Wednesday, October 25, 1922. Winners and Losers.

A "flying circus" was staged at Boling Field which even included a hot lunch being dropped in from the air.

The Dáil Éireann approved the Irish Free State Constitution Act of 1922.  It would become effective on December 6, 1922, when King George V proclaimed it, which created the Irish Free State as an independent and coequal member of the British Commonwealth.

On the same day, the Irish Republican Army declared the formation of a rival republican government with Eamon de Valera as "President of Ireland", a cabinet of ministers and a twelve member Council of State. By this point, however, the IRA did not holding any Irish territory of consequence.

Mussolini delivered an ultimatum to the Italian government, demanding that it surrender power to the Fascists.

Prince Andrew of Greece, a Greek army officer, was arrested on Corfu and charged with contributing the disastrous Greek defeat in the Greco-Turkish War.  The Prince, the father of the late Prince Consort Philip (Philippos) of the United Kingdom, would be allowed to leave the country.  Other Greek officers were executed or sentenced to long prison sentences.

The Red Army took Vladivostok.  As it did so, Imperial Russian General Mikhail Diterikhs was evacuated with such troops as could be evacuated by the Japanese.

Diterkhs was descended from German Lutherans from the Sudentenland and was a deeply religious Orthodox Christian.  He moved to China, as many Russian Whites from the far eastern part of Siberia did, where he died at age 63 in 1937.

Wednesday, September 2, 1942. The carrier escorted PQ-18

The escort carrier, the HMS Avenger.  She'd be sunk by a German submarine in November 1942, following Operation Torch, which would take all but 12 of her crew of over 500.

Today in World War II History—September 2, 1942: Allied convoy PQ-18 departs Scotland for USSR, the first Arctic convoy with an escort carrier and the first since the PQ-17 disaster; 13/40 ships will be lost.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.

Escort carriers were game changers.  While losing 13 out of 40 ships wasn't good, it was better than what the PQ-17 had experienced. With air cover, submarines were at a disadvantage.  The PQ-18 task force was, in fact, the largest and most successful Arctic run up to that time.

The carrier was the HMS Avenger, as Sundin's blog entry notes.

The U-222 and the U-626, German training submarines, collided in the Baltic sinking the U-222 which took 42 of her crew with her.

The German 46th Infantry Division, which had been dishonored following an unauthorized withdrawal due to Soviet landings on the Kerch peninsula in December 1941, crossed the Kerch Straits while the German 17th Army advanced into Novorossisk, putting Soviet positions on the Eastern Black Sea coast at extreme risk.  The Soviets began, on this night, evacuations from Black Sea ports which were harassed by German and Italian patrol boats.

The Germans sustained heavy material losses at Alam el Halfa resulting in an Afrika Korps withdrawal.

British commandos took a lighthouse and its occupants near Alderny without the Germans noticing and without loss in Operation Dryad.

Tom Williams of the Irish Republican Army was executed for the felony murder of Royal Ulster Constabulary officer Patrick Murphy.  This occurred when an IRA unit Williams was in command of staged a diversionary action against the RUC in order to allow parades commemorating the Easter Rebellion to occur.  Who killed Murphy is actually not known, but Williams was the acknowledged commander of the unit.

Monday, August 14, 1922. The Shipping Board.

In London, a conference between Weimar Germany and the United Kingdom about adjusting the German reparations, which was horrifying the French, broke off without results.

The IRA took Dundalk.   Following the fall of Cork, the IRA's campaign had reverted to a guerilla campaign.

A packed lunch and later dinner for 48 people at Loch Marie hotel in Scotland inflected the diners with botulism from canned duck paste.  Eight would ultimately die from the disease.  All of those who died had sandwiches made from the duck paste.

It's stories like this that have always freaked me out about home canning.

Hebrew, Arabic, and English were designated as the official languages in Palestine.

President Harding's Shipping Board was headed to a conference, giving us a glimpse into regular men's ware of the period.

