Today -100: April 20, 1916: Tragedy has followed tragedy on the seas

Woodrow Wilson addresses a joint session of Congress, informing it that he has notified German that if it doesn’t abandon submarine warfare against passenger and cargo ships, the US will break off relations. And he wants a response “immediately.” He says such warfare is “incompatible with the principles of humanity, the long-established and incontrovertible rights of neutrals, and the sacred immunities of noncombatants.” “Tragedy has followed tragedy on the seas in such fashion, with such attendant circumstances, as to make it grossly evident that warfare of such a sort, if warfare it be, cannot be carried on without the most palpable violation of the dictates alike of right and of humanity.” Wilson says he is willing to negotiate with Germany, but they have to end sub warfare first as a sign of good faith. Which won’t happen, obviously.

The Kaiser reportedly decorates the commander of the u-boat which sank the Sussex. This may be wrong, since the story seems to be premised on the belief that it was the U-28, which has since been wrongly reported sunk, which did for the Sussex, but it was actually the U-29.

Congress is almost uniformly supportive of Wilson, although a few Republicans grumble that there was no need for him to come and address them in person, which they see as a campaign move.

Headline of the Day -100:

After some fuss about a recent Stop the War demonstration that was permitted to go ahead in Trafalgar Square simply because there wasn’t actually a law against it, the British government issues a new regulation under the Defence of the Realm Act allowing any government minister, mayor, magistrate or chief of police to ban a meeting in a public place if it might lead to disorder.

Soap is now rationed in Germany.

Rose Pastor Stokes, a Socialist activist (later Communist), speaks about birth control at a public meeting at the Hotel Brevoort in NYC. For some reason, the NYT uses the term “birth control” this time; its coverage of Emma Goldman’s arrest in February studiously avoided explaining the subject she was arrested for speaking about.

Mexicans are digging up the area they think Pancho Villa’s corpse was buried in. No one seems to be talking anymore about Villa’s, um, other corpse, the one that Carranza’s nephew was supposed to have.

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Today -100: April 19, 1916: In which somebody actually says “This means war!”

Henry Ford is currently way ahead in the vote count in the Nebraska Republican presidential primary, even though he says he is not a candidate and didn’t even know his name was on the ballot (in the final count, many days from now, he’ll be defeated by Sen. Albert Cummins). The paper says his name was put on the ballot as a joke, but doesn’t say by whom, so take that for whatever it’s worth. On the Democratic side, everyone supported by William Jennings Bryan failed, including his brother Charles, who was running for governor, a job he’ll win in the ‘30s. Bryan’s loss of influence in his home state came from some combination of his focus on prohibition and his attacks on Wilson. He himself badly loses in the election for at-large delegates to the Dem. convention.

The US arrests Wolf von Igel. Following the expulsion of Franz von Papen, von Igel is now the head of Germany’s espionage and sabotage operations in North America. Von Igel fights the arrest “like a tiger,” yelling that he is an attaché and has diplomatic immunity and his Wall Street office is a branch of the German Embassy (it was cunningly disguised as an ad agency), so “this means war!” The US will say that even if he is currently an attaché, he wasn’t at the time of the attempt to blow up the Welland Canal in 1914, which is what he’s being arrested for. The case against von Igel will be repeatedly postponed and will still be pending when he leaves the country in 1917 with the rest of the Embassy staff, forfeiting his $25,000 bond.

The German Embassy seems less concerned about von Igel than about all the papers seized from his office. As well it might be, since they contain details not only of all of Germany’s covert activities in North America but also in India and Ireland. The US will quietly share those details with Britain, which will use them in the trial of Sir Roger Casement. The German Embassy will demand the papers back, but only in general terms. The State Dept will invite them to inspect the papers and claim as official any of them they like, but considering what those papers prove, the Germans will refuse the kind offer to implicate themselves in bombings and whatnot.

By the way, “igel” is German for hedgehog, which makes for an amusing Google Translate version of Wolf von Igel’s German Wikipedia page.

The Mexican government officially asks the US to withdraw its troops. So the US is sending 2,300 more.

