Today -100: February 13, 1918: It is no use crying peace when there is no peace

Headline of the Day -100: 

Headline of the Day -100:  

Yup.

Lloyd George says the recent speeches by German Chancellor Count Georg von Hertling and Austrian Foreign Minister Count Czernin show no prospect of peace: “it is no use crying peace when there is no peace.”

Lithuania declares itself independent of Russia.

A black man is lynched in Estill Springs, Tennessee, burned at the stake after being tortured with hot irons into a confession or, as they call it in Tennessee, due process.

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Today -100: February 12, 1918: One party in Germany is apparently willing and able to send millions of men to their death to prevent what all the world now sees to be just

Germany announces that peace has been made with Russia, whose army will now stand down, or would if it were still standing up. The NYT, which is not at all pleased with Mr. Trotsky, calls this an “unconditional surrender.”

Headline of the Day -100: 

And wet in cheerful trenches.

Woodrow Wilson addresses Congress in a speech framed as a response to German Chancellor Georg von Hertling’s own speech last month, you know, a tweet war. Wilson says the US won’t “recognize” the Brest-Litovsk peace deal. How does that even work? Can you tell 2 countries, No, we’ve decided that you’re still at war. Anyway, the US also won’t recognize any other separate peace because “All parties to this war must join in the settlement of every issue anywhere involved in it, because what we are seeking is a peace that we can all unite to guarantee and maintain, and every item of it must be submitted to the common judgment whether it be right and fair, an act of justice, rather than a bargain between sovereigns.” He says the principles of the 14 Points (still not called that) are “already everywhere accepted as imperative except among the spokesmen of the military and annexationist party of Germany. ...The tragical circumstance is that one party in Germany is apparently willing and able to send millions of men to their death to prevent what all the world now sees to be just.” Wilson also suggests that Austria’s interests are not the same as those of the German “military and annexationist party.” So, really, the US is at war with, like, just 6 or 7 guys.

He concludes, “The power of the United States is a menace to no nation or people. It will never be used in aggression or for the aggrandizement of any selfish interest of our own. It springs out of freedom and is for the service of freedom.” And Wilson actually believed this shit.

Speaking of delusions of grandeur, Kaiser Wilhelm thinks that “Our Lord God wishes us to have peace, but a peace wherein the world will strive to do what is right and good.” “The Lord pointed out to us by a hard school the path by which we should go. The world, however, at the same time has not been on the right path. We Germans, who still have ideals, should work to bring about better times.” “We desire to live in friendship with neighboring peoples, but the victory of German arms must first be recognized.”

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Today -100: February 11, 1918: Of ultimata and ghost-writing

German newspapers claim that the Romanian government responded to a German ultimatum for peace talks within 4 days by resigning. Not true. Well, the ultimatum part probably is.

Mark Twain’s daughter Clara is suing to prevent publication of a book said to be written by her dead father from beyond the grave and helpfully brought to the public by two mediums working with Prof. James Hyslop, a psychical researcher whose day job is psychology professor at Columbia. Hyslop himself will continue “writing” books for years after his death, published by his research assistant, and Name of the Day -100, Gertrude O. Tubby.

Incidentally, the British Library and the Library of Congress list this sort of book alongside books by the living author. So the last-written book by Shakespeare (spirit) in the British Library was written in 1920.

To one of God's who writes this down for me, who cannot reach the world from my stage today except it be through her, do I offer here more than a tribute of gratitude, a soul's praises.
No harp could play a spirit's tune were it not strung for the purpose through spirit's application. Ay, my fingers, mind as well, made this one perfect concert pitch before we e'er began my work for me. To hold a wire and pipe a lay were easy for one of earth's composers. But ye'll know the truth some day from spirit where I do now play hereon, of spirit's compositions. 

Not to be hyper-critical, but being dead 300 years did not improve his writing skills.

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Today -100: February 10, 1918: Peace!

The Ukraine signs a peace agreement with the Central Powers. Boy that “independence” thing didn’t last very long. Ukrainian wheat could alleviate the food situation in Germany and Austria.