It was summer, and therefore warm, which explains the straw boater hat.  Nonetheless, this fellow was otherwise wearing a three piece suit.

Note the watch chain.

Another three piece suit, but this fellow has an early version of a fedora that he's carrying.  Note the watch chain yet again.

Also, this fellow has rimless glasses, but they're the old style with the bridge that rested on the nose.  I.e, no nose pieces.

Dressed for traveling, and with a suit that's a bit rumply, this fellow has opted for a wool newsboy cap, something I wear in the winter myself, but not in the summer.  Also a three piece suit and he also has a watch chain.

We'll throw in this Army aviator whose photo was taken the same day for an unrelated reason.

Lt. Paul Wilkins in the uniform of that period.

The Semi Centennial Geyser erupted in Yellowstone.

Thursday, August 10, 1922. Cork taken and burned.

The Irish army, having made seaborne landings the day prior, took Cork, although the withdrawing IRA set it on fire first.  The city had been burned during the Anglo-Irish War two years prior.

One of my great-grandmother's was from Cork, although she would have left the city, at age three, well before this time period.

On the same day, IRA men Joseph O'Sullivan and Reginald Dunne were executed in London for the June 22 assassination of Sir Henry Wilson.

The Sammarinese Fascist Party was founded by Giuliano Gozi.  It would rule San Marino for twenty years, falling during the end of the Second World War, during which San Marino was a neutral tiny power.

Friday, August 4, 1922. Parabellum

An ROTC contingent was in camp, receiving training from the U.S. Army.  The tanks in these photographs were the World War One Renault pattern, one of the better tanks of the First World War.

While I'm not completely certain, I think the instructor depicted above is actually wearing hearing protection while his student shoots a Browning machine gun.  Of interest, in spite of the lessons of the Great War, none of the men in these photographs, and they're all men, are wearing helmets.

On the same day, a photographer took photos of the Coast Guard Cutter Seneca.

In an ongoing war, the Irish Free State landed 1,500 troops at three ports in County Kerry to take the Munster region from the Irish Republican Army.  The IRA was pretty rapidly losing ground in the conventional fight.

At 6:25 p.m. Eastern Time, during the internment of Alexander Graham Bell, all telephone service in the United States was suspended for one minute.

The Aliens Decree was issued by the Bolshevik government of the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic basically allowing everyone over 14 to become Soviet Citizens, and making anyone below that age Soviet Citizens, save for those who had opposed the Soviets or who failed to apply by the end of the  year.

Thursday, July 27, 1922. Midsummer Number.

Life magazine issued its mid summer edition.

Frank N. Rainey retired, somewhere.

"Fr. N. Rainey receiving a gold watch, presented by P.M.G. Hubert Work, in recognition of his 50 yrs. service in money order division. July 27, 1922"

 

Interesting how gold watches were a retirement tradition, but that seems to have passed.

105 men escaped Dundalk Gaol after the 4th Northern Division of the Irish Republican Army blasted a hole in the prison's walls.

On the same day, Oscar Traynor, an IRA officer, was arrested by the Free State.  He'd later go on to be Minister of Defense and then Minister of Justice for post World War Two Irish governments.

Adolf Hitler was released from prison.

Friday, July 21, 1972. Bloody Friday

By IrishBriton - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48182855

The Provisional Irish Republican Army carried out 22 bombings in Belfast, killing nine people in what became known as Bloody Friday.  The actions sparked a renewed British offensive against the IRA, which commenced the next day.

The "Provos" in some significant ways were able to conduct this sort of activity due to romanticized backing by Irish Americans.  It claimed lineage from the Irish Republican Army of the Irish Civil War period, but it had an evolved Socialist agenda that put it in the far left political sphere, which would partially explain how it obtained backing from Libya at the time.

The IRA itself did in fact carry on in existence after the Irish Civil War, even conducting a bombing campaign in 1939 against the United Kingdom.  In 1969, after the Troubles had commenced, the IRA split in two over the issue of abstentionism and forming a National Liberation Front with other left wing groups.  The group that became the Provos refused to vote on the second item, and opposed the first.  Sein Finn likewise split.

