Today -100: August 9, 1918: Of wars, governments of norths, women MPs or not, and old old old soldiers

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda, Fake News and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: A German paper says Russia has declared war on England. Which isn’t precisely true but will lead to a particularly snotty NYT editorial tomorrow.

A “Government of the North” is formed by the Whites in Archangel. Very Game-of-Thronesey.

Britain’s law officers rule that women can’t be elected to Parliament.

Speaker of the House Champ Clark says if he had his druthers the draft age would be raised to 68 (his age) and he’d go to France and serve under his son.

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Today -100: August 8, 1918: Of suffragists, trying to get my stupid word processor to show ă’s, and arch zeppelin raiders

The NYT suggests that suffragist protesters shouldn’t be sent to the workhouse, where they just disrupt discipline, but to the psychiatrist, presumably for committal.

The Romanian parliament votes unanimously to prosecute Ion Brătianu, who was prime minister from 1914 until January of this year, and four members of his cabinet, for bringing Romania into the war.

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Führer der Luftschiffe (or, to translate his title into Steampunk, Arch Zeppelin Raider) Peter Strasser is shot down in what will turn out to be the last zeppelin raid on Britain of the war.

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Today -100: August 7, 1918: Notwithstanding the fact that the people are opposed to any new war

Former French Interior Minister (1914-17) Louis Malvy, who was tried by the Senate, initially for treason although that charge was later withdrawn, is found guilty of negligence (having “ignored, violated and betrayed his duty”) for not cracking down hard enough on pacifists. They blame him for the 1917 army mutinies because of course they do. Malvy is sentenced to 5 years’ banishment, which he will spend in Spain. When he returns, he’ll be re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies and will even be interior minister again, in 1926.

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They’re especially good with bayonets, apparently.

Suffragist (National Woman’s Party) protests outside the White House resume, as do arrests of suffragists protesting outside the White House, including Alice Paul. The demo is aimed at pressuring Pres. Wilson to force the suffrage amendment, which he supports, through the Senate. “The women were applauded when they attempted to speak. The crowd also applauded when they were arrested. There was no cheering.”

Lenin threatens to declare war on Japan, because of that whole invading Siberia thing, “notwithstanding the fact that the people are opposed to any new war.”

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Today -100: August 6, 1918: Of archangels, Big Bertha and Big Rubber Men

So when we were told that Woodrow Wilson had just decided to send troops into Russia, US troops were actually already in Archangel. According to the AP, “The Participation of the Americans in the landing has been greeted enthusiastically in Northern Russia. The people consider that the United States is absolutely without selfish interests as regards Russia, and look upon the Americans as a guarantee of the friendliness of the Allies toward the country.” One of those friendly invasions you hear so much about.

Paris is again being bombarded by the long-range run “Big Bertha,” which I hadn’t realized (or more likely had forgotten) was a French rather than a German coinage.

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This is the Great Army Raincoat Scandal of 1918, not a particularly lame Captain America comic book story. I’m as disappointed as you are.

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Today -100: August 5, 1918: Of fats

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Well that’s just hurtful.

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Today -100: August 4, 1918: Of interventions, booty, the draft, statues, and invitations

Woodrow Wilson finally decides to send troops to Russia (as does Japan). But he reassures Russia that his intention is not to interfere with its political sovereignty, which might be more reassuring if he had ever recognized the current government of Russia or if it wasn’t an obvious lie.

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The Wilson administration wants the draft age extended to all men 18 to 45 from its current range of 21-31.

Germany has been melting down statues to make ammunition, but not those of any Hohenzollern.

King Alfonso of Spain is offering to host the former tsarina Alexandra of Russia and her remaining family as castleguests. Except they’re already dead.

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Today -100: August 3, 1918: Of karelias, blimps, and gorkies

Germany tries to bribe Finland with Eastern Karelia (which would be grabbed from Russia) if it quickly establishes a monarchy.

The US Navy breaks the record for a blimp remaining in the air. 30 hours. Evidently I didn’t notice when the word “blimp” was coined a couple of years ago.

Maxim Gorky is ordered arrested (although I don’t think it ever happened) and his newspaper suppressed.

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Today -100: August 2, 1918: American armies and numerical superiority do not frighten us

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He says u-boats will just sink them all before they arrive. “American armies and numerical superiority do not frighten us. It is spirit which brings the decision.”