Glad I caught my typo “Central Posers.”

Mayors from towns in the Rhineland travel to Berlin to ask Hindenburg & Ludendorff to stop ordering air raids on enemy open towns that will bring reprisals on their towns. Hindenburg tells them the damage from air raids is exaggerated by both sides, he will continue the aerial war, and they should go fuck themselves.

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Today -100: February 9, 1918: Of German agents, Wobblies, and meat

The Petit Parisien publishes papers, which were not at all forged by anyone’s secret service but were “brought to France by a prominent scientist, who obtained them from a Russian revolutionary paper,” showing that Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, etc were funded by the Germans.

55 IWWers are indicted in Sacramento for hindering the prosecution of the war. And accused Wobblies in Chicago file suit for the return of their dynamite, which they say was illegally seized in a raid on their hq in September.

A lunch is held at the Natural History Museum to demonstrate to local food administrators that whale meat is a perfectly acceptable substitute for the meats Americans are now being told to conserve (humpback is the best eatin’, evidently). The head chef of Delmonico’s explains the many ways in which whale can be prepared.

Sen. Reed Smoot has an alternative suggestion: a monthly national fast day.

Brits are now restricted to a ration of one pound of meat a week. Which is more than Germans are getting. Neither country seems to be considering whale meat.

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Today -100: February 8, 1918: Fungus among us

Headline of the Day -100:

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Today -100: February 7, 1918: We might as well abdicate

The SS Tuscania, carrying 2,013 US soldiers to Europe, is sunk by a German u-boat. 200+ crew and passengers are killed.

7 Berlin newspapers – conservative papers for once – are suppressed for publishing details of the court-martial of Independent Socialist Reichstag deputy Wilhelm Dittmann. Evidently it was supposed to be a secret.

The Brest-Litovsk talks seem to have broken down again, this time over the German wish to include reps from the regime in Poland. Trotsky says he’s ready to recognize Polish independence, but military occupation makes recognition of the puppets impossible. Also, a state without boundaries or a king is neither a state nor a kingdom.

The Russian government is not in contact with its negotiators because the telegraph wire from Brest has been “accidentally” damaged by the Germans. So Lenin “accidentally” damages the line between Petrograd and Berlin used by the Austro-German delegation.

King George V says the US’s entry into the war has “united practically the whole civilised world in a league of nations against unscrupulous aggression”.  Unscrupulous aggression is the worst kind.

Woodrow Wilson is pushing a bill to allow him to “co-ordinate and consolidate” all governmental activities as a war measure, disregarding the laws organizing government agencies and creating or shutting agencies without further congressional input. “We might as well abdicate,” say some senators.

Theodore Roosevelt has surgery for an abscess on his... well, the NYT says thigh. It is not his thigh. You do not want to know where it really was. Also a fistula. Also more abscesses in his ears, one of which will never work again.

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Today -100: February 6, 1918: This work is the work of Satan

Britain: The Representation of the People Act passes into law. It tinkers with the electoral system in all sorts of ways: changing registration requirements, expanding the suffrage (men in the military as young as 19, women over 30 for Parliament, people receiving poor relief, adult sons living with their parents, etc), reducing it (convicted conscientious objectors), redistributing seats, proportional representation (the alternative vote system) here and there, etc. The big news is of course women’s suffrage.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Germany claims that Polish forces have seized the Russian military’s commander in chief, Ensign Nikolai Krylenko and the entire general staff. They haven’t.

9 Germans and 2 Americans are convicted in federal court in New York for attempting to blow up a British ship. At one point during the trial the jury’s foreman became faint and it was agreed that he might benefit from a stimulating beverage, so the DA went to the courtroom next door where someone was being tried for selling alcohol to soldiers, and grabbed Exhibit A, some of the good stuff, which stimulated the foreman sufficiently for the trial to continue, which it did, quickly before any of the other jurors became suddenly faint. The defendants only get 18 months, the maximum possible at the time the crime was committed, although the law has been toughened up since the war started.

