It’s sometimes a challenge to write about Berlin’s goings-on in a fair manner. The perennial issue, as I mentioned a few months ago, is source bias. I think I may have jumped the gun on presenting that topic. Why? This month it the divide between my sources widened, and at times, it became difficult to […] Read more…
15 May 1916: Colonel Lochead’s open letter to Berliners Regarding the reports apparently more or less generally circulated throughout the City, that the officers, NCOs, and men of the 118th Battalion mean to take an active part in the election slated for Friday, I beg to state that I myself and every other officer of […] Read more…
A ripple of excitement on the Bay of Berlin The Berlin Daily Telegraph did a mini-exposé on William Kingsley, the man behind the injunction to stop the name change vote. A riffle through recruiting office files revealed he was a socialist slacker—this allowed a nebulous tie-in to the anti-name changer group with enemy aliens. Without […] Read more…
The ladies’ ten-day recruitment campaign ended without either fanfare or an inkling of results–except to say empty bunks meant a last-ditch sign-up campaign had to be launched. Recruitment meetings continued to attract “the usual crowd” of ladies and old tigers; eligible, fit young men were nowhere to be found. Woe betides these slackers, for “they […] Read more…
Irish Uprising News from Ireland was slow and—at least at first–sparse. Apart from cut communications lines, London’s censors vetted the uprising’s details, leaving many in the dark. By the end of this week—10 days after the rebellion began—more than 100 people were killed or wounded, the street fighting subsided, and more than 1000 insurgents were […] Read more…
Late last month, workers in Waterloo unearthed sections of the 200-year-old corduroy road (pictured, above). Early settlers laid logs on swampy ground to make their journeys easier (remember, this area is part of a large swamp). For a few weeks, these stretches of excavated ground became a tourist attraction, as archaeologists, historians, and people with […] Read more…