Category: Overseas
-
France’s New President
When Paul Deschanel was elected president of France in January 1920, this article predicted great things. Instead, his behavior proved so erratic that he resigned after seven months and entered a mental institution. Now if Paul Deschanel is to tread carefully in the footsteps of his excellent predecessors of the Third Republic, he has received […]
-
Channel Tunnel After a Hundred Years of Talk
In 1919, a tunnel under the English Channel “has been brought much nearer to practical realization.” It wouldn’t be opened until 1994. Supposedly early 1919 had all the elements going for construction, now that World War I had recently ended: Generally speaking, however, it is taken as an accepted fact that opposition to the tunnel […]
-
Is the Czar Dead?
Was the czar dead? It was February 1919 and seven months had elapsed since anyone had heard from Russia’s Czar Nicholas II. Turns out, yes: he was executed. The tsar abdicated the throne in March 1917 after the February Revolution, then he and his family were imprisoned in the Ipatiev House. More than a year later […]
-
Stars and Stripes on Many English Homes
During WWI, millions of British people actually met Americans for the first time as they were stationed overseas. The result was America and England became as close as they’d ever been: One of the incidentals of the war is the fact that great masses of American troops pass through England or are temporarily stationed there. […]
-
Kaiser’s Heir, Prince of Failure
His father was Wilhelm II, the last kaiser of the German empire. As the oldest son, Crown Prince Wilhelm became crown prince at age six and held the title for three decades until the fall of the German Empire in November 1918, three months after this article was originally published. During WWI, he was one […]
-
Foreign Medals for American Soldier Heroes
Although America officially entered WWI in April 1917, the war began more than two and a half years earlier in July 1914. Some American soldiers had been serving in foreign armies since 1914, 1915, or 1916, fighting for nations that the U.S. would later officially ally with. Under the bill, any American soldier would now […]
-
How Europe Views Wilson and the Election
Most people in Europe in 1916 were supporting the Democratic nominee for president. The more things change, the more they stayed the same. This summer, Pew Research Center found that 77 percent of Europeans expressed confidence in Barack Obama, 59 percent for Hillary Clinton, but only 9 percent did for Donald Trump: How Europe Views […]
-
Italy Proud of Soldier-Poet Killed in Action
After the poet Giosue Borsi was killed during World War I in November 1915, a letter he wrote to his mother in event of his death, his “Letter to his Mother” went around the world and was translated into many languages — the 1916 equivalent of going viral. Much of the letter is reprinted in […]
-
New Russia Is Individualistic and Imaginative
In 1916, Russia was being praised as “individualistic.” Only two years later in 1918 the Bolshevik Communists became the ruling party, and instituted a “ban on factions” in 1921. New Russia Is Individualistic and Imaginative: Colonel Golejewski, Military Attache to the Russian Embassy, Tells of the Great Similarities Between His Countrymen and Ours From October […]
-
China’s Industrial Revolution Now In Progress
If you thought China was advancing a century ago, China’s economy overtook the U.S. to become the world’s largest in 2014, according to the International Monetary Fund. To some extent that’s an unfair comparison because China has about quadruple the U.S. population, but still — the U.S. had the world’s largest economy for many decades […]