Harvard will not follow Yale in putting numbers on its football players’ jerseys.

The New York State Senate fails, by a tie vote, to pass a bill requiring daily Bible readings in public schools.

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Today -100: April 18, 1916: Of prisoners of not-war, and diplomatic immunity

The US Army is building a stockade in New Mexico for the Villaist prisoners they plan to capture, any day now, in Mexico. I guess they’ve decided to just ignore that whole thing about having no legal authority to hold prisoners. Current captives include 6 prisoners who “confessed” to the raid on Columbus, New Mexico.

A federal grand jury indicts former German military attaché (and future chancellor of Germany) Franz von Papen for conspiracy to blow up the Welland Canal in Canada. Also indicted are the former naval attaché Capt. Boy-Ed and others. And yes, both attachés have diplomatic immunity (and are back in Germany). Assistant US District Attorney Roger Wood doesn’t think that matters, because while they had immunity when they allegedly committed the acts, they don’t now. Someone should probably tell him that’s not how diplomatic immunity works.

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Today -100: April 17, 1916: Byzantine bombing

British planes drop bombs on Constantinople.

Carranza’s nephew, a colonel, claims to have dug up Pancho Villa’s two-week-old corpse. He died (except he didn’t) from complications from having his leg amputated (which didn’t happen either).

A more detailed report on the Parral skirmish indicates that the people who attacked the US soldiers were actually Carranzaist soldiers. Gen. Funston complains that Major Tompkins retreated instead of slaughtering even more Mexicans.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Barnum & Bailey’s was maybe not the most tasteful entertainment enterprise.

A new issue of The Wipers Times is out, although the editors have moved on from Ypres so it is now titled The “New Church” Times with which is incorporated The Wipers Times.

Ad:

“Are you going over the top? If so be sure to first inspect our new line of velveteen corduroy plush breeches. Be the fashion and look like a soldier. ... Thousands of testimonials from all fronts. Send for these and illustrated brochure entitled: ‘Breaches and Their Wearers’ Or ‘Legs make the officer.”

Poem:

Farewell Ypren!* Ypren farewell!
Long have I known thee, and known thee well!
Thy stony streets, thy shell-pitted square,
Looted thy houses for dug-out ware,
Looking for cellar cool and deep,
With a shell-proof roof where I could sleep.

* “Ypren – The Belgian name for Wipers, used here to baffle the enemy.”

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Today -100: April 16, 1916: I could have blown the White House and Capitol off the map

Gen. John “Black Jack” Pershing reports on the Parral battle. He says US soldiers entered the town unarmed in order to buy food and the attack on them was unprovoked. He says 2 US soldiers and 40 Mexicans were killed.

DeLloyd Thompson, an aviator who once held the altitude record, flies over Washington DC, trailing pyrotechnics of some sort, and drops fireworks on the Washington Monument, to demonstrate American vulnerability to air attack and the need for anti-aircraft guns, of which the US has none. “I could have blown the White House and Capitol off the map had I been armed with the most deadly explosives instead of fireworks bombs”.

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Today -100: April 15, 1916: Dresses have been the curse and burden of women

Headline of the Day -100:

That’s not his actual name – although he is French... Sgt Auguste Bernard, age 69, a veteran of the 1870 war with Prussia, re-enlisted for this war and insisted on serving in the front line.

Cardinal Mercier of Belgium responds to Governor-General Moritz von Bissing’s letter instructing him to shut up now: “Allow us, then, even smitten as we are by admiration before the war-like pomp surrounding you and the brilliant staff which, like King Saul, you have attached to your person, to retain, nevertheless, our full liberty of judgment.” There’s no sarcasm quite like Catholic sarcasm.

The Wilson administration, not interested in withdrawing its troops from Mexico, is pretending that Carranza’s message was just an invitation to begin discussions about when the US forces might leave, not an actual demand that they do so.

The Mexican sub-secretary of foreign relations, Juan Neftali Amador, says the US expedition must be limited to 1,000 cavalry, no infantry and no heavy artillery, which make no sense for a chase anyway, not go more than 40 miles into Mexico or stay longer than 5 days. He releases details of secret negotiations between the two governments on details like those, negotiations which failed to reach an agreement.

