Hero gets monument 81yrs after death

From the Canadian Press: Hero gets monument 81yrs after death

Canadian Lt.-Col. William Barker, Canada's most decorated war hero, is shown in a 1918 file photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ National Archives of Canada/ SwaineEight decades after his death, Canada's most decorated war hero was recognized with the unveiling of a monument at a Toronto cemetery today.

First World War flying ace William Barker downed 50 enemy aircraft and received the Victoria Cross after being shot three times when he found himself alone in a dogfight against 15 German planes.

But few Canadians are likely familiar with his exploits, which were largely overshadowed by legendary flying ace Billy Bishop.

This afternoon, Barker finally got his due as Ontario Lt-Gov. David Onley and members of Barker's family dedicated the monument.

Two vintage First World War planes, including the Sopwith Snipe, a type of plane Barker flew, conducted a flypast during the ceremony at Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

The only evidence of Barker's final resting place had been a small marker inside his wife's family crypt at Mount Pleasant, where his remains have been hidden away since his death.

Ian Mackenzie, Barker's grandson, says it's about time his grandfather was properly recognized.

"He shouldn't have been hidden away in the private crypt of this family," Mackenzie, who attended the ceremony with his brothers Alec and David, said prior to the event. "They should have built a public monument for him. So this is kind of our duty, we felt for a long time and we're finally accomplishing it."

Barker's father-in-law, a member of Toronto's high society at the time, didn't think much of the upstart farmer from Manitoba who married his daughter, and that may have impacted his burial place, said Mackenzie.

The idea of a Barker monument was first raised by Ipsos Reid pollster John Wright, who in 2009 contacted the flying ace's family and Lt.-Gov. David Onley about getting a monument erected after he saw Barker's understated final resting place.

In addition to his bravery as a pilot, there are other reasons Barker deserved proper recognition, said Wright.

"He had 50,000 people at his funeral, was able to start the island airport, had the first commercial airline ... the first president of the Toronto Maple Leafs and he's buried in a crypt that says Smith and no one knows who he is," said Wright.

MPLS, MN: All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914 Plays the Pantages 12/15-18

From Broadway.com: All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914 Plays the Pantages 12/15-18


All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914, the moving production which has become a new holiday classic and an annual tradition for theatregoers, will return for six performances only, Thursday through Sunday, December 15-18, 2011 at the Pantages Theatre, 710 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis. With words and songs drawn from the era, All Is Calm recalls the remarkable, spontaneous World War I truce between Allied and German forces in No Man's Land over Christmas 1914. This compelling ode to peace was created by Theater Latté Da's artistic director Peter Rothstein and features Cantus, one of America's finest vocal ensembles, with musical arrangements by Erick Lichte and Timothy C. Takach. All Is Calm is a collaboration among Cantus, Theater Latté Da and Hennepin Theatre Trust. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m., Friday, Sept. 23. To purchase and for more information visit HennepinTheatreTrust.org.

All Is Calm relates an astounding moment in history when Allied and German soldiers laid down their arms to celebrate the holiday together by trading carols, sharing food and drink, playing soccer and burying each others' dead. In some places the truce lasted only a night, in others until New Year's Day. This dramatic re-telling contains quotes and readings from thirty World War I figures brought to life by actors Matt Rein, David Roberts and Alan Sorenson. The tapestry of sound performed by the artists of Cantus ranges from patriotic tunes and trench songs to medieVal Scottish ballads and holiday carols from England, Wales, France and Germany. The production opens with a set of carols arranged by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams for his own battalion.

Rothstein, who worked five years to develop All Is Calm, said "I wanted to tell the story in their words, so I created the drama primarily through found text including letters, official war documents, autobiographies, World War I poetry, grave stone inscriptions and even an old radio broadcast. I was able to spend time along the Western Front and conduct extensive research in Brussels, Ieper, Paris and London. It was incredibly powerful to stand on the very spot where this extraordinary happening took place. For decades, the Christmas truce was considered a romantic fable, however there is no doubt thousands of courageous men took part in this remarkable event."

Said musical arranger Erick Lichte, "All Is Calm allows Cantus to sing Christmas carols that everyone knows and loves, but when set in the context of trench warfare, take on a new poignancy. Music was an important part of life in the trenches and one of the primary factors that instigated the truce."

The world premiere of All Is Calm was broadcast live on Classical Minnesota Public Radio and has since been heard around the globe through American Public Media and the European Broadcast Union. The program won the Gold World Medal at the 2010 New York Festivals and the 2010 Gabriel Award, which honors works of excellence in broadcasting that serve audiences through the positive, creative treatment of concerns to humankind. The original All Is Calm cast recording from this highly acclaimed collaboration between Cantus and Theater Latté Da is available for purchase on CD and as a download at cantussings.org.

Reaction from the Press:
"A dramatic, real-life musing about the power this season has to make us stop, reflect, and decide to operate in a mode of peace."-Lani Willis, Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine
"A work of beauty...not only an outstanding piece of musical theater, but a brilliantly executed production that understands that its power comes from its simplicity."-Rob Hubbard, St. Paul Pioneer Press

TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 23, 2011, are priced at $27.50 and $35 for adults; $25 and $15 for seniors (age 62+), military/veterans and students (ages 6-18). Prices depend on seating preference. Additional fees may apply. Tickets may be purchased in person at the State Theatre Box Office (805 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis, 55402), online at HennepinTheatreTrust.org, through Ticketmaster by calling 800.982.2787 or by visiting a Ticketmaster Ticket Center. Groups of 10 are eligible for discounts and should call 612.373.5665 for information and reservations. Performances are held at the Pantages Theatre, 710 Hennepin Ave., Mpls., 55403.

Performance dates and times: Thursday, Dec. 15 through Sunday, Dec. 18, 2011
Thursday, Dec. 15 at 7:30 p.m.
Friday, Dec. 16 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, Dec. 17 at 2 and 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, Dec. 18 at 1 and 6:30 p.m.

For more information on All Is Calm and other work by Cantus and Theater Latté Da please visit cantussings.org and latteda.org.

Kansas CIty's World War I Museum: Liberty Memorial

From Wikipedia

http://www.theworldwar.org/s/110/new/index_community.aspx
The Liberty Memorial, located in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, is a memorial to the fallen soldiers of World War I and houses the The National World War I Museum, as designated by the United States Congress in 2004.

Groundbreaking commenced November 1, 1921, and the city held a site dedication. The memorial was completed and dedicated on November 11, 1926.

On September 21, 2006, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne declared Liberty Memorial a National Historic Landmark.

History
The memorial in Penn Valley Park was designed by Harold Van Buren Magonigle who won a design competition. The primary sculptor was Robert Aikten. The approaches were designed by Wight and Wight.

Memorial Association
By the time World War I ended on November 11, 1918, many citizens of Kansas and Missouri had lost their lives and a movement to build a monument for their sacrifices and the surviving veterans arose. A group of 40 prominent citizens formed a Memorial Association and chose lumber baron and philanthropist Robert A. Long, who had personally given a large sum of money, as president.

Others included:
James Madison Kemper was treasurer of the association. For a short time in 1919 he was President of City Center Bank that was founded by his father, William T. Kemper. His brother, Rufus Crosby Kemper Sr., became president when he left to take over as president of Commerce Bancshares, also controlled by his father.

Jesse Clyde Nichols (J.C.), a real estate developer, was a lead proponent of the Liberty Monument.

William Volker, businessman and philanthropist, helped the city acquire the land for the memorial.

George Kessler designed the landscaping at the memorial.

The city council appointed the association to look into the possibility of a monument and funding. In less than a year the association had spearheaded a fund drive that included 83,000 contributors and collected more than 2.5 million dollars. There would not be the monetary problems that plagued the Bunker Hill Monument.

It was dedicated on November 11, 1926, by U.S. President Calvin Coolidge. In attendance at the groundbreaking ceremony on November 1, 1921, were Lieutenant General Baron Jacques of Belgium, Admiral Earl Beatty of Great Britain, General Armando Diaz of Italy, Marshal Ferdinand Foch of France, and General John Pershing of the United States. In 1935, bas reliefs by Walker Hancock of Jacques, Beatty, Diaz, Foch and Pershing were unveiled.

The Memorial and Monument are managed by a non-profit organization in cooperation with the Kansas City Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners.

Design
The design of the building is designed in the classical Egyptian Revival style of architecture with a limestone exterior. The foundation was constructed using sawed granite, and the exterior ground level walls are made of Bedford stone. The main doors at the top of a large set of stairs are made from ornamental bronze, and the walls of the first floor lobby are finished in Kasota stone, which was quarried in Kasota, Minnesota. The first floor corridor and the grand stairway are finished in travertine that was imported from Italy. The floors of the corridors and stairway treads are made from terrazzo and Kasota marble, and the balusters and railing are made from Italian travertine and Italian tavernelle clairemarble.

At night, the top of the memorial tower emits steam illuminated by bright orange lights. This effect creates the illusion of a burning pyre and can be seen for some distance.

In 1981, the building underwent a major renovation which updated existing systems to modern code specifications.

The grounds were designed by George Kessler who had rocketed to fame on the strength of his City Beautiful design for the Kansas City park and boulevard system. The road on the west side of the Memorial is Kessler Road.

Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri houses the official World War I museum of the United States. Designated in 2004 by the United States Congress as America's official museum dedicated to World War I, the new museum opened to the public in December 2006. The new subterranean facility was designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates and greatly expands the original facilities that are still housed on the main deck of the Liberty Memorial: Exhibition Hall and Memory Hall.

The National World War I Museum tells the story of the Great War and related global events from their origins before 1914 through the 1918 Armistice and 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Visitors enter the 32,000-square-foot (3,000 m2) facility across a glass bridge above a field of 9,000 red poppies, each one representing 1,000 WWI combatant deaths.

The museum consists of:
--Two theaters that provide visitors with an educational narrative
--Exhibitions with period artifacts including:
--A Renault FT-17 tank
--Uniforms such as Paul von Hindenburg’s Model 1915 Field Jacket[11]
--Guns
--Maps
--Photographs of major forces
--Propaganda posters
--State-of-the-art interactive displays
--Replica trenches
--A research center and library carrying 60,000 archival documents and three-dimensional objects and nearly 6,000 library titles
--Multi-purpose conference room and classroom
--Museum store
--The Over There Café

The first part of the museum focuses on the beginning of the Great War pre-U.S. involvement, while the last group of museum galleries focuses on the United States' military and civilian involvement in the war and President Woodrow Wilson's efforts for peace.

