Today -100: March 26, 1917: Of spy fever, redeployments, and of course polo

A Swedish man is arrested for sketching the Brooklyn Bridge. And a guest at the Hotel Majestic in New York is investigated by the police after a guest becomes suspicious that he is operating an illicit wireless transmitter. He is in fact testing electrical medical equipment before demonstrating it to doctors, which is his job.

Germany has been withdrawing troops from positions on the Western Front in order to mount a major offensive against Russia.

The head of the Polo Association says polo should not be stopped if war is declared.

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Today -100: March 25, 1917: Everyone hates a finicky war

Woodrow Wilson orders the US ambassador to Belgium to leave Belgium along with all other consular officials and the Commission for Relief, since the Germans are sinking all the ships bringing relief supplies anyway.

Theodore Roosevelt says he can raise a division of soldiers and have it in France in 4 or 5 months. And then he went off to “hunt devilfish.”

Headline of the Day -100:

The Russian Provisional Government fires Grand Duke Nicholas as army commander-in-chief.

In the German Reichstag, socialist (SPD) deputy Fritz Kunert blames Kaiser Wilhelm and Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg for starting the war and says he’d be proud if Germany made such progress as Russia has.

The US rejects Germany’s proposed protocols interpreting the 1799 and 1828 US-Prussia treaties in ways that would allow all German nationals in the US (well over a million of them) to go about their business with no restrictions in the event of a war.

If war is declared, Princeton will immediately suspend all athletics. But they probably won’t shut down the whole university for the duration (or let in women).

Headline of the Day -100: 

Something about paprika, right?

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Today -100: March 24, 1917: Of recognition, safe czars and nervous kaisers, and humanity and good neighborship

Now that the US has broken the ice, Britain, France and Italy recognize the new Russian government.

Russia will abolish the flogging and chaining of prison inmates.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: The British press reports, no doubt on the best authority, that Kaiser Wilhelm has had a nervous breakdown.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Fight fiercely, Harvard.

Germany will reduce the bread ration by one-fourth. The meat ration, however, will be increased (they’re killing animals to save on fodder).

Having sunk a bunch of Dutch ships, Germany offers, “on considerations of humanity and good neighborship,” to pay indemnities for the dead crew members and to help shipowners buy German ships after the war. The Netherlands tells them to go fuck themselves. It is also likely to ban US merchant ships when Wilson puts cannons on them.

The Nivelle Offensive is going well. For now.

The Justice Dept is taking a census of all Germans in El Paso, with an eye towards internment.

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Today -100: March 23, 1917: And we’ve been friends ever since

The US recognizes the new Russian government, the first country to do so.

Russia says it will end the death penalty “in the near future.” Also, there will be women’s suffrage.

A u-boat sinks an oil tanker owned by Standard of New Jersey, the Healdton, off the Netherlands, its destination. No warning given. 7 Americans dead.

New York City’s Boy Mayor John Purroy Mitchel accuses State Senate minority leader (and future US senator) Robert Wagner of “working in the interest of Germany.” Wagner – and yes that is a German name – is not best pleased. This is part of a fight over how much the US government will pay the Rockaway-Pacific Corp (a subsidiary of Southern Pacific Railroad) for land on Rockaway Point which it intends to fortify.

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Today -100: March 22, 1917: Taking a man’s part

Woodrow Wilson calls Congress into an extra session for April 2nd, earlier than he’d previously announced, presumably to ask it to declare war on Germany.

It is expected that the US will not just independently start fighting Germany, but will operate in conjunction with the Entente nations, perhaps in a formal alliance, perhaps not. Okay, that may sound obvious, now, but the US hadn’t made a military alliance with another country since the War of Independence, and not getting into “entangling alliances” or interfering in Europe was kind of important to the US’s national self-image, the Monroe Doctrine and all that.

They’re talking about not being able to field an army for a year or so (although Theodore Roosevelt, naturally, wants to send an expeditionary force of whatever size as soon as possible), without anyone suggesting that the war might be over by then.

