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

Today starts out with a suitably macabre story for Hallowe'en:

• Dateline Whitby, North Yorkshire: a hospital ship runs aground off the Yorkshire coast, as many as 100 dead from an estimated crew of 200. Story has gruesome details of dead bodies washing ashore, life boats crushed against the rocks, rescuers witnessing survivors clinging to the wreckage for hours, only to slip away into the cold waters before they could be reached. "...all the women on board were saved, including one who was a survivor of the Titanic." 

And it is clear today why this as-yet unnamed war will come to be known as a "World War". In addition to the hospital ship sinking off the coast of England:

• Allied British (including troops from India) and Japanese troops shelling the German fort in Tsing Tau.
• Turkey (a.k.a. the Ottoman Empire) striking ports in the Russian Empire and Romania with naval shelling attacks and also engaged in a naval battle on the Black Sea near Odessa while shelling the city. There is much speculation about the ambitions of the Ottoman Empire.
• Germans using aeroplanes to indiscriminately bomb Paris, killing women and children.
• Reports of "gigantic submarines" made by Germany, capable of staying at sea up to 40 days without reprovisioning.
• Canadian troops may be posted to Egypt to protect the Suez Canal.

Meanwhile in Canada:

• Dominion government passes an Order-in-Council [for those not familiar with this term, it is basically a royal decree issued by the Governor General] forbidding nickel and other vital resources to be sold only to friendly countries and the still-neutral United States.
• A proposal to encourage Europeans displaced by the war, Belgian in particular, to be granted undeveloped land in the prairies for farming. 
• An editorial on the deluge of bad war poetry being submitted to newspapers and that the Colonist will not be publishing any of it.
• The war has seriously impacted the fur trade and causing serious hardship with First Nations that rely on it. Headline reads, "Starving Indians"
• And the ads that caught my eye, including five room apartments for $15/mo., patriotism as a selling point, and a large ad for winter holiday resorts in California.

http://www.britishcolonist.ca/dateList.php?year=1914