Throughout the year, the museum hosts special guest lecturers, authors, exhibitions, plays and films related to World War I. Actors Kevin Costner and Louis Gossett Jr. are members of the museum's honorary board.

World War I tour comes to Billings

For folks in Montana, this news is two days late, as it occurred on Friday the 23rd. However - athie exhibit is going on a 75-city tour so it's got to be somewhere in your area soon!

From KTVQ.com: World War I tour comes to Billings

BILLINGS- An exhibit honoring the heroes of World War One will be on display for one day only in downtown Billings.
A piece of the World War One Museum in Kansas City is embarking on a 75 city tour. Billings is one of only two Montana cites

"We feel very lucky to this exhibit here. This is a great opportunity for people to be able to see a piece of the WWI exhibit for Kansas City right here in Billings right here in Montana," said Julie Dial, Executive Director of the Western Heritage Center.

Inside you'll find tools, weapons, equipment, and artifacts which will give you an idea of what it was like to be in the trenches. These pieces of history are arranged in chronological order with little know facts, audio tracts, and videos.

The exhibit is handicapped accessible and is free of charge. Those attending are encouraged to make donations which will go toward the National WWI Museum in Kansas City and the Western Heritage Center in Billings.

The WWI display will be open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday outside the Western Heritage Center on Montana Avenue.

Is the World War I traveling exhibit coming to your town?

Check out their website at: http://honoringourhistory.com/
September 23rd – Western Heritage Center, Billings, MT

September 27th – Historical Museum at Fort Missoula, Fort Missoula, MT

September 30th – Columbia River Exhibition of History, Science & Technology, Richland, WA

October 6th – Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA

October 8th – Pearson Air Museum, Vancouver, WA

October 15th – The Museum of Flight, Seattle, WA

October 22nd – Idaho Military History Museum, Boise, ID

Germany: Museum of Bavarian Kings opens its doors

From The Local (Germany): Museum of Bavarian Kings opens its doors
The Museum of Bavarian Kings opened in Schwangau on Friday. The new museum traces the history of the Wittelsbach dynasty, which ruled the southern German kingdom until 1918.

The museum is housed in the former Grand Hotel Alpenrose on the shores of the Alpsee, a lake made famous by its proximity to two castles: Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein, the white palace built by Ludwig II and popularized by Walt Disney’s iconic castle.

With 1,000 square metres of exhibition space, the museum will explore the Wittelsbach family, who ruled from 1180 until the 1918 revolution in Bavaria.

Over a million tourists visit the fairy tale castle of Neuschwanstein every year, and the Wittelsbach Equalization Fund, which manages the property and possessions of the former ruling dynasty, hopes to attract around 200,000 of those visitors to the new museum.

“People are fascinated with Neuschwanstein, but they return from their visits with many unanswered questions,” said Elisabeth von Hagenow, the art historian who coordinated planning, construction and conception of the museum over the last three years.

The 800-year family history will be presented in the two-story space. An exhibition highlight includes the “walk in family tree,” which offers visitors an extensive orientation to the Wittelsbach dynasty. Porcelain, jewellery and portraits also illustrate the family’s influence.

One of the most valuable displays, according to Luitgard Löw, the new museum director, is the 90-piece precious carved tableware set – a wedding gift from Ludwig I to his son and heir, Maximilian II.

Visitors, however, may be more impressed with the spectacular dress coat that belonged to Ludwig II. The museum also has an entire section dedicated to the “Swan King” and the legends surrounding his life and death.

The museum is not merely intended for tourists, though, von Hagenow said. “We also want the acceptance of the residents of Schwangau.”

It’s not a coincidence that the museum is located in the Allgäu region, nestled in the shadow of the royal palaces. The Wittelsbach family has always been closely connected with the area and its inhabitants, Löw said. In fact, the current head of the house of Wittelsbach, Duke Franz of Bavaria, was an advisory board member during museum construction.

The natural surroundings were also an important factor in deciding on the museum's location.

“We don’t want to use the museum to turn the Wittelsbach house itself into a memorial,” von Hagenow told newspaper Die Welt. “It was important to us to bring the landscape into the museum, to show how important the extraordinary location in nature and on the lake was for the Wittelsbach family.”

Review: History: A City In Wartime: Dublin 1914-1918 by Padraig Yeates

From the Independent (Ireland): Review: History: A City In Wartime: Dublin 1914-1918 by Padraig Yeates

On July 26, 1914, the Dublin Battalion of the Irish Volunteers smuggled 1,400 guns into Howth. As the volunteers brought the arms back towards the city, British soldiers failed to disarm them and were jeered by crowds. The soldiers opened fire at Bachelor's Walk, killing three people and wounding 85.

The dead were Mary Duffy, a 56-year-old widow who had a son in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers; Patrick Quinn, a coal porter and father of six; and James Brennan, a 17-year-old messenger.

Dubliners mourned their deaths and turned out in great numbers for their funerals the following week.

As was apparent from this tragic incident, Dublin on the eve of World War One was a city divided; it was tense, full of drama and volatile, and over the course of the next four years it was to witness many more violent and emotive events, including the 1916 Rising.

By the end of the war in 1918, it was braced for the beginning of a new war, after Sinn Féin had triumphed in the general election of December that year and began the quest for international, and especially American, recognition and support of the demand for an Irish republic.

The victims of many of the violent events from 1914 to 1918 were ordinary Dubliners and in this absorbing, original and well-researched book, Pádraig Yeates does them a great service in keeping their sacrifices to the fore and reminding the reader of their divided loyalties; many, like the unfortunate Mary Duffy, had close ties with the British war effort and were hugely dependent on it for income.

This book is filled with the struggles of ordinary people living their ordinary lives during extraordinary political and economic upheaval. A powerful social history, it is a book that reminds us that for all the headline-grabbing events, putting bread on the table was still the most important priority for most.

The author's research of contemporary newspapers and private archives has resulted in a book that succeeds in offering a multitude of perspectives on the political, military and administrative concerns of an elite involved in governance, but also the personal, individual preoccupations with light, heat, fuel, food, housing and survival in the trenches of the Western Front.

As the author of the definitive history of the 1913 Lock-out, Yeates is well placed to continue the story after the end of that cruel dispute. There were 26,000 families living in Dublin tenements at the outset of the war, and Yeates emphasises that they were a motley crew with varied occupations, including labourers, charwomen, policemen and street traders. The city produced many soldiers for the British army; by the end of the war, 25,644 Dubliners had served.

This is unsurprising given that a labourer could expect to earn between 16 and 18 shillings for a 48-hour week while the weekly separation allowance rate for the wife of a British army recruit was 12 shillings and six pence.

The serving husband received one shilling a day, along with free board and lodging. If the couple had children the family was much better off, with separation rates rising to £1 a week for a wife and three children.

Economics is central to Yeates's study. His trawl through the archives of the Irish Independent and The Irish Times highlights not only their approach to reporting events on the Western Front -- sometimes they reported on war losses with "brutal clarity", and 19pc of Dublin men who enlisted in the British army were killed between 1914 and 1918 -- but also the tensions and uproar over profiteering, food shortages, the requisition of hay crops and increased taxes and inflation.

Undoubtedly, cost-of-living issues gnawed away at support for the war and a radical but small-circulation nationalist press also stoked anti-war feeling.

Yeates's achievement is to include a rich variety of different narratives and themes; there is much attention devoted to bad-tempered Dublin Corporation meetings and the problems of prostitution and drunkenness as well as a self-appointed Dublin Watch Committee, which was active in censoring what it regarded as morally unsuitable material during the beginning of cinema's great era of expansion.

Life in US, 1917 Delaware

From Delmarva.com: Makeshift buildings used for schools
"Delaware had dilapidated and unsanitary school buildings, almost no equipment, an attendance which made a mockery of the supposed compulsory provisions, and teachers many of whom had not even a high school education," a state commission appointed in 1917 found. "About one-fourth of them were under 21 years of age, 43 were 18 years old and nine were only 17."

In the late 18th century, Delaware had a slipshod system of education. The wealthy hired private tutors for their children and the rest of the population pooled their resources to hire teachers who used makeshift buildings to serve as schools. William Morgan, a native of Northwest Fork Hundred who attended one of these schools, recalled.

"I was sent to school in my sixth year, had to go about a mile and a half in winter, as there were no summer schools at that time in the neighborhood.

The house the school was kept in was (built of) pine slabs, notched up, and covered with boards and slabs, a hole cut in the top of the roof at one end to let out the smoke. The fire being made on the ground, with a back of bricks and clay, three or four high to keep the fire from burning the house. As to windows, we could do very well without any, for we could see through the cracks between the slabs and have as much air as we wanted."

In the 19th century, educational reformer Willard Hall introduced a number of improvements into the Delaware school system, but the state remained divided into more than 400 independent school districts. At the dawn of the 20th century, many of these districts operated a single school that contained only one classroom. In 1919, the New York Times reported, "The truth is the district system represents pioneer conditions. It goes back to the time when an isolated group, desiring some sort of school for its children, pooled its meager resources in order to establish a neighborhood school."

The deplorable condition of public education in Delaware convinced businessman Pierre du Pont to lead a drive to modernize the state's school system. He advocated consolidating the state's 424 separate school districts into a more manageable system, but the plan caused an uproar across the state. In Sussex County, du Pont's consolidation plan was attacked as autocratic, undemocratic, and downright un-American. One of the chief complaints of the school reform effort was that it reduced the number of people with the power to make decisions, and that, some people believed, robbed parents of control of their schools.

In a bitterly fought battle, many of du Pont's reforms were enacted into law by 1919, but the opponents of educational reform had not surrendered. When critics pointed to the high cost of building schools fit for the 20th century, du Pont countered by donating $2 million to replace some of the dilapidated buildings that were being used for schools. When opponents of the reform plan claimed that teachers could not afford additional training, du Pont funded 60 free scholarships to further the education of teachers. At that time, Delaware operated a dual school system: one for white students and another for black students. When some white residents objected to being taxed to fund schools for black students, du Pont agreed to build every schoolhouse needed for Delaware's black population.