Contrariwise, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels says u-boats are no longer a leading factor in the war, as ship sinkings by them have steadily diminished.

The Onondaga, an Iroquois tribe, declare war on Germany, because they don’t like how tribe members in a Wild West show caught in Germany at the start of the war were treated. I haven’t been able to determine what that treatment was.

The Democrats nominate teacher/lawyer/prison-reform advocate Mary Lilly for the NY State Assembly.

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Today -100: August 1, 1918: When ye see me ye will weep

The Entente, Japan and the US are still negotiating the terms of the proposed intervention in Russia.

Capt. Sarrat, a French aviator, jumps from a plane with a parachute, or a 36-foot umbrella, which the AP wrongly thinks is the first such jump. German pilots successfully parachuted to safety in June.

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In Bohemia. It’s a stone that appears in extremely low tide, inscribed “When ye see me ye will weep.” Not really a folkloric thing, just that if you can see the stone, it’s too dangerous for ships to pass, so agricultural goods can’t travel.

The NYT editorial page:

Still haven’t seen any official reaction from any country.

The Bolshevik government bans pogroms, which is more than the czar ever did. The Jewish bourgeoisie “is our enemy not as Jews but as bourgeoisie,” the government explains.

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Today -100: July 31, 1918: Of real affairs of the heart

Austrian Premier Baron Max Hussarek von Heinlein, brushing aside rumors about disagreements with Germany over the fate of Poland, calls the Austro-German alliance “a real affair of the heart”.

Kinky Headline of the Day -100: 

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Today -100: July 30, 1918: And the front just looks shorter because it’s kind of cold today

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda, Fake News, and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Relations between Turkey and Germany have been totally severed. The NYT almost immediately admits that this story is not believed by the US government or by anyone really. But it was good click-bait for the front page, I guess.

The Berlin government issues a pamphlet explaining that German forces in the West are not retreating, they are shortening the German front. So that’s okay then.

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Today -100: July 29, 1918: And where’s your proof that New Zealanders aren’t cannibals?

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Also by yarn. Germans are weird.

A race riot erupts in South Philly. A black woman, Elsie Bond, a city probation worker, bought a home in a white neighborhood and her new neighbors made her welcome by gathering and throwing rocks through all her windows, as was the custom. She defended herself with a gun, all hell broke loose. Two cops are dead and 60 black people and presumably 0 white people are arrested.

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Today -100: July 28, 1918: Is there a cake? There’s probably a cake.

Happy 4th anniversary of Austria declaring war on Serbia.

Finland offers its crown to Adolphus Friedrick of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who accepts.

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Today -100: July 27, 1918: Every mob contributes to German lies about the United States

Woodrow Wilson condemns lynchings and the “mob spirit.” He’s referring to mob action against people they consider insufficiently patriotic, not to lynchings of black men in the South, which he doesn’t specifically call out because god forbid he ever criticize racist violence. “Every mob contributes to German lies about the United States, what her most gifted liars cannot improve upon by the way of calumny.”

The Czech troops in Siberia capture Simbirsk, which I am told is a place. Pravda says “may the fall of Simbirsk make the proletariat tremble for the fate of the proletariat revolution.”

Austrian Social Democrats want the new cabinet to get Germany to set joint war aims and peace terms, without annexations or indemnities.

German newspapers claim that former Russian Tsarina Alexandra asked permission to take her daughters and enter a convent in Sweden, but was refused, presumably because she’s dead.

Charles Lippman of the Bronx tells his draft board that they can’t draft him because he’s a bigamist. In fact he became a bigamist just so he could make this argument, convincing his first wife to remarry him. He’s sentenced to 2-4 years.

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Today -100: July 26, 1918: An Alpine load of tyranny

The resignation of the Austrian cabinet a few days ago was preceded by accusations and attacks in the Reichsrath (parliament) by Czechs. Dr. (Jaroslav?) Stránský: “We impeach this premier as a typical representative of that Germanized Austria, the existence of which means the prolongation of the war. ... Austria is simply a century-old crime against the freedom of humanity. ... Austria is not a state, but a hideous dream of a hundred years, an Alpine load of tyranny, and nothing else. Austria is a state without patriots and without patriotism. It is an absurdity.” (Update: oh, literally impeach. Czech deputies offer a resolution to impeach the prime minister and interior minister even though they have resigned. It is rejected 215-162.) Baron Max Hussarek von Heinlein is the new Austrian prime minister (“minister president”). So he gets to run around for three months trying to hold the pieces together.

