Showing posts with label Belgium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Belgium. Show all posts

Sunday, December 25, 2016

Brother Albert Chmielowski dies on this day at age 71.

Albert Chmielowski, a Polish painter whose concern for the poor lead him to become a Franciscan monk died at age 71.


Chmielowski was born to a wealthy family and studied agriculture in order to step into the role of managing his family's estates.  Drawn to politics he joined in the Polish uprising of 1863 in which he lost a leg.  Following the Polish defeat he relocated to Belgium where he developed an interest in painting.  In 1874 he returned to Kraków, Poland where his interest in politics and the poor ultimately lead him into the Franciscan order in 1887.  By that time his identification with the poor had already lead him to a voluntary life of poverty.  He founded the Brothers of the Third Order of Saint Francis, Servants of the Poor in 1891.


Sunday, June 12, 2016

Rushing to favorite conclusions and arguments: Terrorist strike in Florida

It's interesting, and a bit sad, that after any one particular type of act masses of people, from political commentators, to news article "comment" posters, rush to arguments they like to make as if they are really relevant to the issue at hand.

We're in a long term, mostly urban, domestic guerilla war being waged by a mostly foreign enemy but one that does have fighters on our own soil.  We haven't, as a society, ever dealt with a war of this type really.  The last Western nation to do so was France, in Algeria when it fought the FLN in Algeria, including Algiers, and in France itself.  In a war of this type, individuals and groups of individuals can and will strike on an almost entirely random basis.  But strike they will.

Some of these terrorists are weak minded and unhinged. Not all are. But some certainly are. And of those, some will act fully independently in a way that we cannot not only not predict, but, added to that, in ways that aren't even predictable to those whose campaigns these people adopt.

It can't be fully said that these people would not act in this fashion but for the guerilla war.  But that can at least partially be said.  And again, not all are weak minded. For the weak minded and mentally ill, the war gives them something to focus on and define themselves by.  Not every radical during the Russian Revolution had thought out Socialism.  Plenty of the German street fighters for the Nazis prior to 1932 who joined the SA hadn't delved into Nazism deeply.  There's no reason to believe that Muslim terrorists, foreign or domestic, have really struggled with their consciences and determined to act out of deep conviction.  Probably plenty of them were angry or confused young men, and women, prior to defining their anger by jihad.

Still, we should not discount that some have done just that. Islam does have dark passages that do indeed call for violence against the infidel and tens of thousands of young Muslims, some converts, have answered the black flag of ISIL. And ISIL is calling for its adherents to strike here.

Under these circumstances the instant argument on gun control that immediately comes up is really misplaced.  Firearms technology, in real terms, has changed very little since the 192s really and automatically cycling weapons have been available since just after 1900.  Handgun technology was perfected around 1911 and hasn't really changed at all since that time.  What has changed is that we're at war with a domestic enemy on our own soils.  And what has also changed is that we have a large number of mostly young men whom we've sidelined in our new computer driven technological world, with that world being one in which all morals are treated as simply being personal choices. We dealt with this in depth in our thread (once one of the most read here) Peculiarized violence and American society. Looking at root causes, and not instrumentalities.  And we also dealt with the very topic we're now addressing in this thread in our also once highly read Playing Games with Names and Burying Heads in the Sand. Mischaracterizing violence and ignoring its nature at the same time.

It isn't as if, however, pundits, politicians, and commentators of all types are going to come here and read this and be convinced of anything, however.  But mark my words, sadly, all the debate on this topic is darned near pointless.  Restriction and police action did nothing whatsoever to stop the FLN's campaign for Algerian independence.  Only Algerian independence did, although a counter terrorism campaign featuring terrorism itself darned near achieved the opposite result, before the French public became disgusted with it (I'm not suggesting here we adopt such tactics).  Control of various types did not prevent this same thing from happening in Brussels and Paris.  What will stop it is the defeat of ISIL, which is actually occurring. But that's a long term effort.