Due to du Pont's bold efforts, the Delaware school system was modernized. Students could attend 20th century schools that were no longer built of "pine slabs, notched up, and covered with boards and slabs, a hole cut at the top of the roof at one end to let out the smoke."

Maples beat out oaks, though consultant says SD61 making a mistake

From Saanich News, British Columbia, Sept 6: Maples beat out oaks, though consultant says SD61 making a mistake
They were a symbol of life over death, of victory and of Canadian soldiers.

They were seven silver maple memorial trees planted on April 20, 1917 along Vining Street at Victoria High school to honour those who fought in the First World War​.

Last March they were removed, sparking a debate over what trees should replace the maples.

Seamus Howley, director of facilities for the Greater Victoria School District confirmed that seismic upgrading and renovations at the school led to the removal of the dying trees. Their trunks were also in decay, as outlined in a Feb. 28 removal permit issued to the school district.

The district would like to see the trees replaced with a similar maple tree and, at this point, are considering red maples.

“Within a relative short period of time,” Howley said, “the school and the community would have the same appearance that was there before.”

However, an expert consulted about replacing the trees actually advised against maples.

Ray Travers says oak trees are better suited for the urban site and will live about 300 years, twice as long as maples.

A forester, Travers is also a member of the Pacific Coast Branch of the Western Front Association, which works to raise awareness of the First World War.

Last year, the Greater Victoria School District held an open consultation, advising the community that the trees needed to come down and asking for input.

The trees will be planted in a commemorative ceremony on Nov. 10, 2011. The cost of the new trees, excluding labour, is estimated at $5,000.

“From a symbolic point of view, (memorial) trees are seen as a victory of life over death,” Travers said. “They are also places where families could come and grieve … a symbol of their soldier sons marching off along tree-lined streets in France and Flanders to the front where many of them didn’t come home.”

UK Theater: I wish I was a liar

From Morning Star Online, Sept 6: I wish I was a liar

The Storming Of The Winter Palace & Can Walk On by Sand Schweizer-Nicols-Lewis-Leandre-Sommer and Omri Ziegele Where's Africa Trio with Irene Schweizer and Makaya Ntshoko (Intakt)

Is it possible to successfully tell the story of such a momentous historical event as the storming of the Winter Palace in Petrograd in 1917 through jazz, a form of music which emerged a century ago from the cosmopolitan heart of New Orleans, a city where the delta of the Mississippi meets the Gulf of Mexico?

And also when the jazz narrative is told by three women - a Swiss pianist, a Scottish singer and a French bassist - and two men, a German drummer and an African American trombonist born in Chicago?

Perhaps these questions are summarily answered by vocalist Maggie Nichols, who wrote this sonic essay with pianist Irene Schweizer, and who at one point in the 10-minute proceedings - recorded live in March 1988 at the Taktios Festival in Zurich - declares from the midst of her mostly wordless lyrics: "And why not? And why not?"

Audacity here certainly, and brilliant jazz musicianship too - mostly in a free ensemble setting, stirred up into a relentless excitation by the five revolutionary improvising spirits.

The album's first track, the 26 minutes of Now And Never, begins with an astonishing collective passage, with Lewis' gruff slides tunnelling beneath Nicol's embroidered, lyricless vocals, Leandre's bass buzzing like some monumental insect, Sommer's flickering cymbalism and crashing drums before Schweizer's rampaging entry of keyboard runs and flourishes.

The frantic present tense of the piece continues with Nicols suddenly breaking into words, their Anglicism creating a strange absurdity as she sings of a mad rush for bargains at a jumble sale, and you wonder exactly what her aroused and hyper-engaged bandmates are making of it all in their own diverse languages and ways of living.

But the meaning is in the music as Schweizer's pace becomes lightning, with Sommer's sprinting snares and Lewis' snorts and Nicols declaring: "I wish I was a liar!"

No lies either in The Storming Of The Winter Palace which follows.

I would play it with John Reed's Ten Days Which Shook The World beside you and a DVD of Eisenstein's October, then see how each fills out the other.

Lewis' trombone is fearsome and prophetic with Schweizer's pianism groundshaking.

Leandre plays a pulsating bowed bass, breaking up the earth and concrete as Sommer's drums roll and pound as if they are signalling and urging the revolutionaries.

The piece moves with the sound of a system, and its power is at last ruptured, a sheer invitation to the imagination.

There's a very different musicial ambience throughout the album Can Walk On Sand, which in its own way celebrates another profoundly welcomed defeat of reactionary power.

The Where's Africa Trio - made up of the redoubtable Schweizer, Swiss alto saxophonist Omri Ziegele and the septuagenarian South African drummer Makaya Ntshoko - plays a selection of diverse tunes, some of which are compositions by South African revolutionary musicians who were exiles of apartheid and living in Europe for up to four decades.

These include pianists Dollar Brand - later Abdullah Ibrahim - and Chris McGregor, and bassist Johnny Dyani, all of whom were Ntshoko's contemporaries.

Ntshoko was the drummer in the Brand Trio in the early '60s and on the pianist's epochal album of 1964, Duke Elington Presents The Dollar Brand Trio.

Schweizer must have known the second track Tintiyana like his own drumsticks, so often did the Brand trio play it.

Ziegele's gyrating alto spins out his notes and there is a romping chorus from Schweizer.

Malwaldron's tender melody Soul Eyes is given a moving testimony and the trio skips through the briefest versions of Ornette Coleman's Giggin'.

The African rhythms of McGregor's great Afro European band The Brotherhood Of Breath burst out of Schweizer's jumping choruses of Andromeda, and Ziegele's airy timbre rises from his own compositions, Can Walk On Sand and Rare Bird.

But is is in the final two tunes - Ithi Gqi and Mbizo by the mercurial Dyani, where a second altoist Jurg Wickihalder is added - that the long years of the South African's musical defiance of apartheid is powerfully recreated by Schweizer, Ziegele and survivor Ntshoko for our own times, like a sonic beacon from past decades of brave struggle.

Intolerance released in 1916

Director D.W. Griffith is perhaps most know for his groundbreaking but controversial film “Birth of Nations” (1915), but his follow up Intolerance (1916) (which can be seen perhaps partly as a response to accusations of perpetuating racial stereotypes and glorifying the Klu Klux Klan in Birth of Nations) is considered by many to be his masterpiece, and indeed the greatest film of the whole silent era.

Griffiths mammoth film, also subtitled: “A Sun-Play of the Ages” and “Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages.”, consists of four distinct but parallel stories that demonstrated mankind’s intolerance during four different ages in world history. Intolerance was a colossal undertaking filled with monumental sets, lavish period costumes, and more than 3,000 extras.

The film can be viewed on the web at:
http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/09/04/intolerance-1916/

Life in 1916

Des Moines Register: Japanese beetle munching away on Iowa plants, trees with fury
Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids has spent hundreds of dollars in the past few years spraying its cherished vineyard to control a colorful but unwelcome invader that is munching trees and plants over much of Iowa.

Japanese beetles took a long time to reach Iowa — they were first spotted in the United States in 1916 from nursery stock in New Jersey.

But they are now making themselves at home here with a fury, documented in 55 counties. That includes three that discovered the pests for the first time this year — Poweshiek, Fremont and Humboldt. Last year, Audubon, Carroll, Cherokee, Hamilton, Harrison and Ida joined the list.

In 2008, only 25 Iowa counties had Japanese beetles. In 1994, only the Davenport area had recorded the beetle, which feeds on the leaves of 300 tree and plant species and on grass roots.

“They are continuing to expand their territory,” said state entomologist Robin Pruisner. “There is not a lot you can do to stop them. I call them flying little tanks. They seem to bounce back from treatments.”

The beetles usually don’t kill healthy plants, but they can reduce production on a grape vine. If a tree is weakened, the beetle’s leaf-munching ways are just one more invitation to disease, Pruisner said.

Iowa’s resurgent wine-grape industry is particularly on guard.

“They are a major threat,” said Tom Moore, Kirkwood’s wine-grape authority. The school has a vineyard and a winery and sprays pesticides weekly as needed to kill the beetles.

“If you don’t treat for them, you would lose your vineyard,” Moore added. The beetles also like to eat soybeans, Linden trees and grapevines from top to bottom. They don’t dine on the grapes, but they can reduce yields.

They are trespassers spreading across the Midwest and expanding their range out West after firmly establishing their territory along the East Coast.

The beetles can be knocked down with pesticides, but even that leaves a mess.

“One year we had a solid layer of dead beetles,” Moore said. “You couldn’t see the ground.”

Homeowners sometimes buy traps for the beetles. It’s a bad idea.

“They tend to bring more of the beetles in than they trap,” said Pruisner.

Linden trees and grapevines are like chocolate to these little guys, but they regularly eat the greenery of more than 300 species of trees and plants, including roses.

“I usually look at the poplar trees,” Pruisner said of her checks for infestations. “They are like a hot fudge sundae to them.”

Mike White, Iowa State University’s wine-grape expert, said 10 to 15 percent of Iowa’s 300 vineyards get damage bad enough to spray for the pests in any given year. Those operations feed 92 wineries statewide.

It’s a high-visibility problem.

“You don’t have to look for them, they are just everywhere,” he said.

The beetles quickly spread to Davenport, Muscatine, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Ames and Council Bluffs once they found their way over the Mississippi River.

“That is where we are seeing the biggest problems, because they’ve been there the longest,” White said.

Iowa State University entomologist Laura Jesse said the initial shock wave of the beetles may ease in coming years.

“When a new insect moves into an area, we have explosions of numbers,” Jesse said. “Over the next decade, the natural controls or parasitic insects will catch up with the population.”

Life in 1916: Mr. Peanut Debuts

From Courier Press: An empire built on peanuts
Within the annals of American industrialist history, the Planters Company is known as an American success story and the company gave birth to a most popular advertising image, Mr. Peanut.

Mr. Peanut reigns supreme in the antiques community as the first advertising icon.

Mr. Peanut's age and popularity has made Planters' collectibles highly sought after objects.
Today, Planters Nuts is a division of RJR Nabisco and boasts one of the most recognizable trademarks in the industry. Mr. Peanut is a celebrity. This advertising icon is the basis for a Peanut Museum located in "America's Peanut Capital" in Suffolk, Va. Mr. Peanut's age and popularity has made Planters' collectibles highly sought-after objects.

