history

News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today.

• Chancellor of Exchequer proposes increased taxes to parliament in London, including doubling the income tax [so much for that old myth that income tax was "invented" to fund World War I], raising taxes on beer. Not quite four months of war have already cost more than the entire four years of the Boer War.
• First Canadians sent into combat.
• The War Office denounces the use of dum-dum bullets by the Germans in violation of The Hague Convention. British bullets described as "most humane projectile yet devised."
• Just three years after overthrowing the imperial government, the Republic of China is broke. European governments have no money to lend, China looking to United States for loan.

News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today:

• Founder and proprietor of the Victoria Times, William Templeman, dies suddenly. There is a large picture on the front page and the lead headline is basically a lengthy obituary...
• Spectacular report of a storm-damaged Zeppelin limping back to Germany over Holland.
• British Indian troops fighting Ottoman Turks in the Persian Gulf...
• Parliament in London approves recruiting another 1,000,000 men and expenditure of over $1-billion [1914] dollars. Better pay for soldiers and pensions for wounded, widows and dependants.
• Victoria refuses to continue paying "enemy aliens" put to work breaking rocks in a labour camp, demanding that it is the federal government's responsibility...

News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today. One of the most interesting papers so far, including an amazing story that, if this wasn't an actual newspaper story from a reputable newspaper from 1914, you would think was a steampunk fantasy...

News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago ...yesterday.

News from the Canadian camp on Salisbury Plain that I almost missed yesterday:

• Forces are banned from corresponding directly or indirectly with press
• Hailstorm knocks over signs and tents
• Ignorant dufus objects to vaccinations, gets typhoid.
• Rich Canadian with low rank is surprised to find he's not allowed to socialize with officers.

News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today:

• Heavy fighting on the Western Front reported...
• Fierce attack by crack Prussian troops breaks the Allied line at three points, but is eventually repulsed. 700 dead counted in one trench alone.
• German casualties at Yser estimated at 90,000...
• Four allied aeroplanes engage four German aeroplanes over Ypres. This is the largest aerial battle I've seen reported so far.
• Russian troops capture two German aviators, who were forced to land by engine trouble.
• Publication of detailed weather reports has been banned in France as the information is useful to the Germans. It is only allowed to report temperature predictions.
• And on the subject of weather, it has snowed in Calgary. This is inexplicably on the front page of a Victoria newspaper.
• Second Canadian expeditionary force now mobilizing. 15,272 men to be dispatched.
• Trans Indian Ocean cable station at the Cocos Island attacked by the German cruiser Emden...
• The Mexican civil war is back to open warfare.
• Ad illustrations that caught my eye....

The news out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today.

Another slow news day. On the one hand there are reports that the Germans are completely unable to advance on Allied Anglo-French troops on the Western Front, that Russian troops have the German and Austro-Hungarian troops in total retreat and are advancing all but unopposed in Turkey. How can the war possibly last much longer?

News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today.

Not much substantial about the war that I can see today. Not much news at all, really.

• Praise for the Australian navy from New Zealand and Canada
• Broughton Strait (the straight between Malcolm Island, where Sointula is, and Port McNeill, and where Cormorant Island, home to Alert Bay, is) is closed. Any ships in the strait risk being fired upon. No reason is given.
• Oh, hey, Luxembourg! Forgot about them. Still officially neutral, but occupied by Germany and completely surrounded by Germany and German occupied Belgium and German occupied France, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is paid indemnity for the damage done by the passage of German troops through the country, but the citizenry is showing signs of deeply resenting the occupation.
• The Mexican civil war has flared up again.
• But it's all O.K., because Weller's Home Outfitters has your Christmas gift problem sorted...

#dailycolonist1914 - News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today.

At this point in 1914 the war is 3½ months old and virtually no one has any idea that there will be another four full years of absolute horror to come. Remember that we are talking about 16,000,000 people dying and another 20,000,000 being injured, many horrifically, for the sake of a handful of cousins using the excuse of 2 murders to steal land and resources from each-other and everyone else. Remember the gory truth not the "glory" and ask yourself "what for?", lest ye forget.

#dailycolonist1914 - The news out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today.

Big Sunday paper update today. Lots of interesting things: war news, 100 year-old technology, amazing illustrations and advertisements, and more...

News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today.

The headline news stories have the Germans and the allies in losing ground on all fronts. To believe things at face value one would think the war likely to be over by Christmas.

• German fort at Tsing Tau has been captured. "Germany Completely Evicted from Asia."
• Allied advances on the Western Front. German wounded evacuated from Antwerp and troops relocated.
• Germans and Austrians in retreat on the Russian front.
• Armenians have joined the fight against the Ottoman Turks, aiding the Russians [and setting the stage for the Armenian Genocide that will start in 1915].
• Canada issues a formal (and really nothing more than a formality) declaration of war against Turkey.
• New Zealand will not be exporting any more wool except to Allied countries.
• Article detailing and lauding New Zealand's capture of Samoa early in the war [unfortunately mostly unreadable because of a bad scan].
• Epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease in American cattle. Canada implementing more stringent border inspections to keep the disease from spreading into Canada.
• Two German spies caught and executed among Canadian troops on Salisbury Plain.
• London anxious about possible Zeppelin attack
Tucked away in the "City News" section: communications on the trans-Pacific cable, cut at Fanning Island on September 7 by Germans, has been fully restored.