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Related Threads:

Peculiarized violence and American society. Looking at root causes, and not instrumentalities.

Playing Games with Names and Burying Heads in the Sand. Mischaracterizing violence and ignoring its nature at the same time.

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

The Casper Daily Press for April 6, 1916

This evening issue is inserted here not for what is on the front  page, but for what isn't.

For the first time since the Columbus Raid, the Punitive Expedition didn't make the front page for the Casper Daily Press.


Friday, March 25, 2016

And meanwhile, in the current war. . .



I haven't been posting in a long while on the war on ISIL, but it's hard to ignore this week, as ISIL struck Brussels.

Once again, people seem surprised.  I don't know why they'd be surprised.  Brussels is a major European capital and in some ways is the Capital of Europe.  To the deluded eye of ISIL, Brussels is a seat of power of the Crusader Empire they imagine to be hounding them, and which they wish to conquer, rather than a sad secular reminder of what Europe once was (which they'd still wish to conquer).

There will be more of this.  This certainly isn't the last ISIL attack on an European city, and for that matter an attack of some sort on a US one is only a matter of time. Just after the news of the attack on Brussels came news that ISIL had sent out about 400 operatives into the West to conduct such affairs.  Now, that's a high number, but only a fraction of them will ever do anything. Still, that number is enough so that some, I'd guess about 10%, will try something.

Brussels may have been particularly prone to this, it should be noted, as pre attack commentators noted that it has not been successful, as much of Europe has not been, in integrating its Islamic residents. This is a huge difference between the US and Canada as compared to Europe.  Europe does let in immigrants (although, the recent refugee crisis aside, not anywhere near the rate the US does), but European societies generally do not "melt".  Indeed, for Americans and Canadians one of the really shocking aspects of European culture is that they do not.  It's probably an example of Holscher's Third Law of History, but while the cultures change (less than imagined) over time, they stick.  So immigrant cultures in Europe tend to end up immigrant islands, where as that tends to last only a generation in North America.

That doesn't mean that some Islamic immigrants do not secularize.  They do, but that also ends up putting the same societies in danger.  I haven't seen anything about it in this instance, but it is notable that in the Paris attacks the attackers decried the "apostates", i.e., those of Islamic culture who have not stayed traditionally strict in their observance of their faith (although in many parts of the globe even Islamic societies aren't particularly strict in their observance).  So, an attack on Brussels was pretty predictable.

Even as this comes, however, ISIL's fortunes are declining in the Middle East and much more rapidly than I would have guessed.  In Syria, the Syrian government is clearly going to win and is retaking lost ground fairly rapidly.  ISIL's days in Syria are numbered, and for that matter the entire rebellion there is on the decline.  This is largely due to Russian assistance, which perhaps shows the degree to which Russia correctly read the entire situation.  ISIL will likely be without territory in Syria fairly soon.

Also in Iraq, however, has the tide been seen to turn, albeit slowly.  The current Iraqi government, amazingly, seems to have gotten its military act together, but with a huge amount of American military assistance.  The news broke this week that the number of US troops in Iraq is in fact much larger than previously estimated.  So, giving credit where credit is due, the Obama Administration seems to have quietly read the situation correctly and this is leading to the slow victory in Iraq.

What a defeat in Iraq will mean for ISIL isn't completely clear.  Will it go underground?  Or will it simply disappear? Al Queda remains around, but it's a mere shadow of its former self.  Perhaps we have more reason to be optimistic than we could have previously hoped.

On that, a person has to wonder if the Kurds are optimistic.  The Kurds have been an ironic beneficiary of the war on ISIL as they always had their act together and managed to hold on to their ground in both Syria and Iraq.  In Syria, they've now declared their region to be a federal region, which doesn't mean that the Syrian government is going to view it that way, or that the Turks will like that either. 

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Sunday, January 3, 1915. Coney Island.