Schoolboy's drawing

Mr. Peanut reigns supreme in the antiques community as the first advertising icon. Introduced in 1916, the debonair image of Mr. Peanut derived from a crude drawing by a Virginia schoolboy. Prompted by a nationwide contest sponsored by the Planters Company, schoolboy Antonio Gentile won $5 for his design submission of Mr. Peanut. Shortly thereafter, a professional illustrator enhanced the youngster's drawing adding the monocle, top hat, and walking stick to create the company logo that promotes the brand as being in a class above the rest.

The town of Suffolk became the second home of Planters founder, Amedeo Obici, an Italian immigrant. Born in 1876 near Venice, Italy, Obici came to America at age 11 and settled in Scranton, Pa. Obici then moved to Wilkes-Barre, Pa., where he operated a fruit and nut stand on Market Street. Obici established his niche as "The Peanut Specialist" in the early 1900s and partnered with Mario Peruzzi in 1906.

The partners developed a new method of blanching whole roasted peanuts and omitting the hulls and skins. From these beginnings, the Planters peanut empire was founded. Obici realized that repeat business would be the key to his success and he wanted his brand name to be associated with quality.

In 1908, Obici's firm was incorporated as Planters Nut and Chocolate Company. In 1916, the Planters founder married and that same year, Planters introduced the world to Mr. Peanut.

Peanut craze

Collectors agree that Mr. Peanut is a collectibles gold mine. Mr. Peanut objects include baby spoons, mechanical banks, tin signs, dime store storage jars, salt-and-pepper shakers. There is even soap made in Mr. Peanut's likeness. Mr. Peanut antiques and collectibles are going for high prices.

For instance, a Mr. Peanut collector in Massachusetts shelled out $20,700 to buy an authentic Mr. Peanut coin-operated scale. Even basic Mr. Peanut history doesn't come cheap: vintage Mr. Peanut jars and Mr. Peanut toys sell for prices ranging from $500 to $1,500. Collectors are nuts about Mr. Peanut.

The first tank - Little Willy

On September 6, 1915 the world’s first tank rolled out of England. Nicknamed “Little Willie”, the prototype weighed a hefty 14 tons and could only traverse rough terrain at a speed of 2mph. Designed for trench warfare, Little Willie underwhelmed initially due to its cumbersome movement, and because it would frequently become stuck in the trenches it was designed to navigate.

In 1916 a follow-up to the prototype was introduced. Named “Big Willie” the tank made its debut appearance in the First Battle of the Somme, in a batch entitled “Mark I”. Although the tanks were noisy and prone to malfunctions, their potential was realised by the military and by 1917 a new batch, Mark IV, captured 8,000 enemy troops and guns.

The Farm Credit System

Once a government program starts...seems like it never stops.

From Wikipedia.com

The Farm Credit System is a federally chartered network of cooperatives and related service organizations that lends to agricultural producers, rural homeowners, farm-related businesses, and agricultural, aquatic, and public utility cooperatives in the United States. Federal oversight by the Farm Credit Administration is designed to provide for the safety and soundness of FCS institutions.

Farm Credit institutions are chartered by the federal government and must operate within limits established by the Farm Credit Act. Farm Credit is a government-sponsored enterprise.

AuthorizationCongress established FCS as a government sponsored enterprise when it enacted the Federal Farm Loan Act in 1916. Current authority is in the Farm Credit Act of 1971 (P.L. 92-181, as amended; 12 U.S.C. 1200 et seq.).

[edit] MissionIts mission is to provide a permanent, reliable source of credit to American farmers, ranchers, producers or harvesters of aquatic products, their cooperatives, and farm-related businesses. It does so by making appropriately structured loans to qualified individuals and businesses at competitive rates and providing financial services and advice to those persons and businesses.

Consistent with this of serving rural America, it also make loans for the purchase of rural homes, to finance rural communication, energy and water infrastructures, to support agricultural exports, and to finance other eligible entities.

[edit] Member farm credit banksFCS is composed of four regional Farm Credit Banks (FCB) and one Agricultural Credit Bank. These banks provide funds and support services to Federal Land Bank Associations (FLBA), Federal Land Credit Associations (FLCA), Production Credit Associations (PCA), and Agricultural Credit Associations (ACA). These associations in turn, provide loans to eligible borrowers. Lending associations are governed by boards of directors elected from FCS borrowers. Funds are raised through the sale of bonds and notes.

Five Member Farm Credit Banks:

AgFirst,
AgriBank,
CoBank,
Farm Credit Bank of Texas,
U.S. AgBank

From Reuters: U.S. ag lenders CoBank/U.S. AgBank merger moves ahead

(Reuters) - CoBank and U.S. AgBank, major lenders to U.S. agriculture and part of the government-sponsored Farm Credit System, said on Thursday their stockholders approved to merge the two banks.

Denver-based CoBank, with $66 billion in assets, and U.S. AgBank, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas with $25 billion in assets, proposed merger plans in December of 2010. Both are members of the Farm Credit System, a cooperative created by Congress in 1916 to provide credit to U.S. farmers.

The combined bank will do business under the CoBank name and provide financing to more than 70,000 farmers, ranchers and other rural borrowers through Farm Credit association banks in 23 states.

CoBank's president and CEO Robert Engel will become chief executive of the combined bank while Darryl Rhodes, U.S. AgBank CEO, will retire.

While regulations prohibit disclosure of vote tallies, "the stockholders of both organizations approved the merger by substantial majorities" during meetings held at the banks' headquarters on Wednesday, the banks said in statement.

Final merger approval is expected by the FCS's regulator, the Farm Credit Administration, following a 35-day reconsideration period. The administration granted preliminary approval in June.

The banks plan to merge on January 1, 2012, assuming FCA approves.

Additionally, CoBank on Thursday approved the bank to have up to $1.5 billion in preferred stock outstanding at any time, up from the previous limit of $1.0 billion.

The last time the bank increased its outstanding preferred stock was in July 2008 and has no current plans to issue additional preferred stock, it said.

"Any future issuances of third-party capital will be driven by the projected growth and capital needs of the bank as well as overall conditions in the capital markets," David Burlage, CoBank's CFO said.

There has been massive consolidation of FCS banks over the years, now down to four banks with the CoBank-US AgBank merger. Once there were some 37 regional banks lending to the system's association banks.

Heritage of Honor: Marines in history prove worthy

From Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System (DVIDS): Heritage of Honor: Marines in history prove worthy

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION CHERRY POINT, N.C. - The Medal of Honor has had a long history since its inception 1861. Through all of the nation’s wars Marines have proven that they “go above and beyond the call of duty.” This still rings true to this day as the nation prepares to award Dakota Meyer, a prior Marine sergeant, with the award for his actions in Afghanistan in 2009.

Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands saw much heroism during the battles of World War II. Not the least of these was Maj. John L. Smith, commanding officer of Marine Fighting Squadron 223, who was awarded the Medal of Honor. Following the tradition of past medal recIpients, Smith led his squadron to victory through personal skill and daring. Being only one of 297 Marines to have received the medal, he is a member of a small but well recognized part of American history.

The Medal of Honor began when an Iowa senator introduced a bill to “promote the efficiency of the Navy.” It was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on Dec. 21, 1861, authorizing 200 medals for enlisted members of the Department of the Navy. Officers would be excluded from the award until congressional legislation in 1915 corrected this.

The original bill was not clear on what constitutes an act deserving of the medal. The Battle of Little Big Horn led to the adoption of a policy similar to today. There were numerous nominations for the award so a special board was convened to determine who truly deserved the Medal of Honor. The board determined, “the conduct which deserves such recognition should not be the simple discharge of duty, but such acts beyond this that if omitted or refused to be done, should not justly subject the person to censure as a shortcoming or failure.” This judgment would eventually lead to the well-known phrase, “above and beyond the call of duty.”

From the start, Marines seemingly had no problem meeting the requirements. The first Marine recipient was Cpl. John F. Mackie who earned it by his actions aboard the USS Galena at Drewry’s Bluff during the Civil War. The Galena was traveling up river toward the Confederate capital of Richmond, Va., when river defenses opened fire on the ship. Despite artillery constantly raking the deck, Mackie maintained musket fire against the fortifications and then crewed the Galena’s cannon when the original crew was wounded or killed. During the Civil War, 16 other Marines earned the medal for their actions.

Six Marines and nine sailors earned a special place in history by becoming the first service members to earn the Medal of Honor for actions on foreign soil in 1871. A flotilla was dispatched to Korea in search of an American ship that had been destroyed. Korean forces opened fire on the American ships and the flotilla took punitive measures. A combined force of several hundred sailors and Marines overran several Korean forts.

Marines continued to distinguish themselves wherever they were sent. Marines earned the medal during the Chinese Boxer Rebellion, Spanish-American War and other actions. Seven Marines of this period received the honor twice. Only twelve other service members ever received this honor. However, congressional legislation in 1915 ended this practice.

World War I saw the first significant use of aircraft in combat and also saw the first Medals of Honor won by members of Marine Aviation. During a scouting mission, 2nd Lt. Ralph Talbot and his observer, Gunnery Sgt. Robert G. Robinson, were ambushed by 12 enemy scout aircraft. Despite the odds and Robinson suffering 13 bullet wounds, they managed to shoot down two enemy aircraft and then flew back for medical treatment. Robinson would survive his wounds while Talbot would die in a crash several days later.

Following actions in World War I, Congress realized that many acts of bravery weren’t recognized by any medal. In 1918, they instituted several other medals for bravery that didn’t meet the high criteria of the Medal of Honor. Among the medals were the Distinguished Service Medal and Silver Star, which had specific criteria spelled out for each.

During World War II, 10 more Marine aviators were awarded the medal, including Smith. Most were for actions near the Solomon Islands and Guadalcanal.

The last Marine aviator to receive the Medal of Honor was Pfc. Raymond M. Clausen Jr. who was a member of Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 263 in 1970.

A Marine patrol inadvertently placed itself inside a minefield while attacking enemy positions. One Marine was dead and 11 wounded. Clausen came to help with an evacuation helicopter and made six separate trips through the minefield to get all the wounded out and did not give the pilot the signal to leave until he was sure they were all aboard.

The Medal of Honor has a legendary stature that intrigues thousands, going so far as to spawn a video game franchise with the name.

For some, it’s not a look at a legend like Achilles at Troy, it’s a window into the substance of America.

