Wednesday, October 20, 1915. Arms okay for Carranza.

The impact of Woodrow Wilsons' administration recognizing Carranza, whose followers had blown off the Convention of Aguascalientes, and who personally hated the United States, was becoming immediately clear.

Arms to Carranza. . . that would tip the scales for sure.

While Wilson had his hand on the scale of the Mexican Revolution, he was issuing a proclaimation about American Thanksgiving.

President Wilson issued a proclamation regarding Thanksgiving.

Proclamation 1316—Thanksgiving Day, 1915

October 20, 1915

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

It has long been the honoured custom of our people to turn in the fruitful autumn of the year in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for His many blessings and mercies to us as a nation. The year that is now drawing to a close since we last observed our day of national thanksgiving has been, while a year of discipline because of the mighty forces of war and of change which have disturbed the world, also a year of special blessing for us.

Another year of peace has been vouchsafed us; another year in which not only to take thought of our duty to ourselves and to mankind but also to adjust ourselves to the many responsibilities thrust upon us by a war which has involved almost the whole of Europe. We have been able to assert our rights and the rights of mankind without breach of friendship with the great nations with whom we have had to deal; and while we have asserted rights we have been able also to perform duties and exercise privileges of succour and helpfulness which should serve to demonstrate our desire to make the offices of friendship the means of truly disinterested and unselfish service. Our ability to serve all who could avail themselves of our services in the midst of crisis has been increased, by a gracious Providence, by more and more abundant crops. our ample financial resources have enabled us to steady the markets of the world and facilitate necessary movements of commerce which the war might otherwise have rendered impossible; and our people have come more and more to a sober realization of the part they have been called upon to play in a time when all the world is shaken by unparalleled distresses and disasters. The extraordinary circumstances of such a time have done much to quicken our national consciousness and deepen and confirm our confidence in the principles of peace and freedom by which we have always sought to be guided. Out of darkness and perplexity have come firmer counsels of policy and clearer perceptions of the essential welfare of the nation. We have prospered while other peoples were at war, but our prosperity has been vouchsafed us, we believe, only that we might the better perform the functions which war rendered it impossible for them to perform.

Now, Therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Thursday the twenty-fifth of November next as a day of thanksgiving and prayer, and invite the people throughout the land to cease from their wonted occupations and in their several homes and places of worship render thanks to Almighty God.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington this twentieth day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and fifteen and of the independence of the United States the one hundred and fortieth.

Signature of Woodrow Wilson

Louis Botha, once a Boer General, of the South African Party won the 1915 South African general election and retained power.

French forces reached the town of Krivolak on the Vardar river in Vardar Macedonia. The British dug in at a mountain pass near Kosturino and Doiran Like.

The Ottoman Empire brought an end to Armenian resistance at Urfa.

The British Commonwealth recognized women as bus and tram operators for the duration, something that had been going on for some time.

Sweden established the Swedish Infantry Officers College.

Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Today -100: October 20, 1915: With bleeding heart ...: Headline of the Day -100:  Male voters in New Jersey reject women’s suffrage in the referendum by roughly 133,000 to 184,000. It los...

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 19, 1915. The US extends recognition to Carranza.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Bulgaria, Constitutionalist Army, Italy, Mexican Border War, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Russia, Texas, Texas (Brownsville), Venustiano Carranza, World War One

Tuesday, September 5, 1922. East Thrace, Missoula, San Diego. Big Pictures, the result of the Greek Defeat, Air Records, Motorcyle Races.

Missoula from Penwell block, September 5, 1922.

Turkey stated a demand for East Thrace, which had been ceded to Greece in 1920.

East Thrace.

This meant that Turkey was declaring that it wanted to reclaim recently lost territory, lost to Greece, across the Bosporus.  This would of course give it completely control of the straits, and hence entry into the Black Sea.

Greeks had comprised about 38% of the population there before the Greco Turkish War, and Bulgarians about 4.3%.  Bulgarians had been subject to a pre-war set of expulsions and violence due to the Balkan Wars that foreshadowed World War One which, at the same time, increased the Muslim population as Muslims fled into the area for refuge due to Ottoman lands being lost elsewhere.  Greeks would now be subject to the coming population exchange between Turkey and Greece, which also impacted the remaining Bulgarians.  In 1934 the Jewish population was expelled in the Thrace Pogroms.

Today, 15% of the Turkish population lives in the region.

Aviator Jimmy Doolittle set a transcontinental flight record.

Dealing with speed of a different type, motorcycle racer Billy Denham was photographed at a motorcycle race.

Denham is wearing elements of the wool U.S. Army uniform of the period, to at least the extent that he's wearing a wool service shirt.  Note also that he's wearing a tie, something you wouldn't see a motorcycle racer wear now, and for good reason.

 

April 20, 1941. Reversals in the Balkans.

 

Jubilant crowed in Skopje caring portraits of Bulgarian Tsar Boris III and Adolph Hitler.  Macedonia had a significant Bulgarian minority and Bulgarian troops occupied much of it during the war.  Given this, the region was at first sympathetic to the Axis in the form of Bulgaria.  Tsar Boris was a popular figure in Bulgaria who did not live to see the war completed.  He participated in the repression of his country's Jewish population but he would not agree to deportation to the death camps, nor would he agree to participate in the war against the Soviet Union.  He died in 1943 shortly after meeting with Hitler and some have suspected he was poisoned.

