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Many people believe this to be a myth. But entering into the winter months in 1914, everyone thought that World War I would be over in time for the holiday season. The soldiers were weary of war and homesick. Families were split apart.Then, during the month of December, when the soldiers realized they would not be home with their families for Christmas, a miraculous event happened. Singing could be heard coming across the killing fields, known as No Man's Land, from both sides of the war.That evening of Christmas Eve brings a still calm over the battlefield. Despite heavy losses...

US actor’s family was deported from Jaffa to Egypt in 1914 bataween | Posted on 15 February 2023 | No Comments The celebrity US actor David Duchovny has just discovered something about his family he never knew: his grandfather Moshe was deported from Jaffa to Port Said in Egypt by the Turkish authorities at the start of World War I. Duchovny learned about his family’s migration from their place of birth, Berdichev in the Russian empire, to Palestine (then under Ottoman rule), thence to Egypt. They ended up taking a boat from Greece to the US, where Moshe acquired American...

The Christmas truce of 1914 is a story many of us have heard, but it’s well worth revisiting. It’s almost too good to be true.When the angels appeared to the shepherds outside Bethlehem on that night more than 2,000 years ago, they spoke of the great tidings of the incarnation and sang what has become the universal Christmas prayer of the centuries: “Peace on Earth and goodwill toward men.”Perhaps those same Christmas angels were singing over the Western Front in 1914, when the guns fell silent.The Christmas truce of 1914 is one of those stories many of us have heard,...

An event horribly underscoring the heartlessness of the brass against frail flesh in their ghastly war of machines, this shooting succeeded a surprise German attack on November 27 whose short-lived push into the French line momentarily drove part of the 298th Regiment to fall back out of their forward trench, before the French rallied and retook their own position to restore the status quo ante. The whole back-and-forth spanned mere minutes — just another snapshot of the trench war stalemate that would become so grindingly familiar to all belligerents in the years ahead. French commanders in the earliest months of...

So asks Newsweek's cover, which features a full-length photo of the prime minister his people voted the greatest Briton of them all. Quite a tribute, when one realizes Churchill's career coincides with the collapse of the British empire and the fall of his nation from world pre-eminence to third-rate power. That the Newsweek cover was sparked by my book "Churchill, Hitler and The Unnecessary War" seems apparent, as one of the three essays, by Christopher Hitchens, was a scathing review. Though in places complimentary, Hitchens charmingly concludes: This book "stinks." Understandable. No Brit can easily concede my central thesis: The...

RACIST 'FALASTIN' PERIODICAL WAS ABOLISHED IN 1914 BY THE OTTOMAN AUTHORITIESJanrense Boonstra, 'Antisemitism, a History Portrayed,' SDU / Anne Frank Foundation,' 1989, p. 101The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem In 1914, the periodical Falastin – with its extremist Arab nationalist slant - was abolished by the Ottoman authorities because of its racist hate propaganda. The periodical had agitated against the immigration of Jewish refugees from Russia. In the Twenties, the publication reappeared and led campaigns against Jewish immigration. As a result of anti-Jewish propaganda and terror, the British government took measures between the Twenties and the Forties to restrict Jewish immigration...

A Plague Upon Us; the Niagara Falls Smallpox Epidemic of 1914 September 1, 2015 By Michelle Ann Kratts It must have seemed like the end of the world--the Apocalypse--when smallpox came to Niagara Falls, New York, in January of 1914. Luckily, the city pulled through...although it was quite a harrowing journey to the end. It wasn't exactly a topic I wanted to dive into after a refreshing vacation at Saranac Lake, but there it was on my desk: a dusty, decrepit scrapbook filled with tattered news clippings on one subject, smallpox. I try and imagine the person who cut these...

2014 Christmas ad from Sainsbury’s – Christmas is for sharing. Made in partnership with The Royal British Legion, it commemorates the extraordinary events of Christmas Day, 1914, when the guns fell silent and two armies met in no-man’s land, sharing gifts – and even playing football together. The chocolate bar featured in the ad is on sale now at Sainsbury’s. All profits will go to The Royal British Legion and will benefit the armed forces and their families, past and present. Click for beautiful video.

The Great War of 1914-1918 was the defining event of our time: a lost generation of millions dead or maimed; mournful widows and orphans; empires toppled and nations shattered; Western civilization damaged; vast treasures sacrificed. And in war's aftermath, democracies stillborn and totalitarianism and vengeance enthroned. How did it happen? Keegan, despite his vast expertise, confesses that even when one knows what happened, it is difficult to explain why. "The First World War is a mystery. Its origins are mysterious. So is its course. Why did a prosperous continent, at the height of its success as a source and agent...

. In April 1914, nine Americans were mistakenly arrested as they docked in the Mexican port of Tampico during a time in which (unknown to them) martial law was being imposed by the Mexican leader General Huerta. Two Americans were actually taken off their ship by Mexican forces. The U.S.S. Dolphin and an American whaling boat were docked at the time and were flying American flags when Mexican soldiers boarded the boat and arrested the unarmed men. An hour and a half later, orders were received from the commander of the Huertista forces at Tampico for the release of the...