“The neatest thing about Medal of Honor history is that not only is it a way of recognizing the efforts of the military and the people who serve in it; it’s a microcosm of military history from the Civil War onwards,” said Laura Jowdy, an archivist of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.

“Reading the citations is a way to understand the history of this country; they’re small little stories that combine to show the bigger picture,” Jowdy added. “It shows what people in the military are capable of doing today. “It’s a way of taking pride in the military and of understanding American history on a greater scale.”

Sept. 15 will mark another historical day for the Marine Corps and the Medal of Honor as Dakota Meyer will become the first living Marine to be recognized for combat actions since the Vietnam War with the award.

During his second deployment, while serving with Marine Embedded Training Team 2-8, Meyer, with shrapnel in his right arm, charged through a kill zone five times to save 15 wounded Afghan soldiers and four of his fallen team members at Ganjgal Village in Afghanistan in 2009.

Brothers killed on same day during bloody Somme battle

From News Guardian: Brothers killed on same day during bloody Somme battle

SEPTEMBER 1916 saw one of the rarer and more tragic events of the First World War – the loss of two family members on the same day.


Two brothers who had been living in North Shields were killed on September 4.

At present the Tynemouth World War One Commemoration Project does not know the address from which the brothers left for war, but both joined the Norfolk Regiment and were commissioned as officers.

Their mother had left the town after the death of their father in 1912.

Edwin Percival Wildman Brown was a Second Lieutenant in the 1st Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment and had served previously in the 3rd Battalion of the regiment.

The latter unit was located in East Anglia and to which new recruits would be posted prior to allocation to a unit in the field.

In addition, younger recruits not permitted to be on active operations would be held back on training and administrative duties pending reaching the age for posting into fighting units.

A former pupil of Tynemouth Municipal High School, he had gone on to Durham University where he joined the Officers Training Corps.

Enlisted in September 1914, at the age of 17, he was killed in action in the Delville Wood area.

His elder brother, William John Henry, was recorded as a medical student in the 1911 census but appears not to have been serving as a doctor.

Aged 24 he was an acting Captain and shown on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission register as a member of the 3rd Battalion attached to the 15th Battalion.

It is not clear if this is with the Norfolk Regiment, which is unlikely as today’s records do not indicate the formation of a 15th Battalion of the Norfolks.

He has no known grave but is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial which records the names of more than 73,000 British and dominion servicemen lost in the Somme from 1916 to 1918.

The family was of some substance – William Henry Brown, their father, was a doctor and a member of the Royal College of Surgeons.

He had died on August 23, 1912, aged only 52, leaving a widow and mother of their four children Fanny Sophia, of Suffolk.

The family home in North Shields was at No. 7 Northumberland Square.

Now unoccupied, it was for many years used as council offices.

As the long drawn out battle on the Somme ground on into September 1916, that month saw heavy casualties amongst the men of the 8th Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers who had been sent to France.

Fighting as a part of the 11th Division, they were thrown into the assaults as part of the campaign known as the Battle of Thiepval Ridge.

On the morning of September 26, the Fusiliers were in the vanguard of the attack against the German positions in front of the Zollern Redoubt.

Meeting heavy resistance the momentum of the attack was lost and the history of the campaign shows that the troops following on as ‘moppers up’ were killed almost to a man, leaving only 50 survivors with a sole remaining officer organising a temporary position in front of the German strong point.

On the following morning the Germans withdrew from the Redoubt and the Fusiliers were able to occupy the enemy position.

Later that day the battalion was relieved and withdrawn from the front line.

They were not employed further on the Somme as the battle petered out on November 18

Overall the battle cost the allied forces more than 400,000 killed and wounded for a gain of no more than 4,000 yards on any part of the 18-mile section of the front.

The hoped for breakthrough for the allies never materialised; and during the winter standstill the Germans withdrew to a stronger defensive position – the Hindenburg Line.

The small gains bought at enormous cost were only justified in the minds of the general staff by taking account of the similarly high cost to the enemy, whose casualties were reckoned to have exceeded those of the attackers.

THIS week’s casualty list gives details of men who were killed or died in the month of September, 1916.

Antwiss, Robert, Private, 8th Battalion NF, DOW, 28th, details needed.

Backley, Herbert, age 24, Lance Corporal, Y Company, 8th Battalion NF, KIA, 26th, son of Charles Henry and Margaret, of 25 Berwick Terrace, previously wounded, November 1915.

Bell, Matthew, Private, 10th Battalion NF, DOW, 55 Lawson Street.

Brown, Edwin Percival Wildman, age 19, 2nd Lieutenant, 1st Battalion Norfolk Regiment, KIA, 4th, son of William Henry and Fanny Sophia Brown, of 7 Northumberland Square, enlisted September, 1914, brother of William John Henry Brown.

Brown, William John Henry, age 24, Captain, 3rd Battalion Norfolk Regiment, KIA, 4th, 7 Northumberland Square.

Carmichael, Daniel, RNR, HMS Harvester, died from the effects of war service, 23rd, 4 Addison Street.

Connelly, M, Private, 8th Battalion NF, KIA 114 Bedford Street, employee of Smiths Dock Company, pontoons department.

Cowell, William Henry, age 27, Private, ‘X’ Company, 8th Battalion NF, KIA, 26th, son of Jane and late John, husband of Margaret Bell Cowell, 46 Rudyerd Street, wounded at Dardanelles, 1915.

Hume, John Walter, age 20, AB, RNVR Drake Battalion RND, KIA, 18th, son of John and Charlotte, of 1 Trinity Terrace, Coach Lane.

Laing, Ernest Edward, age 20, Private, 1st Battalion NF, KIA, 17th son of John Wood Laing, 36 East Stephenson Street.

Thompson, John William, deck hand, RNR, HM Trawler Sarah Alice, blown up, 26th, Gallery Wall – Church Way, husband of Isabella Boylen (formerly Thompson), of 124 Church Way.

Toy, William Edgar, age 20, Private, 8th Battalion NF, KIA, 26th, 18 Albion Road, son of Mrs Isabella Tweedy.

Yeaman, John Ross, Lance Corporal, 8th Battalion NF, KIA, 28th, 42, Sibthorpe Street.

Key:

KIA – killed in action

DOW – died of wounds

LAS – lost at sea

NF – Northumberland Fusiliers

DLI – Durham Light Infantry

RND – Royal Naval Division

RNR – Royal Naval Reserve

RFA – Royal Field Artillery

n Anyone with information on this week’s list or who wants to find out more about the project, should visit www.tynemouthworldwarone.org, e-mail contact@tynemouthworldwarone.org or write to Tynemouth World War 1 Commemoration Project, c/o Essell, 29 Howard Street, North Shields, NE30 1AR.

This day in baseball, Sept 11, 1918

Sept 11, 1918 —
The Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago Cubs 2-1 behind the three-hit pitching of Carl Mays to win the World Series in six games.

Life in 1916, Sept 6

Sept 6, 1916
The first self-service grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, was opened in Memphis, Tenn., by Clarence Saunders.

Robert Fisk: New light on an old horror – and still there is no justice

From the Independent: Robert Fisk: New light on an old horror – and still there is no justice

On Wednesday morning, 14 April 1909, British Vice Consul Major Charles Doughty-Wylie set off to the Turkish city of Adana after receiving a letter from his dragoman – his Turkish translator, a man called Trypani – saying that "there was a very dangerous feeling in that town, threats had been freely offered, there were some murders...".


Doughty-Wylie departed by the next train, memorably adding, in his dispatch to the Foreign Office in London, that "so little had I expected that any massacre was imminent, that I took my wife with me". We can only imagine the good lady's reaction when "about two stations from Adana we saw a dead body... The nearer we got to Adana the more bodies there were, and while I was escorting my wife to Mr Trypani's house ... two or three more men were killed under the very noses of the Turkish guard...".

Doughty-Wylie's dispatches over the next four days are a first-class account of the start of the modern Armenian Holocaust – not the slaughter and butchery and mass rape and death marches in which the Ottoman Turks killed a million and a half Armenians in 1915, but the mass murder of up to 30,000 Armenians in southern Turkey six years earlier, a dry run – albeit a very bloody one – for the later genocide. "I got into uniform, went to the guard, and sharply recalled to the officer his duty to prevent murder," Doughty-Wylie wrote. Having summoned some unwilling Ottoman soldiery to support him, our vice consul "paraded through the town with bugles blowing... We cleared the streets sometimes by charging with the bayonet and sometimes by firing over the heads of the crowd". Ah, those were the days!

The letters of Doughty-Wylie, who was later to have an unconsummated affair with Gertrude Bell before dying at Gallipoli, are, in fact, a record of heroism – I am indebted to researcher Missak Kelechian for finding them in the British National Archives – for the vice consul rescued numerous British subjects and protected many hundreds of Armenian refugees. Trying to save their lives, the vice consul came under sniper fire from a mosque. The Turks blamed the Armenians for the massacres, claiming that they had armed themselves and planned to set up an Armenian principality on Turkish soil – killers have a habit of blaming the victims for their own deaths (see, for example, the Muslim victims of the Bosnian war, the Palestinian civilian victims of Gaza in 2008-9, etc) but Doughty-Wylie, while he acknowledged that an Armenian shot dead two Turks, suspected that the violence included "some secret preparation on the Turkish side". Of the 2,000 dead in Adana, 1,400 were Armenians.

The Turkish authorities supposedly hanged nine Turks for their part in the slaughter. So much for justice. Remarking that many of the dead had been thrown into rivers, the British vice consul concluded in a further dispatch to London that "in the villages, while no exact number can yet be given, the loss ... may be estimated at between 15,000 and 25,000; of these, very few, if any, can be Moslems (sic). In many cases women, even small children, were killed with the men". Exactly two weeks after Doughty-Wylie received the letter from his dragoman, The New York Times's journalist in Adana was reporting that in the city's vilayet (governorate), up to 30,000 Armenians had been murdered.

And Turkey, just as it does in the case of the later one and a half million Armenian dead, still denies – along with Britain, the US, need we add the rest? – that this was genocide. I have pointed out before that even in the 1930s, Churchill referred to the "holocaust" of Armenians. Now comes proof that the 1909 genocide, let alone the later 1915 massacres, were known as a Holocaust – correctly, with a capital H – before the First World War. For the Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan has just unearthed and published eyewitness Z Duckett Ferriman's book on the 1909 killings whose original cover bore the title The Young Turks and the Truth about the Holocaust at Adana in Asia Minor. The New York Times had, in fact, referred to "Another Armenian Holocaust" after an 1895 bloodbath, but Duckett Ferriman collected victims' names, dates, details of individual murders, statistics of orphans, widows, villages destroyed, photographs, and the identity of the militias – like the Turkish authorities in 1915 and like the Nazis, the 1909 killers used "special units" for killing and rape – and the mass violation of women.