The British claim Germany has arrested the wayward Anglo-Irish former diplomat Sir Roger Casement. Not even close to true, but Casement will resurface soon.

New Jersey Republican primary voters won’t be able to vote for president because no one filed to be on the ballot.

The NY State Senate votes 40-1 to require military training for boys age 15 to 19, or at least those still in formal education. Gov. Charles Whitman told the Senate that the state needs to “provide its citizens with the advantages of physical and elementary military training and to impart to its youths the principles of discipline and the spirit which yields to the commands of duly constituted authorities.”

Headline of the Day -100: 

Not actual women soldiers, of course, but members of the American Woman’s League for Self-Defense, who have a long debate about what sort of uniform they might wear when practicing military-type drills. Anna Higgins proclaims, “This is the age of the New Woman. Get rid of your dresses. Dresses have been the curse and burden of women. ... Think no longer of husbands and sweethearts. Think about ditches and barb fences.  Think of the work you will have to do when your husbands and sweethearts go to the front. You will have to remain behind to guard your home against marauders and when they come you will have to pepper them down.” Miss Higgins said all this while wearing a riding habit, in front of God and everyone.

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Today -100: April 14, 1916: Necessity is the only limit of Gen. Funston’s authority

A column of US soldiers enter the town of Parral, Chihuahua, 500 miles inside Mexico. They are informed that the town is heavily pro-Villa and are in the process of marching out again when townsmen attack them. The soldiers turn a machine gun on them, killing a few dozen as they retreat.

Secretary of War Newton Baker instructs Gen. Funston to take all steps to protect US troops in Mexico. “Necessity is the only limit of Gen. Funston’s authority.”

Carranza demands the US withdraw its troops from Mexico.

Woodrow Wilson speaks at the Jefferson Day banquet, and for some reason lists the conditions under which the US would enter the European war. US interests would have to be “coincident with the interests of mankind”. He keeps calling the Republicans “provincial.”

Theodore Roosevelt dictates a little impromptu speech to the press, ending “We stand for peace, but only for the peace that comes as a right to the just man armed and not for the peace which the coward purchases by abject submission to wrong. The peace of cowardice leads in the end to war after a record of shame.” He agrees with the Republican policy of a high protective tariff, which many in the party think will be the main issue this election year, but he doesn’t try to hide that the issue bores the crap out of him.

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Today -100: April 13, 1916: Of saboteurs, u-boats, and rears admiral

The NYPD arrest 4 more members of Franz von Papen’s sabotage squad, for placing firebombs on ships carrying munitions to the Allies. 33 ships, the police rather unbelievably claim.

Germany still denies that one of its u-boats sunk the Sussex, but it will admit having sunk another ship in the same location in the English Channel, 5 minutes later. But the sketch the u-boat captain made of the ship he sank doesn’t match the one of the Sussex in the Daily Graphic, they say, so the Sussex probably just hit a British mine.

The Senate demands to see correspondence between Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels and then Aid for Operations Rear Admiral Bradley Fiske from 1914 in which Fiske said the Navy was unprepared for war. Daniels says Fiske’s resignation a year ago was not over that disagreement but because he hadn’t been promoted to Commander of the Atlantic Fleet and because he strongly objected to the order ending the navy officers’ wine mess.

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Today -100: April 12, 1916: Of kiongas, dead villas, driver’s licenses, and primaries

Portugal, which supposedly entered the war a month ago, finally does something warlike, occupying Kionga, a long-disputed area between Portugese East Africa (Mozambique) and German East Africa (Tanzania). And they’ll keep it, until Mozambique becomes independent anyway, so it’s not like Portugal didn’t get something out of World War I.

Rumors have Pancho Villa dying of blood poisoning. Nope.

Rumors have Kaiser Wilhelm’s car blown up by a shell at Verdun while he was visiting the front, but he’s okay. Probably not true.

Automobile manufacturers are protesting NY Police Commissioner Arthur Woods’s proposal that drivers be required to have licenses. Education, not legislation is what will make streets safe, they say.

