mbarrick | Dec. 19th, 2014

Dec. 19th, 2014

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

Germans planning to establish submarine base at Zeebrugge (the port city of Bruges/Brugge) for the purpose of attacking England.
Recruitment rates in St. John's,\240Newfoundland highest of all colonial cities. Second only to Liverpool in the Empire.\240
Eighteen "super-Zeppelins" under construction for attack on England in the spring.
Two British aviators rescued from the waters of the North Sea after engine failure when returning from bombing run over Belgium.
[Not too big to fail] Bank of Vancouver suspends business after run on deposits precipitated by nervousness over the failure of the Dominion Trust Co.
Letter from Canadian intimates that some Canadian troops may be deployed in Egypt.
Another article about the popularity of "film plays" at the Royal Victoria Theatre.\240
Bank of Montreal takes full-page to run their annual report
Bank of Quebec uses just of two full columns for their annual report
Small banks run ads riding on the fact that this is clearly the day for annual reports and bank news.
And just a reminder that notices for the mandatory registration of aliens from Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire run every day, and anyone not registering by December 21 will be liable to arrest as a prisoner of war.

https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist57y4uvic\240

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Source: http://www.mbarrick.com/blog/141215/daily-colonist-december-15-1914

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

A quick skim over the headlines would have you thinking the war was going extremely well for the Allies, for example:

"Now Stronger Than Germans" - Claims that Allies now have superior numbers in both men and artillery and are making advances all along the Western front, but goes on to talk of the Germans still mounting "stubborn resistance to attempted advances" and the Austrians pushing the Russians back out of the Carpathians (although not doing so well in Servia [Serbia].)
"Germans Driven from Tenches" - Seems fantastic, until you get to the subheading that the advance near Ypres is measured in yards and is only roughtly half a kilometer.\240
German casualties, not including Austrians, estimated at 1.2 million. Germans reported as referring to Bavarians as\240Kanonenfutter (which the paper translates as "food for cannon")
Austrians claim "Hungary may be regarded as cleared completely of Russians". Russian commander-in-chief is unconcerned by set-back.\240

https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist57y5uvic

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Source: http://www.mbarrick.com/blog/141216/daily-colonist-december-16-1914

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

BIG deal today: "For the first time in centuries, England has been stuck by a foe."\240German ships shelled the English ports of Scarborough, Whitby and Hartlepool yesterday.\240The entire front page is devoted to it, with pictures of the three towns, including the famous Whitby Abbey that was the inspiration for Carfax Abbery in Bram Stoker's novel\240Dracula.

Casualty estimates at press-time are 119 killed and 130 injured, with most of the casualties being civilians and most of the civilians being women and children. The shelling destroyed many homes, three active churches hit, the gas-works and a lumber yard at Hartleford set on fire, and the ancient abbey at Whitby struck.

[I've reproduced several different articles covering the story, thus dispensing with my usual one-bullet-per-clipping format.]

In other news:

French accuse Liberia of breaching neutrality and aiding Germans, refers to the country as "this phantasmagoria of a nationality wedged into our African colony." [Liberia is in the news lately because an Ebola epidemic, was in 1914 one of only two countries in Africa not under a European government. The coastal countries of Liberia and the neighbouring British colony of Sierra Leone are surrounded on the landward sides entirely by French colonial territories. Liberia is unique in being founded as a colony of the United States that became an independent republic in 1847. The American colonists that made up the ruling class in Liberia at the time were predominantly made up of freed American slaves. Somewhat ironically, indigenous Africans of the area were not given Liberian citizenship until 1904.]\240
News from the Continental fronts, normally on the front page, is relegated to the third page by the news from England. This includes ["O.K. for us to do, but damn those filthy Huns for doing it to us"] news of British ships shelling villages on the Belgian coast.
Residents of the Ottoman province of Palestine are being required to supply a sack of grain and tin of food to the army and shoemakers forced to supply 100 pairs of boots at no cost.
An editorial covering the history, beauty and significance of Whitby Abbey
Much like the sustained propaganda of short articles of German atrocities, short articles of "Turkish Outrages" are now appearing, including the Palestinian levy already mentioned and this article on the mistreatment of Christians and British subjects in Greece.
"Made in Canada" promotions continue, this one pointing out that there is absolutely no reason for Christmas presents to be anything but Canadian-made goods.
¾-page "Buy in Victoria" ad, shared by several Victoria business and featuring a neat little list "by a Victorian" of reasons to buy locally.\240

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Source: http://www.mbarrick.com/blog/141217/daily-colonist-december-17-1914

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

News of the shelling of the English coast dominates the front page again, but not as entirely as yesterday.\240

