The Funnies - Ten Years Ago

"Gosh! It seems ten years ago!"

The Judge Magazine, July 1920

Merry Christmas from 1918

A Merry Christmas from a hundred years ago. Funny how times have changed. It's hard to imagine a card shop or mega-mart stocking war-themed Christmas cards nowadays. Sure, you'll find the requisite patriotic one here and there (still rare), but actually mentioning an ongoing conflict? I can't imagine it. Maybe that's just the view from a generation privileged enough to have the choice not to experience any of the ongoing armed conflicts. These are different days.

So, Merry Christmas everyone everywhere. Put on the Bing Crosby or Judy Garland version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and really listen to the lyrics. Understand that it's a song written to those who are far away, fighting a war that seems endless...understand the singer doesn't know if they'll ever see their loved one again. May we all have a Merry Little Christmas...if the fates allow.

The Funnies: World War I Santa (1917)

"What's the matter with having Santa Claus make his entrance in one of them tanks?"

An odd combination this Monday. Santa arriving on a tank is a byproduct of World War I and the emergence of all things mechanized. Nothing jolly about being a "tanker" in the Great War. Their insides were cramped, deafeningly loud, internal temperatures frequently rose above 120 degrees, and their armor wouldn't turn German artillery. Nothing merry about having a German '88 detonate your fuel and armaments while you're sealed inside, I'll wager.

Throne to the Dogs - 100 Years Ago Today

The life of a king isn't all it's cracked up to be, well, at least sometimes. In the case of two kings of the 1920's, Alexander I of Greece and Christian X of Denmark, the problems that trouble the royal head manifested in very different ways.

Alexander I's father, Constantine I, was a supporter of his brother-in-law, Kaiser Wilhelm II, in his war against the allied forces. This stand put him at odds with his prime minister who wanted to join the British, French, and Russians in support of Greek minorities in the Ottoman Empire in hopes of territorial gains. This split resulted in the formation of a parallel government. In July 1916, arsonists set fire to the Tatoi Palace and the royal family narrowly escaped with their lives. Constantine surrendered his power on June 10, 1917 and entered self-exile while maintaining the crown. The Allies selected Alexander as the man to assume the crown, he was their third choice as new monarch, owing to other candidates' German leanings or unwillingness to take on the role.

Imagine the fate of a king, installed by conquerors, stripped of power, and told by his father that he held the crown in trust only. Alexander's family departed for exile, leaving him at the Tatoi Palace surrounded by supporters of the prime minister who'd engineered his family's downfall. The Greek revolutionaries and Allies didn't like him, the palace was staffed with anti-royalists and enemies of the former king, and the king's ministers openly called him the son of a traitor to Greece. Alexander was surrounded by enemies and spies and a virtual prisoner in his own palace.

A day after assuming the crown, Alexander revealed what would become known as his scandal. He had been involved with a woman named Aspasia Manos, a Greek commoner, whom he wanted to marry. On his way to exile, Alexander's father made him promise to hold off on the wedding until the end of the war, however isolation led him to disobey this order. It would take the aid of Aspasia's brother-in-law and three attempts before the couple was secretly joined on November 17, 1919. The kings prime minister leaked news of the wedding and Aspasia was forced to leave Greece, finally ending up in Paris. Six months later Alexander was allowed to join her there, but the couple were forbidden to attend public events together.

The couple were allowed to return to Greece in 1920 and, though their marriage was legalized, Aspasia would not be granted the title of Queen. On October 2 of that same year, Alexander was bitten by a monkey and contracted septicemia and was dead by October 25th.

The crisis faced by King Christian X of Denmark wasn't one of love, but pride. Christian was an authoritarian ruler who strongly believed in the rights and powers of royalty. In the wake of World War I, Denmark was faced with the question of how to handle the reunification between Denmark and Schleswig which had been a Danish fiefdom before the war. Denmark had lost the region to Prussia during the Second War of Schleswig in 1864 and Germany's defeat offered an opportunity to bring the territory under Danish rule.