 

Ottoman troops were driven out to the Choruk Valley, while also attacking Russian forcdes elsewhere to take pressure off their forces at Sarikamish.

Cardinal Mercier of Belgium was arrested by the Germans for is pastoral letter "Patriotism and Endurance", in which condemned German atrocities, and extorts Belgians to stay Belgian.

Last edition:

Friday, January 1, 1915. Mexican land reform.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Monday, October 12, 1914. The trial of the Serbian conspirators.


The trial of Serbian conspirators who had worked to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand commenced.   Gavrilo Princip stated:

I am a Yugoslav nationalist and I believe in unification of all South Slavs in whatever form of state and that it be free of Austria ... By means of terror.

The Germans took Ghent.

The French and British took back the Mont des Cats.

The Union of South Africa declared martial law in response to the Maritz Rebellion.


Boston won game three of the World Series.

Last edition:

Sunday October 11, 1914. Front line stabilization sets in.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Friday, September 4, 1914. No separate peace.

The Triple Entente declared that its members would not arrive upon a separate peace.

The Germans attacked Belgian fortressed at Antwerp, worried about the probable progress of the British who had landed in France and proceeded to Belgium.

The Russians seized Lemberg in Galicia (Poland).


Captain Robert Bartlett requested of  American fur trader Olaf Swenson that his chartered fur trade vessel King and Winge stop at Wrangel Island to look for the survivors of the Canadian Artic Expedition.

Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith encouraging military recruitment at Guildhall, London.

Last edition:

Thursday, September 3, 1914. Pope Benedict XV starts his reign.

Monday, August 25, 2014

Tuesday, August 25, 1914. German murders in Belgium.


The German Army sacked Leuven, Belgium.  248 civilians were killed and the entire population of the city of 10,000 expelled.  156 civilians were killed in Aarschot, 211 in Andenne, 383 in Tamines, and 674 in Dinant.

300,000 Medieval texts were lost at the Catholic University of Leuven in a fire set by the Germans.

German barbarities did not start in 1939, they started in 1914.

German actions against Belgium's civilian population would not be forgotten during the war, and would be used against it.


The Austro Hungarian Army prevailed at  Kraśnik,

Pyotr Nesterov rammed his Morane-Saulnier Type G into an Austrian Albatros BII, killing all involved, but making him the first aviator to down another aircraft in combat.

British and French forces took Togoland.

Japan declared war against Austro Hungaria.

Emiliano Zapata agreed to accept the Constitutionalist government on the condition that it accept the Plan of Ayala, which had been drafted in 1911, and which had objected to Modero.  The Plan stated:

Liberating Plan of the sons of the State of Morelos, affiliated with the Insurgent Army that defends the fulfillment of the Plan of San Luis, with the reforms which it has believed proper to add in benefit of the Mexican Fatherland.

We who undersign, constituted in a revolutionary junta to sustain and carry out the promises which the revolution of November 20, 1910, just past, made to the country, declare solemnly before the face of the civilized world which judges us and before the nation to which we belong and which we call [sic, love], propositions which we have formulated to end the tyranny which oppresses us and redeem the fatherland from the dictatorships which are imposed on us, which [propositions] are determined in the following plan:

1. Taking into consideration that the Mexican people led by Don Francisco I. Madero went to shed their blood to reconquer liberties and recover their rights which had been trampled on, and for a man to take possession of power, violating the sacred principles which he took an oath to defend under the slogan “Effective Suffrage and No Reelection,” outraging thus the faith, the cause, the justice, and the liberties of the people: taking into consideration that that man to whom we refer is Don Francisco I. Madero, the same who initiated the above-cited revolution, who imposed his will and influence as a governing norm on the Provisional Government of the ex-President of the Republic Attorney Francisco L. de Barra [sic], causing with this deed repeated shedding of blood and multiple misfortunes for the fatherland in a manner deceitful and ridiculous, having no intentions other than satisfying his personal ambitions, his boundless instincts as a tyrant, and his profound disrespect for the fulfillment of the preexisting laws emanating from the immortal code of ’57 [Constitution of 1857], written with the revolutionary blood of Ayutla;

