Showing posts with label Baja California. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baja California. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

January 2, 1919. Germany, Poland, Brides, Baja California, British Naval Disaster, and Sheridan's status as a city.

Pretty German village scene, Kreuzberg, Germany.  Occupied by the American Army, life had probably resumed some semblance of normal.  Elsewhere the Reich was aflame.

With the war over, you'd probably have been looking forward to newspapers that weren't full of war, if you lived in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States.

Your hopes would not have been coming into fruition this second day of the year.


Casperites awoke to the fanciful news, which probably seemed credible given the late war confusion, that Poles were invading Germany and nearing Berlin.  Frankly, given the situation in Berlin at that time, the Poles would have been doing the Germans a favor had they done so. Be that as it may, Poles were not invading Germany but in rebellion with in the German province of Posen, and winning there.

That same morning a U.S. Senator was urging the government to purchase Baja California. . . even though there was not any evidence that Baja California was for sale.

Congress was back to work, which they aren't yet this year (2019). That will be tomorrow. 

And readers learned that the march of technology had made electric drive in ships a possibility.




Cheyenne's readers were presented with the distressing news that Tommies were returning home with brides from the continent, which would have been distressing to most young women indeed given that the pool of eligible bachelors had been reduced by the war.

The implication, of course, was that young American women would soon be facing the same thing, which in fact they did.

Sheridan was claiming to be the largest city in the state on the second day of the year.  If that seems odd, keep in mind that Sheridan was a major Army town at the time as it was the location of a major Remount station, horses and mules remaining quite important in the Army of the day, and for many future days to come.

And Cheyenne readers also learned of the major British naval disaster that had occurred the day prior.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Tuesday, April 18, 1911. Diaz complies and protests.

President Porfirio Diaz informed U.S. Ambassador Wilson that Mexican Federal troops would avoid combat with rebels near the U.S. border, but also protested U.S. involvement in border fights.

Diaz's complaint was not without merit. The U.S. had become a de facto haven for Mexican rebels, although Taft was trying to address it.  In California American Socialist were outright entering the revolution on the side of the Mexican Liberal Party, which was engaged in its own non Madero revolution against the government.


Indeed, on this day socialist revolutionaries, both American and European, received a shipment of 4000 rounds of ammunition from the PLM.

Last edition:

Monday, April 17, 1911. Keel for the USS Texas laid.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Friday, April 14, 1911. Taft's warning to Mexican combatants.

President Taft warned all sides in the Mexican Revolution to avoid fighting near the U.S. border and to avoid causing American casualties.

Anarchist Mexican commander Simón Berthold Chacón died of wounds sustained in recent fighting in Baja, where Socialist and Anarchist made up a strong contingent of the rebels.

Theodore Romzha, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church bishop who refused to merge his church with the Russian Orthodox Church was born in Nagybocskó, Austria-Hungary, which is now Velykyi Bychkiv, Ukraine.  He was murdered in 1944.


The original Polo Grounds was destroyed by fire in New Jersey.

Last edition:

Thursday, April 13, 1911. Rebel victory at Agua Prieta.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Sunday, April 9, 1911. Second Battle of Bauche and the Socialist invasion of Baja California.

The Second Battle of Bauche took place as part of the larger Battle of Ciudad Juarez.

News was spreading on the American soldier of fortune attack at Mexicali.


The participation by Americans here was distinctly different than that which was seen at Juarez earlier that week as the American solders were members of the IWW.  Their commander, Stanley Williams or Willian Stanley, the name varies in different accounts was a wobbly.  At any rate Williams, who was killed in the battle at Leroy Little's Ranch, was reportedly a deserter from the US Army, in which he'd been a Quartermaster with the rank of Sergeant.

These troops had crossed from California and were mostly radical Socialist, showing the different character of the revolution in some part of Mexico.  Largely forgotten now, American Socialist took a strong early interest in the revolution including such notables as Emma Goldberg.

Last edition:

Friday, April 4, 1911. The First Battle of Ciudad Juárez commences.

Monday, April 9, 2001

Tuesday, April 9, 1901. Navy base in Mexico.

The U.S. Navy established its first foreign base, a coaling station at Pichilinque, Mexico, on Baja California.

The location has previously been used by the Navy during the Mexican War.  Baja was otherwise unoccupied by the US during the war, interestingly enough, giving a view of the 19th Century mindset.

The US changed the design for paper currency, introducing a ten dollar bill with a spectacular engraving of a Bison and also featuring Lewis and Clark flanked by two young women with see through blouses.

Erotic and semi erotic engravings of women were common on currency and seals at the time.  It's hard to know now why this was the case, but it was.  Indeed, it created an early controversy in Wyoming over the state seal as an early governor backed a seal with an excessively erotic topless woman over the opposition of the legislature.

Last edition:

Thursday, April 4, 1901. Zulus in action.