By extraordinary chance, Duckett Ferriman's book coincides with the Beirut publication next week of the memoirs of Hagop Arsenian, a 1915 Armenian Holocaust survivor whose handwritten diaries have just been translated into English by his granddaughter, Arda Ekmekji. What makes this work so remarkable is that the Arsenians were very upper middle class. On their death trail to northern Syria, they were able, for a short period, to travel by rail, first class. "They were transporting us to our graves with our own money," Hagop wrote. At other times, still paying for their train tickets, they were packed into box cars, 45 to a carriage, Nazi-style. During his Golgotha, Hagop stood beside a pile of Armenian corpses. "One of them in a suffocating voice begged the gravedigger not to pull him by the legs and said, 'Brother, I have not died yet. Wait till morning before you bury me.'"

Like many Jews on the way to death in the second Holocaust of the 20th century, Hagop "would wonder whether we were such a terrible nation that God had chosen ... to manifest His anger and inflict His punishment on us...". There are good Turks in these stories – in 1909 as well as 1915 – but there are many criminals.

And again, no justice for the Armenians. Few of the Turkish war criminals were hanged. One of the worst, Talaat Pasha, was assassinated in Berlin in 1921, Bin Laden-style, shot by an Armenian revenge group called Nemesis. Most escaped their just deserts for ever, not even facing a Demjanjuk-like court in old age. All are now dead. "War will not end unless the truth is known," a Lebanese humanitarian agency stated four years ago. And that's all that's left to be fought for. Acknowledgement that these crimes were real. Justice is an odd creature.

Why does the U.S. have a Federal Reserve System anyway?

From Deseret News: Why does the U.S. have a Federal Reserve System anyway?
By Kerk Phillips, For the Deseret News
Money in most countries in the world is issued by a central bank that is granted the monopoly right to issue the nation's currency.

In the United States, the central bank is actually a system of 12 regional banks that are controlled by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, D.C.

The Federal Reserve System, or Fed, is legally a private enterprise and is owned by member commercial banks. Effectively, however, the Fed is the fourth branch of the government.

The members of the Fed's Board of Governors are all appointed by the president of the United States.

One of these is selected every four years to serve as the Chairman of the Fed. Currently the Chairman is Ben Bernanke, who served as a member of the Board under the previous chairman, Alan Greenspan.

While the Fed is legally owned by the member commercial banks, these banks have little direct input into the governance of the Fed these days. Member banks elect six of the nine members of each of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks' board of directors. This board of directors, in turn, selects a president to run the regional Fed. In practice, the members of the board and the presidents are chosen in Washington by the Board of Governors.

The Federal Reserve has a great many duties.

It was created in 1914 primarily to serve as a lender of last resort and address a long-standing problem the U.S. had been experiencing with bank runs.

Prior to 1914, the U.S. had no central bank. There was a brief period early in U.S. history where the First and Second Banks of the United States were chartered and then disbanded, but these banks served mainly as depository and lending institutions for the U.S. government, and not as modern central banks.

During most of the 19th century and up through 1913, the U.S. had no central monetary authority that would step in and loan funds to banks that were hit with bank runs. As a result, the nation experienced periodic bank panics where runs would occur on several banks simultaneously and led to nationwide financial crises.

The Federal Reserve System was set up to help alleviate this problem.

The Fed has many other duties as well, including regulatory control over banking, facilitation of check clearing and interbank transfers, and maintaining accounts for many U.S. government agencies. The most important role the Fed plays, however, is as a creator and controller of the U.S. money supply.

One of the reasons the Fed is structured as it is, is to insulate it from political pressure. The Fed is largely independent of the federal government. Day-to-day operational control is in the hands of the Board of Governors and the governors are appointed to 14-year terms.

If the Fed were more susceptible to political pressure from the president or Congress, it would be more likely to use monetary policy to finance government spending.

Over the years since 1914, there have been periodic calls to disband the Fed. The main reason that this has never been done is because the alternative is undesirable.

If you are one of those who is not pleased with the way Congress has handled the U.S. budget, imagine what things would be like if Congress was also in charge of the money supply.

By insulating the Fed from political pressure, we are able to maintain a much lower rate of inflation than we would otherwise have.

If Congress were to take direct control of the U.S. money supply, you can be assured that tit would quickly give in to the temptation of simply printing whatever money it needed for its desired level of spending.

Delegating control to a central bank that is insulated from political influence makes it difficult or impossible to give in to that temptation.

While having an independent central bank does alleviate some problems, it creates others.

One argument against a central bank is that it is undemocratic. Monopoly control of the money supply is placed in the hands of officials who are not answerable directly to the public. This often leads to the perception that the money supply is in the hands of special interests who do not have the best interests of the public in mind.

In some countries, and in many historical cases, this perception is justified. It is not justified in the case of the Fed.

There are alternatives to the Federal Reserve System that are democratic in nature but not prone to inflation.

For example, from 1716 to 1845, Scotland had a free banking system of sorts, where two competing central banks each issued currency. More generally, free banking would allow commercial banks to issue whatever currency they desired and they could back this currency however they wished, as long as the backing was truthfully disclosed.

Competitive free banking would allow some banks to issue monies backed by gold or other commodities. Consumers would be free to choose what type of money they wished to hold, and sellers could choose what types of money they would accept as payment.

One interesting new technological option that has many of the aspects of free banking is BitCoin, an online payment system that settles payments on a peer-to-peer basis without using a bank or even a currency controlled by a central bank.

Free banking is unlikely to be adopted as official U.S. policy anytime in the near future. In the meantime, the Fed will continue to control the supply of dollars. Despite its shortcomings, the Fed is a much better arrangement that most of the alternatives.

Muralist restores World War I tribute

Louie Lethridge restores a faded World War I-themed mural under the approach to the Fifth Street bridge in Yuba City last week. First painted in 2004, the mural had been hit by graffiti and faded by the sun.

From the Appeal Democrat: Muralist restores World War I tribute


It was created to accompany a war memorial just a few steps away.

But a World War I mural, painted on the wall of an underpass along Second Street in Yuba City, has undergone numerous rounds of graffiti removal and a steady stream of afternoon sunlight.

After only seven years, it was badly faded.

"I was sick of looking at it like that," said Louie Lethridge, a local muralist who worked with a handful of at-risk youth in 2004 to design and paint the scene of paratroopers, biplanes, and an American flag.

Early last week, the Marysville resident loaded up his car with materials and took to restoring the painting.

His unpaid labor, which began early each morning, continued into the heat of the afternoon, as Lethridge fought direct sunlight and noisy traffic under the approach to the Fifth Street bridge.

The names of his five tough young former charges still grace the traditional signature spot at the bottom right. They had been part of a project sponsored by Sutter County One Stop.

Lethridge has worked this way, usually under the auspices of grant programs that involve kids, on more than two dozen murals in Yuba and Sutter counties.

Among his projects are a series of baseball scenes and portraits along 14th and B streets in Marysville outside Appeal-Democrat Park, home of the Gold Sox, as well as the scene of gold miners at Yuba Park in Marysville, children outside Covillaud Elementary, and sea creatures outside the One Stop in Yuba City.

His indoor work includes several paintings inside the Friday Night Live headquarters in the old Packard Library in Marysville.

"I want the flag to really pop out," he said as he brightened the stripes on his World War I tribute mural last week.

He had an apprentice working alongside him through much of the week. But like with all his projects, he likes to pick one spot upon which he can apply his own style and standards.

The original park that lies immediately southeast of the overpass at the foot of Bridge Street was established in 1922. It is a tiny sanctuary set back from the road approaching the Feather River levee.

It features a World War I monument beside a stairway to the top of the levee, rebuilt like much of the park in 2004. A bronze plate bears names of 12 fallen local soldiers, their place of death, and a tribute to the unknown dead. A dedication plaque and a flagpole grace the entryway to the site.

Fallen soldier to be remembered on war memorial

Joseph Chambers

From the Ulster Star: Fallen soldier to be remembered on war memorial

BEFORE Remembrance Day this year a new name will be added to the War Memorial in Lisburn - Dunmurry man Rifleman Joseph Chambers.


His name was added after his great nephew, Aaron Chambers, traced his family history and travelled to France to honour his heroic ancestor.

Aaron spent hours sifting through history books, old photographs and newspapers to gain an insight into the life of Rifleman Joseph Chambers.

His efforts were rewarded when he found his great uncle’s grave in Bailleul Communal Cemetery in France.

Joseph Chambers was born in Banbridge in 1889, the son of Joseph and Mary Chambers and brother of Edith, George, Samuel and Albert. The family later moved to the Stewartstown Road in Dunmurry and at the age of 25 Joseph entered active service with the 11th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles (South Antrim 36th Ulster Division) in September 1914.

As he continued in service, he fought at the Battle of the Somme on July 1, 1916. Some time later, Joseph was transferred to the 1st battalion Royal Irish Rifles. On December 21, 1916, during a patrol with his platoon near the Messines Ridge, Belgium, they were fired upon by German troops and Joseph was fatally wounded.

He was taken several miles over the border to France to a little town called Bailleul. There he was treated in a military hospital centre but, sadly, died on December 23, 1916, as a result of the injuries he had sustained.

Aaron explained how he had always been fascinated by stories about his great uncle. “As young children my brothers and sisters and I had been told about our ancestors,” he said. “We enjoyed listening to stories relating to our family history.

“One individual was particularly interesting to me - my great uncle Joseph Chambers. I was intrigued to discover more, so I decided to investigate his life for myself.

“As a child I was told that Joseph’s name was on the war memorial in Lisburn. However, after my investigations in France I discovered that the ‘J Chambers’ listed on the war memorial was not Joseph.

“I took this information to the council and, as a result, later this year his name will be engraved onto the war memorial in Lisburn.

“His name is also on the ‘Roll of Honour’ in Dunmurry Presbyterian Church,” he added.