The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that the fate of Schleswig be determined by two votes: one in northern Schleswig and another in central Schleswig while southern Schleswig would remain German owing to its overwhelmingly ethnic German population. The result put northern Schleswig in Danish control while the central region voted to remain German. Danish Prime Minister Carl Theodor Zahle determined that reunification with northern Schleswig should go forward with the central and southern regions remaining part of Germany, but settling the matter wouldn't be so easy.

King Christian sided with Danish nationalists who desired to see Germany permanently weakened after the war and ordered the Prime Minister to break up the central region, ceding key parts to Denmark. The Prime Minister, citing the fact Denmark had been a parliamentary democracy since 1901 refused to carry out the king's orders and resigned within days. In the wake of Zahle's resignation, the king dissolved parliament and attempted to put a "temporary caretaker cabinet" in place which leaned toward his conservative, royalist sentiment. Demonstrations and a nearly revolutionary atmosphere mushroomed in Denmark and it seemed the monarchy would topple until the king reversed course, opened negotiations with Social Democrats, and eventually stood down, dismissing the government he'd installed and putting a compromise cabinet in place until elections were held later in the year. This stumble would become known as the Easter Crisis of 1920 and would be the last time a Danish monarch took political action without the full support of parliament. Fortunately for King Christian, his actions in World War II would return the shine to the Danish crown.

Throne to the Dogs

King of Greece (to Danish King) - Yes, these are rotten times for men in our line.

Two different kings and two very different problems, but both show up in the same cartoon. Appearing in the July 1920 issue of The Judge Magazine, King Alexander and Christian are depicted sharing their royal woes on a train ride. 

100 Years Ago - Unicycle Dispatch

100 years ago a large swath of Europe had been reduced to a trench-marred killing zone and German bombers had brought the war to London as World War I ground on toward its eventual and inconclusive end. Minds turned toward mechanized warfare, concocting ideas both horrible and ridiculous. In an era before the walkie-talkie, battlefield communication relied upon a combination of semaphore, flares, whistles, and written messages delivered by dispatch. Commanding officers, often located miles from the front, had to rely on outdated and often inaccurate information when making important decisions, adding to the stalemate that symbolized much of World War I.

With this problem vexing military minds, the same fervor for mechanized warfare that had militarized the biplane and created the tank awkwardly pivoted toward improving communication. It would be over twenty five years before reliable two-way radio communication came to the military, so the natural answer seemed to be increasing the efficiency and speed of the dispatch and thus the September of 1917 Popular Mechanics ran this cover.

Popular Mechanics called its big idea "The Unicycle Dispatch Rider" (in spite of the illustration clearly showing two wheels), a machine which essentially amounted to an inverted, prop-driven, velocipede. The idea never took off for a pretty basic reason - trench warfare developed to shelter fighting men from the raking fire of another World War I invention, the machine gun, and riding a big unicycle would be a little like strapping on a big target. Besides, the landscape of the front with its sandbags, shell craters, barbed wire, and other obstacles didn't make for much of a bike path.

Regardless, I like the steampunk feel of the cover, it kind of has a Jules Verne/H. G. Wells feel that speaks to the sci-fi writer in me.

The Funnies - Special Edition: Happy Armistice Day

"Joe, don't this remind you o' the night when the outfit was movin' up to the front in Argonne?"

"Yes. Only - you an' me had a job then, Jim."

Life Magazine, 1920

100 Years Ago: The Black Tom Bomb

Morgan, in Philadelphia Inquirer
"Under the Stars and Stripes"

On a quiet morning in 1916, hours before dawn, New Yorkers woke to an explosion that shattered windows in Manhattan, could be heard as far away as Philadelphia and southern Connecticut, and measured 5.5 on the Richter scale. In fact, the reason you can't go into the torch of the Statue of Liberty today is owing to damage from shrapnel from this very explosion. The source was a tiny island  with a name that could have come right out of a pulp magazine. Black Tom Island was a munitions dump and shipping facility from which ammunition was shipped to the allies in Europe to support their efforts in World War I. At 2:08 AM on Sunday, July 30th, German agents detonated over 2 million pounds of ammo.