Henry Stimson, Taft’s secretary of war, demands that the US take “a man’s part” in the European war.

Lots of men, not just those in the military, are practicing military drilling, and would like the government to provide them with some rifles to play with. 600 had been drilling on Governors Island (Manhattan) with broomsticks, but have recently upgraded to wooden rifles.

Czar Nicholas and Mrs. Czar are under arrest.

New French Prime Minister Alexandre Ribot says “We are resolved to wage with the utmost vigor and to a victorious end the terrible war into which we were drawn by inexcusable aggression.” He will do so, he says, by giving a totally free hand to Gen. Robert Nivelle. This should go well.

Headline of the Day -100: 

I believe you mean “differently abled.”

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Today -100: March 21, 1917: Feeble war but war

Wilson’s Cabinet meets. They are virtually unanimous in favor of war, some of their penises fully erect in anticipation. Wilson is still hesitating, saying he abhors both Germany’s militarism on land and Britain’s militarism at sea.

Republican leaders give speeches at the Union League Club about the international situation, all saying the same thing. Charles Evans Hughes: “Germany is now making war upon the United States, making war with a ruthless barbarity.” (Ruthless barbarity is the worst kind of barbarity). Theodore Roosevelt: “Germany is making war upon us and we are not striking in self-defense. Armed neutrality under these circumstances is feeble war, but it is war.”

Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: March 20, 1917: Any American citizen who is now pro-German is a traitor to this country

The Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote upholds the Adamson 8-Hour Act regulating railroad work conditions, including the enforcement of compulsory arbitration on RR companies and workers. Which gives the unions their 8-hour-day victory but introduces the worrying principle that the right to strike in such an industry is limited by the public interest. Some of the ruling seems to be railroad-specific, so Congress might not have quite so many powers over an industry whose functioning was not a vital “public service” affecting interstate commerce.

Theodore Roosevelt, you will be surprised to hear, wants war with Germany. “Any American citizen who is now pro-German is a traitor to this country”. He doesn’t like pacifists either, or armed neutrality, which “is only another name for timid war”. “Germany is already at war with us. The only question for us to decide is whether we shall make war nobly or ignobly.”

75-year-old Alexandre Ribot is the new French prime minister (again).

British Prime Minister David Lloyd George will move a parliamentary motion of congratulations to the Russian Duma for the new revolutionary government, which was formed, he says, “for the express purpose of carrying on the War with increased vigour.” He is heckled throughout by Irish MPs.

Russia announces home rule for Finland.

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Today -100: March 19, 1917: They are war itself

Germany sinks the City of Memphis. A ship, not the actual city. An American ship. Also the Illinois and Vigilancia.

The NYT declaims: “By the repeated acts of Germany a state of war exists between that country and the United States. No declaration has preceded it. The acts of Germany are not to be looked upon merely as a provocation to war, they are war itself.”

Pres. Wilson has not resubmitted his Cabinet members for re-confirmation by the Senate for his second term, as previous presidents have done as a matter of custom if not law.

The new Russian foreign minister, Pavel Milyukov, instructs Russian diplomats to tell anyone who’ll listen that Russia intends to stay in the war until the bitter, bitter end. He also explains to them, tsarist holdovers as they all are, that the Revolution was a good thing.

Maj. Gen. Frederick Maude issues a proclamation to the people of Baghdad, which British forces captured last week, saying they’ve come not as conquerors but as liberators, so that’s good.

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Today -100: March 18, 1917: Gracious! What does all this mean?

Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich did not abdicate after all. But he says he will only accept the czarship if offered by an elected body representing the will of the people. Don’t hold your breath, Mike.

French Prime Minister Aristide Briand and his cabinet, the third during this war, resign. Mostly caused by disagreements over military strategy.

The railroad unions postpone their strike 48 hours (although by the time that order is received in some places, the workers are already striking). The Supreme Court may issue their ruling on the constitutionality of the Adamson 8-Hour Act during that period, which matters to the owners but not so much to the unions, which say that their demands are the same regardless.