Taking into account that the so-called Chief of the Liberating Revolution of Mexico, Don Francisco I. Madero, through lack of integrity and the highest weakness, did not carry to a happy end the revolution which gloriously he initiated with the help of God and the people, since he left standing most of the governing powers and corrupted elements of oppression of the dictatorial government of Porfirio Díaz, which are not nor can in any way be the representation of National Sovereignty, and which, for being most bitter adversaries of ours and of the principles which even now we defend, are provoking the discomfort of the country and opening new wounds in the bosom of the fatherland, to give it its own blood to drink; taking also into account that the aforementioned Sr. Francisco I. Madero, present President of the Republic, tries to avoid the fulfillment of the promises which he made to the Nation in the Plan of San Luis Potosí, being [sic, restricting] the above-cited promises to the agreements of Ciudad Juárez, by means of false promises and numerous intrigues against the Nation nullifying, pursuing, jailing, or killing revolutionary elements who helped him to occupy the high post of President of the Republic;

Taking into consideration that the so-often-repeated Francisco I. Madero has tried with the brute force of bayonets to shut up and to drown in blood the pueblos who ask, solicit, or demand from him the fulfillment of the promises of the revolution, calling them bandits and rebels, condemning them to a war of extermination without conceding or granting a single one of the guarantees which reason, justice, and the law prescribe; taking equally into consideration that the President of the Republic Francisco I. Madero has made of Effective Suffrage a bloody trick on the people, already against the will of the same people imposing Attorney José M. Pino Suáez in the Vice-Presidency of the Republic, or [imposing as] Governors of the States [men] designated by him, like the so-called General Ambrosio Figueroa, scourge and tyrant of the people of Morelos, or entering into chains and follow the pattern of a new dictatorship more shameful and more terrible than that of Porfirio Díaz, for it has been clear and patent that he has outraged the sovereignty of the States, trampling on the laws without any respect  for lives or interests, as has happened in the State of Morelos, and others, leading them to the most horrendous anarchy which contemporary history registers.

For these considerations we declare the aforementioned Francisco I. Madero inept at realizing the promises of the revolution of which he was the author, because he has betrayed the principles with which he tricked the will of the people and was able to get into power: incapable of governing, because he has no respect for the law and justice of the pueblos, and a traitor to the fatherland, because he is humiliating in blood and fire, Mexicans who want liberties, so as to please the científicos, landlords, and bosses who enslave us, and from today on we begin to continue the revolution begun by him, until we achieve the overthrow of the dictatorial powers which exist.

2. Recognition is withdrawn from S. Francisco I. Madero as Chief of the Revolution and as President of the Republic, for the reasons which before were expressed, it being attempted to overthrow this official.

3. Recognized as Chief of the Liberating Revolution is the illustrious General Pascual Orozco, the second of the Leader Don Francisco I. Madero, and in case he does not accept this delicate post, recognition as Chief of the Revolution will go to General Don Emiliano Zapata.

4. The Revolutionary Junta of the State of Morelos manifests to the Nation under formal oath: that it makes its own the plan of San Luis Potosí, with the additions which are expressed below in benefit of the oppressed pueblos, and it will make itself the defender of the principles it defends until victory or death.

5. The Revolutionary Junta of the State of Morelos will admit no transactions or compromises until it achieves the overthrow of the dictatorial elements of Porfirio Díaz and Francisco I. Madero, for the nation is tired of false men and traitors who make promises like liberators and who on arriving in power forget them and constitute themselves tyrants.