Another Chinese province, Zhejiang, declares independence.

The Illinois presidential primaries are won by Woodrow Wilson and Sen. Lawrence Yates Sherman of that state. One point of confusion: women in Illinois can vote for most offices but not for delegates to the national conventions. It’s somewhat unclear whether they can vote for their presidential preference, so some do and some don’t.

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Today -100: April 11, 1916: Of governments controlled by military castes, and flour sacks

British Prime Minister Asquith, responding to German Chancellor Theobald Bethmann Hollweg’s Reichstag speech, clarifies his stated war aim of destroying Prussian militarism. It is “not to strangle Germany or wipe her off the map of Europe, not to destroy or mutilate her national life.” Rather, “we intend to establish the principle that international problems must be handled by free negotiations on equal terms between free peoples, and that this settlement shall no longer be hampered or swayed by the overmastering dictation of a Government controlled by a military caste. That is what I mean by the destruction of the military domination of Prussia – nothing more, but nothing less.”

The Greek government seems to have clandestinely given 37,000 empty flour sacks belonging to Russia to Bulgaria, and the Allies are complaining about it (such sacks can be used for sandbags in the trenches).

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Today -100: April 10, 1916: There’s nothing worse than a racist bordello

A fight between negro soldiers of the 24th Infantry and the cops in Del Rio, Texas ends with a Texas Ranger killing one of the soldiers, Priv. John Wade. The soldiers had been “refused admission to a house in the restricted district” – by “house” the NYT means brothel – and returned to break all its windows with stones and bullets, then resisted arrest. The story the Texas authorities are putting out is that Wade grabbed the Ranger from behind and was then hit in the neck by a lucky shot. This doesn’t quite match the multiple bullet wounds in Wade’s torso, but hey, it’s Texas. Locals will clamor for the removal of the 24th from Del Rio, supported by their congressman, John Nance Garner (FDR’s vice president). The Army, which never conducted its own investigation into the death of one of its privates, quickly acceded.

An anti-conscription demonstration in Trafalgar Square led by Sylvia Pankhurst is broken up by thugs, including colonial soldiers. Speakers are pelted with red and yellow ochre. The police were for some reason missing. “The Government had obviously given orders to leave us to the violence of the mob,” Pankhurst writes in her book about the war years, The Home Front (1932). Her mother Emmeline, in the US, will send a cable to the press repudiating her.

The British government issues a report accusing Germany of torturing POWs.

Mormon Pres. Joseph Smith complains about women’s fashions which are “shameful, suggestive and humiliating to the modesty of honorable men”.

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Today -100: April 9, 1916: Of hips, u-boats, helpless and ignorant housekeepers, and hardings

The US is now claiming that Villa has a hip wound, rather than an amputated leg. Or maybe it just grew back.

Britain denies a Dutch report that a captured German u-boat was spotted in the Thames.

During a Senate discussion on military preparedness, Sen. Reed Smoot (R-Utah) calls for spending on Home Ec to bolster women’s preparedness to be good housekeepers. “Tens of thousands of homes are ruined by helpless and ignorant housekeepers”. Why, do you know that women’s colleges don’t even teach domestic science? Latin yes, but how to manage a home, “the one thing every girl should be taught,” no.

Sen. Warren G. Harding gives a preview of the keynote address he will give as temporary chairman of this year’s Republican convention in a speech at the Appomattox Day dinner at the Hamilton Club. He says the key issues in the presidential race will be tariffs, preparedness, and Americanism. Some people think that the RNC’s choice of Harding as chair signals the determination of the party old guard to keep control of the convention and thwart Progressives and Roosevelt. I think they just want to hear another speech like Harding’s hilariously alliterative one at the 1912 convention. In fact, his talk now of “the protective policy and preparedness” is reminiscent of that speech’s... oh, I just have to repeat it: “Progression is not proclamation nor palaver. It is not pretense nor play on prejudice. It is not of personal pronouns, nor perennial pronouncement. It is not the perturbation of a people passion-wrought, nor a promise proposed.”

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Today -100: April 8, 1916: You don’t want to see how cranky Germany gets without its morning coffee

Germany is running out of coffee.