Things were not going well for the Allies in the Balkans.  

On this day Albania surrendered to Italy, something that was perhaps inevitable but which is remarkable not for occurring, but for how long Albania was able to manage to avoid that result.  It had held out with Greek support until the German intervention in the war reversed Greek and Albanian fortunes in the region.  Also on this day the Greek III Army Corps surrendered to the Germans.

On the same day, the Battle of Athens, an air battle over that city took place.

The British did conduct a successful commando raid at Bardia, behind German lines in North Africa, causing the Germans to have to detail troops to their rear.

October 11, 1919. Air Derby, Disasters At Sea, Strife in Russia, Newspapers by Air.

Lt. B. W. Maynard, right, in front of a DH-4.  Sgt. Kline was Maynard's mechanic and in the second seat. This photo was taken during the Air Derby.

The press was taking an interest in a particular pilot, B. W. Maynard.  Maynard was an Army aviator, but the press liked the idea that Maynard was an ordained minister, which he was not. Rather, prior to World War One, he had been a seminary student at Wake Forest.

Maynard had become an Army pilot during World War One, and he was still flying in 1919, just after the war was over.  He was killed in 1922 preforming stunts in a "flying circus" event.

Too much was going on, on this day, otherwise to really summarize it. Even the headlines of the papers were a mess.

One new oddity was, however, that the Casper Herald flew newspapers to Riverton, showing how much the Air Deby had captivated the imagination of the state.

The Global Collapse of the Central Powers. The news of September 23, 1918

Because we've been dealing mostly with the American effort in France, we've ceased keeping readers here up to date on other theatres.  If we did, this would read as an even lengthier treatise than it already risks becoming.

But there was a lot going on.  Specifically, in the Macedonian Front the Central Powers were going into a headlong collapse. . . as were the Turks in the Middle East where some pronounced mounted warfare was gaining significant advances.

One of Cheyenne's papers, remarkably up to date (as many of these World War One papers were, they were on time and pretty close to being on target, frequently), was reporting the Serbs gaining ground against the Austro Hungarians and the collapse of the Turks.  It also noted that the Russian Whites had exhumed the bodies of the Czar and his family and reinterred them.

William Jennings Bryan, received the cold shoulder in Cheyenne.

And, yes, once again, there was a clash on the Mexican border.

In Laramie readers of one of the town's two local papers also learned about the events in the Middle East.  In spite of what would seem to have been the obvious signs of a complete Central Powers collapse, the paper noted that the planning was for the war to go on into 1919, which was universally believed among the Allies.

And snow was coming to high altitude Laramie. . .

Casper readers of one of Casper's two papers found a really busy front page.  Events in Macedonia lead the headlines but the Turk's fate figured prominently as well.

The clash on the Mexican border and the exhumation of the Czar and his family also figured prominently and Casperites were informed that men were going to be released from non essential industries so that they could go into the Army.  Their place would be taken by women.

And the Casper paper reported that Catholic Archbishop John Ireland was in failing health and likely to pass away.  Ireland was a towering figure at the time.

Wednesday, June 24, 1914. Playing international chess.

Austro Hungaria wrote Germany that Romania could no longer be considered a reliable ally on Balkan issues.  In fact, Imperial Russia was working on forming an alliance with Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro against Austro-Hungaria. Austro Hungaria therefore was seeking to have Germany go with it in forming an alliance of Germany, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria against Russia.

The U.S. and Norway concluded a treaty for the advancement of general peace.

Last prior edition:

Tuesday, June 23, 1914. The decisive Villista Victory.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Aircraft, Battle of Zacatecas, Germany, Labor unrest, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Pancho Villa, panoramic, Unions, Venustiano Carranza, Victoriano Huerta

Saturday, June 13, 1914. Fresh Paint.

Votes for mothers!  From a suffragist newspaper of June 13, 1914.

Riots broke out during a Miners Day Parade in Butte, Montana, over union loyalties.

Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany concluded his visit with Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

The subject of their meeting was the balance of power in the Balkans, with the Archduke was scheduled later that month to visit military expansion efforts in the region.

Oh, oh.

René Viviani was appointed 81st Prime Minister of France.

Last prior edition:

Friday, June 12, 1914. Greeks murdered in Anatolia.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Education, France, French Empire, Greek Genocide, Morocco, Ottoman Empire, Politics, Turkey, University of Wyoming, Wyoming, Zaian War

Thursday March 25, 1909. The Crazy Snake Rebellion.

The Crazy Snake Rebellion broke out between Creek Indians and Oklahoma deputies over land issues in that state, not too surprisingly given the origin of the state itself.  Indeed, land issues related to Oklahoma's origins are still being sorted out.

The rebels.

The event was the last Native American uprising in Oklahoma.

War between Imperial Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany was averted. . . for the time being. . . by Russia accepting Austrian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 25: 1909  A well near Byron came in as a gusher. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.