December 1915

At the end of 1915, the Allies are on the defensive.  On the Gallipoli Peninsula they conduct a successful evacuation of Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay, while in Mesopotamia they prepare to defend a siege at Kut Al Amara.  On the Western Front, General Haig replaces General French as Commander of the British Expeditionary Force.  In the Mediterranean a German submarine torpedoes and sinks the Pacific & Orient liner Persia, killing two Americans including the American consul in Aden.  A British armored cruiser blows up at its berth in Cromarty Firth.  In his State of the Union message to the opening session of Congress, President Wilson outlines his military preparedness policy, opposes borrowing money to pay the nation's bills, and warns against disloyal Americans.  The president remarries and goes on a honeymoon trip with his new wife.  Colonel House embarks on another diplomatic mission to Europe.  Henry Ford’s “Peace Ship” sails to Europe to stop the war, but the war goes on.

*****

General Sir Charles Monro

Having failed in their attempt to force the Dardanelles with naval forces alone, and then having failed to secure the heights on the Gallipoli Peninsula that overlook the straits, the Allies this month carried out what may have been the most challenging operation of all: withdrawing from the peninsula without suffering the extreme casualties that many had predicted.  When Lord Kitchener returned to London, he found a cabinet struggling with the recommendation of the new commander, General Sir Charles Monro, endorsed by Kitchener before his departure, to evacuate Gallipoli and abandon the attempt to force the Dardanelles.  On December 7, a final decision was made to withdraw from Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay but to maintain the Allied position at Cape Helles in order to restrict the use of the straits by German U-boats.

Retreat in the presence of enemy forces is a difficult operation under the best of circumstances, and the Allies' circumstances at Gallipoli, with the sea at their backs, the Turks close at hand, and large quantities of troops, animals, supplies and equipment to load onto small craft within easy range of enemy artillery, made an Allied withdrawal an extremely risky operation.  Nevertheless the evacuation of Suvla and Anzac, which began on December 18, appears to have been an unqualified success, accomplished without any casualties and minimal loss of equipment and provisions.

General Townshend

British forces are also retreating in Mesopotamia.  After initial successes at Basra and Kut Al Amara, their further advance toward Baghdad was halted last month at Ctesiphon.  General Townshend, whose lines of supply and communication were over-extended, returned to Kut where Turkish forces have begun a siege.

General Haig

General Sir john French has been commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium since the war began.  He was subject to criticism for his conduct of military operations, especially the Battle of Loos in September, and was a central figure in the shell controversy earlier in the year.  On December 15 the government announced that French would be relieved of his command at his own request.  His replacement is General Sir Douglas Haig, commander of the British First Army.  French will be elevated to the peerage as a viscount and assigned to command British forces in the United Kingdom.

On December 1, in a rare bit of good news for the Allies, Italy agreed that it would not enter into a separate peace.


 

Secretary of State Lansing

Relations between Austria-Hungary and the United States hit a new low this month, but appeared to recover somewhat as the month ended.  The American State Department lodged a strong protest against the sinking of the S.S. Ancona last month by a surfaced submarine flying the Austrian flag.  Nine Americans died as the submarine captain not only failed to provide for the safety of the passengers before sinking the Ancona, as international law requires, but opened fire on passengers as they were abandoning ship.  The note, drafted by Secretary of State Lansing and dispatched on December 6, demanded a prompt disavowal, punishment of the submarine captain, and an indemnity.  It used stronger language ("inhumane," "barbarous," "outrage," "wanton slaughter") than any of the notes sent to Germany protesting the sinking of the Lusitania and Arabic.  Austria-Hungary's reply challenged the American note on virtually every assertion, asking for more information about the Americans on board, the names of witnesses and why their testimony should be more believable than that of the submarine commander; and challenged the United States to specify "the particular points of law" it relied on.

The United States responded with a second note, sent to Vienna on December 19.  It stated that the facts already known and admitted were "sufficient to fix upon the commander of the submarine which fired the torpedo the responsibility for having wilfully violated the recognized law of nations and entirely disregarded those humane principles which every belligerent should observe in the conduct of war at sea."  Accordingly, it said the United States "does not feel called upon to debate" the evidence or the principles involved, and renewed the demands made in the December 6 note.  When he handed the second note to Charge d'Affaires Baron Zwiedinek (in charge of the Austrian Embassy since Baron Dumba's expulsion in September), Lansing let it be known that the reply to the first note had made a bad impression.  His firm tone had the desired result.  Austria-Hungary's reply, forwarded to Washington on December 31, agreed to an indemnity and conceded that the incident is "from a humane standpoint, deeply to be regretted."  It said the submarine commander had been punished appropriately for not taking into consideration "the panic among the passengers, which rendered disembarkation more difficult."

S.S. Persia at Aden

As the Ancona crisis with Austria-Hungary was playing out, tensions between the United States and Germany have worsened.  On December 1 Secretary Lansing summoned Ambassador Bernstorff to the State Department and advised him that the German military and naval attaches, Franz von Papen and Karl Boy-Ed, were personae non gratae as a result of their involvement in espionage and sabotage activities, and thus no longer entitled to remain in the United States as members of the German diplomatic mission.  In the same meeting, Lansing expressed impatience with the lack of progress in resolving the Lusitania dispute.  By month's end, Bernstorff had received additional instructions from Berlin, and in a meeting with Lansing on December 31 Bernstorff, while repeating his government's denial of liability, offered to submit the matter to arbitration.  Whatever chance this might have had of moving the issue toward resolution was complicated by the sinking in the Mediterranean on December 30 of the British passenger liner S.S. Persia.  Two Americans, including the American consul in Aden, lost their lives.

H.M.S, Natal

Another maritime disaster took place on December 30, this one apparently not the result of enemy action.  An ammunition explosion aboard the British armored cruiser H.M.S. Natal in Cromarty Firth, near Inverness on the North Sea coast of Scotland, destroyed the ship and killed 304 sailors and civilians.

President Wilson Delivering the State of the Union Address

As required by Article I, Section 4 of the United States Constitution, the 64th Congress convened on the first Monday in December.  The next day, December 7, President Wilson delivered his annual State of the Union address.  The joint session was presided over by House Speaker Champ Clark and the President pro Tempore of the Senate, Senator James P. Clarke of Arkansas.  The President outlined his program of increases in the nation's military and naval forces, including a proposed increase in the standing army to 140,000 men with a reserve force of 400,000.  In foreign affairs, he advocated a policy of "pan-Americanism," reaffirming the Monroe Doctrine and stating that "all the governments of America stand, as far as we are concerned, upon a footing of genuine equality and unquestioned independence."  Most of the president's pronouncements were met with silence (military spending) or restrained ripples of applause ("pan-Americanism"), but there were some exceptions.  Vigorous applause greeted his statement that he was opposed to the issuance of bonds to overcome a deficit in the Treasury, saying the people of the United States did not believe in postponing the payment of their bills.  The most enthusiastic response came when he warned against disloyal Americans, denouncing foreign-born citizens who have "plotted to destroy our industries," "conspired against our neutrality," and "poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life."  He urged that "such creatures of passion, disloyalty and anarchy must be crushed out."

