Today -100: October 9, 1915: Or unserious riots, trees, ambassadors, abusive speaking, and ancient aunties

The head of the Russian Red Cross, Dr. Sosnowski, says that last month’s riots in Moscow were not serious and were totally started by German provocateurs, and everyone really leaves Tsar Nicholas. Just keep telling yourself that, comrade.

Karl Liebknecht, the socialist member of the German Reichstag illegally drafted despite his parliamentary immunity, is injured by a falling tree. War is hell.

The Allies’ ambassadors all leave Bulgaria.

Jacques Delcassé, son of French Foreign Minister Théophile Delcassé, is a prisoner of war of the Germans, who sentence him to one year in a fortress (which is probably not as cool as it sounds) for “speaking abusively of Germany” and refusing orders. His father will resign as foreign minister next week, although as far as I know that’s unrelated to this.

Headline of the Day -100:

“Auntie” Mahaley Gibbs of Memphis, age 137.

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Today -100: October 8, 1915: Of judges, spies, and torpedoes

William Willett, a former two-term United States congressman from New York, finally achieved his goal of becoming a judge. Well, a “judge” on the prisoners’ court which enforces the rules in Sing Sing, where he’s serving a stretch for attempting to buy a seat on the state Supreme Court. And now a boxer named Tim Cronin registers an objection to Willett sentencing him to 10 days confinement for attempting to evade prison mail censorship by punching him very hard indeed in the face.

A large force of Austrian and German soldiers attacks Serbia.

Last January, Kenneth Triest, a Princeton freshman, somehow snuck off to England and joined the Royal Navy, pretending to be a Canadian, with the intention of ferreting out naval secrets and giving them to Germany. He has been arrested and is being held in the Tower of London. His father (who was born in Germany) says he’s mentally unbalanced. He is believed, incorrectly, to have been sentenced to death. The US State Department and Theodore Roosevelt will put pressure on Britain, which will return him next month. I think the British government thought leniency would make a nice contrast with Germany’s execution of Nurse Edith Cavell. Er, spoiler alert.

Headline of the Day -100:

A Dutch couple planning to marry in the US, whose legal papers went down with the Arabic.

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Today -100: October 7, 1915: Going Galt

Woodrow Wilson officially announces 1) that he will vote for the New Jersey women’s suffrage referendum and 2) that he is engaged to Edith Galt, a 38-year-old widow, the NYT says (actually she’s 42). Wilson makes clear that he is voting for the referendum as an individual, not as POTUS or as leader of the Democratic Party, although oddly he will be marrying Mrs. Galt as POTUS and the leader of the Democratic Party. He reiterates his opposition to a federal suffrage amendment.

Bulgaria rejects Russia’s demand that it expel the German officers who have recently arrived to run the Bulgarian Army. Russia and the Allies all break diplomatic relations with Bulgaria.

Bulgaria has also reportedly sent its own ultimatum to Serbia demanding all of Macedonia, within 24 hours.

Greece protests to France against the landing of its troops on Saloniki. Austria points out that the Allies are doing exactly the thing they complained about when Germany invaded Belgium.

Lord Bryce of Bryce Report fame says that 800,000 Armenians have been killed.

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Today -100: October 6, 1915: Of the missing, ultimata, arabics, posses, and bacon

Rudyard Kipling’s only son John is “missing, believed killed” at the Battle of Loos. He was 18, barely, and had been in the war since the start. Rudyard used his influence to get him into the Irish Guards despite his weak constitution, even weaker eyesight, and his age. Rudyard will spend months trying to confirm that his son is in fact dead and find the body, which he never will, the shell that killed him not having left any identifiable remains.

Bulgaria is said to be disconcerted by Russia’s 24-hour ultimatum to expel German officers. They’d expected a much weaker response, like a simple request for information, which they planned to fudge by giving the Germans short leaves of absence and saying “Germans? No Germans here, mate.” The ultimatum has expired but the Russian ambassador hasn’t left; he recently had an appendicitis operation.

Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos resigns – for the second time this year – after a dispute with the king over whether Greece should join the war. The two disagree over whether there is still a treaty between Greece and Serbia which will oblige Greece to come to the defense of Serbia when Bulgaria attacks it and whether the promise of Kaiser Wilhelm (who is Greek King Constantine’s brother-in-law) that Bulgaria won’t attack Greece is sufficient guarantee. French troops are arriving in Saloniki to aid Serbia.

Germany apologizes to the US for the sinking of the Arabic in August, blaming the u-boat commander and promising to pay compensation for the 3 Americans killed. Amb. von Bernstorff says, that new orders to sub commanders have “been made so stringent that the recurrence of incidents similar to the Arabic case is considered out of the question.” It is thought on both sides that this puts to rest the whole unpleasantness between Germany and the US over submarine warfare in general.

Emmeline Pankhurst denounces trade unions which oppose the employment of women in munitions as “traitors.” Never one to mince words, is Mrs. P.

New Jersey’s political parties hold their conventions. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats come out officially for women’s suffrage. The Progressives do.

A letter to the NYT points out that unmarried women had the vote in New Jersey from 1797 to 1807, when women (and blacks, though the letter doesn’t mention them) were disfranchised.

A posse that prevents a lynching in Bowling Green, Missouri includes Speaker of the House Beauchamp “Champ” Clark.

Britain seizes three cargoes of bacon on their way to Denmark, presumably not believing the Danish claim that it’s for the home market and not re-export to Germany. Denmark is mad, because bacon.

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Today -100: October 5, 1915: Of American good feeling and supremely right moments

Bulgaria denies that its army is now run by German officers.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Frank Sheehy-Skeffington, editor of the Irish Citizen (Dublin) writes to the NYT that Irish Nationalist leader John Redmond fucked up at the start of the war. “That was the supremely right moment to emphasize Ireland’s national position, outside of and indifferent to all English politics.” In other words, he could have offered Irish assent to the war only on the condition of full autonomy. But he didn’t. And this was so unpopular in Ireland that Redmond can’t now address a public meeting in Dublin.

In six months or so, the English army will murder Mr. Sheehy-Skeffington. Um, spoiler alert.

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Today -100: October 4, 1915: Civilization is spreading

The Committee on Armenian Atrocities reports that there have been atrocities in Armenia.

Russia, in the name of the Allies, gives Bulgaria an ultimatum: expel all the German and Austrian officers now directing its army within 24 hours, or else.

Turkey will cede a small strip of territory to Bulgaria, so now Turks are preparing for the handover by looting the property of all the Christians in the area and ethnically cleansing Christians from villages on their side of the border to make room for Turkish refugees from the ceded lands.

Theodore Roosevelt sends the Equal Suffrage League of New Jersey a message of support for the women’s suffrage referendum. He says it’s working pretty well in the Western states that have it, and the East should catch up. “Civilization is spreading,” he says. Even to New Jersey?

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Today -100: October 3, 1915: Of torpedo ears, treacherous courses, and Woodrow and the women

Headline of the Day -100: 

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Sazonov (which is a seriously great name) warns the Bulgarian government that if they “persist in their present treacherous course they must answer to Russia.” That “treachery” is to “the Slavic cause.” Russia considers that Bulgaria owes its independence to it, so its feelings are seriously hurt by Bulgaria going over to the dark side.

In addition to those threats, both sides are trying to bribe Bulgaria. Germany et al offer it some Turkish territory if it refrains from declaring war on Turkey, and help in annexing all of Macedonia. The Entente powers are also offering part of Macedonia as well as parts of Turkey. The Teutons are only requesting that Bulgaria be neutral while the Entente wants active military action against Turkey.

Russia expands newspaper censorship from war news to all news.

Woodrow Wilson lets it be known that he will vote Yes on the New Jersey women’s suffrage referendum in two weeks. As will Secretary of War Lindley Garrison and Wilson’s secretary Joseph Tumulty.

Here’s an anti-suffrage poster from NJ:

The NYT Sunday Magazine has an article about NY women’s suffrage posters. Here are some:

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Today -100: October 2, 1915: Oh, Bulgaria

British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey tells Parliament that German officers are arriving in Bulgaria to lead its army, in a probable sign that Bulgaria will soon enter the war.