Aaron said he found his visit to the war graves in France to be a very moving experience. “It was very emotional and unbelievable to see the rows and rows of graves,” he explained.

“It made me proud to think that someone from my family had laid down his life for his country. As a family we are honoured that my great uncle Joseph Chambers is to be recognised and his sacrifice remembered for future generations to come.

“It all stemmed from one story I was told about my great uncle going to war with two of his best friends,” Aaron continued. “Sadly he never returned. All that came home was a lock of his hair in a wee jar and buttons from his tunic.

“It has taken a lot of time to carry out the research but I feel satisfied that a missing chapter in our family’s history has now been re-written.

“The unfortunate thing is that there are so many fallen soldiers who are not remembered and whose names to not appear on war memorials.”

Aaron would like to thank Mr Pat Geary (Friend’s School Lisburn) and Mr Trevor Hall (Irish Linen Centre & Lisburn Museum) for their help with his research.

On this day: Sept 7, 1916

On Sept. 7, 1916, the U.S. Senate ratified a treaty with Denmark in which the U.S. agreed to pay $25 million in gold for the Danish West Indies -- the present-day U.S. Virgin Islands. (Denmark's Parliament ratified the treaty in December, and the U.S. took control of the territory the following March 31.

UK: Help Restore War Memorial Window

Keighley News, UK: Help Restore War Memorial Window
An appeal has been launched to restore a “remarkable” stained glass window that depicts scenes from the First World War and has been described as one of Keighley’s treasures.

The window was presented to All Saints’ Church, Highfield, in 1917 by the members of the church’s bible class. It features a version of the painting The Great Sacrifice by James Clark and is unusual because it was installed before the end of the conflict.

The Rev Dr Jonathan Pritchard, from All Saints’ Church, wants to raise £1,500 to clean and protect the window, which has been damaged by a stone and has become dull over time.

“The window is one of the treasures of Keighley,” he said. “It is quite remarkable and we recognise we need to have it properly protected and cleaned.

“It is one of only two in the country where the artist who did the original painting was involved in putting the stained glass together.

“The original painting is very well known. There were many postcards made of it and there will be a number of memorials that have it on.“ The window shows Christ in the middle of the suffering on the Western Front. A smaller scene shows what is believed to be the Battle of Arras, with soldiers tunnelling through the chalk under the battlefield to place mines under the enemy trenches. It is thought the Battle at Gallipoli is also depicted, with images of soldiers fighting near a Turkish village.

The badge of the Duke of Wellington regiment and the crest of the Diocese of Ripon, which the church would have belonged to in 1917, are also present.

Dr Pritchard said the colours of the stained glass would be much brighter once the window had been cleaned and restored. He said clear and strong polycarbide panels would be put up on the outside of the window to protect it from further damage and the mesh screens would be removed. The window will be rededicated once the work is completed.

Donations to the Memorial Window Appeal can be sent to The Vicarage, 21 View Road, Keighley BD20 6JN.

UK: The Norwich friends killed on the same battlefield

From Norwich Evening News 24: The Norwich friends killed on the same battlefield

This is a story of two friends –Norwich policemen who went off to fight in the First World War and never came home. They were both killed on the same day and in the same battle.

Now an author is telling their story and is hoping Evening News readers can help him find a photograph of one of the men, Cornelius Skipper, to make sure he is never forgotten.

Sean Page is writing a book on the history of the 293 battery of the Royal Garrison Artillery and is looking for a picture and more details about Cornelius Skipper who was killed at the Battle of Passchendaele on October 12 1917.

He died along with another member of the Norwich City Police Force, Archibald Snelling. Both had been in the army for just six months.

Sean is being helped by former Norfolk CID chief turned author, Maurice Morson, who wrote the A Force Remembered, telling the story of the city police force.

He found a picture of Archie, thanks to Norfolk County Council Library and Information Service, but needs one of Cornelius and hopes that members of his family are still around.

He was born on May 16 1889 and lived at Surlingham. The 1891 census places him with his widowed mother Harriet, elder brothers Thomas and Herbert and elder sisters Rachel and Ada.

Cornelius became a farm labourer and then joined the Norwich City Police in 1909, becoming Pc 80.

He married in 1914 and fathered twins, one of which died.

In a 1915 internal police report he refers only to his mother living with him and his last known address was in Stafford Street, Norwich.

During January 1917, while patrolling in Riverside Road, he jumped into the road to seize and bring to a halt bolting horses pulling a military wagon. He was commended and awarded one guinea.

In March he and his colleague Archibald Snelling both joined the army – they had consecutive numbers. Both were killed on October 17 on the Western Front.

Archie Snelling was born in Norwich on August 20 1888. His parents lived at 190 Waterloo Road. He worked as a clerk before joining the city police in 1911.

He had brothers and sisters and was married to Ellen (nee Wales). Her address was 72 Avenue Road, Park Lane, Norwich.

It is thought both men probably arrived together at Rugeley on March 31 1917 and were sent to the western front. They had consecutive army numbers.

Just before they were both killed they were involved in action associated with the third battle of Ypres, also known as Passchendaele, and had been moved to a precarious position near what was known as Hellfire Corner, which had been classed as the most dangerous place in the world. Also that day gunner Frank Burdett, a married man, of 41 Church Street, Northrepps, was also killed.

If you have a photograph of Cornelius Skipper please email the author at Sean.Page@manchester.ac.uk

Today in History: Sept. 5

From the Kansas City Star, This Day in Baseball, Sept 5:
1918: Babe Ruth pitched a six-hitter as the Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago Cubs 1-0 in the opening game of the World Series. The Series was started early due to World War I.

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch: Today in History: Sept. 5
1914 The First Battle of the Marne, resulting in a French-British victory over Germany, began during World War I.

From Wikipedia:

The Battle of the Marne (French: 1re Bataille de la Marne) (also known as the Miracle of the Marne) was a First World War battle fought between 5 and 12 September 1914. It resulted in an Allied victory against the German Army under Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke the Younger. The battle effectively ended the month long German offensive that opened the war and had reached the outskirts of Paris. The counterattack of six French field armies and one British army along the Marne River forced the German Imperial Army to abandon its push on Paris and retreat northeast, setting the stage for four years of trench warfare on the Western Front.

Causes
The first month of the First World War had resulted in a series of victories by German forces in France and Belgium. By the end of August 1914, the whole Allied army on the Western Front had been forced into a general retreat back towards Paris. Meanwhile, the two main German armies that had just conquered Belgium continued to advance through France. It seemed that Paris would be taken as both the French Army and the British Expeditionary Force fell back towards the Marne River.

British troops had suffered heavy casualties during the German attack into France. Field Marshal Sir John French, commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), blamed his heavy losses on French vacillation and uncoordinated French withdrawals. In particular, he blamed French General Lanrezac, commander of the French Fifth Army, for Lanrezac's failure to fight and unannounced pullbacks, though these had effectively saved the French Fifth Army from defeat. Lanrezac, in turn, was furious with Field Marshal French for his refusal to support the Fifth Army at Guise-St. Quentin.

Relations between the British commander and the French commanders suffered greatly. Field Marshal French made plans to move all British troops back from the front along their lines of communication for rest and reorganization. French Commander-In-Chief Joseph Joffre persuaded the British War Secretary, Herbert Kitchener, to intervene, and Kitchener met personally with Field Marshal French. Kitchener told Field Marshal French that a withdrawal by the British would be disastrous for both the French and British. Field Marshal French agreed to keep British troops on the front line as long as their flanks were not exposed by French withdrawals.

As the German First and Second Armies approached Paris, they began to swerve to the southeast away from Paris in an attempt to envelop the retreating French armies, exposing their right flank to the allies. By 3 September, Joffre had become aware of the German armies' tactical error. On 4 September, he made plans to halt the French and British withdrawal and attack the Germans all along the front with the French Sixth Army (150,000 men) and the aid of the British Expeditionary Force (70,000 men) under the command of Sir John French (who was prompted to join this attack by the British war minister, Lord Kitchener). The attack was set to begin on the morning of 6 September. However, General Alexander von Kluck, the commander of the German First Army, detected the approach of the Allied forces on 5 September and, too late, began to wheel his Army to face the west.

In the morning of 5 September, battle commenced when the advancing French Sixth Army came into contact with cavalry patrols from General Hans H. K. Gronau's IV Reserve Corps on the right flank of the German First Army near the Ourcq River. Seizing the initiative in the early afternoon, Gronau's two divisions attacked with light artillery and infantry into the gathering Sixth Army and pushed it back into a defensive posture before the planned allied assault for the following day, but the threat to the French offensive by Kluck's wheeled First Army in this preliminary Battle of the Ourcq (French: Bataille de l'Ourcq) ignored the allied forces advancing against his right flank, and was later reduced both by the arrival of the taxicab reinforcements from Paris and orders for Kluck to retreat to the Aisne River, delivered by Moltke's staff officer, Oberstleutnant Richard Hentsch.

Battle
Western Flank
Von Kluck, in turning to meet the potential for attack on his right flank, opened up a 30 mi (48 km)-wide gap in the German lines between his First Army and the German Second Army, commanded by the cautious General Karl von Bülow, which was located to the left of the First Army.

Allied reconnaissance planes discovered the gap and reported it to commanders on the ground. The Allies were prompt in exploiting the break in the German lines, dispatching troops from the BEF to join the French Fifth Army in pouring through the gap between the two German armies, the right wing of the Fifth Army simultaneously attacking the German Second Army (the Battle of the Two Morins (French: Bataille des Deux Morins)—named after the two rivers in the area, the Grand Morin and Petit Morin).

Nevertheless, the German forces were close to achieving a breakthrough against Maunoury's beleaguered Sixth Army between 6 and 8 September — the Sixth Army was aided on 7 September by 10,000 French reserve infantry troops ferried from Paris, 6,000 of whom were transported in 600 Parisian taxi cabs sent by General Joseph Gallieni, military governor of Paris.

The "taxis de la Marne" became in France a symbol of unity and national solidarity beyond their strategical role in the battle (which is likely to have been limited given the number of soldiers transported).

The following night, on 8 September, the aggressive French commander General Franchet d'Esperey and his Fifth Army launched a surprise attack against the German Second Army, serving to further widen the gap between the German First and Second Armies. D'Esperey was a recent appointment, Joffre having given him command of the Fifth Army in place of the dismissed General Charles Lanrezac, who was deemed by Joffre to be too cautious and lacking in "offensive spirit."