Friday, June 30, 1922. End of the Four Courts Seige

An explosion and fire at the Four Courts resulted in a cease fire, and then a surrender of the IRA men occupying the structure.

The United States agreed to end its occupation of the Dominican Republic, which had started in 1916.  The last U.S. troops would withdraw in 1924.

Congress passed the Lodge-Fish Resolution endorsing the Balfour Declaration.  The State Department opposed the move.

Wednesday, June 28, 1922. The start of the Irish Civil War.

The Irish Civil War is regarded as having commenced on this day in 1922 with an artillery strike on the Four Courts in Dublin.

Four Courts burning.

The Irish Republican Army had occupied the Four Courts since April 14, hoping to spark a conflict with the British. The Irish government ignored until British demands that it be addressed made that impossible.  The Irish Free State borrowed two artillery pieces and 200 shells from the British and first demanded that the IRA remove itself from the building, which they refused to do.

What exactly occurred remains unclear. It's not certain who have the order to commence the bombardment.  Some IRA survivors maintained they were actually getting ready to surrender when it commenced.  Some suggest that British artillerymen in small numbers were provided with the guns, but if so, there's no definitive proof of that.

The event would spark the commencement of the Irish Civil War between the Irish Free State and the Irish Republican Army, which would last about a year.

The Syrian Federation, under the French mandate, came into existence.

Flag of the French mandate in Syria.

Thursday, June 22, 1922. Sir Henry Wilson assassinated.

Sir Henry Wilson, a British Field Marshall, was assassinated outside of his home in London by members of the Irish Republican Army

Wilson was from County Longford, Northern Ireland, and had briefly been a Unionist politician after retiring from the army.  He was noted as a political intriguer and had role in the unsuccessful introduction of conscription in Ireland during World War One as well as the pre-war Curragh Mutiny.  In the latter event, he encouraged British officers to resign rather than to take action against the Ulster Volunteers.  He opposed Irish independence to the end, and that likely cost him his life at the hands of those who also were for union, but not of the type that he was.  

Wilson regarded himself as Irish and in fact spoke with an Irish accent.  He was a member of the Church of Ireland, as would be expected, that being the Irish expression of the Anglican Communion, although he was known to occasionally attend Catholic services.  Interestingly, he did so even though he objected to its Roman orientation, and he was personally low church in the Anglican Communion.

Wilson was a controversial figure, although one who was generally popular in the British Army, and he had a long period of military service, having entered the British Army in 1882.

Sunday, March 22, 1922. Before jackhammers.

Usually, if I put a newspaper up here, it's due to some historically significant event it discusses.  But that's not the case here.  In this case I put it up as the cartoon depicts a tool that never even occurred to me.  A "pounder", which is probably not what it was called, is shown. Something that came before, apparently, hydraulic jack hammers.

In news of the day, the Allies agreed to amend the Treaty of Sevres, the peace treaty with the now defunct Ottoman Empire, but Turkish Nationalist refused to sign it as long as Greek forces, now fighting alone in Turkey, remained there.

Anti treaty officers of the Irish Republican Army convened a convention in Dublin.  The one-day convention rejected the treaty and the authority of the Dail.

June 27, 1920. Long Tours

The epic French annual sporting event, the bicycle Tour de France, commenced for 1920 on this day.



On the same day, British General Cuthbert Lucas, a veteran of the Boer War and World War One, was kidnapped by the Irish Republican Army along with two colonels. They were fishing at the time.  The colonels were released after one of them was wounded while trying to escape.

During his captivity his wife gave birth, which he became aware of as she sent him a letter simply addressed "to the IRA" informing him of the news.  Following that, his captors allowed for an exchange of letters between the couple.  While he was threatened with execution, his captors relaxed his guard after some months to allow him to escape.  Upon being recovered by the British, he termed his captors "gentlemen" and "delightful people".