Initially, theories about the cause of the explosion abounded, but it didn't take long for the press to latch onto the idea of German sabotage. Kaiser Wilhelm and his government's denied any involvement, but there was no turning American sentiment. Within a a year the U.S. would enter the war on the side of the Allies and the die would be cast.

It would be 1939 before a joint German-American commission, analyzing the evidence, would come to the conclusion that Germany had actually supported the attack. Of course, by that time a certain Adolf Hitler was in charge of the Fatherland and he wasn't exactly inclined to pay reparations to Germany's old enemy. Reparations wouldn't come until 1953 when World War II had ended and the German economy had been taped back together. The final payment arrived in 1979 and the first "worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil" was brought to a close.

100 Years Ago - Beer, Bread, and Prohibition

The Price of a Pint
"As far as I can make out from the papers, Bert, the breweries seem to 'ave been
'ard 'it by this blinkin' war."

In 1916, while World War I was churning the fields of Flanders into blood-soaked poppy fields, the beer-soaked pubs of England were under siege by the British parliament. In a rationing move then Prime Minister, Lloyd George, implemented the Output of Beer Act of 1916 which cut England's production of beer and raised the per-barrel duty on brewers. Since then, various people have tried to link this action with a hidden prohibition agenda, however no conclusive evidence has ever emerged. In 1916 there may have been grumblings about the rationing of beer and higher prices, but in 1919 these would erupt into civil unrest which eventually undid the Output Act.

In 1917, though, the cartoonist Captain Bruce Bairnsfather, who'd served with a machine gun regiment in France and had been mustered out of the service after suffering shell shock and hearing loss during the Second Battle of Ypres, obviously didn't feel the pains of the people. His feature character "Old Bill" puts the gripes of the brewers in prospective.

Part of me has to wonder if Samwise Gamgee's pony, Old Bill, wasn't actually a bit of J. R. R. Tolkien tipping his hat to Captain Bairnsfather since they'd both served in the trenches during the Great War.

100 Years Ago: Ominous Overtones

Let America Beware: Some Day the Sun will
Rise Above the Stars
Kladderdatsch, 1916

On August 14, 1914 Japan entered World War I, formerly declaring war on Germany at the request of the British government. For doing so, the Japanese government had been promised possession of all German colonial territories in the Pacific should the Allies win the war. Japanese forces took possession of Shandong province in China and cut off the German settlement at Tsingtao by October and went on to seize the Mariana, Caroline, and Marshall Islands.

In 1915 Japan presented China with what would become known as the Twenty-One Demands. These saw Japan as the new and most important power in the Pacific. China would become little more than a Japanese protectorate and the colonial privileges enjoyed by the European Allies and United States would be rescinded in favor of Japanese interests.

This little propaganda cartoon printed in 1916 by the German paper Kladderdatsch (a paper that would later be a major promoter of the Nazi party) was meant to stir up animosities between the U.S. and the Allies. The hope (seemed to be) that the threat to American colonial concerns in China and the Pacific would be enough to fracture the alliance and stop arms shipments to Europe. Instead, the Twenty-One Demands proved so unpopular with the Allies that Japan withdrew the final group of them, leaving colonial possessions in the Pacific and China in tact until World War II. The damage done to the Japanese reputation, though, was irreversible...they had become a naval power, but would never have the close relationship with Europe they'd enjoyed before. Strange how, in a way, Kladderdatsch predicted the eventual strike on Pearl Harbor, though...

The Funnies - Special Edition: Happy Armistice Day

"Do ye favor this here soldiers' bonus?"

"Well, it's like this: if I sh'd fall into the crick and you'd pull me out so'st I wouldn't drown, and I'd offer ye a dollar and a half with ten per cent off fer cash, wot'd ye think o' me?"

Life Magazine, 1922

National War Garden Commission - Over the Top

Another clipping from James Lantos' Halloween book, this time a World War I visit to the Victory Garden. Charles Lathrop Pack came up with the idea of the Victory Garden in March of 1917 as a way to increase food production without increasing the amount of US acreage committed to the purpose of agriculture. He joined forces with the General Federation of Women's Clubs and the idea was publicized through newspapers and propaganda posters such as the one shown above. Figures are sketchy, but the estimated food value of crops raised in War Gardens in 1917 was 350 million dollars and 525 million in 1918. I think this poster is the first time I've seen a turnip take a bullet for the cause of freedom.