Prior to the opening of Congress, Senate Democrats met to consider a change in the rules to set limits on debate.  At present there is no mechanism for bringing debate to a close, so as long as a senator or senators keep the floor they can continue to speak and prevent a vote on any measure under consideration.  The proposal was voted down, 40-3.

In his annual report to Congress on December 8, Treasury Secretary McAdoo recommended increasing the recently enacted tax on incomes and suggested possible new forms of federal taxation.

Both major political parties decided this month on the time and place of their 1916 nominating conventions.  On December 7 the Democratic National Committee announced that the Democratic Convention will be held in St. Louis beginning June 14, and on December 14 the Republican National Committee announced that its convention will begin in Chicago on June 7.

 President and Mrs. Wilson

President Wilson and Mrs. Edith Bolling Galt, whose engagement was announced in October, were married December 18 in a quiet ceremony at her home on Twentieth Street in Washington.  After a buffet supper, they departed in an unmarked limousine for Alexandria, Virginia, where they boarded a private car attached to a special Chesapeake & Ohio train.  They arrived the next morning at Hot Springs, Virginia, where they are staying in a suite at the Homestead Hotel. 

Henry Ford Aboard the Peace Ship

On December 4 the Oscar II got under way from Hoboken, New Jersey, on its mission to bring peace to war-torn Europe.  The expedition was organized and promoted by automobile manufacturer Henry Ford.  Other peace activists, including William Jennings Bryan, Thomas Edison and Jane Addams, were invited to join the trip, but declined. As the Oscar II departed, former President Theodore Roosevelt called its mission "a most discreditable thing to the country," saying it was not “mischievous” only because it is “so ridiculous.”  Most American newspapers seem to agree, calling the trip "Ford's Folly" and "much adieu about nothing."  Ford left the ship on Christmas Eve in Christiana, Norway, without having made any discernible progress toward ending the war. 

Wilson and House

The president has sent Colonel House on another journey to Europe.  House left New York aboard a Dutch liner on December 28.  Before he left, he paid visits to Ambassadors Spring Rice and Bernstorff, advising them that the purpose of his trip was simply to brief ambassadors in London, Paris, Berlin and perhaps Rome.  In his report to the president before his departure, House asked for instructions and  personal messages to be relayed to the men he will meet.  In a reply written on Christmas Eve in Hot Springs, Wilson replied, "You ask for instructions as to what attitude and tone you are to take at the several capitals.  I feel that you do not need any.  Your own letters (for example, the one in which you report your conversation with Bernstorff) exactly echo my own views and purposes."

U.S.S. Ohio (BB-12) Transiting the Canal in July

The Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal last year, closed on December 4.  The Canal itself was closed in October due to landslides in the Gaillard Cut.  On December 19 it was reopened for light draft vessels only.

Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg

Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg of Germany addressed the Reichstag on December 9, replying to an inquiry from the majority Socialist Party regarding the prospects for peace.  He called attention to the recent success of the German military and the country's sound economic position, and argued that Germany could not make a peace proposal without indicating weakness.  He said that Germany was always ready to consider any peace proposals from the Entente powers that are "consistent with Germany's dignity and safety."

Yuan Shih-Kai

Yuan Shih-Kai has been president of the Chinese Republic for the last two years.  Last month the Council of State voted to change the form of government to a monarchy and asked Yuan Shih-Kai to assume the imperial crown.  On December 11 it was announced that he had decided to accept.  The announcement came as a surprise, since other powers including Japan, Great Britain and Russia had objected to the proposed change in China's form of government as prejudicial to their common interests and Yuan Shih-Kai himself had advised against the change.

December 1915 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading

Contemporary Periodicals:

American Review of Reviews, January and February 1916

New York Times, December 1915

Books and Articles:

A. Scott Berg, Wilson
Howard Blum, Dark Invasion 1915: Germany's Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America

Britain at War Magazine, The Second Year of the Great War: 1915
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt

Patrick Devlin, Too Proud to Fight: Woodrow Wilson's Neutrality

M. Ryan Floyd, Abandoning American Neutrality: Woodrow Wilson and the Beginning of the Great War, August 1914-December 1915

David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History

Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume III: The Challenge of War, 1914-1916

Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig, Decisions for War, 1914-1917

Peter Hart, Gallipoli

August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography

Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House
John Keegan, The First World War
Nicholas A. Lambert, Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War

Arthur S. Link, Wilson: The Struggle for Neutrality, 1914-1915

Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917

G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918

J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War

Barbara W. Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram   
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History

November 1915

It's November 1915.  The Serbian Army, supported by Allied forces in Salonika but overwhelmed by Austrian, German and Bulgarian attacks, retreats across the mountains to Albania, accompanied by King Peter and thousands of civilian refugees.  Lord Kitchener, Great Britain’s Secretary of State for War, makes a personal visit to Gallipoli and recommends evacuation; the newly formed War Committee of the Cabinet agrees.  A violent thunderstorm and flooding followed by snow and freezing temperatures strike the peninsula, causing severe hardship and numerous deaths among the Allied troops.  Former First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, who was demoted to a minor cabinet position in the new coalition government and is now excluded from the War Committee, resigns from the government and goes to the Western Front.  In Mesopotamia, the advance of the British Army toward Baghdad stalls at Ctesiphon and the British withdraw to Kut Al Amara.  Einstein announces his theory of general relativity.  In the Mediterranean a German submarine flying the Austro-Hungarian flag attacks and sinks the Italian liner S.S. Ancona en route from Messina to New York; nine Americans are drowned.   Woman suffrage goes down to defeat in New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.  The United States formally objects to Great Britain's interference with neutral trade, and President Wilson advocates preparedness "not for war, but only for defense."  Henry Ford will take a "peace ship" to Europe, hoping to stop the war.  In football, Harvard beats Yale and Army tops Navy.