Chancellor Theobald Bethmann Hollweg’s speech to the Reichstag a couple of days ago has proven popular in Germany, in part because everyone’s interpreting it as supporting their own positions, especially those who take opposing views on whether to annex Belgium and other territories. While he denied any policy of conquest, his language about keeping Germany’s borders secure and about “those political and economic guarantees which we must demand for Germany’s safety” suggest he plans to retain... well, who knows? Lithuania? most of Poland? part of France?

The Guangdong province declares independence from China.

Illinois State’s Attorney Maclay Hoyne claims to have discovered a massive international anarchist plot to assassinate the monarch of every country in the European war. Hoyne’s informer says he was personally at a meeting in Chicago at which lots were drawn to choose one of the assassins.

Henry Ford says his victory in the Michigan presidential primary was an anti-war protest against “military preparedness and the exploitation of the workingman by the moneyed munitions interests.”

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Today -100: April 7, 1916: There are few things as horrifying as German jubilation

Congress allowed for the expansion of the US Army to meet the Mexican “crisis” and Gen. Frederick Funston wants every one of the new recruits sent to guard the border to free up even more soldiers to go into Mexico, despite the fact that Villa’s men have scattered to the winds, making it unclear what the expeditionary force’s objectives even are anymore.

Headline of the Day -100:

An anti-military meeting at Carnegie Hall.

Speaking of unpreparedness, Henry Ford wins the Michigan primary for president, defeating Sen. William Alden Smith (R-Mich.) Ford isn’t even running.

It is now illegal in New York to manufacture, sell or possess a gun with a silencer.

Headline of the Day -100:  

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Today -100: April 6, 1916: If our adversaries want to continue the slaughter of human beings and the devastation of Europe theirs will be the guilt, and we shall have to stand it as men

Theodore Roosevelt tells a prospective Republican Convention delegate his “terms” for accepting a Republican nomination: “don’t you do it if you expect me to pussy-foot on any single issue I have raised.” No hyphenated Americans, build up the military, etc. Nothing particularly new, but the strongest statement yet that Roosevelt intends to run. Tomorrow, the NYT will write this about the performance:

The Dutch government clarifies the reasons for its military mobilization orders. It was because of “certain information” which it won’t for the present make public.

German Chancellor Theobald Bethmann Hollweg tells the Reichstag that Germany does not intend to attack the United States or annex Canada or Brazil after it wins the current war. Which should be soon, because Germany is totally winning. Even if the Allies succeed in creating food shortages, which they totally aren’t, Germany will rely on its “moral reserves” to lower its standard of living, which after all has risen sharply in recent decades. So maybe meat consumption gets reduced to the level of the 1870s, no biggee. “I should think our adversaries would remember how strong was the German race of those days.” When Prussia kicked France’s ass, he means.

This speech is the closest Germany has come to setting out peace terms. The chancellor says that after the war there must be a “new Belgium,” which can’t be a Franco-British vassal or a fortification against Germany. “Also here Germany cannot sacrifice the oppressed Flemish race, but must assure them sound evolution which corresponds to their rich natural gifts, which is based on their mother tongue and follows their national character.” And all the lands in Poland and the Baltic “freed” by Germany won’t be returned to “reactionary Russia.”

He says any peace predicated on the destruction of Prussian militarism is a no go. “If our adversaries want to continue the slaughter of human beings and the devastation of Europe theirs will be the guilt, and we shall have to stand it as men.” He says that when the Allies talk of eliminating Prussian militarism, they really want the annihilation of united Germany. This war, he says again, is a war of pure self-defense. And definitely not territorial aggression: “Who can readily believe that greed of land inspires our columns at Verdun and makes them accomplish ever day new deeds of heroism?”

Any peace, he says, must be a lasting peace, “It must not bear the germs of new wars”. So that all worked out.

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Today -100: April 5, 1916: All armor plate and no brains

The Netherlands calls its furloughed soldiers back to duty, setting off fears that the country is about to enter the war. On which side, is not clear. One theory is that they’re trying to scare off a German invasion while also reassuring Germany by reinforcing the country’s shores against the possibility of British troops landing to attack Germany.