A dispute between a teacher, Marie Siebert, and a 14-year-old student, Harry Roper, at Central High School in D.C., goes public. She hangs a picture of Kaiser Wilhelm in her classroom, and he keeps turning it to the wall.

There were 3,541,738 motor vehicles registered in the US at the end of 1916, up more than a million from 1915.

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Today -100: March 17, 1917: How do you say “Buh bye” in Russian?

Czar Nicholas formally abdicates, not in favor of his son (he also abdicates his son), but his brother Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich. Who then abdicates after nearly 15 hours. The Romanov dynasty is now over, after three centuries of “the greats,” “the terribles,” and “she fucked a what?”s.

The new Russian government (specifically the new Justice Minister, Alexander Kerensky) promises universal suffrage, amnesty for all political prisoners, freedom of speech and the press, abolition of religious & national restrictions (Jews can be lawyers now), etc.

Woodrow Wilson sends representatives to appeal to the “patriotism” of railroad companies and unions to avert a strike over the former’s refusal to obey the Adamson 8-Hour Act.

Tomorrow -100 is Sunday, and churches will be asking parishioners to sign pledges of loyalty to the president.

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Today -100: March 16, 1917: Revolution

Headline of the Day -100:

From a confluence of bread rioting, strikes, military mutinies, some of it the results of plots, some of it not, and a regime that had lost all legitimacy through its inability to feed its population, prosecute the war effectively or keep its soldiers supplied with food, clothing, and ammunition, plus the suspected pro-German sympathies of various members of government and the incompetence and/or batshit craziness of others (plus the influence on the tsarina of the late Rasputin).

Czar Nicholas II finally resolves the whole tsar/czar dilemma by becoming just plain Nick, abdicating in the face of a revolution about which the world outside Russia has heard so few concrete details. In theory, he will go into exile, leaving behind his 12-year-old hemophilic son Alexei as the new tsar, with his brother the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich acting as regent. Or, you know, not.

The NYT is reporting that Interior Minister Alexander Protopopov (a follower of Rasputin, who Protopopov thinks is still giving him advice from beyond the grave) has been killed, which he hasn’t. He has, in fact, turned himself in to the Duma in order to escape being killed by the revolutionary mob. The Bolsheviks will execute him (the syphilis probably would have done for him fairly soon anyway).

The new prime minister appointed by the Duma to head the provisional government is Prince Georgii Lvov, who is associated with the Constitutional Democrats (Kadets).

The British government is said to be pleased at the overthrow of the weak tsar and the ouster of various allegedly pro-German officials, and expects that Russia will now fight Germany much more effectively. Andrew Bonar Law tells Parliament that Russian discontent was not caused by opposition to the war but to it not being carried out “with that efficiency and energy which the people had expected.”

The NYT also welcomes “The New Birth of Russia”: “The Russian people, through trusted leaders in the Duma and men of loyalty and enlightenment outside the Duma, have assumed the direction of affairs in the Empire.” They say the Revolution is mainly aimed at “Germanophile treason and conspiracy,” because everything is about German “plots” for the NYT now.

The Russian ambassador to the US, George Bakhmeteff, can shed no light on events in Russia (a country he will not, I believe, ever see again).

An Alien Registration Bill is introduced in the New York Legislature permitting the governor to require aliens from a country with which the US is or might soon be at war to register and requiring hotels, boarding houses etc to tell the police about any alien guests.

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Today -100: March 15, 1917: Of quasi-civilization, loyalty censuses, algonquins, conscienceless rascals, and boy scouts

China breaks diplomatic relations with Germany and seizes German ships.

Hubert Lyautey resigns as French minister of war after 3 months in the job. He refused to discuss the production of war planes, even in a closed session of the Chamber of Deputies, and deputies shouted at him until he resigned, or something like that. Lyautey had been the colonial governor of Morocco, where he “brought the Moroccans into a state of quasi-civilization,” which it turns out wasn’t really the best background for running a modern war.

New Yorkers are signing pledges of support for the president in the present crisis in a highly organized “loyalty census.”