*****

King Peter During the Retreat

The Serbian armies defending the two-front attack by Austro-German forces in the north and Bulgarian forces in the east put up a fierce resistance this month but were steadily driven back by their enemies' superiority in manpower and artillery.  On November 5 the Bulgarians captured Nis, opening the rail link between Berlin and Constantinople.  At month's end the Serbian army, accompanied by King Peter and members of his government as well as thousands of civilians and Austrian prisoners of war, was engaged in a headlong retreat into the mountains of Albania in an attempt to reach the Adriatic Sea.  French and British forces that advanced last month into Serbia have withdrawn across the border to Greece.

Lord Kitchener at Gallipoli

When General Sir Charles Monro assumed command of the Allied forces on Gallipoli in the last week of October, his first act was to respond to an inquiry from London by recommending withdrawal.  On November 11 Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, made a surprise visit to the peninsula.  After touring the Allied positions, he sent a telegram to the War Committee on November 23 in which he concurred with Monro's recommendation to evacuate Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay but suggested remaining for the time being at Cape Helles.  The War Committee referred Kitchener's telegram to the whole Cabinet, adding its recommendation that Cape Helles be evacuated as well.  Shortly after Kitchener's departure, the peninsula was struck by violent thunderstorms which made the landing of supplies impossible and caused flash floods in the gullies between the landing beaches at Suvla Bay and the Turk-occupied hills above, sweeping away machine guns and other equipment.  The torrential rain was followed by a precipitous drop in temperature, bringing snow and bitter cold that imposed additional severe hardship on the Allied troops.  Over 200 died and thousands were taken out of action by frostbite and hypothermia.  Bulgaria's entry into the war has added to the Allies' difficulties by making it easier for the Turks' European allies to supply them through the Balkans and the Black Sea.  All in all, events this month have strengthened rather than diminished the force of the recommendation to abandon the Dardanelles campaign.

Churchill with Lloyd George Last Month

Future decisions regarding the Dardanelles will be made without the participation of the man who, as First Lord of the Admiralty, first proposed the operation earlier this year.  Winston Churchill was replaced as First Lord in May when Prime Minister Asquith formed his coalition government, but he remained in the Cabinet and continued to be involved in decisions related to the war.  On November 2, Asquith made a long-anticipated address to the House of Commons in which he announced that in the future the war would be conducted by a War Committee of between three and five members.  When the membership of the Committee was announced, it did not include Churchill (the members are Asquith, First Lord of the Admiralty Arthur Balfour, Minister of Munitions David Lloyd George, Secretary of State for War Lord Kitchener, and Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey).  On November 11 Churchill resigned from the Cabinet.  In a letter to Asquith, he wrote that he "could not accept a position of general responsibility in a war policy without an effective share in its guidance and control."  He said that he leaves with "a clear conscience, which enables me to bear my responsibility for past events with composure" and predicted that "time will vindicate my administration of the Admiralty and assign to me my due share in the vast series of preparations and operations which secured us the command of the seas."  Asquith in his reply said he was "sincerely grieved" at Churchill's decision and accepted his resignation with "regret."  In an address to the House of Commons on November 15 Churchill defended his record, recalling that every decision, including the expedition to the Dardanelles, was made only after consultation with and concurrence by military experts.  On November 10, Prime Minister Asquith asked for and received an additional $2,000,000,000 in war credits, telling the House of Commons the war was costing Great Britain $21,750,000 a day.

The British Advance to Ctesiphon and Retreat to Kut Al Amara

The British Army's advance in Mesopotamia came to a halt this month at Ctesiphon, only 22 miles short of its goal of Baghdad.  An Anglo-Indian force under the command of General Charles Townshend attacked the Turkish defenses at Ctesiphon on November 21 but failed break through.  The Turks, with easy access to Baghdad, had the advantage of much shorter lines of communication and supply than the British, who were separated from the sea by 400 miles of hostile territory.  On November 25 General Townshend began a withdrawal down the Tigris River to Kut Al Amara, where he arrived at month's end and prepared to defend a siege.

 Albert Einstein

In a paper presented to the Prussian Academy of Sciences on November 28, German Professor Albert Einstein set forth a theory of "general relativity," which expands on his theory of "special relativity" published in 1905.  Together, his theories suggest laws of nature that represent a significant departure from the laws of motion and gravity set forth by Sir Isaac Newton two centuries ago.  While Newton's laws are accurate enough to explain most earthbound phenomena, Einstein argues that they fail to explain the motion of extremely large bodies and speeds approaching the speed of light.  He posits the existence of a "space-time continuum" in which not only objects but light waves and time itself are affected by gravity.

SS Ancona

An Italian passenger steamer, S.S. Ancona, was on its way from Messina to New York when it was attacked with gunfire and torpedoes and sunk in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Sardinia on November 7.  Over 200 lives were lost, including 9 Americans.  The attack was carried out by a German submarine commanded by a German officer and manned by a German crew, but because Germany is not at war with Italy it was flying the Austro-Hungarian flag.  The United States is expected to lodge a protest, but the situation is complicated by the fact that the protest must be directed to Austria-Hungary, which is not a party to last month's Arabic pledge or to any of the other diplomatic exchanges between Germany and the United States.  For that reason, it is unlikely that the Ancona sinking will bring about a significant change in either the American or German position with regard to submarine warfare.  This cartoon in Punch sums up the British view:

*****

Harriot Stanton Blatch

In the United States, woman suffrage suffered multiple setbacks this month.  Voters in New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania defeated suffrage referendums by substantial majorities on November 2, following last month's defeat in New Jersey.  Under the New York Constitution, it will not be possible for the proposal to appear on the ballot again until 1919.  In Massachusetts it can be considered again in two years; New Jersey  and Pennsylvania must wait five years.  Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, Nebraska and North and South Dakota have also recently rejected suffrage proposals.  Following the most recent defeats, one leader of the suffrage movement, Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch (daughter of pioneer suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton) defiantly announced that she will no longer waste time seeking voters' approval.  Instead she will concentrate her efforts on Congress and state legislative bodies through which she hopes to secure passage of a woman suffrage amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Manhattan Club

The Manhattan Club was founded in New York City in 1865 as a Democratic Party counterpart to the Republican Union League Club.  Since 1899 it has occupied the former Leonard Jerome mansion at the corner of Madison Avenue and 26th Street.  On November 4, over 800 members gathered at the Biltmore Hotel to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the club's founding.  President Wilson was the guest of honor, and took the occasion to outline the national defense program he will present to Congress when it convenes next month.  Advocating preparedness "not for war, but only for defense," he called for an increase in the army over the next three years to a total of 400,000 men and endorsed the naval building program announced last month by Secretary Daniels with the goal of maintaining the Navy as the nation's "first and chief line of defense."  The president emphasized that there is no need for panic or undue haste: "The country is not threatened from any quarter.  She stands in friendly relations with all the world."  Pursuing the theme of his address last month to the Daughters of the American Revolution, however, he warned his audience to be wary of "voices of Americans which were not indeed and in truth American, but which spoke alien sympathies, which came from men who loved other countries better than they loved America, men who were partisans of other causes than that of America and had forgotten that their chief and only allegiance was to the great government under which they live."