An Armenian Source:Hovhannes KatchaznouniThe Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnagtzoutiun) has nothing to do any more. The Manifesto of Hovhannes Katchaznouni, First Prime Minister of the Independent Armenian Republic. Translated from the original by Matthew A. Callender, Edited by John Roy Carlson (Arthur A. Derounian). Published by the Armenian Information Service Suite 7D, 471 Park Ave. New York 22 - 1955. This is a summary of an important book, entitled laquo; The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnagtzoutiun) Has Nothing To Do Any More raquo;.The author is Hovhannes Katchaznouni (1), the first Prime Minister of the independent Armenian Republic. It is actually a manifesto,...

On Sunday June 28 1914 in Sarajevo, Gavrilo Princip fired the shot that killed the Archduke and started the train of events that led to global war. Here is a step by step account of how the dramatic day unfolded... Our journey starts with an extremely promising omen. Here our car burns, and down there they will throw bombs at us. Archduke Franz Ferdinand comments wryly on the fact that his journey to Bosnia in June 1914 begins with his car overheating The Archduke: Franz Ferdinand, the bumptious, little-loved 51-year-old nephew of the ailing Emperor Franz Joseph, was heir presumptive...

'A bank of fog was sitting a couple of miles out at sea and a heavy mist lay over the East Coast resort of Scarborough as postman Alfred Beal climbed the wide front steps of Dunollie, a porticoed mansion high on the town’s South Cliff. He never reached the door that fateful morning on December 16, 1914, almost exactly a century ago. Three German warships had burst out of the fog bank and were now steaming past the headland, firing volley after volley of shells. One caught poor Beal and blasted his shattered body back down the drive. A second...

After nine decades in the business, the former collaborator of Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles is still looking for his next great role. The earliest surviving footage of broadcast television in America is a fragment of "The Streets of New York," an adaptation of playwright Dion Boucicault's 19th-century drama, aired by the experimental New York NBC affiliate W2XBS on August 31, 1939. All that now remains of the hour-long program is a silent, 11-minute kinescope, filmed off a TV screen and archived at the Paley Center For Media. And there, in those primitive flickering images, you can catch...

THE ULTIMATUM THAT MADE THE GREAT WAR A FOREGONE CONCLUSION / Austria-Hungary presents the Kingdom of Serbia with the "Impossible Ultimatum" 100 years ago July 23, 1914Aleksandra's Note: What follows is the impossible Austro-Hungarian ultimatum presented to the government of the Kingdom of Serbia on July 23, 1914, just over 3 weeks after the June 28th assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Fair historians have assessed this ultimatum as being both unreasonable and, more importantly, clearly intended to set Serbia up to fail to meet the demands, thus giving the green light for the war against the Serbs...

June 24th marks the 700th anniversary of the Scots’ defeat of the English at the Battle of Bannockburn, an event that drove the English army out of Scotland and firmly established Robert the Bruce as king. Although the war for Scottish independence wasn't over for another 14 years, this overwhelming victory of inferior Scottish forces is generally viewed as the event that secured Scotland's independence for the next 400 years. An outnumbered, ragtag band of patriots prevailing over a large, well-equipped national army has long been the favored narrative of insurrectionists of all ilks. June 28th marks the 100 anniversary...

First World War bomb kills two construction site workers 100 years after it was fired at Belgian battlefield • Armament was disturbed and exploded evacuation works at the site • Killed two and injured two, all construction workers working in the area • This area of Belgium is rife with unexploded bombs from the Great War • It is the former Flanders battleground where many shells were fired A First World War bomb killed two construction site workers when it exploded 100 years after being fired at a Belgian battlefield. The bomb had laid dormant for a century at an...

“Arthur Mann joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1914. His daughter-in-law says he was shot down by the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen – Arthur’s parachute caught in a tree. He also fought in the trenches – when Arthur was shot, the bullet bounced off this tin and saved his life. He also survived gassing, but this experience badly affected his long-term health. He died in 1953″ Explore Europeana 1914 – 1918

June 27, 2013 By Aleksandra Aleksandra's Note: Today is Thursday, June 27, 2013. Exactly 99 years ago today was the day before everything in the world changed forever. History tells us that it was a beautiful summer in 1914 - everything a summer should be. The peaceful atmosphere in Europe had only 24 hours left. The next day, June 28, 1914 was Vidovdan, a most sacred day in Serbian history. It was also the day that an Austrian Archduke and his wife would come visiting and go for a carriage ride in a city in Bosnia. It was a day...

The Century 1914 On the book The Century 1914 by Dominique Venner (Pygmalion, 2006). The author answers the questions of the journalist Pauline Lecomte. In publishing The Age of 1914 , Dominique Venner offered an impressive historical synthesis which is a culmination of all his works, and proposed a new interpretation of the European history in the twentieth century. To summarize this book is impossible. Everyone will make their own interpretations. It provides a detailed analysis of the great revolutionary movements and major conflicts of the twentieth century. It contains a broad meditations on history, politics and great actors. It...