Britain claims to have developed a range of techniques which have defeated the German u-boat campaign, and to have sunk 50 to 70 subs (there was, supposedly, a recent secret dinner party to celebrate the 50th sinking)(actually they haven’t sunk half that many). It’s true that the height of effectiveness of the German u-boats is now past (and that’s before depth charges began to be used against them in 1916).

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Today -100: October 1, 1915: Don’t spend it all in one place, boys

Serbia offers a bit of Macedonia to Greece as a bribe to join in military action against Bulgaria (at least according to an Italian newspaper).

Russia’s Council of the Empire has its first ever Jew. Hurrah.

French army privates are getting a pay raise! From 1¢ a day to 5.

Sometime this month, Kafka’s Metamorphosis is published.

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Now with S

This blog is now available with https.

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Today -100: September 30, 1915: Of strikes, wirelesses, conductors, military training, and rainbows

A strike begins at the Pratt & Whitney factories in Hartford for an 8-hour day and overtime pay. The general manager refused to negotiate with workers’ leaders he called transient agitators and new employees unrepresentative of the employees as a whole. At some point no doubt he’ll also claim, as was the custom, that they’re being paid by the Germans, but the truth is that with all the war orders this is a great time for the workers to press demands.

A NYT account of the Battle of Loos, 4 days in, fails to mention, as they all have, the British use of chlorine gas.

A wireless phone call is successfully placed from Arlington, Virginia to Mare Island, California, 2,500 miles away. This should enable the Navy to communicate with ships at sea. (In fact, the message reached all the way to an AT&T mast at Pearl Harbor.)

Headline of the Day -100, Because Inter-Racial Marriage Is Always News:

Arturo Toscanini, the principle conductor of the Metropolitan Opera House, who left for Italy some months ago (originally booked on the Lusitania), won’t be coming back. He actually volunteered for the Italian army after Italy entered the war, despite his age (48) and terrible eyesight. He will later flirt with fascism before sharply breaking with Mussolini, but he won’t return to the US until 1939.

Massachusetts Governor David Walsh wants to introduce mandatory military training for boys at age 14 and to excuse men who serve 3 years in the state militia from paying poll taxes.

D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow is published. It will be prosecuted for obscenity and all the copies seized and burned. It won’t reappear in Britain for 11 years (except for illicit copies of the American edition, published next month).

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Today -100: September 29, 1915: Of victim-blaming, aggression, kindred nationality, primaries, loafing agitators, and mittens

Headline of the Day -100:

Wow. In a couple of days Bernstorff, the German ambassador to the United States has switched from calling accounts of the genocide “pure inventions” to “greatly exaggerated” to military necessity and they were asking for it.

Headline of the Day -100:

Their own fault, presumably.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Spoiler Alert: Bulgaria will totally attempt aggression.

Grey claims in his friendly warning to Bulgaria that Germany is trying to stir up disunion and war in the Balkans by promising territorial gains, but these will only come at the cost of complete subordination to Germany. On the other hand, Britain’s policy is “to insure each [of the Balkan states] not only independence but a brilliant future, based as a general principle on territorial and political union and kindred nationality.”

With Austrian Amb. Dumba’s recall, the US considers the whole sorry affair “closed,” and won’t take any action against German military attaché (and future chancellor) Franz von Papen, although just to be sure von Papen plans to go to Mexico to lay low for a while.

A US cavalry private who went missing last week during a cross-border scuffle is reportedly seen on the Mexican side - well, his head anyway.

New York primaries continue the recent sorry trend of Tammany politicians winning back their party from the reformers. There are “only” 17 election-related arrests in NYC (15 fraudulent voting, most of those just people who’d supposedly lived at their addresses less than a year, and 2 for electioneering).