Headline of the Day -100: 

The Bolshevik government decrees the separation of church and state and seizes all church property. Congregations can continue using churches, except I guess where they can’t. When the government seizes Alexander Nevsky Monastery in Petrograd, Patriarch Tikhon issues an anathema threatening to excommunicate the Bolsheviks, which, yeah.

In a story dated more than 2 weeks ago, a newspaper editor says he told Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg that there will be no food in Germany by May. Hindenburg replied that by April he will be in Paris.

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Today -100: February 5, 1918: Of strikes, matzoh, and upholstered seats

The German military breaks the strikes. A military court-martial sentences Reichstag deputy Wilhelm Dittmann (Independent Social Democrats - USPD) to 5 years for treason.

The Manischewitz Company (I think) asks Food Dictator Herbert Hoover to lift the restrictions on flour to meet Jews’ Passover matzoh requirements.

Glad I caught my typo “Good Dictator.”

A reporter catches up to Rep. Fiorello La Guardia, currently serving in France, and informs him of the petition got up in December to unseat him because he is in the military rather than doing his job in Washington. Evidently he’s just now hearing about it. He says “if any signers of the petition will take my seat in a Caproni biplane, I shall be glad to resume my upholstered seat in the House.”

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Today -100: February 4, 1918: Of strikers’ choices and hymns of hate

Headline of the Day -100: 

After a proper court-martial, of course; they’re not animals.

Strikers are actually shot in St. Louis. 3 street-car workers. Shot by whom the NYT does not say. And the police raid the local IWW hq on general principles (this is not an IWW strike).

The US government informs the 20,000 speakers it’s using to explain the war to the masses that they should avoid giving “hymns of hate.” The government says soldiers are too busy to hate the enemy and the best soldiers are “good sports.”

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Today -100: February 3, 1918: Of reason in Ulster, the spirit of 1776, and red armies

A couple of weeks ago, Sir Edward Carson resigned from the British War Cabinet. He explains that this was because the Irish Convention might break down and he didn’t want to be bound to support whatever action the British government took in response. He always wants to hold the treason card, does Sir Edward. He suggests that any agreement is likely to be a surrender and Northern Ireland wouldn’t be unreasonable to resist: “Ulster alone in Ireland has shown any reason at all.” Because when you think pure, dispassionate reason, you think Northern Fucking Ireland.

A Federal District judge in Los Angeles rules that the movie “The Spirit of 1776” can be seized by the government because its scenes of British atrocities during the War of Independence (which was evidently fought because King George III wanted to make his half-Native-American mistress Queen of America, or something; also, King George is seen beating up Benjamin Franklin) would create dissension between the people of the US and Britain, which is evidently illegal now. The film’s author Robert Goldstein will soon be sentenced to 10 years under the Espionage Act solely for writing this screenplay. The film is now lost.

The Espionage Act is also being used to ban a Sinn Fein newspaper from the mails.

Name of the Day -100: the Chicago chief censor, who seized “The Spirit of 1776” when it played there last May, is one Metallus Lucullus Cicero Funkhouser.

Germany declares martial law in 7 striking factories in Berlin.

With peace talks going badly, Russia gingerly works at re-establishing a military, consisting only of people who volunteer and support the ideals of the Revolution. A Red... Army, if you will.

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Today -100: February 2, 1918: Of prisoners of war, strikes, grand dukes and ex-czars

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: American soldiers claim to have captured German military documents ordering that American POWs should be kept for 4 days in cages without food, standing at all times.

The German military is cracking down on the strike movement, conscripting strike leaders, censoring news of the strikes, banning meetings, and threatening to fire on any “disorders.” Needless to say, Chancellor Herdling refuses to meet with representatives of the workers. The London Daily Mail thinks the whole thing is a plot by the German government to stimulate copycat strikes in Britain and France, at which point Germany will pounce, POUNCE I tell you!

