Wednesday, September 9, 1914. Germany loses World War One.

Chief of the Imperial German General Staff Helmuth von Moltke suffered a nervous breakdown upon hearing German forces were retreating from the Marne. 

He informed Kaiser Wilhelm; "Your Majesty, we have lost the war!". 

He was quite correct. The German gamble had failed.

He was 66 years of age, not that old by World War Two German standards, but old by the standards of the Great War.  His health was already poor. Barbara Tuchman characterized him as a self doubting introvert.  He wouldn't outlast the war, dying in 1916.

German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg laid out Germany's war aims, a little late in the day, in the Septemberprogramm.

The war aims were:

1. France should cede some northern territory to Germany.
2. France should pay a war indemnity high enough to prevent French rearmament for the two decades.
3. France would partially disarm by demolishing its northern forts.
4. Belgium should become a vassal state of Germany
5. Luxembourg should be annexed to Germany
6. Buffer states would be created in territory carved out of the western Russian Empire/
7. Germany would create a Mitteleuropa economic association
8. The German empire would be expanded in Africa.
9. The Netherlands should be brought into a closer relationship to Germany

They didn't' get that.

Belgian troops gained ground at Aarschot.

Australia took Nauru, German New Guinea.

Hilaire Belloc with y Land and Water to write articles on the war.

Last edition:

Tuesday, September 8, 1914. French attack at Marne.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, First Battle of the Marne, French Army, German Army, North Dakota, panoramic, Photography, The Big Picture

Friday, September 2, 1914. Staging for Tsingtao.

Japan invaded Chinese territorial sovereignty in order to land over 15,000 troops at Longkau in order to stage them for an attack on German controlled Tsingtao.

In nature, the act was really no different than Germany entering Belgium in order to invade France, although it was certainly much different in scale.

Today what had been the German possession is called Quingdao. The Yellow Sea port had been a German possession since 1897, but from this point until after the end of World War Two it was a Japanese one.  Following that, in 1946, it briefly was the headquarters of the U.S. Navy's Western Pacific Fleet, until it relocated to the Philippines in 1948.  It reverted to full Chinese control with the entry of the Red Chinese army in 1949.

In addition to being one of the busiest ports in the world, its famous for the beer brewed under the city's name, per its original spelling.

The Germans entered Moronviliers which would become deserted and destroyed during the war.

Charles Masterman invited twenty five "eminent literary men" to Wellington House in London to form a secret British entity dedicated to British war time propaganda.

William Archer, Arnold Bennett, G. K. Chesterton, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ford Madox Ford, John Galsworthy, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, John Masefield, Henry Newbolt, Gilbert Parker, G. M. Trevelyan and H. G. Wells attended the meeting.

Fighting drew down at Tannenberg.

Last edition:

Tuesday, September 1, 1914. Martha.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Affair of Néry, Artillery, British Army, cavalry, Imperial Japanese Navy, Labor unrest, Rewilding, Siege of Tsingtao, St. Petersburg Russia, The written word, World War One, Zaian War

Saturday, August 8, 1914. Leaving for the Antarctic.

The UK passed the first Defence of the Realm Act authorizing wartime censorship.

French forces took Muhouse in Alsace, although they'd be pushed back out two days later.

German colonial authorities executed Cameroonian resistance leaders Martin-Paul Samba and Rudolf Duala Manga Bell for treason.

The Shackleton Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition left the UK for Antarctica, seemingly out of context and now out of their own times.

Last edition:

Friday, August 7, 1914. The BEF arrives in France.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Alaska, Alsace-Lorraine, Battle of the Frontiers, British Army, British Empire, French Army, Ghana, Spain, World War One

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

Germany declared war on Belgium and France following King Albert of Belgium refusing to allow Germany to violate Belgian neutrality.

Again, the more you look at it, war guilt?  Germany had it.  

British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey made his famous statement; "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."

He'd be proven correct.

Earlier that day, he had urged the House of Commons to declare war on Germany if Belgian neutrality was violated.

German troops arrived in Kalisz, Poland, part of the Russian Empire.  Gun battles would break out later that day involving civilians.

The First Cadre Company of the Austro Hungarian Army was formed by Józef Piłsudski as part of his goal of achieving Polish independence.  The inevitable war within a war had begun.

Winston Churchill ordered the seizure of two Ottoman battleship under construction in the UK.

The German Navy captured the Russian steamer Ryazan in the Pacific and sent it to Tsingtao, their colony, for conversion into an auxiliary cruiser.

Last edition:

Sunday, August 2, 1914. First French and German casualties of the Great War.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Catholic, Christianity, Economics, France, French Army, German Army, Germany, Luxembourg, Ottoman Empire, religion, Scandinavia, the spoken word, Von Schlieffen Plan, World War One