At the end of September, Dennis Cross published the latest instalment to his Centennial Countdown blog. Here is his summary of the posting:
In September 1914, the World War is in its second month. Millions of men are in combat in Europe and Africa, on the high seas and the coast of China. The German invasion of France is turned back at the Marne, and four years of bloody stalemate on the Western Front begin. Austria-Hungary, which started the war determined to punish Serbia for the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, follows its embarrassing defeat in Serbia with another defeat in Galicia. The German East Asia Squadron continues its voyage across the Pacific toward South America, as Japanese and British forces attack the German concession on the Shantung (now Shandong) Peninsula and occupy Tsingtao (now Qingdao, but still the home of Tsingtao Beer). Foreshadowing a new era in naval warfare, a single German submarine sinks three British cruisers in the North Sea. In Mexico, despite Huerta’s ouster, the revolution isn’t over, as Pancho Villa declares war on the new government of Venustiano Carranza. In the Vatican, the Roman Catholic Church names a new Pontiff. In the United States, former President Roosevelt publishes an article in The Outlook summoning Americans to their “twofold duties” in light of the World War, and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan continues to pursue his goal of world peace through the adoption of “cooling off” treaties.
Click here to read the full blog post.
Posted by: Ellen Tranter, Centenary News