Reaction to the president's speech reflected the wide divisions in American attitudes toward the European war.  Former Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, who resigned earlier this year rather than sign a strongly worded note to Germany after the sinking of the Lusitania, denounced the proposal as overly warlike and a "menace to our peace and safety."  Former President Roosevelt was equally unhappy with the president's plan, but for very different reasons, characterizing it as a "shadow program" of "make-believe action."  He called the projected naval increase over the next five years no more than "an adroit method of avoiding substantial action in the present," and the proposed increase in the army "utterly inadequate," useful "if at all, only from a political standpoint."

Kenneth Triest

Roosevelt was instrumental in the release this month of an American citizen arrested on espionage charges in Great Britain. Kenneth Triest, a freshman at Princeton and the only son of Wolfgang Triest, a wealthy German-American engineer, left school and traveled to England in January, where he joined the Royal Navy.  He was arrested when he attempted to betray military secrets to Germany.  Imprisoned in the Tower of London, he faced the death penalty.  He was released after Roosevelt made a personal appeal for his release on the ground that he was mentally unbalanced.  On November 28 he returned to the United States with his father, who took him to Oyster Bay for a stern lecture from the former president.  In a statement to the press, Roosevelt contrasted the British government's leniency in this case with the "black horror" of the German army's execution last month of the British nurse Edith Cavell.

Ambassador Walter Hines Page

The British blockade, designed to bring Germany to her knees by interdicting supplies of war materiel and other supplies, including foodstuffs, has had an unavoidable effect on neutral trade, aggravated by the geographic proximity of many neutrals to Germany.  As the largest and most important neutral, the United States is most affected by the British restrictions and the most likely to be in a position to influence the British government.  Orders in Council and rulings by British prize courts defining contraband and enforcing the doctrine of continuous voyage have resulted in the confiscation or delay of numerous shipments from the United States to Europe, especially to neutral countries on the Baltic and North Seas.  Further aggravating the situation is the British practice of diverting and detaining ships in British ports rather than conducting searches at sea.  In a note to Great Britain, sent by the State Department to Ambassador Page in London on October 21 and delivered by him to the British Foreign Office on November 5, the United States took strong exception to "the lawless conduct of belligerents" in interfering with American trade with Europe.  Specifically, the note argues that the British policy violates two rules of international law regarding blockades: first, the rule against blockading neutral ports (in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands) and second, the rule that a blockade must be enforced effectively against all trade, and not selectively as in this case where no attempt is made to block trade between Germany and neutral countries on the Baltic.  The situation is complicated by the fact that some neutral countries, like Denmark and the Netherlands, have land borders with Germany, making it virtually impossible to cut off that trade; Amsterdam, in fact, is a major port of entry for shipments to Germany.  It is unclear what if any action the British government will take in response to the American note, and unclear what if any action the United States may take to enforce or follow up on the strong position it has taken.

Speaker Reed

A week before the convening of the 64th Congress next month, Democratic Party senators are meeting to consider adopting a rule that would modify the present Senate practice of unlimited debate.  The House of Representatives has had a cloture rule since Speaker Thomas B. ("Czar") Reed imposed one from the chair in 1890, but there is no such rule in the Senate.  Without some limitation on debate, it might be difficult to enact much of the president's program, including his proposed military expenditures.

Oscar II

Elsewhere in the United States, fires of suspicious origin broke out on November10 and 11 at several American plants manufacturing weapons, munitions and war supplies for the Allies, including the Bethlehem Steel plant in Pennsylvania (field guns) and the Roebling rope mill in Trenton, New Jersey (chains and barbed wire).  Automobile manufacturer Henry Ford announced on November 24 that he has chartered a passenger liner, the Oscar II, to carry a shipload of pacifists, himself included, to Europe to “get the boys out of the trenches and back to their homes by Christmas Day.”  The college football season ended this month, as Harvard triumphed over Yale 41-0 at Soldiers’ Field in Cambridge on November 20 and Army defeated Navy 14-0 on November 27 at the Polo Grounds.  

A View of Santa Claus Through Macy's Window

As it does every year, the Christmas shopping season began the day after Thanksgiving, the last Thursday in November.  Macy's, the large department store at the corner of 34th Street and Broadway in New York City, is advertising men's suits and overcoats for $18.75.  Saks & Co. asks $20 for its suits and overcoats, arguing that its products have "a personality which far outpoints the price."

November 1915 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading

Contemporary Periodicals:

American Review of Reviews, December 1915 and January 1916

New York Times, November 1915

Books and Articles:

A. Scott Berg, Wilson
Howard Blum, Dark Invasion 1915: Germany's Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America

Britain at War Magazine, The Second Year of the Great War: 1915
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt

Patrick Devlin, Too Proud to Fight: Woodrow Wilson's Neutrality
Thomas V. DiBacco, Black Friday Bargains, 1915, Wall Street Journal, November 27, 2015

M. Ryan Floyd, Abandoning American Neutrality: Woodrow Wilson and the Beginning of the Great War, August 1914-December 1915

David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History

Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume III: The Challenge of War, 1914-1916

Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig, Decisions for War, 1914-1917

Peter Hart, Gallipoli

August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography

Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House
John Keegan, The First World War
Nicholas A. Lambert, Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War

Arthur S. Link, Wilson: The Struggle for Neutrality, 1914-1915

Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917

G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918

J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War

Barbara W. Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram   
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History
The West Point Atlas of War: World War I