Some deputies in the Baden Landtag ask the Grand Duke of Baden to kindly pay some fucking taxes because there’s a war on. He says no. Must be nice to be a grand duke.

Not so nice to no longer be a czar. A New York state Supreme Court judge rules that Nicholas Romanov can be sued now that he is just an ordinary person. The Maritime Transportation Company is suing him for breach of contract.

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Today -100: February 1, 1918: The real terror has yet to come

At Brest-Litovsk, Germany has been holding parallel talks with a delegation from the Ukraine Rada (parliament). Now there will also be a delegation from Ukrainian Bolshevik soviets. The problem for Russia is that it’s trying to split Austria from Germany and come to a separate peace, but the Austrian section of the eastern front is not with Russia but with now-sort-of-independent Ukraine, so if Austria comes to an arrangement with Ukraine, it doesn’t have to deal with Russia at all.

Did Lenin really boast “the real terror has yet to come”?

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Today -100: January 31, 1918: We have left the imperialistic war and shall never return to it

Russia sends journalist John Reed back to New York to act as consul for Russia. Although in his absence, Reed was indicted under the Espionage Act...

Trotsky addresses the All-Russian Assembly of Soviets, before returning to Brest-Litovsk: “The bourgeois governments can sign any kind of peace. The government of the Soviets cannot.” “We have left the imperialistic war and shall never return to it.”

The new New York Mayor John Hylan is opposed to the police clubbing people.

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Today -100: January 30, 1918: Blasphemy in the sight of blood-covered Europe

Russia and Romania are conducting a, to coin a phrase, cold war over Bessarabia, whose regional council declares independence from Russia. Russia breaks relations with Romania.

Russian Foreign Minister Leon Trotsky tells the Congress of the Council of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Delegates that Germany “thought Russia needed peace at any price. They were mistaken... We still insist on a democratic peace.” Unless, you know, Russia is exhausted, then it will totally give in to an undemocratic peace. He also indicates that a separate peace is entirely possible: “To call a separate peace a disgrace is blasphemy in the sight of blood-covered Europe.”

Germany responds to strikes by arresting of Independent Socialist leaders and newspaper editors and barring Social Democratic Party leader Philipp Scheidemann from speaking at a meeting scheduled for next week in Leipzig.

Germany warns the US that it is expanding the zone of its naval blockade, enforced by u-boat operations, to the Azores and Cape Verde Islands.

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Today -100: January 29, 1918: Of civil wars, not ladylike but strong telegrams, unlikely Bolsheviks, and bread

The full-scale civil war everyone knew was coming in Finland has arrived, with Russians aiding the Red side. The Finnish ambassador complains and is told that Russia, “true to its principles, is in duty bound to support the proletariat in Finland in its battle against the Finnish Bourgeoisie.” Well, when you put it that way...

The New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage meets and agrees to push for a new referendum in NY to rescind women’s suffrage. The NYSAOWS president, Mrs. (Alice) James Walcott Wadsworth, is not present, but its secretary suggests that a good candidate for governor would be Sen. James Walcott Wadsworth. Speakers are worried by the prospect of immigrant women voting. Henry Wise Wood says that when Bolshevism fails in Russia and autocracy returns, all the Bolsheviks will flee to the US, and vote. The meeting resolves to send telegrams – “not ladylike, but strong” – to members of the Legislature to defeat the federal amendment.

Doubtful Headline of the Day -100: 

That’s Edward Ross, professor of sociology at U Wisc-Madison, who’s been touring Russia and says the revolution is swell. Ross is a famous opponent of Chinese immigration (for which view he was forced to resign from Stanford), a eugenicist and, somehow, a future head of the ACLU.

Bread rationing is introduced in Paris.

We’re all picturing a Parisian on a bicycle with a beret and a Gauloise carrying HALF a baguette, right?

Thought so.

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Today -100: January 28, 1918: Of black storks, ruling by force, and happy independence day, Ukrainia!