A German u-boat sinks the American steamship Algonquin. It fired without warning, but all the crew escaped, no doubt while making lacerating witty comments about the experience and not spilling even a drop of their martinis.

The NYT has no news about anything that might be happening in Russia, and is reduced to quoting a Swedish engineer just returned home from Petrograd who says that reports of outbreaks are exaggerated. Phew.

Netherlands, scared of its large neighbor, sentences the editor of the Amsterdam Telegraaf for endangering the Netherlands’ neutrality by writing “In Central Europe there is a group of conscienceless rascals which caused this war.”

Germany says it is halting the deportations of Belgians to Germany.

The Boy Scouts will not take part in actual military operations in event of war, says the National Council of the Boy Scouts after, presumably, considering it.

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Today -100: March 14, 1917: If we sink an American ship, we shall get war

War Paranoia of the Day -100: The NYT claims that Germany is trying to “involve [South America] in a general war as well as to infuse into the countries there a distrust for the United States”. Uruguay would “play the role of Serbia” in this all-out war.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Johann von Bernstorff, the expelled German ambassador to the US, asked by a reporter whether there will be war between the US and Germany, says “If we sink an American ship, we shall get war. If not, I suppose we can avoid it.” He thinks it’ll be okay if Germany sinks a British ship (like the Laconia) with Americans onboard. He says it was just silly of the US to have gotten so worked up about the Zimmermann telegram, since Mexico would only have been approached if the US declared war on Germany. Actually, the instructions to the ambassador to Mexico said to talk to the government if it looked like the US would declare war, i.e., in advance. And there was a second telegram ordering immediate contact.

The Navy “guards” that will be put on American commercial ships to operate the cannons will work on the assumption that any German u-boat they see will sink them without warning; they are authorized to shoot at u-boats without warning. War by “wacky misunderstanding.” The guards will be placed even on ships carrying munitions.

Railroad workers’ unions are arranging a strike to get the RR companies to follow the Adamson 8-Hour Law (the owners say they won’t obey the law until the Supreme Court rules on it), and to resolve this before any war is declared. Both sides will now accuse the other of being unpatriotic, as was the custom.

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Today -100: March 13, 1917: Odious yokes are the worst kind

The US announces that merchant ships whose owners ask for guns will be given them, and Navy crews to operate them, crews under their own orders rather than those of the ship captain. The US pretends that this arrangement preserves those ships’ status as civilian and not belligerent under international law. Germany, of course, disagrees.

Cuban police search the house of a former secretary of justice and find – hidden in the hollow base of a statuette, no less – documents supporting the recent failed rebellion and proclaiming “Germany has promised your freedom from the odious yoke which weighs on the country,” by which is means the Platt Amendment which the US forced on Cuba giving the US the right to intervene militarily in Cuba whenever it feels like it.

Tsar Nicholas the Last suspends both the Duma and the Council of the Empire.

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Today -100: March 12, 1917: Is it a Menshevik blizzard or a Bolshevik blizzard?

The British capture Baghdad, and that part of the world never gives anybody any trouble ever again.

Yesterday was Sunday, and jingoism issued forth from many flag-bedraped pulpits across the land. Dr. Charles Aubrey Eaton of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church, for example, denounced “poor pussy pacifists.” I don’t understand Christianity.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Newspapers have been banned. Because a lack of information will totally assuage the worries of a starving populace.

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Today -100: March 11, 1917: Of Nissen huts, armed ships, poison darts, and food riots

The NYT has a short article about Nissen huts, those pre-fabricated portable semi-circular buildings usually associated with the Second World War, but which were put into use by the British Army in 1916.

Austria says it has granted autonomy to occupied Albania. In other words, it plans to conscript Albanians.

If Wilson arms private commercial ships, and he seems to have decided that he can just ignore the 1819 law, they will be authorized to fire on German u-boats without warning even if those subs haven’t done anything hostile. The administration says this still counts as self-defense since the German government has said its subs can do the same. And Germany said that armed ships are not civilian ships with the rights that would go along with that status It’s almost like both these countries want to go to war with each other.