6. As an additional part of the plan, we invoke, we give notice: that [regarding] the fields, timber, and water which the landlords, científicos, or bosses have usurped, the pueblos or citizens who have the titles corresponding to those properties will immediately enter into possession of that real estate of which they have been despoiled by the bad faith of our oppressors, maintain at any cost with arms in hand the mentioned possession; and the usurpers who consider themselves with a right to them [those properties] will deduce it before the special tribunals which will be established on the triumph of the revolution.

7. In virtue of the fact that the immense majority of Mexican pueblos and citizens are owners of no more than the land they walk on, suffering the horrors of poverty without being able to improve their social condition in any way or to dedicate themselves to Industry or Agriculture, because lands, timber, and water are monopolized in a few hands, for this cause there will be expropriated the third part of those monopolies from the powerful proprietors of them, with prior indemnization, in order that the pueblos and citizens of Mexico may obtain ejidos, colonies, and foundations for pueblos, or fields for sowing or laboring, and the Mexicans’ lack of prosperity and well-being may improve in all and for all.

8. The landlords, científicos, or bosses who oppose the present plan directly or indirectly, their goods will be nationalized and the two-third parts which [otherwise would] belong to them will go for indemnizations of war, pensions for widows and orphans of the victims who succumb in the struggle for the present plan.

9. In order to execute the procedures regarding the properties aforementioned, the laws of disamortization and nationalization will be applied as they fit, for serving us as norm and example can be those laws put in force by the immortal Juárez on ecclesiastical properties, which punished the despots and conservatives who in every time have tried to impose on us the ignominious yoke of oppression and backwardness.

10. The insurgent military chiefs of the Republic who rose up with arms in hand at the voice of Don Francisco I. Madero to defend the plan of San Luis Potosí, and who oppose with armed force the present plan, will be judged traitors to the cause which they defended and to the fatherland, since at present many of them, to humor the tyrants, for a fistful of coins, or for bribes or connivance, are shedding the blood of their brothers who claim the fulfillment of the promises which Don Francisco I. Madero made to the nation.

11. The expenses of war will be taken in conformity with Article 11 of the Plan of San Luis Potosí, and all procedures employed in the revolution we undertake will be in conformity with the same instructions, which the said plan determines.

12. Once triumphant the revolution which we carry into the path of reality, a Junta of the principal revolutionary chiefs from the different States will name or designate an interim President of the Republic, who will convoke elections for the organization of the federal powers.

13. The principal revolutionary chiefs of each State will designate in Junta the Governor of the State to which they belong, and this appointed official will convoke elections for the due organization of the public powers, the object being to avoid compulsory appointments which work the misfortune of the pueblos, like the so-well-known appointment of Ambrosio Figueroa in the State of Morelos and others who drive us to the precipice of bloody conflicts sustained by the caprice of the dictator Madero and the circle of científicos and landlords who have influenced him.

14. If President Madero and other dictatorial elements of the present and former regime want to avoid the immense misfortunes which afflict the fatherland, and [if they] possess true sentiments of love for it, let them make immediate renunciation of the posts they occupy and with that they will with something staunch the grave wounds which they have opened in the bosom of the fatherland, since, if they do not do so, on their heads will fall the blood and the anathema of our brothers.

15. Mexicans: consider that the cunning and bad faith of one man is shedding blood in a scandalous manner, because he is incapable of governing; consider that his system of government is choking the fatherland and trampling with the brute force of bayonets on our institutions; and thus, as we raised up our weapons to elevate him to power, we again raise them up against him for defaulting on his promises to the Mexican people and for having betrayed the revolution initiated by him, we are not personalists, we are partisans of principles and not of men!

Mexican People, support this plan with arms in hand and you will make the prosperity and well-being of the fatherland.

Ayala, November 25, 1911

Liberty, Justice and Law

Signed, General in Chief Emiliano Zapata; Generals Eufemio Zapata, Francisco Mendoza, Jesús Morales, Jesús Navarro, Otilio E. Montaño, José Trinidad Ruiz, Próculo Capistrán; Colonels…; Captains… [This] is a true copy taken from the original. Camp in the Mountains of Puebla, December 11, 1911. Signed General in Chief Emiliano Zapata.