Pictures of specific buildings damaged in the attack, including Whitby Abbey.
Lead article details current casualty counts and lists the names of those confirmed dead and identified. Confirmed dead count so far is 85, with 47 of those being women and children. It is expected that the final count my reach 100 dead and over 250 injured.
Reaction in Britain is not fear, but anger, in keeping with H. G. Well's prediction of how the English would react to an invasion that was published on November 27.
Another article recounts stories of people in Hartlepool killed while going about their business.
On the Russian front, both Russia and Germany are claiming victories in Poland.
A detailed account of the naval battle off the Falkland Islands that was reported December 10 where three German cruisers were sunk.
The British Empire officially proclaims Egypt as a British Protectorate and refutes any claims of the Ottoman Empire to the country.
A reprinting of the official German report of the attack on the English coast.
King Albert of Belgium thanks Canadians for aid sent to Belgium.
An editorial titled "The Right to Work" on the rejection of a minimum wage law in Minnesota as unconstitutional says, "Has a state\240[meaning a government] authority to limit the right of individuals to enter into contracts of any kind? We think it has," and goes on to say,\240"The state [meaning a government] clearly has the right to protect men against themselves in any way the public interest requires." And concludes that "the principle that a minimum wage cannot be fixed because it is an interference with the rights of individuals to enter into contracts, seems to be a strained application... of the Constitution of the United States." [It is more that a little disheartening to see a conservative newspaper editor from 1914 is more liberal regarding labour laws than the average labourer of 2014.]
\240Another editorial [where the conservative opinion of 1914 is completely at odds with what the Conservative Party of Canada would have you believe is "conservative" in 2014] called "Conquest of Canada" warns about foreign [at this time predominantly American, but could now be applied to both the United States and China] business interests undermining Canadian industry, and lays out what Canadian industry must do to not undermine itself.
Broughton Strait, which was closed November 12, is reopened.
A letter to a Victorian from a friend in Hartlepool on November 2 is printed since it talks about how there was concern about a German attack on the English coast and preparations being made over six weeks before the attack two days ago.

https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist57y7uvic

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Source: http://www.mbarrick.com/blog/141218/daily-colonist-december-18-1914

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

[The freaking-out over the German shelling of three English coastal cities is now over, and the news has returned to "normal". The news from the western front is the same—fighting near Ypres, British ships shelling the coast, all with gains and losses measured in yards. Meanwhile on the eastern fronts the news from Germany, Austria, Russia and Serbia is full of contradictions, with both sides claiming victories. The interesting news from abroad is what was exotic in 1914: technology, the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East, Africa, and the Far East. There are also some local stories "today" that are interesting.]

News of a "flotilla" of aeroplanes on a bombing run in Germany
The British administration appoints a new Sultan of Egypt, displacing the Ottoman Khedive. France, which had tried to conquer Egypt at the beginning of the\24019th\240century, relinquishes all claims and recognizes the British protectorate, with the British reaffirming their acknowledgement of the French protectorate of Morocco.
The kings of Norway, Sweden and Denmark meet to align their foreign policies regarding the war.
[Meanwhile, on the moon] Fighting on the boundary of British Nigeria and German Cameroons [Cameroon] with the British getting control of a railway in the German colony.
Hearsay filler story that it is being reported in Germany that Germany has annexed Canada [which is really just propaganda for Canadians to feel like the news form the British Imperial and Canadian Dominion governments is trustworthy.]
Japan strongly considering keeping former German territory in China, claiming that the deal to return the territory to China was contingent on Germany giving up Tsing Tau and the surrounding territory without a fight.
[A story about Galt, Ontario officially incorporating as a city that is interesting for the dateline: "BERLIN, Ont. Dec. 18.—"Berlin" is Kitchener, ON. The city will be changing its name because of this war.]
The Canadian Northern Railway is to be billed for work needed to clear Hell's Gate of rubble from a landslide caused by C.N.R. construction blasting. The landslide and blockage was cleared by government for fear that it would adversely impact the Fraser salmon run.
The passenger ferry to Nanaimo from Vancouver, C.P.R. "pocket liner" Princess Patricia, accidentally backed into another ship while leaving [these ferries left from the C.P.R. wharf which was pretty much exactly where the Olympic torch sits now. Where Cordova Street runs through that part of town now is where the cliff-face of the natural waterfront was and the tidal flats were built up as a railyard in the 1880's. The tunnel that the SkyTrain uses now was dug in the 1930's so trucks could move between the C.P.R. wharves in Coal Harbour and the railyards on False Creek without having to deal with downtown traffic.]
Meeting of Irish in New York shows strong anti-English feeling and support for Germany.\240
Mandatory registration for subjects of German, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire is extended to December 31.\240
Alien registration notice in the classified section reflects the new deadline mentioned in the above noted article.

https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist57y8uvic

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