The official British investigation into the Dardanelles campaign is made public, and it’s surprisingly honest about the incompetence of military leaders, although it places a lot of blame on the conveniently late Lord Kitchener.

A British court finds Alice Wheeldon, her daughter and son-in-law, guilty of a plot to assassinate Lloyd George and Arthur Henderson. With poison darts, no less. Her other daughter is acquitted. Sentences of 10, 5 and 7 years, respectively, are imposed. Their lawyer tried to suggest that the government’s failure to produce as a witness the “mysterious secret government agent known as Gordon” was somehow suspicious. And indeed, “Gordon” was in fact a paid government agent, had made it all up, was a convicted blackmailer, had been committed for insanity, all of which might have been seen as a little suspicious by the jury, had they known about it. The lawyer probably didn’t help anything by suggesting that in Gordon’s absence, the defendants should be subjected to trial by ordeal. Since Wheeldon was a suffragette before the war, Emmeline Pankhurst is allowed to testify, not because she has any evidence, just to deny that the WSPU ever plotted to assassinate Lloyd George (although they did blow up his house that one time). Indeed, now, Pankhurst says, “The Women’s Social and Political Union regards the Prime Minister’s life as of the greatest value in the present grave crisis, and its members would if necessary to do so, take great risks themselves to protect it from danger.”

In response to food riots, the Petrograd municipal government is given control of all food supplies in the district. What’s the Russian for “too little, too late”?

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Today -100: March 10, 1917: Of fats, quarantines, censi, and Joan II: this time it’s personal

Woodrow Wilson calls a special session of Congress for April 16th.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Germany finally releases the American crew members of the Yarrowdale, which they’ve been holding since December (except for 4 or 5 they say are sick). And we finally hear what disease they’ve been “quarantined” for – spotted fever.

New York Gov. Whitman supports a bill for a census of the military resources of NY, including women who might be conscripted into war work as well as men.

Emmeline Pankhurst repudiates another of her daughters – that’s the word she uses, “repudiates,” in a letter to the prime minister of Australia, where Adela has been organizing anti-war meetings.

Headline of the Day -100:

Oh good, because that sort of thing always goes well. The unnamed Joan wannabe is invited to visit the bishop at Poitiers, who tries to expose her as a fraud by exchanging robes with an ordinary priest, but she sees right through the ruse, and... this is beginning to all sound made-up, isn’t it? The Church now has her “in a religious home in Paris under ecclesiastical surveillance.”

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Today -100: March 9, 1917: Of wirelesses, plots, pacifists, boy disloyalists, war crimes, and zeppelins

In the continuing ostracization of senators who filibustered the Armed Ships Bill, Sen. Moses Clapp (R-Minnesota) is disinvited from addressing a men’s Bible class.

The US government leaks to the press that there exists a secret wireless connection between Mexico and Germany, free of the benevolent censorship the US imposes. Actually, it seems that the Mexican wireless station, which was intended to keep the Mexican government in touch with its far-flung armies, isn’t strong enough to transmit to Germany but it can receive.

Headline of the Day -100:

In the pro-war propaganda campaign in the US, the Zimmermann Telegram is portrayed as just one strand in a complex, insidious web of German plots. That word gets used a lot. Too much, really, when you consider how quickly it loses meaning when you repeat it: plot plot plot plot plot plot. It should also be noted that the Zimmermann thing only came into play if the US declared war on Germany, in which case, Germany asks, were we not supposed to seek allies? it’s kind of what you do in war. Of course “it’s what you do in war” is also their excuse for invading Belgium, using poison gas, and sinking ships without warning, but I think they are genuinely puzzled that other people refuse to see these things through the same “pragmatic” lens they do.

Another “plot” mentioned in that story, which as far as I know is fictional, was a German attempt to persuade Mexico to annex Guatemala.

Headline of the Day -100: 

400 US Marines land in Santiago, Cuba, allegedly at the request of its Civil Governor and at the orders of Commander Belknap on his own authority, without orders from the Navy.