The Canadian Arctic Expedition rescue ship Bear was stopped by sea ice 20 miles from Wrangel Island and had to turn around and return to Nome for more coal.

Last edition:

Monday, August 24, 1914. The Great Retreat and Winnie The Pooh.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Sunday, August 23, 1914. Maurice James Dease

The Battle of Mons occurred in which the BEF held the German forces, but began a month long retreat to the Marne.

Irishman Maurice James Dease became the first British officer to be killed in action, for which he additionally won the Victoria Cross.

The machine gun crews were constantly being knocked out. So cramped was their position that when a man was hit he had to be removed before another could take his place. The approach from the trench was across the open, and whenever a gun stopped Lieutenant Maurice Dease... went up to see what was wrong. To do this once called for no ordinary courage. To repeat it several times could only be done with real heroism. Dease was badly wounded on these journeys, but insisted on remaining at duty as long as one of his crew could fire. The third wound proved fatal, and a well deserved VC was awarded him posthumously. By this time both guns had ceased firing, and all the crew had been knocked out. In response to an inquiry whether anyone else knew how to operate the guns Private Godley came forward. He cleared the emplacement under heavy fire and brought the gun into action. But he had not been firing long before the gun was hit and put completely out of action. The water jackets of both guns were riddled with bullets, so that they were no longer of any use. Godley himself was badly wounded and later fell into the hands of the Germans.

German troops killed 654 Belgian civilians in Dinant, Belgium in confusion or panic regarding francs-tireurs

The French were defeated in the  Battle of the Ardennes and the Battle of Charleroi.

The Battle of Tannenberg began between the German Army and the Imperial Russian Army.

The Battle of Kraśnik began between the Austro Hungarian Army and the Imperial Russian Army.

Japan declared war on Germany.  China canceled the German lease of the Kiaochow Bay.

New Zealand occupied the German colony of German Samoa, following an unopposed invasion.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 22, 1914. British at Mons.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Thursday, August 20, 1914. Carranza enters Mexico City. The Germans enter Brussels.

Venustiano Carranza and his supporters entered Mexico City to set up a new Mexican left wing Constitutionalist government, backed by Álvaro Obregón.  Residents of the city turned out in mass to see the procession head to the Presidential Palace.


The Germans entered Brussels.

The Siege of Namur began.  So did the Battles of Sarrebourg, Morhange and Gubinnen.

The Germans ordered the evacuation of East Prussia.


St. Pope Pius X died. His last words were "Together in one: all things in Christ," referencing his motto.

Born in an Italian speaking region of the Austro Hungarian Empire which is now part of Italy he was a strong opponent of  modernist interpretation of theology, he initiated the preparation of the 1917 Code of Canon Law.  He was responsible for the lowering of the age for First Communion and promoted a Thomist approach to philosophical inquiry in Catholic institutions.

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 19, 1914. Sitting it out.

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Sunday, August 16, 1914. Not going according to plan.

The Germans took the last of Belgium's military forts after an eleven day effort which was supposed to have taken two.

Serbian forces pushed the Austro Hungarians off of Cer Mountain.

The Austro Hungarian battle cruiser SMS Zenta was sunk by the Allies in the Adriatic.

The SMS Goeben and Breslau were transferred to the Ottoman Navy.

British 2nd Lt. Evelyn Perry of the Royal Flying Corps was killed in a plane crash over France, making him the first British office to die in the war.

John Redmond, in a public address in Maryborough, Ireland, stated to assembled Irish Volunteers:

[F]or the first time in the history ... it was safe to-day for England to withdraw her armed troops from our country and that the sons of Ireland themselves ... [would] defend her shores against any foreign foe.

He was really pushing his point.

The Polish Temporary Commission of Confederated Indepence Parties in Austro Hungaria formed the Polish Supreme National Committee.

