Komagata Maru

#dailycolonist1915 - News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago:

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

• How the various kings and emperors are planning to spend Christmas, [which]
• [debunks the myth of the spontaneous Christmas Truce of 1914]
• Some rather silly local news from Victoria, and
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyles conspiracy theory about the Komagata Maru.

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

#dailycolonist1914 - News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today.

It's Sunday in 1914, and there are some interesting things in the paper and the magazine section today, both from a 1914 point of view and a 2014 point of view:

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

• Germans are approaching Paris. A map of Paris is printed on the front page.
• Funding for the Canadian Northern Railway is secured, despite fears that funds might be withheld because of the war
• Germans sink a British ship, killing 242 men.
• A British submarine sinks ships in Bremerhaven Harbour
• The Komagata Maru arrives in Yokohama...