The NYT welcomes Columbia University’s un-American activities committee, saying every school and college should have one: “We do not charge that such doctrines are taught in Columbia or elsewhere, but where does the noisy brood of boy disloyalists, anarchists, pacifists, come from?”

Irish Nationalists in the British Parliament respond to Lloyd George’s statement that Ulster won’t be coerced into joining a Home Rule Ireland. They say this “would involve denial of self-government to Ireland forever.”

Russia complains about violations of the rules of warfare by its enemies, including poison gas, explosive bullets, poisoned wells, the misuse of Red Cross flags and flags of truce, throwing bombs at sanitary trains, and the sinking of a hospital ship by a Turkish sub.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Bulgarian Prime Minister Vasil Radoslavov is said to be planning to pull Bulgaria out of the war if it isn’t over by summer.

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, inventor of the you-know-what, dies at 78.

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Today -100: March 8, 1917: I will never go to war for a capitalist government

There are bread riots in Petrograd today, mostly women. The Cossacks are called in, as was the custom.

Austria will start drafting 17-year-olds. And probably men up to 61.

The Wilson administration is thinking about using the Navy to convoy merchant ships, since arming them to shoot at u-boats seems to be illegal, but it’s still hopeful that the Senate will curb the filibuster and reverse the 1819 law in the special session.

The Senate is indeed working on restricting the filibuster for the first time in the history of the republic. It is proposed that a 2/3 vote can limit debate to one hour per senator.

While the state legislatures of some of the senators who filibustered the Armed Ships Bill have repudiated them, those of Wisconsin, Nebraska, Colorado, and Iowa refuse.

Supposedly, the amputated arm of a British soldier (the son-in-law of an MP, no less) is successfully surgically reattached.

The Australian Senate votes 28-2 for a resolution asking Britain to give Ireland Home Rule without undue delay. And in the British Parliament, Irish Nationalist leader John Redmond presents a resolution for immediate Home Rule. The government says sure, but Northern Ireland won’t be “coerced” into joining.

Germany orders almost all Belgian industry shut down.

Hsuan Tung, the 11-year-old former emperor of China, will be educated in the United States, it is announced. He won’t be, actually no doubt because of the attempt later in the year to make him a puppet emperor again.

Eugene Debs tells the workers of the United States they should declare a general strike in the event of war (“for Wall Street”) being declared. “When the working people own this country and other countries there will be no war.”

The Cuban rebellion seems to be over with the capture of its leader, Gen. José Miguel Gomez.

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Today -100: March 7, 1917: Of unusually bright Orientals, women’s suffrage, submarines, and sangers

The NYPD arrest a Bengal, Chandra Chakraberty, and a German, Ernest Se Kunna, for a plot to invade India and stir up uprisings there. The NYT article contains this sentence:

Women in Arkansas are given the vote. In primaries only, but Arkansas’s a one-party state anyway. This is the first suffrage victory below the Mason-Dixon line.

The Women’s Peace Party ousts Carrie Chapman Catt as honorary vice chair because as president of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association she offered Woodrow Wilson the services of suffragists in the event of the US going to war (without asking the suffragists).

Austria follows Germany in responding to US demands regarding submarine warfare. It says it totally agrees with the US about the protection of neutrals, but this applies to neutral ships, not to neutral persons on enemy vessels. Austria’s rejection of Wilson’s doctrine that American citizens do act as inviolable human shields may well lead to a break in diplomatic relations. Austria also agrees with Germany that all ships have been given a general warning to stay away and therefore a specific warning before sinking them is not required. Also, England started it.

Margaret Sanger went into prison for a month as a birth-control campaigner and came out as a prison-reform campaigner. She is especially critical of the “studied cruelty and heartlessness” of Katherine Davis, chair of the Parole Board, who rejoices in refusing to tell prisoners when they will be released, removed knives and forks so prisoners have to eat with their hands, installed screens so prisoners can’t see their visitors, etc. Sanger also describes the guards’ two-hour failed attempt to forcibly take her fingerprints.

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