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The Daily Colonist

News from a century ago as presented in the Victoria Daily Colonist newspaper.

The Daily Colonist, November 24, 1914

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

• Nothing really new in the European theatre...
• In more exotic locales, there is news, however: British forces taken the port city of Basra and a British advance has been repulsed by Germans in German East Africa.
• A report of a secret movement for an armistice at Christmas...
• Ten million cigarettes donated...
• Story of a British raid on a German Zeppelin factory is, rather interestingly, reported from both the British and German perspectives.
• One of the cable station operators on Fanning Island recounts the German attack on the trans-Pacific cable station early in the war.


The Daily Colonist, November 22, 1914

The news out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today. As usual for the Sunday edition, lots of interesting stuff...


The Daily Colonist, November 21, 1914

News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today:

• In retaliation for the internment of Austrians in Britain and the British Empire, Austria initiates programme of arrest and internment of British subjects.
• Speech by Québec separatist leader Henri Bourassa in Ottawa cancelled due to public outcry.
Government of Canada by order-in-council [i.e. decree of the Governor General, not an act of parliament] bans four American publications with pro-German content.


The Daily Colonist, November 20, 1914

News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today:

The first headline pretty much sums up the news day, "One Calm Day on Battle Line. French Official Communication Says Nothing Important Occurred Yesterday." Nonetheless, there are a few interesting things in the paper including some interesting articles on the cutting edge of science at the time ...and a lot of fluff that is mostly the same sort of tourist promotion that Victoria still flogs mercilessly...


The Daily Colonist, November 19, 1914

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

Nothing quite on the level of underwater knife-fights with octopi today (I doubt that is ever going to be topped) in addition to horrible news of starvation in Belgium, there is plenty of interesting and almost as exotic news today including stories of:
• The French Foreign Legion,
• Fighting in the "Near East" and exotic Africa,
• The beginning of the events in "Lawrence of Arabia",
• Wild West mayhem with a stage coach robbery and a train robbery,
• An axe murder in Ontario and Ukrainian internment in Québec, and
• News of vital importance to the residents of Victoria...


The Daily Colonist, November 18, 1914

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

• Chancellor of Exchequer proposes increased taxes to parliament in London, including doubling the income tax [so much for that old myth that income tax was "invented" to fund World War I], raising taxes on beer. Not quite four months of war have already cost more than the entire four years of the Boer War.
• First Canadians sent into combat.
• The War Office denounces the use of dum-dum bullets by the Germans in violation of The Hague Convention. British bullets described as "most humane projectile yet devised."
• Just three years after overthrowing the imperial government, the Republic of China is broke. European governments have no money to lend, China looking to United States for loan.


The Daily Colonist, November 17, 1914

News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today:

• Founder and proprietor of the Victoria Times, William Templeman, dies suddenly. There is a large picture on the front page and the lead headline is basically a lengthy obituary...
• Spectacular report of a storm-damaged Zeppelin limping back to Germany over Holland.
• British Indian troops fighting Ottoman Turks in the Persian Gulf...
• Parliament in London approves recruiting another 1,000,000 men and expenditure of over $1-billion [1914] dollars. Better pay for soldiers and pensions for wounded, widows and dependants.
• Victoria refuses to continue paying "enemy aliens" put to work breaking rocks in a labour camp, demanding that it is the federal government's responsibility...


The Daily Colonist, November 15, 1914

News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today. One of the most interesting papers so far, including an amazing story that, if this wasn't an actual newspaper story from a reputable newspaper from 1914, you would think was a steampunk fantasy...


The Daily Colonist, November 14, 1914, Addendum

News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago ...yesterday.

News from the Canadian camp on Salisbury Plain that I almost missed yesterday:

• Forces are banned from corresponding directly or indirectly with press
• Hailstorm knocks over signs and tents
• Ignorant dufus objects to vaccinations, gets typhoid.
• Rich Canadian with low rank is surprised to find he's not allowed to socialize with officers.


The Daily Colonist, November 14, 1914

News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today:

• Heavy fighting on the Western Front reported...
• Fierce attack by crack Prussian troops breaks the Allied line at three points, but is eventually repulsed. 700 dead counted in one trench alone.
• German casualties at Yser estimated at 90,000...
• Four allied aeroplanes engage four German aeroplanes over Ypres. This is the largest aerial battle I've seen reported so far.
• Russian troops capture two German aviators, who were forced to land by engine trouble.
• Publication of detailed weather reports has been banned in France as the information is useful to the Germans. It is only allowed to report temperature predictions.
• And on the subject of weather, it has snowed in Calgary. This is inexplicably on the front page of a Victoria newspaper.
• Second Canadian expeditionary force now mobilizing. 15,272 men to be dispatched.
• Trans Indian Ocean cable station at the Cocos Island attacked by the German cruiser Emden...
• The Mexican civil war is back to open warfare.
• Ad illustrations that caught my eye....


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