L.T. Russell, a New Jersey Democrat, wrote an editorial about a threatened Singer sewing-machine factory strike, suggesting that “every loafing agitator” be taken to Staten Island Sound, have a rock tied around their neck and be thrown off the dock. Although he didn’t name any loafing agitators in particular, John Keyes of Elizabeth NJ swears out a warrant for Russell for inciting to murder. In fact, there was no strike: Singer took the less murderous step of firing workers who had the effrontery to ask for higher wages.

I know, the “rock tied around the neck” thing seems so much more Jersey, doesn’t it?

Headline of the Day -100:

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Today -100: September 28, 1915: Of Mexican Wobblies, pure inventions, personae non gratae, and political offenses

Carranza is blaming the recent cross-border shootings on Mexican Wobblies wearing imitation Carranzista army uniforms. A likely story. Something about a plot to provoke US intervention, which will lead, somehow, to land redistribution.

German Ambassador to the US Count von Bernstorff says the reports lately filling the newspapers about the Armenian Genocide are “pure inventions.”

Austria, after trying to get the US to agree to Amb. Konstantin Dumba going on a leave of absence until that whole thing about trying to disrupt work at US munitions factories dies down, will recall him as the US demanded.

A person or persons unknown tries to burn down Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Hyde Park mansion.

Miroslav Sichynsky, a Ukrainian/Ruthenian who assassinated the Austrian governor of Galicia, Count Potocki, in 1908 and escaped prison in 1911, surrenders to the US commissioner of immigration. He’s been living in the US since November and wants US citizenship. The bureau will rule in December that the assassination was a political rather than a criminal offense and so will not deport him. He died in Michigan in 1979.

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Today -100: September 27, 1915: Cloth caps off

Keir Hardie, the first proper Labour (and socialist) member of Parliament (from 1892, when some of his campaign funds came, curiously, from Andrew Carnegie), former leader of the Labour Party and the Independent Labour Party, anti-imperialist, supporter of women’s suffrage, secret lover of Sylvia Pankhurst, and cloth-cap owner extraordinaire, dies at just 59, worn out from fighting the war.

Dr. H. Barringer Cox has invented a portable wireless system, which he will lend to “a certain foreign power” for war use. Unlike some of the inventors who have been surfacing lately, Cox has and will have a pretty good track record on dry cells and wireless systems.

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Today -100: September 26, 1915: Of long-distance treason, idiotic Yankees, dogs, and hobo poets

The detailed NYT story on the commencement of the Battle of Loos fails to mention the British use of poison gas.

The Imperial Court of Galicia (Austrian Poland) asks a Youngstown, Ohio court to question an Austrian subject, Joseph Ciepielowski, on their behalf about treasonous remarks he supposedly made, in Youngstown, about Austria. The judge actually summons Ciepielowski, who refuses to answer.

Military attaché of the German embassy Capt. Franz von Papen says the phrase in his intercepted letter, “idiotic Yankees,” was taken out of context; he only meant the publishers of a certain New York newspaper, you know, those idiotic Yankees. Also, he complains that it’s “deuced bad form” and “ungentlemanly” to publish a man’s letter to his wife.

The US federal government says that some of the recent cross-border firefights were provoked by Texas deputy sheriffs and civilians shooting into Mexico, and asks the governor of Texas to put a stop to it.

The team of dogs that won the whatever-Alaska-had-before-the-Iditerod race is sold to the French army for use in the mountains.

IWW members are flocking to Salt Lake City to protest the forthcoming execution of “hobo poet” Joseph Hillstrom, aka Joe Hill (coiner of the phrase “pie in the sky”) for supposedly shooting a grocer and his son as part of a robbery or something. He showed up at a hospital with a bullet wound after that event, but there was never any proof that the two shootings were related. Still, he was a Wobbly, so it’s off to the firing squad for him.

Headline of the Day -100:

Passaic election officials are “puzzled” about the rights of a second-generation US-born citizen.

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Today -100: September 25, 1915: Of looses, mobilizations, stolen wheat, and yeah I’m sticking with “lynchings”

The Battle of Loos begins with the British using poison gas (chlorine) for the first time. They had no delivery system except the wind, so some of the gas inevitably blew back on the British lines. One officer who pointed out that the wind was blowing the wrong way was ordered to release the gas anyway, which tells you everything you need to know about the military. Once the Germans saw what was happening, they started shooting at the gas tanks, with hilarious results. Still, the British did gas 600 or so Germans to death. And lost the battle.