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Today -100: July 25, 1918: Of smiths, sedition, and tsarevitches

In a win for Tammany, NY Democrats nominate Alfred E. Smith, the president of the NYC Board of Aldermen, for governor. The guy who was supposed to nominate William Randolph Hearst decides not to bother.

The NYT steadfastly neglects to mention that Smith is a Catholic, although NY has never had a Catholic governor and it’s kind of a big deal.

Simon Engle, originally of the Netherlands, gets 30 days for sedition for saying that the only way Americans would reach Berlin would be as prisoners. No lawyer would defend him.

The French Chamber of Deputies is considering a bill to punish generals who fail to hold positions or otherwise fail to achieve a task assigned to them, or is negligent or loses troops, with up to 5 years in prison.

News (finally) of the death of Tsarevitch Alexei Romanov, the 13-year-old hemophilic son of the former tsar. The report says he died of exposure some days after his father was executed. Nope.

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Today -100: July 24, 1918: No one likes a truckler

The New York Democratic Convention opens by adopting a resolution designed as a jab at William Randolph Hearst’s bid to become governor. It gives Woodrow Wilson “their whole-hearted support and confidence in his magnificent struggle to make the world free for democracy” and “repudiate[s] every truckler with our country’s enemies who strives or has striven to extenuate or excuse such crimes against humanity as the rape of Belgium, the sinking of the Lusitania, and the German policy of assassination by submarines; who seeks or has sought to sow dissension among our allies [a reference to supporting Irish independence] or now seeks to capitalize by election to public office the latent treason whose total annihilation is the most pressing need of the hour.”

Al Smith is expected to be the Dems’ candidate. Last night he received the distressing news that his 11-year-old son Arthur had disappeared from the family summer cottage. This morning Arthur turned up in Saratoga because he just had to see his father get nominated.

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Today -100: July 23, 1918: Of declarations of war, dead czars and new kings, and nurses

Honduras declares war on Germany.

Theodore Roosevelt will not run for governor of New York. Too busy with the war, he says. Doing what? Telling other people how he’d run the war if he were in charge, I guess.

The Austrian cabinet resigns.

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Germany doesn’t mind, evidently. Actually, if there’ve been official responses from any countries yet, I haven’t seen them.

Lithuania, nominally independent, picks a king, Duke Wilhelm of Urach, who will be known as Mindaugas II if Germany allows him to, which it won’t, because Kaiser Wilhelm wants the job to go to one of his sons.

The US Army will accept black nurses. Nursing only black patients, of course, because 1918. And only in army camps in the US.

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Today -100: July 22, 1918: Of Romanovs, lost sailors, and cannibals

Russia seizes the Romanovs’ property. I would have thought they’d done that already.

The USS San Diego, an armored cruiser, is sunk off New York, probably by a mine despite the captain’s insistence that it was a U-boat torpedo. This article says there might be 62 dead. There are in fact 6, but some of the survivors somehow wind up wandering around Manhattan unsure where they’re supposed to go. A cop buys them sandwiches and coffee and gets the night watchman of the Riverside Theatre to let them in so they can sleep.

Now Playing: Among the Cannibal Isles of the South Pacific, a film by Martin and Osa Johnson documenting their travels in the Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides. I could only find excerpts online, but

Clifford Geertz it ain’t, is what I’m saying.

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Today -100: July 21, 1918: Of ex-Romanovs, unnoticed retreats, juniors, and potatoes by the Pound

Former Czar Nicholas II is executed (last week actually, but it’s announced now). The Ural Regional Council, which is taking responsibility, says his wife and children are safe.  Don’t know why they’d lie about that. With bands of Czech soldiers roaming Siberia, the local Soviets were afraid the royals would be captured and used to front the counter-revolution.

The Germans are pushed back over the Marne. The Germans say they retreated “without being noticed by the enemy” and anyway they’d already achieved all their objectives so there was really no reason not to run away.

Another Roosevelt kid is a casualty of the war. Theodore Jr. is wounded. Also, a German plane drops a note confirming Quentin Roosevelt’s death, as was the custom.

NY Gov. Charles Whitman says even if Theodore Roosevelt enters the gubernatorial race, he’s staying in.

Social history of the Day -100:

Book review:

Yup, that’s definitely what he’s known for: being from Idaho. That’s why most of his poems were about potatoes.

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