Tag: 1914

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July 28, 1914 — World War One begins

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World War One was, according to the commonly held wisdom, unavoidable. The complex web of alliance and counter-alliance that bound the European powers to each other did make declarations of war on the part of each nation more or less inevitable once an inciting incident occurred.

That incident turned out to be the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914. Over the next thirty days, declarations of war started one after another, in two opposed chains of political allies. On one side: Austria-Hungary, Germany and the Ottoman Empire. On the other side, the United Kingdom and its Commonwealth, France, Russia, Italy, Japan, and eventually, the USA as well.

It was the first truly worldwide war, fought in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Atlantic Ocean. World War One lasted for four years and a little under four months. It killed 16.5 million people, the greatest single toll of any conflict to that date, and despite the propaganda of the following years, it did not end wars.

Map of Europe focusing on Austria-Hungary and marking central location of ethnic groups in it including Slovaks, Czechs, Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, Romanians, Ukrainians, Poles.
By historicair (French original)
Fluteflute & User:Bibi Saint-Pol (English translation) – Translated in English from French SVG Map_Europe_alliances_1914-fr.svg, CC BY-SA 2.5, Link

As mentioned in:

a href=”http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Blue-Turtles-Sting/dp/B000002GFA/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1459076931&sr=1-1&keywords=dream+of+the+blue+turtles&linkCode=ll1&tag=rocknrollhistory-20&linkId=b5408779c6cadec858ee8674fcd6c885″>Children’s Crusade — Sting
No Man’s Land — Eric Bogle

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April 20, 1914 — Striking coal miners are massacred by the Colorado National Guard in Ludlow, Colorado

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Miners had been striking for a number of basic rights – an eight hour work day, the right to shop at stores not run by the mining companies, wage increases and actual enforcement of the laws governing mining – since September 1913. Obviously, this attempt by poor working class men to resist their exploitation by the boards of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company, and the Victor-American Fuel Company could not be tolerated. An example would have to be made.

An example duly was, but it wasn’t the one that the rich men expected.

On April the 20th, Colorado National Guard members – actually mostly company hired men wearing the uniforms of such – attacked the site of striker’s camp in Ludlow. They killed a number of the strikers – including two wives and eleven children, along with captives who were summarily executed – that day. Only one conviction resulted – one of the strike breakers was convicted of assaulting a union leader who was later killed while a prisoner that day.

This is because management is the best friend that the working man ever had.

The real insult to the flag.jpg
By Morris Hall Pancoast – The Masses Vol. 5, No. 9
New York:The Masses Publishing Co., 1914-06
http://modjourn.org/render.php?id=1367343438486604&view=mjp_thumbnails, Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

The Ludlow Massacre — Woody Guthrie

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February 2, 1914 — James Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” begins serialisation

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Joyce’s first novel was also his most overtly autobiographical, and in its earlier drafts, was even moreso than the final version. It tells the story of the youth of Stephen Dedalus, from childhood until he finishes college. The first publication of it was as a serial in “The Egoist”, a literary magazine based in London after it was urged on the editors by Ezra Pound (who had at that point read only the first chapter). It would continue to be published for a total of twenty-five installments, concluding in the September 1, 1915 edition of The Egoist.

Later, it would be published in its more familiar novel form, and go on to become one of the most respected and critically acclaimed novels of the twentieth century. More immediately, it established Joyce as a major talent, talent whose promise would be more fully realised in his later novels, such as Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.jpg
By The Egoist Ltd., London – Immediate image source: [1], linked at [2]., Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

Whatareya? — This Is Serious Mum