Showing posts with label Canadian Arctic Expedition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canadian Arctic Expedition. Show all posts

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Monday, October 26, 1914. Wars within wars.

Wars within wars, a feature of World War One and World War Two, commenced with a battle between the Austro Hungarian backed Polish Legion and the Imperial Russian Army.  The Russians prevaled in the action at at the villages of Laski and Anielin.

Both the Austro Hungarians and the Russians would back different bands of Polish nationalists.

British and French colonial troops captured Edéa in German Cameroon.

The Norwegian schooner Endurance, carrying members of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition arrived at the South Georgia Islands.

In another expedition, this one much further north, Captain Robert Bartlett and eight survivors of Karluk arrived in Victoria, British Columbia on USS Bear.

HMS Liverpool and HMS Fury with RMS Olympic, try to take the sinking HMS Audacious in tow. October 26, 1914.


Last edition:

Sunday, October 25, 1914. Change of command.

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Sunday, September 13, 1914. Improved Allied Positions In The West.

British forces crossed the Aisne at night.

The French retook the villages Pont-à-Mousson and Lunéville bringing the Battle of the Frontiers  to an end.  Some of the front in the  northeast would thereafter remain stable until 1918.

Stallupönen (now Nesterov) fell to the Germans in East Prussia.

Belgian troops returned to Antwerp.

Irish nationalist Roger Casement, who at one time had been a British diplomat met with German diplomat Franz von Papen in Washington D.C. to seek Germany's support for Irish independence.

The survivors of the Karluk arrived in Nome.

Last edition:

Saturday, September 12, 1914. French and British victory at the Marne.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Monday, September 7, 1914. Rescued.

The  King and Winge reached Wrangel Island in the Bering Sea and found 14 of the original 25 survivors of the Karluk shipwreck.  They were transferred to the ship, which then went on, unsuccessfully, to search for other survivors.

In the Battle of Grand Couronné the Germans attacks drove drove French defenders back south of Verdun, France.

In the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes the Germans attacked the Russians under the command of the very German named Paul von Rennenkampf in East Prussia.  He was, in fact, a Baltic German.


Last edition:

Sunday September 6, 1914. Day two of the First Battle of the Marne.

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.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Friday, August 21, 1914. Zapata warns about Carranza.

Emiliano Zapata wrote to Lucio Blanco: 

that this  Carranza does not inspire much confidence in me. I see in him much ambition, and an inclination to fool the people.

Blanco and staff, 1913.   Blanco was an artillery officer, and the first of the Mexican revolutionary commanders to redistribute hacienda land to peasantry.  He was murdered in Mexico's revolutionary strife in 1922.

Zapata also wrote to  Pancho Villa to warn him that Carranza's ambitions were dangerous and likely to another war.

The French fought the Germans in the Ardennes, Luxembourgian border and on the Sambre River in Belgium.

A German night attack on Dinant lead the German forces to erroneously believe that the city was full of hostile civilians.

The Germans lost two zeppelins on their first mission, making it three zeppelins lost in a row.  French cavalry actually attacked and looted one of the crashed zeppelins.

German colonials troops captured Laï from the French in what is now Chad.

Pvt. John Parr, a 17 year old reconnaissance bicyclist, became the first British soldier to be killed on the Western Front when he was killed in an encounter with German cavalry.

Albanian rebels took Vlorë.

Captain Robert Bartlett met Burt McConnell, secretary for Canadian Arctic Expedition leader Vilhjalmur Stefansson, at Point Barrow, Alaska, who exchanged information on the stranded and missing.

Boston Red Sox.

There was a solar eclipse.



Last edition:

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

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

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Monday, July 13, 1914. Austrians conclude no Serbian involvement.



An Austrian investigation into the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand concluded that there was little evidence to support Serbian government involvement in his murder.

Captain Robert Bartlett departed from Alaska on the Bear for Wrangle Island to rescue the Canadian Arctic Expedition.  Only fourteen survivors then existed.

Kent State Normal School, summer session, 1914.

Last edition:

Sunday, July 12, 1914. Mehmedbašić arrested.


Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Thursday, June 25, 1914. Deaths and a disaster.

Fireman George Breddy, one of the survivors to date of the Canadian Arctic Expedition on Wrangell Island, was found dead of a gunshot wound.

Accused during his stay on the island of theft and hoarding, some missing items were found on his body.  It wasn't certain if his death was due to homicide or suicide.

Only fourteen of the original twenty-five survivors of the HMCS Karluk's sinking were now left alive.


A massive fire broke out in Salem, Massachusetts, creating widespread destruction and the calling out of the local National Guard units, including elements of the Eighth Massachusetts Infantry Regiment; the Second Corps of Cadets, the Ninth Massachusetts Infantry Regiment and some Naval militia.


Last prior edition:

Wednesday, June 24, 1914. Playing international chess.

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Sunday, May 24, 1914. Trying to put in at Nome.


Robert Bartlett arrived in Nome on the whaler Herman in his epic effort to provide relief to the Canadian Arctic Expedition.  Ice prevented the ship from putting in, however.  It turned towards St. Michael, where three days later Bartlett was able to radio the dire news to Ottawa.

The Belgian Catholic Party won 41 out of 88 seats of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, May 17, 1914. Trouble on Wrangel.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Sunday, May 17, 1914. Trouble on Wrangel.

Outdoor Mass, Washington D.C., May 17, 1914.

Geologist George Malloch of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, stranded on Wrangel Island, died from nephritis after eating bad pemmican. Bjarne Mamen was stricken with the same disease and was too ill to bury him. 

This would not be addressed for several days, as Cpt. Robert Bartlett had ordered the men to spread their camps out to increase their hunting odds while stranded.

Albania recognized tiny Northern Epirus as a self-governing region under the Principality of Albania.

Meanwhile, rebels surrounded Shijak, Albania.

The Canadian Northern Railway acquired the Canadian Northern Ontario Railway.

Last prior edition:

Saturday, May 16, 1914. Álvaro Obregón's takes Tepic.

Friday, May 16, 2014

Saturday, May 16, 1914. Álvaro Obregón's takes Tepic.


Álvaro Obregón's forces captured Tepic and thus the only railroad between the ports of Guadalajara and Colima.

Robert Bartlett arrived in Emma Harbour.

A day late, but the day prior, May 15, Colorado National Guardsman Sergeant Patrick N. Cullom testified that soldiers in his company shot and killed labor activist Louis Tikas and two other fellow strikers while they tried to escape during the Ludlow Massacre.  Moreover, it was revealed that large numbers of strikebreakers were recent enlistees in the subject unit.



Last prior edition:

Thursday, May 14, 1914. The Life of General Villa