October 1915

In October 1915 the World War continues to go badly for the Allies.  General Sir Ian Hamilton, having failed to achieve his objectives at Gallipoli, is relieved of command; his replacement, General Sir Charles Monro, is asked for his opinion regarding the viability of further operations on the peninsula, and recommends withdrawal.  France gains little ground in its offensive in Champagne and Italy mounts another unsuccessful attack on the Isonzo front.  The German Army in Belgium executes British nurse Edith Cavell for assisting Allied soldiers trapped behind enemy lines.  Austria-Hungary mounts another invasion of Serbia, this time assisted by Germany.  Bulgaria chooses this moment to join the war on the side of the Central Powers; Allied forces in Salonika move to assist the Serbs.  The diplomatic crisis over the loss of American lives on the Arabic appears to be resolved as the German government "disavows" the submarine's actions and accepts liability for the death of American citizens.  French Prime Minister Rene Viviani resigns and is replaced by former Prime Minister Aristide Briand.  President Wilson, whose wife died in August 1914, announces his engagement to Mrs. Edith Galt, a Washington widow.   He advocates "America First" in a patriotic address to the DAR, and former President Roosevelt denounces “hyphenated Americans” in a speech to the Knights of Columbus.  The president announces his support for woman suffrage and votes in favor of a suffrage amendment in New Jersey, but opposes amending the federal Constitution.  Mrs. Galt lets it be known that she is opposed to women voting, and New Jersey voters apparently agree, sending the measure down to defeat.  German sabotage is uncovered in the United States.  The Secretary of the Navy announces a major shipbuilding program, landslides force the closure of the Panama Canal, and the United States formally recognizes Venustiano Carranza as president of Mexico.  A wireless voice transmission across the Atlantic is achieved for the first time in history; in addition to Paris, it is heard at receiving stations in San Francisco, Panama and Honolulu. 

*****

General Hamilton

Following the failure of his renewed offensives on the Gallipoli Peninsula, General Sir Ian Hamilton was asked for his opinion regarding the possible evacuation of Allied forces from the peninsula.  When he refused to consider the possibility, saying any such attempt would result in the loss of half his men, the government relieved him of command.  British Secretary of State for War Lord Kitchener asked the new commander, General Sir Charles Monro, for "your report on the main issue at the Dardanelles, namely, leaving or staying."  On October 31 Monro responded with a telegram recommending withdrawal.

At home, the British public continued to feel the effects of the war. German Zeppelins attacked London on October 13, killing 55 and injured 114, mostly civilians.  On October 20 it was officially announced in London that since the beginning of the war German submarines have sunk 183 merchant ships and 175 fishing vessels.

French Artillery in Champagne

On the Western Front, the fighting in Champagne was bloody but inconclusive.  German troops, augmented by forces transferred from Poland, attacked and drove the French out of La Courtine and trenches north of Massiges.  French counterattacks regained much of the lost ground, but the fighting reduced several villages to rubble.  Control of the area is considered important because of a nearby railway between Rheims and the Argonne that the Germans use to supply their trenches.

Edith Cavell

Edith Cavell, a British nurse working at a hospital in occupied Belgium, was arrested along with several others and charged by the Germans with assisting Allied soldiers trapped behind the German lines to escape to neutral Holland.  She was tried by a court-martial, convicted and sentenced to death for treason.  On October 12 she was executed by a German firing squad.  The execution took place despite a plea for clemency by the American legation in Brussels, and elicited widespread international condemnation.  An article in the London Daily News claims that the execution has been a valuable recruiting tool, adding some 10,000 to the strength of the British Army.  In response to the criticism, German Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs Arthur Zimmermann held an interview with the press in which he defended the action of the German authorities in Belgium, saying that strict enforcement of the law is necessary to ensure the security of German military forces in wartime.

Peppino Garibaldi

For the third time since Italy entered the war, Italian forces attacked Austria-Hungary along the Isonzo River.  Again they were unsuccessful.  At month's end, Italy celebrated a minor victory in the Dolomites when Colonel Giuseppe ("Peppino") Garibaldi II, a grandson of the Italian hero of the wars of unification, captured the mountain village of Panettone.

Greek Prime Minister Venizelos

War has flared again in the Balkans, where it started just over a year ago with Austria-Hungary's declaration of war on Serbia.  On October 5 a combined German and Austrian assault on Serbia began with an artillery bombardment across the Danube and Sava Rivers, followed by the crossing of both rivers on October 7 and the occupation of Belgrade on October 9.  To the south, Great Britain and France landed troops at Salonika on October 5 at the invitation of Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos.  Venizelos had encouraged the landing, suggesting that such a move would encourage Greece to join the war on the side of the Allies, but a constitutional crisis ensued when he was overruled and dismissed as prime minister by King Constantine, Kaiser Wilhelm's brother-in-law.  On October 11 Bulgaria, encouraged by the apparent failure of Allied offensives at Gallipoli and on the Isonzo, and seeing an opportunity to recover Macedonian territory lost in the Second Balkan War, cast its lot with the Central Powers and attacked Serbia from the east.  On October 14 the Allied troops at Salonika crossed the border into Serbia, but their advance may have come too late to render effective assistance to the Serbs.  Greece has now notified the Allies that it will remain neutral.

 Secretary Lansing

Ambassador Bernstorff

The crisis in German-American relations occasioned by the sinking of the Arabic and the loss of American lives appears to have been resolved.  The September 28 dispatch in which Germany agreed not to contest the claim that the submarine commander acted without provocation and offered an indemnity as a token of "friendliness" was incorporated in a formal diplomatic note, which Ambassador Bernstorff delivered to Secretary Lansing at the Hotel Biltmore in New York on October 2.  After consulting with President Wilson, Lansing let it be known that the note was unsatisfactory and that a breach in diplomatic relations might be the result.  He summoned Bernstorff to the State Department on October 5 and gave him a copy of the German note with the necessary changes penciled in.  First, the note's statement that the submarine commander had acted contrary to instructions was unsatisfactory because it was undercut if not contradicted by the additional  statement that he had good reasons for doing so.  Second, the note's statement of "regret" was not a satisfactory substitute for a disavowal.  Third, the United States would not accept an indemnity offered only as an act of grace.  Later the same day, Bernstorff returned the note with the changes requested.  As revised, the note stated that the German government "does not doubt the good faith of the affidavits of the British officers of the Arabic," and therefore concludes that the submarine's attack was contrary to instructions; it "regrets and disavows this act" and "is prepared to pay an indemnity for the American lives, which, to its deep regret, have been lost on the Arabic."  The revised note omitted Germany's previous insistence that its pledge was conditional on British behavior.  In a letter delivered with the note, Bernstorff told Lansing that "[t]he orders issued by His Majesty the Emperor to the commanders of the German submarines -- of which I notified you on a previous occasion -- have been made so stringent that the recurrence of incidents similar to the Arabic case is considered out of the question."  Bernstorff accepted Lansing's revisions without consulting Berlin, for which he received a severe reprimand from the Foreign Office.  An October 30 note from Foreign Minister von Jagow to Lansing, while approving the settlement, restated the German position in terms that bore a greater resemblance to the October 2 note than to the revised note of October 5.  Von Jagow's October 30 note has not been answered, and probably will not be, since both governments prefer to regard the matter as settled. 

