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The Daily Colonist, November 1–11, 1915

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#dailycolonist1915 #WWI - The news out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago. 

I am, at last, caught up to exactly 100 years ago. The beginning of November 1915 has the British using gas for the first time, fighting in Bulgaria, King George V recovering from an accident at the front, the defeat of women's suffrage in the United States, new innovations in aerial warfare, and a new Japanese emperor, among other news. 

  • Monday, November 1, 1915
    • [no paper on Mondays]
  • Tuesday, November 2, 1915
    • A report dated October 15 from British Field Marshal Sir John French to War Secretary Lord Kitchener notes the first use of gas by the British against the Germans, "Although the enemy was known to have prepared for such reprisals, our gas attack met with marked success..."
    • With Bulgaria having declared was against Serbia and siding with Austria-Hungary and Germany last month, Russian troops attack the important port of Varna.
  • Wednesday, November 3, 1915
    • King George V, injured at the front last week when he was thrown from his horse and the horse subsequently fell on him, awards a Victoria Cross to a solder while the king is still bedridden in hospital.
    • Map of fighting along the Serbian-Bulgarian boundary
    • Voters [all male, of course] in New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts vote against women's suffrage.
  • Thursday, November 4, 1915
    • The Canadian Northern Railway Company puts in an order for two large ferries for carrying rail cars to operate between Victoria and Vancouver, "enabling travellers bound from any Eastern point to Victoria to make the unbroken trip through".
  • Friday, November 5, 1915
    • Germans experiment with attacking ships with aeroplanes.
    • A small article notes that women are serving in combat roles in the Serbia army along side men. 
  • Saturday, November 6, 1915
    • The northern lights are visible in Victoria twice overnight. The relationship between sunspot activity, magnetic storms and the northern lights is noted.
  • Sunday, November 7, 1915
    • Rumours of Lord Kitchener's resignation as War Secretary due him not attending a meeting of the War Council on November 2 are put to rest with an official statement that he is on tour in the Eastern Theatre, possibly visiting Egypt and Gallipoli. The Globe newspaper in London is raided by police and shut down for reporting that Lord Kitchener had resigned. 
    • Another article on the seizure of The Globe by police.
    • The United States navy successfully tests a device for launching aeroplanes from the deck of a moving ship. 
  • Monday, November 8, 1915
    • [no paper on Mondays]
  • Tuesday, November 9, 1915
    • A large picture on the front page with no accompanying article of Edith Cavell, "Was Martyred in Britain's Cause". There have been, however, several articles about Edith Cavell, a British nurse working in Belgium, in the past three weeks as she was shot by the Germans for "treason" on October 12 for helping allied soldiers escape German occupied Belgium. [More on Edith Cavell from Wikipedia]
    • An interesting article on the history of Cyprus, currently held by the British Empire since 1878 and being offered to Greece if the country will enter the war on the side of Serbia. [Cyprus was leased to Britian by the Ottoman Empire from 1878 until being claimed outright by Britain when the Ottoman Emprie entered the war. Cyprus will remain part of the British Empire until independence in 1960. However, to this day Britiain still has sovereignty over some large chunks of the island and the politics of the island since 1960 are strange to say the least and difficult to explain in brief.]
  • Wednesday, November 10, 1915
    • A new emperor is crowned in Japan, with the coronation being the first in Japanese history open to Japanese commoners and foreign representatives. The article describes the coronation in detail. 
  • Thursday, November 11, 1915
    • The editorial page summary of the 468th day of the war.

[ source: http://www.britishcolonist.ca/dateList.php?year=1915 ]