On August 31st 2015, Dennis Cross published the latest instalment to his Centennial Countdown blog. Here’s his email summary of the posting:
“It’s August 1915. As the second year of the World War begins, Allied forces at Gallipoli make a final major effort to secure the heights. Once again, the attempt is unsuccessful. Italy joins the war against Turkey. With the Lusitania crisis still unresolved, another British ship carrying American passengers is sunk by a German submarine; American public opinion leaders respond in sharply different but predictable ways. The carelessness of a German diplomat leads to the revelation of German espionage and sabotage efforts in the United States. The United States effectively takes over the government of Haiti and joins other Latin American nations in an attempt to bring order out of chaos in Mexico. A famous French aviator is a war casualty. Britain declares cotton absolute contraband and seeks to deal with a financial crisis caused by the Allies’ massive war expenditures. General Pershing, who will soon lead American troops into Mexico and then to France, suffers a crushing family tragedy. Leo Frank, the Jewish factory manager whose death sentence for murder has been commuted to life imprisonment by the outgoing governor, is lynched in Georgia.”