Daniel Hoan is elected mayor of Milwaukee, its second Socialist mayor. He will be mayor until 1940, implementing socialist reforms such as public housing (the first in the nation), public buses, and municipal ownership of sewage works.

There will be a meeting in Carnegie Hall tomorrow to oppose Wilson’s military Preparedness program. To advertise it, the organizers are wheeling a papier-maché dinosaur around the city. Called Jingo, it is “All Armor Plate and No Brains. This animal believed in Huge Armament – He is Now Extinct.”

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Today -100: April 4, 1916: Sorry!

Germany apologizes for bombing Switzerland last week. The pilots thought they were over France.

American military technology is proving rather disappointing in Mexico. Wireless equipment has failed, so the two camps of soldiers can only communicate by airplane courier, but the planes’ engines are too weak to be trusted in mountainous regions or indeed to reach altitudes above the range of rifle fire. On a more mundane level, all the marching means the soldiers’ shoes are falling apart.

They’ve also only just realized that they can’t keep captured Mexicans as prisoners of war because there’s no officially declared war, and they can’t take them back over the border into the US either.

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Today -100: April 3, 1916: What difference does war make?

Kapitanleutnant Joachim Breithaupt, commander of the Zeppelin L15 which was shot down over England, defends the bombing raids, after a NYT correspondent tells him that the only damage done by them is killing women and children: “Women and children become the victims of our operations, but not because we kill them intentionally. It is war.” So that’s okay then. Breithaupt says that he visited London before the war and had many friends there. Asked if he still thought of them as friends: “Why not? What difference does war make?” Each Germany officer POW will have a sitting room and a servant, and anyway the Germans all think the war will be over within three months.

I don’t have a sitting room and a servant. If I dropped bombs on Britain from an airship would they give me a sitting room and a servant?

France has rounded up 200 German spies, or at least waiters and hotel porters it thinks are German and hence probably spies. It is illegal now to speak any other language than French on the telephone.

Herbert Beerbohm Tree, the 63-year-old English actor and theater manager, who specializes in Shakespeare, is in New York and has just seen, evidently for the first time in his life, Othello played by an actual black man (Edward Sterling Wright).

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Today -100: April 2, 1916: Of Pancho Villa’s leg, zeppelins, military executions, and emancipated women

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Local Mexican officials claim that Pancho Villa was so badly injured in that skirmish that his leg had to be amputated. And yet the American forces still can’t catch up to “Stumpy” Villa.

The Senate Judiciary Committee votes 3-2 in favor of Louis Brandeis’s nomination to the Supreme Court. The vote is on party lines, even though the 2 Republicans are supposed to be Progressives.

The Germans have stepped up their Zeppelin raids on the east coast of England. One zep is brought down in the Thames estuary and most of the crew rescued/captured by a trawler.

Headline of the Day -100:

So touchy, the Swiss. Germany keeps “accidentally” dropping bombs on them.

There’s an article on the secrecy of French courts-martial. In fact, France executed more of its own soldiers during this war than any other country. They would inform the families that the soldier was dead, without saying how, and then 3 months later bill them for the expenses of the execution.

Headline of the Day -100:

This is an actual news story, in the Sunday New York Freaking Times, about “an aggressive little woman” who registered at a hotel as “Mrs. Sarah Hawkins and husband, Boston, Mass.”

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Today -100: April 1, 1916: It looks as though they have him

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The US Punitive Expedition has reportedly engaged with Pancho Villa, who they’ve definitely wounded, badly, but somehow failed to capture. Says Gen. Pershing, “It looks as though they have him. But Villa is no fool, and I won’t predict.”

An Ohio judge rules that iron and steel companies that colluded with each other to keep wages down can’t be prosecuted under the state’s anti-trust laws because labor is not a commodity – why, we had a whole Civil War about that – and therefore it’s not illegal to conspire to fix labor costs.

Headline of the Day -100:

Oh boy! Is it lasers? I’ll bet it’s lasers on giant steampunky blimps with...

Oh.

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