By 9 September, it looked as though the German First and Second Armies would be totally encircled and destroyed. General von Moltke suffered a nervous breakdown upon hearing of the danger. His subordinates took over and ordered a general retreat to the Aisne River to regroup. The Germans were pursued by the French and British, although the pace of the Allied advance was slow — a mere 12 mi (19 km) a day. The German armies ceased their retreat after 40 mi (64 km), at a point north of the Aisne River, where they dug in, preparing trenches that were to last for several years.

The German retreat between 9 and 13 September marked the abandonment of the Schlieffen Plan. Moltke is said to have reported to the Kaiser: "Your Majesty, we have lost the war." In the aftermath of the battle, both sides dug in and four years of stalemate ensued.

Eastern Flank
On the eastern flank (close to Verdun), by 6 September, serious fighting was taking place between the attacking German 3rd, 4th and 5th Armies, and the defending French 3rd, 4th and 9th Armies. Fighting included the capture of the village of Revigny (the Battle of Revigny (French: Bataille de Revigny)), and fighting from Vitry-le-François (the Battle of Vitry (French: Bataille de Vitry)) to Sézanne (the Battle of the Marshes of Saint-Gond (French: Bataille des Marais de Saint-Gond)).

Aftermath
French cavalry marching German prisonersThe war became a stalemate after the Allies won the Battle of the Marne. It was the second major clash on the Western Front (after the Battle of the Frontiers) and one of the most important single events of the war. The German defeat and subsequent retreat ended any hopes of a quick victory for Germany in the West. As a result, Germany was forced to face a long, costly war on two fronts.

The Battle of Marne was also one of the first major battles in which reconnaissance planes played a decisive role, by discovering weak points in the German lines and allowing the allies to take advantage of them. The mobility and destructive power of the numerous French 75 batteries engaged in the Battle of the Marne played a key role in slowing down and then halting German progress everywhere.

The First Battle of the Marne is best remembered for the approximately 600 Parisian taxicabs, mainly Renault AGs, commandeered by French authorities and used to transport 6,000 French reserve infantry troops to the battle. Their arrival has traditionally been described as critical in stopping a possible German breakthrough against the Sixth Army.

Today, some historians question their real impact. Their impact on morale, however, is undeniable: the taxis de la Marne were perceived as a manifestation of the union sacrée of the French civilian population and its soldiers at the front, reminiscent of the people in arms who had saved the French Republic in 1794.

Over two million men fought in the First Battle of the Marne, of whom more than 500,000 were killed or wounded. French casualties totalled 250,000, 80,000 of them dead, while British casualties were 13,000, 1,700 of them dead. The Germans suffered 220,000 casualties. Of note, the French poet Charles Peguy was killed the day before the beginning of the battle.

1914: Ruth’s first pro home run just one of many

From the Northwest Herald: Ruth’s first pro home run just one of many
On this day (Sept. 5) in 1914, 19-year-old George Herman “Babe” Ruth hit his first and only home run as a minor league baseball player when he launched what had been reported to be a 440-foot blast while a member of the International League Baltimore Orioles.

However, Ruth’s overall hitting statistics as a minor leaguer (first with the Orioles and then briefly with the Providence Grays), were less than spectacular. His batting average for 121 at-bats was .231, with only one home run.

It was, however, for his obvious skill as a left-handed pitcher that he initially was signed to a professional baseball contract. In 1914, Ruth compiled, in 244 innings, an impressive 23 wins and only eight losses.

Ruth’s first baseball contract, signed for the year 1914, was for $600 to play for his hometown Baltimore team. All during 1913, Orioles’ owner Jack Dunn had been scouting the young southpaw, who was pitching in Baltimore for a local semi-pro team.

Ruth’s new Baltimore teammates immediately referred to the new young pitcher as Dunn’s “new babe,” and thus he became immediately and famously the “Babe,” or Babe Ruth.

September 4, 1918 : Polar Bears Invade Russia

Polar Bear Monument in White Chapel Cemetery, Troy, Michigan, sculptor Leon Hermant.

September 4, 1918 : Polar Bears Invade Russia
Soldiers from Michigan, whose regiment was nicknamed the ‘Polar Bears,’ invaded the Soviet Union.

see "Detroit's own" Polar Bears : the American North Russian Expeditionary Forces, 1918-1919 / Stanley J. Bozich and Jon R. Bozich.

From Wikipedia:
The Polar Bear Expedition (also known as the Northern Russian Expedition, the American North Russia Expeditionary Force - ANREF or the American Expeditionary Force North Russia - AEFNR) was a contingent of about 5,000 U.S. troops[1] that landed in Arkhangelsk, Russia as part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War and fought the Red Army in the surrounding region during the period of September 1918 through July 1919.

Allied Intervention
The Polar Bear Expedition was sent to Russia by the U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in response to requests from the governments of Great Britain and France to join the Allied Intervention in North Russia (also known as the North Russia Campaign). The British and French had three objectives for this intervention:

1.preventing Allied war material stockpiles in Archangelsk (originally intended for the recently collapsed Eastern Front) from falling into German or Bolshevik hands

2.mounting an offensive to rescue the Czech Legion, which was stranded along the Trans-Siberian Railroad and

3.resurrecting the Eastern Front by defeating the Red Army with the assistance of the Czech Legion and an expanded anti-Bolshevik force drawn from the local citizenry - and in the process stopping the spread of communism and the Bolshevik cause in Russia.

On July 14, 1918, the U.S. Army's 85th Division left their training camp at Camp Custer, Michigan for the Western Front in France. Three days later, President Wilson agreed to a limited participation by American troops in the Allied Intervention with the stipulation that they would only be used for guarding the stockpiled war material. When U.S. Army General John J. Pershing received the directive from President Wilson, he changed the orders for the 339th Infantry Regiment, along with the First Battalion of the 310th Engineers plus a few other ancillary units from the 85th Division. Instead of heading for France, these units were trained and re-outfitted in England with Russian guns and then sent to North Russia, where they arrived in Arkhangelsk on September 4, 1918 and placed under British command.

An American Expeditionary Force -- 7,950 American soldiers and officers, were sent to Vladivostok, Russia at the same time.

Campaign
When the British commanders of the Allied Intervention arrived in Arkhangelsk on August 2, 1918, they discovered that the Allied war material had already been moved up the Dvina River by the retreating Bolshevik forces. Therefore, when the American troops arrived one month later, they were immediately used in offensive operations to aid in the rescue of the Czech Legion. The British commanders sent the First Battalion of the 339th Infantry up the Dvina River and the Third Battalion of the 339th up the Vologda Railroad where they engaged and pushed back the Bolshevik forces for the next six weeks.

However, these two fronts each became hundreds of miles long and were extremely narrow and difficult to supply, maintain and protect. By the end of October 1918, they were no longer able to maintain the offensive and acknowledging their fragile situation and the rapid onset of winter, the Allies began to adopt a defensive posture.

The Allied commanders soon also came to the realization that they would not be able to raise an effective local force of anti-Bolshevik soldiers. Thus they gave up their goal of linking up with the Czech Legion and settled in to hold their gains over the coming winter. During that winter, the Bolshevik army went on the offensive, especially along the Vaga River portion of the Dvina River Front, where they inflicted numerous casualties and caused the Allies to retreat a considerable distance.

During their time in North Russia, the American forces suffered more than 110 deaths from battle, plus about 30 missing and 70 deaths from disease, 90% of which were caused by the Spanish Flu.

Withdrawal
Following the Allied Armistice with Germany on November 11, 1918, family members and friends of the ANREF soldiers began writing letters to newspapers and circulating petitions to their representatives in the U.S. Congress asking for the immediate return of the ANREF from North Russia. In turn, the newspapers editorialized for their withdrawal and their Congressmen raised the issue in Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, aware of not only the change in their mission, but also of the Armistice on the Western Front and the fact that the port of Arkhangelsk was now frozen and closed to shipping, the morale of the American soldiers soon plummeted. They would ask their officers for the reason they were fighting Bolshevik soldiers in Russia and would not receive a specific answer other than they must fight to survive and avoid being pushed into the Arctic Ocean by the Bolshevik army.

Early in 1919, instances of rumored and actual mutinies in the Allied ranks became frequent. President Wilson directed his War Department on February 16, 1919 to begin planning the ANREF's withdrawal from North Russia. In March 1919, four American soldiers in Company B of the 339th Infantry drew up a petition protesting their continued presence in Russia and were threatened with court-martial proceedings. U.S. Army Brigadier General Wilds P. Richardson arrived in Arkhangelsk aboard the icebreaker Canada on April 17, 1919, with orders from then-General Pershing to organize a coordinated withdrawal of the American troops "at the earliest possible moment".

On May 26, 1919, the first half of 8,000 volunteer members of the British North Russian Relief Force arrived in Arkhangelsk to relieve the American troops. In early June, the bulk of the ANREF sailed for Brest, France and then for New York City and home, which for two-thirds of them was in the state of Michigan. During the withdrawal, the men of the ANREF decided to call themselves "Polar Bears" and were authorized to wear the Polar Bear insignia on their left sleeve. The ANREF was officially disbanded on August 5, 1919.

Several years after the American troops were withdrawn from Russia, President Warren G. Harding called the expedition a mistake and blamed the previous administration.

Repatriation of the dead
After they returned home, the Polar Bear veterans lobbied their state and Federal governments to obtain funds and the necessary approvals to retrieve the bodies of more than 125 U.S. soldiers who were known to have been left behind in North Russia. Hampered by the lack of diplomatic recognition between the United States and the Soviet Union, it took many years before they finally received permission.

An expedition under the auspices of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) was successful in organizing and conducting a recovery mission in the autumn of 1929 that found, identified and brought out the remains of 86 U.S. soldiers. Another dozen remains of ANREF soldiers were shipped by the Soviet Union to the U.S. in 1934, which reduced the number of U.S soldiers still buried in North Russia to about 30. The remains of 56 ANREF soldiers were eventually re-buried in plots surrounding the Polar Bear Monument by sculptor Leon Hermant in White Chapel Cemetery, Troy, Michigan.

Last living member dies
Harold Gunnes, who was born in 1899, died on March 11, 2003. Gunnes was believed to have been the last living American to have fought in the Allied Intervention near the port of Arkhangelsk on the White Sea