of the Madero cabinet is.

How is this story not on the front page?

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Today -100: August 3, 1915: Our country seeks only her own advantages and wishes to realize her rights

The German occupation authorities in Belgium arrest British nurse Edith Cavell for smuggling Allied soldiers out of Belgium. She will be executed in October.

Various pro-peace (i.e., pro-German) groups with names like Friends of Peace, the American Truth Society, and the American Fair Play Society, attack Secretary of State Robert Lansing as a menace to peace who should resign or be forced out before he drags the US into war with Germany against the will of the people.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Prime Minister Vasil Radoslavov, not even slightly chagrined at negotiating with both sides concurrently, says “Our country seeks only her own advantages and wishes to realize her rights. ... The only question to be settled is, how can we achieve our aim with the least sacrifice?”

News from Haiti: “Since the uprising in Port au Prince last week... there has been desultory fighting around Cape Haitien between the Blot and Bobo factions.” Worst... comic book.... ever. Evidently Woodrow Wilson gave Adm. Capterton really broad authority to do pretty much anything he wants to bring about law & order and a new puppet government in Haiti.

A crew member of the US steamship Leelanaw, which was sunk by a German u-boat off the UK last week, is put in prison by the British when it is discovered that he is German (and pretending to be Dutch).

A NYT editorial appeals to women suffragists not to bother the 64th Congress with their silly little issue when it has so many important things to deal with instead. It worries that sympathetic congresscritters “may be impelled, through their sense of chivalry, to waste the nation’s precious time in debating the question.”

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Today -100: August 2, 1915: Of marines, caskets, and flammenwerferapparaten

Both Germany and Russia will soon offer autonomy or independence to Poland. Neither of them will mean it.

The French land some marines in Haiti to protect their embassy, but only after asking permission – from the Americans. No Haitians were asked.

Headline of the Day -100:

I knew this war was missing something: flamethrowers (Flammenwerferapparaten). The article calls them “flame projectors,” the term flamethrower, adopted from the German, not yet having entered the English language.

The cops, having read that story about the plaque on the casket of executed cop Charles Becker accusing the governor of murdering him, go to his widow’s home and take it right off the casket.

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Today -100: August 1, 1915: Full of gratitude, we can say today that God is with us

Secretary of State Robert Lansing says US forces will remain in Haiti indefinitely. The US plans to impose a fiscal arrangement where it will operate Haitian customs collections in the interests of foreign loan-holders (as in the Dominican Republican) and a treaty whereby the US can intervene in Haitian affairs whenever it feels like it (as in Cuba). The revolutionaries have settled on a president after being turned down by their first 12 choices: someone named General Bobo.

Kaiser Wilhelm, on more or less the one-year anniversary of the start of the war, tells the German people: “Before God and history my conscience is clear; I have not willed war. Full of gratitude, we can say today that God is with us.”

Headline of the Day -100: 

Carranza’s forces capture – or re-capture, or re-re-capture, or whatever it is – Mexico City.

British recruiting poster issued some time this month:

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Today -100: July 31, 1915: Never has the country been so virile

Britain executes two spies whose names it won’t release, after a secret trial. But I’m sure everyone wore wigs in court, so it’s probably all above-board and tickety-boo.

Do you hyphenate tickety-boo?

The French parliament is debating French penis size, or something. “Never has the country been so virile,” Minister of Finance Alexandre Ribot says.

Lord Northbourne, 69, says he wants to duel Kaiser Wilhelm.

The population of Warsaw is evacuating into Russia proper. They’re stripping the city of, well, everything. Especially anything the Germans could use, obviously.

Charles Becker is executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing. He was an NYPD lieutenant on the vice squad who was involved in the murder three years ago of a bookie, Herman Rosenthal, who was going to expose police corruption. Becker was the first cop ever executed for murder in the US. It took three shocks to kill him.

Haitian snipers kill two of the invading US marines, who kill 6 Haitians. 2,000 military personnel will be sent to Haiti, which is a larger force than required for the stated goal of protecting foreigners’ property. And they have a lot of machine guns. A lot.

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Today -100: July 30, 1915: They have some rights that the white man is bound to respect

US Secretary of State Robert Lansing telegraphs the leaders of various Mexican factions, telling them to allow the resumption of railroad traffic between Vera Cruz and Mexico City so food can reach the latter. There may be a delay in Zapata getting his telegram – I hear that railroad traffic between Vera Cruz and Mexico City is down.

Headline of the Day -100:

Negroes in Tennessee are supposedly complaining about whites breaking the Jim Crow laws and sitting in the black section of trains. In Virginia a black person can ask a white person in the wrong section to vacate his seat and he is required to do so even if there are no seats in the white section and he has to stand. The NYT says “The protest of the Tennessee negroes is just. They have some rights that the white man is bound to respect, and one of them is the right to choose their company.”

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The vanishing Amazon link

I removed the Amazon referral link from my sidebar. I noticed that for a while I hadn’t been getting any actual, you know, money from it, and finally got around to checking if anyone had been placing orders through it. Yes, they had. So I connected to Amazon, which said that they had determined, through some sort of proprietary top-secret algorithm or something, that the order had been placed by me or someone I knew, and were therefore ineligible. The only information I can access is what has been purchased, not by whom, so for all I know it was a friend or friends of mine, but if not, I can’t challenge the proprietary top-secret algorithm or something because it’s, you know, proprietary and top secret.

There are two possibilities here: 1) Amazon is cheating me out of my 4%. 2) It knows who my friends are (or people it considers to be my friends). Which is creepy. Either makes it essential that I sever my very slightly remunerative relations with Amazon, but the second, creepy possibility seemed like something I should share with the group.

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Today -100: July 29, 1915: Of a Haitian recall election

Haitian Pres. Vilbrun Guillaume Sam is dragged out of the French embassy and killed, his body torn apart and dragged through the streets by a presumably angry mob. US marines are landed, their mission to protect American and other foreign lives and then quickly leave the country.

In 1934.

Capt. Karl Boy-Ed, German naval attaché in Washington by day, head of espionage & sabotage operations in North America by night, says that Germany won’t change its submarine warfare policy or even “condescend to reply” to Woodrow Wilson’s note until he protests just as vehemently against British violations of neutrality. (Or not: the German ambassador will say that the Providence Journal made up the whole interview.)

Evidently when William Jennings Bryan resigned as secretary of state, he appropriated his desk as a souvenir. I say his desk, but it had actually been the desk of all the secretaries of state for the previous 50 years. The NYT has an acidly sarcastic editorial (my favorite kind of NYT editorial) on the subject.

A coroner’s jury in Chicago rules that the capsizing of the Eastland is the fault of the Eastland’s captain and engineer, the general managers of the steamship company and the company leasing it, and two federal inspectors who passed the ship for passengers early this month. It recommends they all be charged with manslaughter.

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