Dr. Harry Haiselden of the German-American Hospital in Chicago allows yet another baby with birth defects to die, because “it... would have been a burden to itself and its parents.” I think the pronoun you’re looking for is “she,” doctor. This is at least the 5th time he’s done this, one of which resulted in a 1915 coroner’s trial in which he was acquitted. He then gave lectures on eugenics and even acted in a movie about the case, “The Black Stork” aka “Are You Fit to Be Married,” playing a eugenicist doctor named Dr. Dickey (!).

Ukraine’s parliament (Rada) votes 508-4 for complete independence for Ukraine.

German Foreign Minister Richard von Kühlmann accuses the Bolsheviks of “ruling by force.” And your point is?

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Today -100: January 27, 1918: Of the Marseillaise, separate peaces, wheatless days, and Tarzan of the Apes

German Social Democratic Party leader Philipp Scheidemann responds to Chancellor Georg von Hertling’s speech, saying Germany’s leaders will be “hurled from power” if peace is not made with Russia. He says they wasted the opportunity for peace arising from the February Russian Revolution by escalating u-boat warfare and bringing in the US. He notes that unlimited submarine warfare was supposed to end the war in 6 months, but, you know, didn’t. However, he insists that Germany will keep Alsace-Lorraine.

Meetings held by the annexationist Pan-German Fatherland Party’s have lately been broken up by peace supporters. In Munich the pan-Germans tried to over-awe the disrupters with a rousing round of Deutschland Uber Alles, only to be drowned out by the Marseillaise.  That’s in Germany, not Casablanca.

Supposedly Austria has told Russia it’s willing to come to a peace agreement separate from Germany.

Food Dictator Herbert Hoover calls for 2 wheatless days a week, 2 porkless days, 1 wheatless and 1 meatless meal per day, and “Victory bread” which will be 20% non-wheat (corn, sawdust, that sort of thing).

Happy 59th birthday, Kaiser Wilhelm!

Now playing: The first Tarzan movie, starring Elmo Lincoln and Enid Markey.

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Today -100: January 26, 1918: Of the unbroken joy of battle

German Chancellor Georg von Hertling responds to Wilson’s 14 Points speech and Lloyd George’s speech in an address to the Reichstag. He complains that Wilson and LG “speak with respect of Germany’s position, but their conception, ever afresh, finds expression as if we were the guilty who must do penance and promise improvement.” He says the army is in a great position right now and “in the officers and the men lives unbroken the joy of battle.” And Germany won’t give up Alsace-Lorraine, because it’s German! German! German! My favorite part of the speech is when he deals with Wilson’s 13th point, on Poland, saying that no one ever cared about Poland when Russia was “crushing her national characteristics,” but Germany and Austria-Hungary “liberated” Poland and can safely be trusted to come to an agreement on Poland’s future.

A deserter from the Germany Navy says there have been several recent revolts in the Navy, especially on mine-sweepers. He says a motorboat used its machine guns to break up one such mutiny, killing 44 sailors.

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Today -100: January 25, 1918: Of treason, candy, and price increases

The Russian negotiators reject German demands that Russia give up Courland and the Baltic provinces.

The German socialist newspaper Vorwärts is suspended, as was the custom. This time it’s for reporting on the strikes in Austria. Also the Tageblatt, for the same reason. German military censors are only allowing the German public to be told that the strikes are because of food rations, rather than for peace and against German negotiating tactics that are prolonging the war.

The first US treason trial of the war begins. Paul C.H. Hennig, a naturalized US citizen from Germany, who worked in a Brooklyn torpedo-manufacturer and is accused of tampering with their gyroscopes. He says it’s a conspiracy by workers under him who resented his Germanic discipline.

Headline of the Day -100: 

As if the torpedoes weren’t bad enough. Navy canteens will no longer sell

candy, because impurities (possibly glass) have been found in some, whether from enemy agents or because the Navy bought from the lowest bidder is unclear.

From tomorrow, all New York newspapers currently selling for 1¢ will sell for 2¢. Other cities did this a while ago.

The cost to you to read this blog will therefore also double. There’s a war on, you know.

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