On January 31st 2016, Dennis Cross published the latest instalment of his Centennial Countdown blog. Here’s his email summary of the posting:
‘The first month of the third calendar year of the war finds both sides bitterly resigned to a world war of unprecedented destruction with no end in sight. The British complete their withdrawal from Gallipoli and find themselves under siege in Mesopotamia with the likelihood of relief diminishing. Churchill takes command of an infantry battalion on the Western Front as the British Government yields to the necessity of compulsory military service. Colonel House spends the month in London, Paris and Berlin, but accomplishes little. Lusitania negotiationsbetween Germany and the United States reach an impasse. President Wilson embarks on a preparedness tour of the Midwest. Former President Roosevelt denounces the administration’s foreign policy and calls for a “larger Americanism” that welcomes loyal immigrants. Pancho Villa’s bandits attack a train and kill Americans in Mexico. Other newsworthy deaths include a former Mexican revolutionary and a Civil War general instrumental in building the transcontinental railroad. Louis Brandeis is appointed to the Supreme Court’.