The question of liability for the earlier sinking of the Lusitania, pushed into the background during the Arabic crisis, remains unresolved.  Germany may be less willing to compromise in that case because the Lusitania, unlike the Arabic, was attacked as it was en route to England, and thus more reasonably suspected of carrying war supplies.

Aristide Briand

October has been a month of political upheaval in France.  The lack of military success in Champagne, Flanders, Gallipoli and the Balkans led to a cabinet crisis that began with the resignation of Theophile Delcasse as foreign minister on October 13.  Despite having won a recent vote of confidence, Prime Minister Viviani and the entire cabinet resigned on October 28.  A new coalition government has been formed under the leadership of former Prime Minister Aristide Briand.  Every French political party will be represented in the new government.  Prime Minister Briand will also hold the Foreign Minister's portfolio, and General Joseph Gallieni will be Minister of War.  Former Prime Minister Viviani will remain in the cabinet as Minister of Justice.

President Wilson and Mrs. Galt at National League Park

United States President Woodrow Wilson, whose wife Ellen died as the World War was breaking out in Europe, will remarry this year.  On October 6 he announced his engagement to a Washington widow, Mrs. Norman Galt, the former Miss Edith Bolling.  Although the date of the wedding has not been set, it is expected to take place in December at Mrs. Galt's home.  She and the president met in March and she spent a month this summer as a guest of the president's daughter Margaret at the president's summer home in Cornish, New Hampshire.  On October 8, shortly after the announcement of their engagement, Mrs. Galt and the president visited New York, where they were followed by cheering crowds eager to catch a glimpse of the new "first lady" to be.  Following a tour of the city by automobile they were guests at a dinner given by Colonel House, after which they attended a Broadway play.  The next day they traveled to Philadelphia where they watched the second game of the World Series at National League Park.  Before the game Mrs. Galt said she hoped the Philadelphia Phillies would win, as they had the day before.  It was not to be, however: the Boston Red Sox won that game and went on to win the Series four games to one.

After returning to Washington, President Wilson and Mrs. Galt motored to Baltimore on October 10 to visit the president's brother Joseph.  As in their previous visits to New York and Philadelphia, public interest in the president and his fiancee was great, but because it was Sunday the crowds that followed them were quiet and subdued, marked by murmurs of approval rather than cheers.  As the president's party was entering Franklin Street Presbyterian Church for services, Secret Service men guarding the president stopped a foreigner who was following the president and turned him away, but released him after concluding he was not a threat.  The next day in Washington the president delivered a patriotic address to a meeting of the Daughters of the American Revolution, calling on all politicians to declare whether they were for "America First" and warning against "men who are thinking first of other countries."

In a Columbus Day speech the next day, former President Roosevelt also warned against Americans with divided loyalties.  Addressing the Knights of Columbus at Carnegie Hall, he denounced "those hyphenated Americans who terrorized American politicians by threat of the foreign vote" as being "engaged in treason to the American republic."  He repeated his call for preparedness, arguing for a system of universal service in which "the son of the multi-millionaire and the son of the immigrant who came over in the steerage [would] sleep under the same dog-tent and eat the same grub."  In a scornful reference to the popular song "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier," he said that "if the song had been popular from 1776 to 1781 there wouldn't be anyone to sing it today."

Suffragists Parade in New York City

Woman suffrage continues to be at the top of the American political agenda.  President Wilson announced this month that he supports votes for women but that he is opposed to amending the federal Constitution, preferring to leave it up to each state to decide the question on its own.  (An amendment is necessary to make woman suffrage a Constitutional right because a unanimous Supreme Court decided in 1875, shortly after the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, that nothing in the Constitution requires states to allow women to vote.)   On October 19 President Wilson cast his vote in New Jersey in favor of suffrage, but the referendum went down to defeat (only men, of course, could vote).  Before the vote, the president's fiancee Mrs. Galt let it be known that she was opposed to women voting.  A few days later, thousands of supporters of woman suffrage expressed a contrary opinion, marching up New York's Fifth Avenue from Washington Square to 59th Street on October 23.  They were cheered on by thousands of spectators who saved their most enthusiastic applause for the New Jersey delegation.  A few days later the New York County Democratic organization, known as Tammany Hall, announced that it would take no part in the woman suffrage campaign on either side of the issue.

Robert Fay

For months mysterious explosions and fires have been breaking out on American ships carrying war supplies to the Allies. On October 24 Secret Service agents arrested Robert Fay, a lieutenant in the German army, and his brother-in-law Walter Scholz.  Explosives and other material found in their apartment in a boarding house in Weehawken, New Jersey have led authorities to believe that they are responsible for designing and installing "rudder bombs" on outbound ships designed to be armed by the action of the rudder over a period of days, and then to explode and disable or sink the ship in mid-ocean.  Their effectiveness is due in large part to the ease with which they can be secretly attached to the ship's rudder post by a diver, making it unnecessary to smuggle explosives aboard the ship.

Secretary Daniels

On October 19 Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels announced a major building program that will add 185 ships to the United States Navy over the next five years and cost half a billion dollars in addition to the Navy's regular appropriation.  The program envisions the construction of 10 battleships, 16 cruisers, 50 destroyers and 15 fleet submarines between now and 1921.

The Gaillard Cut Closed by Landslides

Landslides in the Gaillard Cut (formerly known as the Culebra Cut) have forced the closing of the Panama Canal.  On October 6 General Goethals, who submitted his resignation as Governor of the Canal Zone in August, has asked to withdraw it, stating that he wishes to remain at his post indefinitely until the condition of the Canal has improved enough to permit his departure.

Venustiano Carranza

Following their declaration last month imposing a three-week deadline for the warring factions in Mexico to demonstrate that they were entitled to recognition as the legitimate government, the United States and other Latin American countries on October 19 officially recognized the Constitutionalist faction led by Venustiano Carranza.  The next day the United States imposed an embargo on shipments of arms into Mexico other than to the Carranza government.  Bandits led by Pancho Villa continue to operate in northern Mexico, making occasional raids into United States territory.

John J. Carty

The American Telephone & Telegraph Company announced on October 21 a successful transmission of the human voice across the Atlantic Ocean, from Arlington, Virginia to a receiver on the Eiffel tower in Paris, the first wireless voice transmission across the Atlantic.  A few weeks earlier there had been a successful transmission from Arlington to the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, near San Francisco, which was also heard in the Panama Canal Zone and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  The later test of a transatlantic communication, delayed due to the war in Europe, was also heard at the far-flung receiving stations on the Pacific.  John J. Carty, the company's chief engineer, traveled to France to represent the company during the experiment.  Carty was also instrumental in the establishment of the first transcontinental telephone connection, inaugurated in January by Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson, who spoke coast-to-coast almost forty years after they held the world's first telephone conversation in 1876.  (See the January 1915 installment of this blog).

