Thursday, August 6, 1914. More declarations of war.

Austro Hungaria declared war on Imperial Russia.

Serbia declared war on Germany.

Italy refused portage to the Goeben and Breslau.  The Germans ships, even though they lacked sufficient coal, were ordered to make a run to Constantinople, partially in the hope that it would cause the Ottoman Empire to enter the war..

The Royal Navy, already pursuing the Goeben and Breslau, commenced pursuit of the SMS Karlsruhe in the West Indies.

The HMS Amphion struck a mine resulting in the first British deaths of the war.

The German airship Zeppelin Z VI was damaged in combat over Belgium and made an emergency crash landing.

The US negotiated a ceasefire in the Dominican civil war.

Woodrow Wilson's first wife Ellen Axson Wilson, died of Bright's disease.  She relayed a dying message to her husband via the White House physician allowing her husband to remarry.

Orthodox Fr. Maxim Timofeyevich Sandovich was executed by Austro Hungarian for actions they deemed to be pro Russian in nature.  He is regarded as a martyr in the Orthodox Church.

Last edition:

Wednesday August 5, 1914. Battle of Liège commences.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Austro Hungaria, Battle of Liège, Belgium, Canadian Arctic Expedition, Czech Legion, German Army, Montenegro, technology, World War One

The Family Business

As long time viewers of this blog know (okay, that's darned few people) this blog serves a lot purposes, while theoretically being focused on certain things that I research in a historical context.  That's part of what I'm doing today.

I'm curious how many people who might stop in here occupy the same occupation as one of their parents, or grandparents. That is, how many of you followed a parent into a line of work, or perhaps ended up in that same line of work. And I'll extend that out to grandparents as well.

In posting this I'll note that very few of the people I know, outside of agriculture, have entered the same occupation as their parents. Very few.  The exception to the rule is found in agriculture, where its very common.  But otherwise, it doesn't seem to be.  I know a few lawyers who had a parent who was a lawyer, but most of the lawyers I know who have adult children did not have those children enter their occupation.  I can think, however, of a few.  In medicine, I can think of a few physicians who had a parent who was a physician, but just a few.  I can think of two dentists whose parents were dentist.

Anyhow, if you entered the same field as one of your parents, or grandparents, let us know and tell us a little bit about that.

Old Picture of the Day: Cowboys on the Range

Old Picture of the Day: Cowboys on the Range: This is a great picture showing cowboys out on the range. The picture is from 1905. The cowboys have a herd of mustangs they are tendin...

Old Picture of the Day: Cowboy Camp

Old Picture of the Day: Cowboy Camp: Today's picture shows an authentic Cowboy Camp from the late 1800's. I love the picture of the men having breakfast and coffee...

Old Picture of the Day: Old Cowboy

Old Picture of the Day: Old Cowboy: Welcome to Cowboy Week here at OPOD. It has been some time since we looked at cowboys, so I figured, why not. Also, I went last night ...

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

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Economics, France, Germany, Morocco, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, The roles of men and women, United Kingdom, United States, Von Schlieffen Plan, World War One, Zaian War

The Labor Day Parade

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."

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Belgium, boats and ships, China, France, German Empire, German Kriegsmarine, Germany, Ottoman Empire, Poland, Russia, Turkish Navy, United Kingdom, Von Schlieffen Plan, Winston Churchill, World War One

The Big Picture: The Failed Ziegler Expedition to the North Pole, 1905

Watch out for the Bull: Everybody Oughta Own a Jeep Sometime During Their Life

Watch out for the Bull: Everybody Oughta Own a Jeep Sometime During Their Life

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

Tombstone

Tombstone 

1993

This movie is another cinematic portrayal of the "Gunfight at the OK Corral", but its nearly unique in the degree to which it focused on authenticity.  The makers of this movie so closely studied the clothing of the frontier southwest that when the movie came out it was criticized as inaccurate as it was so accurate.  Simply put, the period clothing in the region was very distinct and that was reflected in the film, to the shock of viewers who weren't used to seeing the distinctive look of the region.

The movie is other was a dramatized, but not bad, telling of a familiar tale.  Much more accurate than most of the films in this genera, it's really the material details that make this movie worth seeing. 

Movies In History: Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan

This film did to war movies what Lonesome Dove did to Westerns, it revolutionized them to such an extent that everything that came after had to meet its standard.