Speaking of inhumane weapons, most of the British troops at Loos were Scottish, so they were led into battle by pipers. Don’t know how you play bagpipes wearing a gas mask.

Because Bulgaria mobilized its military, Greece is mobilizing its military. Isn’t that how this stupid war started to begin with?

A large band of Mexicans, some wearing the uniform of Carranza’s army, invade Progreso, Texas, loot the post office and burn it. Several are killed as well as one US Army private.

J.F. Lucey, a former US Army captain involved with Belgian relief, tells an interesting tale of how last November when Liège was starving, he requisitioned (i.e., stole) 5,000 tons of German wheat being held in Holland.

A 14-year-old negro is lynched in Jackson, Georgia for allegedly assaulting a white girl. Since he’s only 75 pounds, there is some discussion of whether weights need to be tied to his feet to hang him properly.

Did I say lynched? Actually he was legally executed, in public in front of a crowd of 50 or so . Sometimes it’s hard to tell the fucking difference.

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Today -100: September 24, 1915: Meet the Diminutive Submersible of Doom

Sexy, Sexy Headline of the Day -100: 

Reports received by the US government, including ones from its consular officials which are not being made public, indicate that Turkey has killed 500,000 Armenians.

Prof. Herschel Parker, physicist and mountain-climber, has invented a miniature two-man submarine (aka “diminutive submersible” or “motor torpedo”) and intends to give it to the US. He’s also invented a powerful underwater searchlight to spot enemy subs. Parker says 1,000 mini-subs can be manufactured for the cost of one dreadnought. I don’t think anything came of any of this. He claims to have the endorsement of Henry Ford, who will deny this rather vehemently next week.

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: September 23, 1915: Of mobilizations and rescues

Bulgaria mobilizes its military, claiming it’s purely defensive and precautionary. It is not.

French naval ships which were on blockade duty off Ottoman Syria rescued 5,000 Armenian refugees (in July, but we’re just now hearing about it). They’re now in a camp in Egypt. Nice to know somebody is doing something about the Armenian Genocide.

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Today -100: September 22, 1915: I always say to these idiotic Yankees that they had better hold their tongues

Anthony Comstock, crusader against smut and general all-round asshole, dies at 71. Some of the “smut” he fought against included the works of Boccaccio, Zola and George Bernard Shaw as well as medical textbooks, some of which he banned from the US mails from his position as postal inspector, and of course anything relating to birth control. Most recently he hounded Margaret Sanger out of the country and put her husband in jail.

Germany is still claiming that the Hesperian was sunk by a mine rather than a German torpedo. Britain is sending the US government what it says is a fragment of the torpedo.

More of Austrian Ambassador Dumba’s letters, seized by the British from his courier, are made public. One to the Austrian foreign minister says it is pointless to continue complaining about US munitions sales to the Allies because of the “self-willed temperament” of Pres. Wilson. Dumba talks of the slave-like conditions in the steel factories and suggests commissioning an exposé novel along the lines of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. He also has plans to send agents into the Bethlehem steel factories to “work in secret among their fellow workers,” and to hire soap-box orators and subsidize foreign-language newspapers.

Also leaked to the press: Germany military attaché Capt. Franz von Papen’s letter to his wife: “I always say to these idiotic Yankees that they had better hold their tongues.” The future chancellor of Germany, ladies and gentlemen!

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Today -100: September 21, 1915: Shocked to hear that gambling etc

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Germany is claiming that France is forcibly enlisting men from Alsace-Lorraine into its army, and giving them forged French citizenship papers so they won’t be charged with treason if captured by the Germans. Alsace-Lorrainers who really don’t want to fight for France are sent to Africa, where it’s harder to defect, to fight in colonial units.

William Jennings Bryan objects to the big loan being arranged by US banks for the Allies, saying it is “getting the people of this country to gamble on the war” and creating a vested interest in one side winning.

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