October 1915 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading

Contemporary Periodicals:

American Review of Reviews, November and December 1915

New York Times, October 1915

Books and Articles:

A. Scott Berg, Wilson
Howard Blum, Dark Invasion 1915: Germany's Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America

Britain at War Magazine, The Second Year of the Great War: 1915
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt

Patrick Devlin, Too Proud to Fight: Woodrow Wilson's Neutrality

M. Ryan Floyd, Abandoning American Neutrality: Woodrow Wilson and the Beginning of the Great War, August 1914-December 1915

David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History

Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume III: The Challenge of War, 1914-1916

Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig, Decisions for War, 1914-1917

Peter Hart, Gallipoli

August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography

Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House
John Keegan, The First World War
Nicholas A. Lambert, Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War

Arthur S. Link, Wilson: The Struggle for Neutrality, 1914-1915

Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917

G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918

J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War

Barbara W. Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram   

Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History
The West Point Atlas of War: World War I

September 1915

In September 1915, one hundred years ago this month, there are few if any signs that an end is in sight to the Great War that began over a year ago.  The British and French mount major offensives on the Western Front, including the first use of poison gas by the British.  The Tsar takes personal command of the Russian Army.  Socialists meeting in Switzerland call for an end to the ongoing war between nations, to be replaced by a class war; Lenin and Trotsky are there.  The United States and Germany struggle to find common ground on the subject of submarine warfare, and the Royal Navy's blockade of Germany continues to be an irritant in Anglo-American relations.  The United States demands the recall of Baron Dumba, the Austro-Hungarian ambassador (Franz von Papen, his military attache, will become Chancellor and then Vice-Chancellor of Germany under Hitler in the 1930's).  Zeppelins drop bombs on London, and the British Landships Committee conducts its first test of an armoured vehicle designed to overcome machine guns and barbed wire.  An Anglo-French Financial Commission negotiates a large loan from American banks.  The civil war in Mexico may be coming to an end as Carranza gains the upper hand, but violence continues on the Texas border.  Subway construction causes streets to collapse in New York City, W.C. Fields makes his first motion picture, and the Grand Army of the Republic commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Civil war with a parade in Washington.

*****

 

 "Tower Bridge" at Loos 

In an attempt to relieve pressure on their Russian ally, the French and British armies mounted coordinated offensives on the Western Front on September 25.  French armies attacked German positions in Champagne while the British attacked at Loos supported by a French attack at nearby Artois.  The area around Loos is largely industrial and the land flat and featureless except for slag heaps and a pit head lift behind the town that reminded British soldiers of Tower Bridge in London, a name they promptly gave it.  Both the slag heaps and the pit head machinery provided excellent vantage points for the defending Germans.  

British Troops Advancing Through Their Own Gas

The attack at Loos was the first time the British Army has made use of the new "Kitchener Battalions" recruited since the start of the war.  It also featured the first use by the British of poison gas, the effectiveness of which was lessened by the failure of the wind at some parts of the front to carry the gas toward the German trenches and by the hesitancy of the newly recruited troops to attack through the gas cloud.  In one area a Scottish battalion was encouraged to attack by Piper Daniel Laidlaw, who strode up and down the parapet playing "Scotland the Brave" and other airs on his bagpipe.  At month's end, the Allies had made slight advances at a great cost in casualties.  Among the missing is John Kipling, only son of the famous author and poet Rudyard Kipling.

Grand Duke Nicholas

Defeats and withdrawals on the Eastern Front have significantly shortened the Russian Army's defensive lines, but have also resulted in the abandonment of Russian Poland.  On September 5, the Tsar assumed personal command of the Russian armies, relieving his uncle Grand Duke Nicholas, whom he appointed Viceroy of the Caucasus and commander of the Caucasian Army.  He told his uncle, whose authority has been undermined since the beginning of the war by Minister of War Vladimir Sukhomlinov, that "my duty to my country, entrusted to me by God, impels me to take the supreme command."

The Russian Army in the Caucasus, now commanded by Grand Duke Nicholas, is only one of several Allied armies confronting the Ottoman Empire.  British, Anzac and French troops are clinging to beachheads on the Gallipoli Peninsula, the British in Egypt face Turkish forces across the Suez Canal, and in Mesopotamia an Anglo-Indian advance toward Baghdad continued this month with the capture of Kut Al Amara on the Tigris River.

 

Trotsky (Front and Center) at Zimmerwald

Zimmerwald, a small town near Bern, Switzerland, was the site of an International Socialist Conference from September 5 through 11.  Socialist parties from across Europe sent representatives.  Among those from Russia were the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin and the former Menshevik Leon Trotsky.  At the end of the conference, the delegates issued a manifesto calling for an immediate end to the war and a class uprising in pursuit of revolutionary goals in every European country.

Ambassador von Bernstorff

The diplomatic crisis between the United States and Germany that began with the sinking of the Lusitania and intensified with the attack on the Arabic continued this month without a final resolution.  When the month began, it appeared that agreement might be near when German Ambassador Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff gave Secretary of State Lansing a copy of a letter from his government stating that submarine commanders had been instructed not to attack civilian passenger liners without warning and without providing for the safety of the lives of non-combatants, provided they did not try to escape or offer resistance.  The United States considered the undertaking regarding future conduct unsatisfactory, however, unless it was accompanied by a "disavowal" of the Arabic sinking and compensation for the loss of American lives.  On September 9, the negotiations appeared to hit an impasse when a note from the German government arrived claiming for the first time, and contrary to the available evidence, that the Arabic had been sunk in self-defense.  If the United States disagreed with that claim, the note offered to refer the dispute to the Hague Tribunal for arbitration and to pay an indemnity if the Tribunal concluded that the submarine commander had exceeded his instructions.  The American reaction, conveyed informally through Bernstorff, was strongly negative, leading Germany to take a step back.  On September 28 it agreed not to dispute the claim that the attack on the Arabic was without provocation and thus contrary to instructions, and to pay an indemnity, not as an admission of guilt but as a token of friendliness.  Still missing was the express "disavowal" upon which the American government had insisted.