Indy 500 - Eddie Rickenbacker

When you hear Eddie Rickenbacker's name, your mind turns skyward, borne aloft by canvas and balsam into the dawning of aerial combat. Rickenbacker was a Medal of Honor recipient, America's most decorated ace, and an emblem of those daring young men in their flying machines that inspired a generation to take to the skies. But when World War I came to a close and the parades were over, what's a flying ace to do? Well, quite a bit, actually.

On November 1, 1927, Rickenbacker purchased the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, beginning a decade during which the flying ace would oversee improvements to the facilities. He continued to run the Speedway up until the beginning of World War II after which he sold the track to the Hulman family.

World War I: The First Zeppelin Raid on Britan

Early Zeppelins

In January of 1915 the average British citizen read about the battles slogging on in France and Belgium in the daily papers with interest, doubtless worried for the well-being of their loved ones who were across the channel and, maybe, the future of the Empire. But the artillery and machine gun fire existed only in their imagination. Like the specters of an M. R. James Christmas ghost story, the horrors of war described by the papers haunted their nighttime hours and lurked at the edges of their minds in idle moments. That was until January 19, 1915 when the monstrosity of war became all too real.

In 1909 Count Zeppelin had started the world's first national airline. Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft (DELAG) was founded to promote the airship as a means of travel and potential military platform. Zeppelin airships operated like flying cruise ships, offering twenty well-healed passengers at a time a new-fangled pleasure cruise aboard a faddish, innovation. But travel by airship was a dicey affair. Occasionally a trip ended in unscheduled stop when inclement weather drove the huge aircraft into the ground. Zeppelin slowly improved its design and service and, by the outbreak of the war in August of 1914, the company's airships had carried over 10000 paying passengers on over 1500 flights. As war ravaged the European countryside, the German Army and Navy equipped themselves with Zeppelin's M Class airships, capable of carrying a payload of 20100 lbs. and travelling at a (then amazing) speed of 52 mph.

Early in the war, German war planners imagined the possibility of bombing London, but technology and logistics prevented their realizing this plan. Being filled with hydrogen, the airships tended to burst into flames when hit by ground-fire. It's also important to remember that in 1914 the bomb (as we understand it) hadn't been developed. Early raiders dropped artillery shells on their targets. On the August 5, 1914 a Zeppelin bombed the city of Liege, but it was damaged by small arms fire and destroyed after a crash landing near Bonn. On the March 20, 1914 two Zeppelins successfully bombed Paris, dropping 4000 lbs. of explosives, killing one, and injuring eight.

Forewarned

Zeppelin (at "The Fat Boy"): "I wants to to make your flesh creep!"

John Bull: "Right-O!"

Punch, November 4, 1914

The first raids on Britain would come on the night of January 19, 1915 when two Zeppelins dropped bombs on Great Yarmouth, Sheringham, King's Lynn, and the surrounding villages killing four, injuring sixteen. The Kaiser authorized raids on the London docks on February 12, 1915, but the raids were delayed until April 19 and 30th when the German Army received new P Class airships. Raids were conducted on Ipswich, Southendon, Dover, and Ramsgate in April and May killing six, injuring six, and on the last day of May the first raid against London proper resulted in 120 bombs being dropped in a line from Stoke Newington southward to Stepney and then northward toward Leytonstone.

WWI - The Price of Neutrality (1915)

British Lion: "Please don't look at me like that, Sam. YOU'RE not the eagle I'm up against."

I had a little time to turn my attention back to the Great War this morning, fortunate since I had a cartoon that is exactly 100 years old today! As of this day 100 years ago, the US was still a neutral party to the growing European conflict. Woodrow Wilson had sent out an appeal to the US people on August 17, 1914 to be "impartial in thought as well as action", a plea meant to stave off attacks from pro-war pundits within the country while he tried to beat back British encroachments against neutral trade with their enemies, Germany and Austria-Hungary. Understandably, his efforts were less than acceptable and in December of 1914 he was forced to give up the effort to use the 1909 Treaty of London as a guarantee of safety for American merchant ships and fall back on much more ambiguous international law.

