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

Today it is not the battles in Europe and elsewhere that make the most interesting news. Today is about propaganda, technology, accidents and speculation...

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

• Germans are reported to be using some kind of "silent cannon" that makes no noise when fired, that in areas where trenches are very close troops are talking back and forth and agreeing to ad hoc cease-fire agreements [this is another lead up to the famous informal Christmas cease-fire, and will later be "solved" by old men in charge by introducing troop rotation so the cannon-fodder won't have time to get friendly enough to agree not shoot each other], but life in the trenches is generally cold and miserable.
• It seems a story from yesterday about disappointing recruitment drives at football [soccer] matches that I took as unimportant is a more serious problem to some. The British Prime Minister is expected to be asked to introduce legislation banning football matches for the duration of the war.
• A large shipment of tobacco products is being sent to Canadian troops.
• Strange political machinations in the hard-to-comprehend politics of Egypt.
• Commendations for British and French pilots for Zeppelin-shed raids.
• Canada's first expeditionary force expected to be on the front lines before Christmas. The article goes on to detail the physical training the men are getting.
• In an extension of the programme of internment of "enemy aliens" all Canadian soldiers with German-sounding names in the Salisbury Plain camp, many of which are decorated Boer War veterans, are arrested, removed, questions and likely to be interned.
An editorial describing Basra and its strategic significance.
• A senator from Saskatchewan defends the loyalty of Galacians and Hungarians on the prairies
• Questions in London Parliament about annuities being paid to members of the British royal family living in Germany

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

• Italian ministers confer on Italy's position in the war, still no official stance.
• Portugal declares it will stand with France and Britain, if need be.
• Story in German newspaper taken by Swiss to be a warning not to interfere with German troops should they enter Switzerland, and Switzerland vows to to defend itself, if need be.
• A Vancouver man, originally from Wales, died of pneumonia in Canadian camp of Salisbury Plain and was buried in Wales.
• About 80 interned "prisoners of war" relocated from Fort Garry, MB to Brandon, MB.
• Prior reports of Germans helping with food relief for Belgium are refuted by American relief workers.
• Report compares current desperate plight of Belgians to conditions during religious wars of the 16th century.
• Amusing editorial on British slang terms
• [And a reminder that there were still blank spots on the map in 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 news out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today. As usual for the Sunday edition, lots of interesting stuff...