Set during Operation Overlord during World War Two, this film, featuring a fictionalized story based on an American Ranger unit, went to great lengths to get material details  right and mostly did.  Almost every item of equipment in the film is correct, something highly unusual for most war movies filmed before it.  This is so much the case that watching films made prior to it almost invariably bring out a bit of realization of that fact, even where they are really good, simply due to Saving Private Ryan's precision.  Details are so precise that the Rangers are shown, accurately, wearing some items of clothing that were unique to them alone.  The paratroopers are likewise correctly attired, as are regular U.S. infantrymen.

Still, as accurate as the film is, it amazingly isn't quite perfect in these regards.  The movie messes up significantly in material details in the case of the sniper character, who is shown having two scopes, which would not have been the case, and perhaps in that one them appears to be a large Unertl scope, which was an item used by the Marines but not the Army.  Scopes affixed to M1903A5 sniper rifles sued by the U.S. Army were generally Lyman Alaskans, which one of the scopes in the film does appear to be.  That particular scope featured a small diameter barrel and is correspondingly something that looks odd to the modern eye, which may explain the incorporation of a Unertl scope in the film, given their giant size.  Swapping out scopes, however, which is referenced in the film, would not have occurred.

Additionally the film makes a goof typical to films in that the sniper keeps shooting even when the five shot magazine capacity of his rifle is exhausted.

On material details the film also departs from being fully correct, as good of film as it is, in that two weapons in use in the Ranger squad unit are inappropriate for their use.   The senior NCO of the unit carriers an M1 Carbine, but M1 Carbines were not used by enlisted Rangers or infantrymen during World War Two, or at least weren't supposed to be.  That would be an appropriate weapon for the Tom Hanks character, who is a captain, but he carriers a Thompson submachinegun, which is also outside the TO&E.  Having said that, submachineguns did show up in sues that they were not supposed to official have, so that use may not be that unrealistic, which is likewise the case for one that is shown being used by an airborne officer.

Still, this movie is so well done that every war film since it has had to meet its standards or appear to be a failure, and even those filmed prior to it are hard to watch without being aware of how they fail to measure up.  The slight departures noted here are so slight that even mentioning them tends to overemphasize them.

In terms of historical details, the movie scores very high marks.  Operational details are generally correct, and only minor ones (such as a very early criticism of Montgomery before any U.S. officer would have been likely to have done that), show up.

An excellent film. And the one that basically sets the bar for films of this type.

Movies In History: Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

Oh Brother!  Where Art Thou?

This is, simply a great film.

Set in the 1930s, it really successfully captures the feel of the rural American South at this time, and does a super job of capturing the feel of small towns, farms, and Southern politics.  Clothing details are well done as well.  Minor details, such as references to the Tennessee Valley Authority, or a farmer cultivating a field of tobacco with a mule drawn implement, nicely place the film in context.   Even the title is a shout out to the era, recalling the name of a fictional book which a fictional movie director is getting set to film in 1941's Sullivan's Travels.

Movies In History: Lonesome Dove

Lonesome Dove

This television mini series, based on the Larry McMurtry novel, which itself was closely based on actual events of frontier era cattleman, set a new standard for clothing accuracy. And as the novel was itself closely based on actual persons and their history, the details in general are remarkably accurate.  Indeed, this movie is to Westerns what Band of Brothers is to war movies, in that it set the bar so high, that nothing that's come after it has been the same compared to those films which came before it.

Based closely on actual early cattle drives out of Texas going north, this gritty film has almost all, if not all, of the material details right, which almost no film prior to it did.  Indeed, this is so much the case that I've actually heard it criticized by the otherwise knowledgeable on some of what it portrays as it stands in such stark contrast to earlier films.  No cattle drive film compares to it.

Even wise, it's pretty good as well, showing the slow nature and remoteness of early drives.

If a person was to criticize it, what could be looked at is that like all McMurtry works, it's somewhat more focused on the unseemly side of things than it needs to be, which is McMurtry's hallmark in some ways.  Having said that, McMurtray isn't afraid to show various peoples and groups in a pretty unvarnished light, which many portrayals are not willing to do.

And the economic nature of the drive, without which it wouldn't make any sense, is largely omitted, a fault common to many western  movies.

Having said that, this film sets the bar for westerns.

Movies In History: The Godfather, Part II

The Godfather, Part II

This movie gets on the list not for its portrayal of the Mafia, but for its portrayal of urban New York City in the early 20th Century.  Very well done.

I don't really know enough about the Mafia to really comment on how accurate in general this movie, or the first movie, may be in regard to it, but from what I understand, they are fairly close to accurate in their portrayals and the various crime families are in fact closely based on real ones.  The novel, which is a very good one, no doubt is as well.  This movie really excels in its portrayal of early 20th Century New York Italian ghettos, and it does a nice job with Cuba on the end of revolution in the 1950s as well.