On February 4, 1915 the German government announced that it would begin a submarine campaign against the allies overwhelming naval power and that, because submarine commanders would find it hard to differentiate neutral ships from those of the allies, no vessel would be safe from being torpedoed within the war zone. This move prompted a warning that Berlin would be held accountable for any US losses from Wilson, but it was vague and Washington wasn't really sure how it would handle any transgressions.

The political cartoon from the January 6, 1915 issue of Punch depicts the British Lion giving Sam the Eagle an assurance that the British rejection of US neutrality shouldn't be taken personally. It's a bit paternalistic in tone, if you ask me, but it's coming from London's perspective in a time when Empire was a real thing. The cartoonist, John Bernard Partridge, was the London born nephew of John Partridge, portrait painter to Queen Victoria. Partridge started his career as an architect before beginning a career as an illustrator. He came to Punch in 1910, replacing the magazine's chief cartoonist. The year this cartoon ran, Partridge also was designing war posters including his famous Take Up the Sword of Justice .

In 1925 Partridge was knighted. He died at the age of 84 in August of 1945.

Steampunk Saturday - The California Tank

Behold the tank as imagined by designers in California back in 1917. The design steals from the British tanks present on the battlefields of World War I with one exception, a single front wheel and armor that would make it utterly useless on the battlefield. Even the article in Popular Mechanics stated that the California design would be hopeless in a landscape of shell craters, obstacles, and trenches. Still, it does look a little like the love-child of H. G. Wells and Leonardo Da Vinci. Worthy steampunk fodder, I'd say.

The Funnies - A Taste of War (1914)

If those who bring about war were given a taste of it.

Life Magazine, October 1, 1914

A special 100 Years Ago comic from the pages of Life Magazine. History has given World War I the moniker "The Great War", but clippings of the time show a much different sentiment as men and material were fed into the meat-grinder that was trench warfare. All the patriotic songs and star-spangling can't change the fact the trenches and no-man's land of northern France was a blood-soaked killing ground for the world's youth. The sad thing is it would remain so for another four years.

I'll be airing another update on the anniversary of World War I in the near future, stay tuned!

World War I - The Outbreak of War

Punch Magazine, August 1914

The last we touched base with Austria-Hungary and their German allies, they'd sent an ultimatum to Serbia demanding untenable changes be made to avoid dire consequences. Well, it's probably not surprising that the Serbs didn't come through, they never were intended to and the Austria-Hungarian gesture was only meant to paper over the coming war. So, on July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia which prompted Russia to mobilize her troops in preparation to enter the war on the Serbian behalf.

On July 31, Germany sent a warning to the Russians, telling them to stop their troop mobilization mobilization and, after being refused, she plunged headlong into war. The Germans declared war on Russia on August 1, on France on the third, and on Belgium on the fourth. The same day as declaring war on Belgium, Germany executed a modified version of the Schlieffen Plan, a proto-blitz into France through Belgium which intended to encircle the French army on the German boarder and take France out of the conflict quickly. The effort stalled at the Belgian city of Liege where German general Karl von Bulow encountered unexpected resistance. Belgium had been guaranteed independence and neutrality under the 1839 Treaty of London, the violation of which brought Britain into the war.

France counterpunched on August 7th, the VII Corps attacked Alsace in an attempt to capture Mulhouse and Colmar with a second offensive taking place on August 14 when the 1st and 2nd Army attacked toward Sarrenbourg-Morhange and Lorraine. The Germans withdrew, inflicting losses on the French, and the bloody oscillation that would be the hallmark of World War I already was set in motion.

Steampunk Saturday - A Mask for the Dog and the Horse...

Yes, even man's best friend can be saved from gas attack with the right mask! I have to say that the top horse looks a little like some prehistoric creature, half horse and half elephant. Most of the time you think of airships and mechanical steeds, but these were pretty steampunk if you ask me.