Japanese writer Takeshi Kanno with his wife, sculptor Gertrude Farquharson Boyle, August 15, 1914. They'd divorce the next year.  Few Japanese/Western marriages do survive, and she held fairly pronounced left wing views.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 15, 1914. The Panama Canal opens for traffic.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Wednesday, August 12, 1914. The United Kingdom and France declare war on Austro Hungaria.

The United Kingdom and her Dominions declared war on Austro Hungaria.

So did France.

Belgian troops repulsed  German cavalry at the Battle of Halen.



Karl von Müller, commander of the German light cruiser SMS Emden, met with Imperial German Navy Admiral Maximilian von Spee at Pagan, Mariana Islands.  In the meeting he learned that Impertial Japan was gravitating towards the United Kingdom and tracking down German squadrons in the Pacific.  The Emden was ordered to remain in the Pacific as a raider.

Interim Mexican president Francisco Carvajal formally left Mexico City for Veracruz, allowing the Constitutional Army to enter the city.

Last edition:

Monday, August 10, 1914. Austro Hungaria takes the field against Imperial Russia.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Wednesday August 5, 1914. Battle of Liège commences.

German troops attacked Liège, Belgium.

Belgian troops in Herstal.

Montenegro declared war on Austro Hungaria.

The guns of Point Nepean fort at Port Phillip, Victoria, Australia fired across the bow of the Norddeutscher Lloyd steamer SS Pfalz as it was leaving the Port of Melbourne.  The liner was not aware that war had broken out.

The Royal Navy sank the German minelayer SS Königin Luise, causing Germany's first naval loss of the war.

The Czechoslovak Legion was established.

Kaiser Wilhelm reauthorized the Iron Cross, last issued during the Franco Prussian War.

Captain Robert Bartlett rendezvoused at Port Hope, Alaska to provide new clothing and wages owed to his Inuit guide who had traveled with him from Wrangel Island to Siberia in an attempt to get back to civilization and arrange a rescue boat as part of his effort to complete that mission.

The first electric light traffic light system was installed at the intersection of East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue in Cleveland.

Last edition:

Thursday, August 4, 1914. Augusterlebnis

Monday, August 4, 2014

Thursday, August 4, 1914. Augusterlebnis

Germans, unaware that their nation would be bled white, and unalterably changed, celebrated the arrival of war.

All Germany's political parties supported the entry into the bloodbath.

And they were fighting for . . .what?

Germany replaced gold marks with paper marks for the duration of the war.

German Communists Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and Clara Zetkin co-founded with others the Spartacus League.

Germany invaded Belgium, once again bringing up its war guilt.  Belgium had done nothing to offend Germany.  It was invaded for tactical reasons as the Von Schlieffen Plan required it as part of a wide swinging German right flank invasion of France.

The German army shelled Kaisz, Poland to suppress a civil uprising there.

Imperial German Navy cruisers Goeben and Breslau shelled Algerian ports of Bône and Philippeville, defying orders to proceed straight to Constantinople.

The United Kingdom declared war on Germany, taking Canada, Australia and New Zealand into war with it, as legally, the UK declared war for its dominions at the time.  The Canadian government passed the War Measures Act, suspending some civil liberties.  

The British government took control of British railways.

Retired British Admiral Charles Cooper Penrose-Fitzgerald formed the Order of the White Feather to persuade women to offer white feathers to men not in uniform to shame them into enlisting.


The UK did not have a tradition of land army conscription at the time so it was anticipated that the war would be fought with volunteers.

The United States declared neutrality.

Andrew Carnegie continued with an international peace conference he had organized of religious leaders in Belgium.

The organization it created became the Church Peace Union and is now the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.

Zayanes in Morocco launched a siege on Khenifra, Morocco, taking advantage of with French troops being withdrawn for service on the continent.

Last edition:

Monday, August 3, 1914. "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."