Also missing, and no longer insisted upon by the United States, was any undertaking to discontinue submarine attacks on civilian merchant ships.  Germany justifies such attacks by pointing to the British blockade of all shipments of goods bound for Germany, a blockade which because of Great Britain's geographic location and superior naval forces can be enforced without submarines (and therefore without the destruction of lives and property involved in submarine attacks).  A key element of the British blockade is the "doctrine of continuous voyage," which holds that goods bound for a neutral port may nevertheless be treated as contraband if there is reason to believe that they are ultimately destined for an enemy country.  On September 16 the British prize court decided a case involving American meat products shipped to Scandinavian ports on ships sailing under Swedish and Norwegian flags that had been intercepted and their cargoes seized by the Royal Navy.  Applying the doctrine of continuous voyage, the prize court ruled that in order to prevail the American owners would have the burden of proving that none of their products were destined to enter into trade between the Scandinavian countries and Germany, a showing that was virtually impossible to make given the fact that trade between those countries and Germany is free and unrestricted.  On its side of the argument, Great Britain can point to the American Civil War, in which the countries' positions were reversed.  In that war, the United States aggressively invoked the doctrine of continuous voyage to justify seizure of British shipments en route to the Bahamas for eventual delivery to the Confederacy.

Baron Dumba and His Wife

The Arabic affair coincided with a diplomatic crisis between the United States and Austria-Hungary.  At the end of August John Archibald, an American journalist on his way to Berlin and Vienna and known to be in the pay of the German government, was arrested when his ship docked at Falmouth, England.  His luggage contained documents, intended for delivery to the German and Austrian Foreign Offices, describing in detail espionage and sabotage activities in the United States.  One document was an extensive memorandum that had been sent to the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to the United States, Baron Konstantin Dumba, outlining plans for fomenting strikes at Bethlehem Steel and other American plants manufacturing war supplies for the Allies.  Attached to the memorandum was a forwarding letter from Dumba to the Austrian Foreign Minister enthusiastically endorsing its contents.  Also in Archibald's possession were a number of letters from Dumba and his military attache Captain Franz von Papen containing insulting references to Americans in general and President Wilson in particular. On September 9, the American State Department demanded Dumba's recall.  Captain von Papen is expected to depart with the Ambassador.

Damage in the City of London After the September 8 Zeppelin Raid

During the night of September 7-8, a German Zeppelin dropped bombs that started a major fire in the City of London.  Eighteen people were killed and thirty injured.  The following night another Zeppelin attacked the Greater London neighborhoods of Holborn and Bloomsbury, hitting two motor-buses and killing twenty-two.

"Little Willie"

Trenches, barbed wire and machine guns have given the defending armies a significant advantage in land warfare as it is conducted in the present war, an advantage that has led to the present bloody stalemate on the Western Front.  When he was First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill asked whether there was some alternative to "sending our armies to chew barbed wire in Flanders."  One of his answers was to establish the Landships Committee with the mission of designing a vehicle capable of advancing against those obstacles. The Committee's work so far has resulted in the No. 1 Lincoln Machine, nicknamed "Little Willie" in sardonic reference to the German Crown Prince.  Its first test run was conducted on September 9 at the William Foster & Co.'s Wellington Foundry.

The Anglo-French Financial Commission Leaving the Morgan Library

Early in the war Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan banned American loans to belligerents on the ground that they were "inconsistent with the true spirit of neutrality," arguing that "money is the worst of all contrabands because it commands everything else."  Shortly thereafter, not wanting the United States to turn its back on the lucrative markets created by the outbreak of war, President Wilson revised Bryan's policy by drawing a distinction between making loans and extending credit for "debts incurred in trade."  This month an Anglo-French Financial Commission is in the United States to negotiate an extension of credit for the purchase of war supplies and other commodities.  On September 28 the Commission and a consortium of American bankers meeting at J.P. Morgan's library in New York announced the extension of a $500 million credit to the Allies.  The loans will be in dollars and the proceeds will remain in the United States until drawn upon to pay for purchases.  Thus Bryan's ban on loans to belligerents, as well as the distinction between loans and "debts incurred in trade," seems to have vanished along with the departed Secretary of State.  Meanwhile, another shipment of gold from Great Britain, this one valued at $30 million, arrived in New York on September 8.

U.S. Troops Guarding Mexican Bandits Captured at the Border

After defeating Villa's forces at Saltillo on September 4, Venustiano Carranza forced Villa's withdrawal from Torreon on September 18.  On the same day, he rejected a proposal of the United States and Latin American countries to mediate the dispute.  Those countries then advised each of the warring Mexican factions that they had three weeks to demonstrate control sufficient to warrant recognition, at which time each country would make its own determination.  Along the Texas border, meanwhile, fighting intensified between Mexican bandits and Texas Rangers and U.S. Army troops commanded by General Frederick Funston.

W.C. Fields in Vaudeville

The popular juggler and comedian W. C. Fields has followed Charlie Chaplin and other performers in making the transition from vaudeville to the new medium of motion pictures.  The Pool Sharks, Fields's first motion picture, was released on September 19 (click to play):

*****

Subway Collapse on Seventh Avenue

Forty-five miles of subway construction are under way in New York City using the tunneling method rather than open cuts to allow traffic to continue uninterrupted on the surface.  The limitations of that approach were demonstrated this month when subway tunnels caused streets to collapse in two locations.  In the first, on September 22, an entire block of Seventh Avenue collapsed at 24th Street, killing seven and injuring dozens more.  The second occurred on Broadway three days later, killing one and injuring three.

The Grand Review of the Union Armies in 1865 

Fifty Years Later: The Grand Army of the Republic on Parade

Twenty thousand members of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union Army veterans formed after the Civil War, marched down Pennsylvania Avenue on September 29.  The president reviewed them as they passed the White House.  The parade commemorated the Grand Review of the Union Armies held fifty years ago at the end of the Civil War.

September 1915 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading

Contemporary Periodicals:

American Review of Reviews, October and November 1915

New York Times, September 1915

Books and Articles:

A. Scott Berg, Wilson
Howard Blum, Dark Invasion 1915: Germany's Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America

Britain at War Magazine, The Second Year of the Great War: 1915
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt

Patrick Devlin, Too Proud to Fight: Woodrow Wilson's Neutrality

David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922
Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History

Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900-1933
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Volume III: The Challenge of War, 1914-1916

Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig, Decisions for War, 1914-1917

Peter Hart, Gallipoli

August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography

Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House
Michael Kazin, A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan
John Keegan, The First World War
Louis W. Koenig, Bryan: A Political Biography of William Jennings Bryan
Nicholas A. Lambert, Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War

Arthur S. Link, Wilson: The Struggle for Neutrality, 1914-1915

Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917

Robert K. Massie, Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea

G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918

J. Lee Thompson, Never Call Retreat: Theodore Roosevelt and the Great War

Barbara W. Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram   

Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History
The West Point Atlas of War: World War I