World War I Begins: The Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum

Kaiser Wilhelm I

Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany was a long time friend and supporter of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, so it's probably not surprising he'd be shocked and angered at the assassination which took place in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. Nearly immediately he offered support to Austria-Hungary in the effort to destroy the Black Hand and those who aided in the plot against the Archduke, by which he meant Serbia. But, in this moment of angst, Wilhelm allowed himself to be persuaded to go on his annual cruse of the North Sea and he departed Berlin on July 6th. Once shipboard the Kaiser attempted to manage affairs by telegram, hurriedly returning to Berlin on the 28th of July when the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum was delivered.

The ultimatum that Austria-Hungary delivered to Serbia was intended to be untenable, a list of demands that the Serbian leadership never could stomach. The list of conditions went as follows:

1. Serbia would formally and publicly denounce the "dangerous propaganda" against Austria-Hungary and Belgrade should "suppress by every means this criminal and terrorist propaganda."
2. Suppress all publications which "incite hatred and contempt of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy" and are "directed against its territorial integrity", which essentially meant self-rule.
3. Dissolve the Serbian nationalist organization Narodna Odbrana (The People's Defense) and all other such societies in Serbia.
4. Immediately eliminate anything deemed  "propaganda against Austria-Hungary" from all school books and public documents.
5. Remove a list of officers and functionaries from the Serbian military and civil administration, the list to be provided by the Austro-Hungarian Government.
6. Install Austro-Hungarian agents within Serbia whose responsibility was the "suppression of subversive movements".
7. Try all accessories to the Archduke's assassination and allow "Austro-Hungarian delegates" to take part in the investigations.
8. Arrest Major Vojislav Tankosić and civil servant Milan Ciganović who had been named by the captured assassins as participants in the plot against the Archduke.
9. End the cooperation of Serbian authorities in the "traffic in arms and explosives across the frontier" and dismiss and punish officials in the Šabac and Loznica frontier service who Austria-Hungary deemed "guilty of having assisted the perpetrators of the Sarajevo crime".
10. Provide "explanations" to the Austro-Hungarian Government regarding "Serbian officials" who have expressed themselves in interviews "in terms of hostility to the Austro-Hungarian Government".
11. Notify the Austro-Hungarian Government "without delay" of the execution of the measures comprised in the ultimatum.

Wilhelm's reaction was enthusiastic:

"A brilliant solution—and in barely 48 hours! This is more than could have been expected. A great moral victory for Vienna; but with it every pretext for war falls to the ground, and Giesl had better have stayed quietly at Belgrade. On this document, I should never have given orders for mobilization."

What the Kaiser didn't know was that by the time he penned his endorsement of the ultimatum, the 84 year old Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary had already signed a declaration of war against Serbia and Russia had began mobilizing her troops to attack Austria in defense of the Serbians.

100 Years Ago - Riots in Sarajevo

On June 29, 1914, the war beat which would drum thousands of men and women into their graves began. Franz Joseph, Austro-Hungarian emperor and uncle of the victim, consulted his advisors on the best way to respond to his nephew's killing. He was advised to begin a military investigation and mobilize the military in preparation for a war with the Serbs. In Vienna the German ambassador delivered the message that the Kaiser would support any action the Austro-Hungarian emperor decided to take. In the meantime, under a torturous interrogation by Austrian police, the chief assassins were revealing the full extent of the plot that ended in the Archduke's death.

Before June 28th was over, Sarajevo broke out in riots, with anti-Serb violence spreading across the city with Austro-Hungarian encouragement. A mob attacked and destroyed the Hotel Europa, the largest hotel in Sarajevo (and owned by a Serb). Order was restored by mounted solders that night. In a reactionary move, the provincial Bosnian government and Herzegovina's Oskar Potiorek issued a proclamation directing the city police to "eradicate all subversive elements in this land." Posters bearing this edict were nailed up around Sarajevo and on the 29th a series of even more violent demonstrations began. There were and marches and incendiary speeches by political leaders who disappeared when they'd whipped the mob to a frenzy. Serb schools, shops, and homes were attacked, sacked, and burned and by the time the sun went down Sarajevo's governor had declared a state of siege. Order would not be restored until the bodies of Franz Ferdinand and his wife had left Sarajevo by train, but by then the war's fuse had been lit and there would be no turning back.