On September 30th 2015, Dennis Cross published the latest instalment to his Centennial Countdown blog. Here’s his email summary of the posting:
“In September 1915, there are few if any signs that an end is in sight to the Great War that began over a year ago. The British and French mount major offensives on the Western Front, including the first use of poison gas by the British. The Tsar takes personal command of the Russian Army. Socialists meeting in Switzerland call for an end to the ongoing war between nations, to be replaced by a class war; Lenin and Trotsky are there. The United States and Germany struggle to find common ground on the subject of submarine warfare, and the Royal Navy’s blockade of Germany continues to be an irritant in Anglo-American relations. The United States demands the recall of Baron Dumba, the Austro-Hungarian ambassador (Franz von Papen, his military attache, will become Chancellor and then Vice-Chancellor of Germany under Hitler in the 1930’s). Zeppelins drop bombs on London, and the British Landships Committee conducts its first test of an armoured vehicle designed to overcome machine guns and barbed wire. An Anglo-French Financial Commission negotiates a large loan from American banks. The civil war in Mexico may be coming to an end as Carranza gains the upper hand, but violence continues on the Texas border. Subway construction causes streets to collapse in New York City, W.C. Fields makes his first motion picture, and the Grand Army of the Republic commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Civil war with a parade in Washington.”