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Victoria

The Daily Colonist, October 29, 1914

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

• Conspirators in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife sentenced. Killer gets 20 years. Four conspirators get death sentence. So since this is what started the war, everybody can go home now, right?
• Britain's army now at an estimated strength of 1.5 million men.
• Four Germans arrested in Baja California, including a former San Diego detective, for violating Mexican neutrality by operating a radio out of Mexico.


The Daily Colonist, October 28, 1914

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

• Front page has pre-war pictures of French city of Lille, now all but leveled by the war.
• Telegraph restrictions lightened. Messages may now be sent using any of several approved standard codes.
• German forces routed by British Indian troops. German casualties estimated at ten times British losses (20,000 vs. 2,000).
• Canada sells two ice breakers to Russia to keep White Sea port of Archangel open throughout winter. This is necessary with the Baltic cut off by Germany and the Black Sea cut off by Turkey.
• Canada has barred all foreigners (i.e. not citizens of the British Empire) except citizens of the United States from entering Canada.
• Ad for a sale on opera cloaks


The Daily Colonist, October 27, 1914

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

It's difficult to tell what is important on the European fronts today. The Germans are still failing to advance on along the coast of Belgium and France. The Russians are still pushing the Germans and Austrians out of [what is now] Poland. There are reports that the Germans are suffering from starvation and a lack of cigarettes in the trenches, may of which are flooded (which makes one wonder about the state of the British and French trenches) and the there is much fighting at bayonet-point (which makes one wonder how well supplied with ammunition both sides are).

• Pictures of the city of Ypres on the font page
• Remember how this all started? The assassins and accomplices in the killing of Archduke Ferdinand have been found guilty in court in Sarajevo. Sentencing will be pronounced tomorrow.
• The Italian navy has sent ships to Albania on a relief mission.
• The situation in South Africa seems complicated, with German support of Boer rebels.
• Second force of Canadian troops to be sent overseas will be better trained than the first bunch (now receiving additional training in their camp on Salisbury Plain.)
• Three articles recounting the tale of arctic explorers on the H.M.C.S. Karluk...


The Daily Colonist, October 25, 1914

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

A lot of interesting stuff in the paper "today" and I am a bit late getting this up.

• Front page feature map of "Extreme Left in Western Theatre" where the Germans are still unable to push forward toward the French ports on the English Channel.
• Meanwhile on the Eastern Front, the Russians have the Germans and Austrians on the run.
• Enemy aliens in Canada are becoming a "hard problem" since they cannot find work because no one will hire them and they cannot leave the country because of travel restrictions. [The "solution" will be concentration camps and forced labour building things like Banff National Park.]
• British forces in the Pacific and Africa are taking over many German colonies, securing shipping and cutting off German supplies and communication.
• American insurance companies whining about having to pay out life insurance policies on dead soldiers.
• Gilbert and Sullivan revival at Royal Victoria theatre much anticipated. Photo of cast of "H.M.S. Pinafore" featured.
• Meanwhile "The Great Question" to play at the Pantages. "The Great Question" being, "Are society women who paint their faces and dress immodestly really to pitied if they are insulted in the streets?" [This, plus last week's black face minstrel act really brings home that the some things really have improved in the last hundred years.]
• Full page feature on "The Submarine" [too much to reproduce in full]
• Scenic photos of Salisbury Plain where Canadians are camped for training, including a picture of Stonehenge.
• Half page article by Sir Ernest Shackleton on the provisioning of his trans-Antarctic expedition.
• [Amazingly patronizing] Article on the "Eskimos and Indians" living in the far north.
• The usual excellent summary of the week's events in the children's section including several events I haven't already covered [and just imagine a children's section of a newspaper today starting out with "The death of the Marquis de San Giulano" and ending with "Not so much has been heard this week about cholera in Galicia."]
• And the ads that caught my eye.


The Daily Colonist, October 24, 1914

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

• Headline "Little Ground Gained or Lost" sums up progress on the Western front. However, the article includes story of a foiled attempt to lead a British ammunition convoy into an ambush that is rather interesting.
• More praise for British troops from India, this time from the Italian foreign office in Berlin, who also go on to condemn "French black troops from Senegal" as "bloodthirsty".
• Two Sikhs arrested in Vancouver for "conspiring to procure persons to murder other persons".
• German aeroplanes chased away from Paris by French aeroplanes.
• Germans have developed a way to launch torpedoes from Zeppelins and plan to use the new technology in naval attacks on the North Sea.
• Details of the shoot-out with Sedro-Woolley bank robbers.
• Further negotiations to secure preferential lumber trade with Australia.


The Daily Colonist, October 23, 1914

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

Heavy fighting continues on both fronts. Line on the Western front are largely unchanged. On the Eastern front Germans have been repulsed from Warsaw by Russians.

• Indian troops fighting for the British Empire lauded by Lord Crewe, Secretary of State for India.
• Turkey still not officially in the war, but Germans are running the government and in control of the forts.
• Sedro-Woolley bank robbers caught in a gun-fight just north of the border from Blaine. Two of the robbers killed, one immigration officer killed.
• United States imposes a 15% duty on lumber with no warning to B.C. producers.
• Two new battalions to be raised and trained, one in Victoria and one in Vancouver.
• "Members of German and Austrian birth and parentage" are barred from a London golf club.
• Flooding from a typhoon a couple days ago is hampering Japanese and British advance on German fort at Tsing Tau.
• Full page ad for "Made In Victoria Fair"
• Cute Hallowe'en ad.


The Daily Colonist, October 22, 1914

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

• Panoramic view of River Aisne
• Germans planning aerial raid on London. London preparing.
• Evidence that Germans had been laying foundations for gun emplacements near Dunkirk before the war started.
• Evidence that Germany established a supply and communications network in Russian Poland before war started.
• Sedro-Woolley bank robbery suspects arrested in Burnaby
• Internments of "enemy aliens" beginning in England [Canada won't be far behind]
• Quarter page ad urging merchants to push "Made in Canada" goods.
• Ad for gasoline at 18¢ per gallon [that's about 3.9¢ per litre]
• Fantastically illustrated quarter page ad for Fry's Cocoa


The Daily Colonist, October 21, 1914

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

German attempts to advance along the coast of Belgium toward the English Channel continue to not go well. Serbians have taken forts in Sarajevo (and even though that's were the war started, it does seem like a side-show now.)

• An estimated two million Belgians are refugees outside Belgium
• Body washed ashore near Carmanah
• Bomb explodes in Montréal.
• Proposal to build "airships of all types" in Victoria.
• Miss Frankie Seigel, "first-rate blackface comedian of the Bert Williams type" to perform at Pantages Theatre.
• "More Reports of Atrocities" by Germans at length and in gruesome detail.


The Daily Colonist, October 20, 1914

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

• German advance toward French ports on the English Channel still stymied.
• Hundreds of thousands of Belgian refugees in England and Netherlands. Those still in Belgium facing starvation.
• Trade negotiations for British Columbia to provide lumber to Australia at a preferential within-the-Empire rate going well.


The Daily Colonist, October 18, 1914

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

• Map showing current lines of the Western front.
• Summary of the current state of the war
• Boer rebellion
• Armed bank robbers in Sedro-Woolley
• Naval fighting on Lake Nyassa [Lake Malawi]
• Summary of the weeks events in the Children's section of the Sunday magazine


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