The Daily Colonist, September 11, 1914
Thu, 2014/09/11 - 10:19am
« previous next »#dailycolonist1914 - News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today.
More of the same in Europe. A Belgian town recovered, German losses and advances in France, Russian advances, it is hard to keep track of what's going on.
- Meanwhile, in Africa, there is fighting between the English and Germans in Cameroon and near Lake Nyassa [Malawi]. While not mentioned in the article, German East Africa [Tanzania] is the last obstacle to the British imperial dream of consolidating territory to have a completely British-controlled railway from Cape Town to Cairo. [Also bear in mind that in 1914 to most Europeans, Central Africa may as well have been the moon or Mars. "Tarzan", written in 1912, was a science-fiction book. So while a few hundred thousand men fighting in Europe is one thing, a few dozen men fighting on the moon, as it were, is another.]
- The world "attrition" appears for the first time that I've noticed in an article talking about Imperial Britain's wealth of willing colonial cannon-fodder [not the way they put it, of course.]
- Saskatchewan brings a knife to the gun-fight, and offers a gift to the Imperial Government of 1,500 horses.
- An editorial goes on at length about the scale of the war, that the "minor" battles of the war in Europe are on a scale "that would have been called great battles fifty years ago."
- Germans and Austro-Hungarians are ordered to register in Victoria.
- The White Star Line H.M.S. Oceanic, which was the largest liner in the world from its launch in 1899 until it was superceded by the White Star Line H.M.S. Celtic in 1901, which was put into naval service at the outbreak of the war, has run aground off the north coast of Scotland and wrecked. There was no loss of life.
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