Memory Monday: First Week of June 1918 -- Down With the Kaiser!
by meep
In the June 7, 1918 issue of The Brewster Standard I saw only one possible suspicious death in the obituaries – a woman who died at age 46 of an unspecified illness. That said, they said death after a long illness… so it could have been all sorts of things, like tuberculosis.
Again, I’m not expecting to see any real Spanish Flu stories (if any) until about August or September. The people in these towns are far enough away from New York City proper, that I’d expect it to take some time to travel from there.
I GET THE FEELING THEY DON’T LIKE THE GERMANS
I’m not excerpting these whole pieces, but I think the headlines give the idea:
Yes, they are really picking up the rhetoric here. But wait — there’s more.
THEY REALLY HATE THE KAISER
The following is an ad for a movie:
And later in the paper is a non-ad describing the movie as a news item:
But wait, there’s one more ad:
Hmmm.
Wikipedia article on The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin:
The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin (also known as The Beast of Berlin and The Kaiser) was a 1918 American silent war propaganda melodrama film written by, directed by, and starring Rupert Julian. The film’s supporting cast included Elmo Lincoln, Nigel De Brulier, and Lon Chaney.1
The germanophobic film contains a propagandist view of the First World War, showing the political greed of the German Kaiser Wilhelm II, the resistance of some of his own soldiers, and fanciful prediction of the nature of the war’s end.2 The film is now considered lost.3
…..
Kaiser Wilhelm II of Hohenzollern (Rupert Julian) is a vain and arrogant tyrant eager for conquest. When Belgium is invaded by the German army during World War I, Marcas, the blacksmith (Elmo Lincoln), although wounded, is able to save his daughter from the clutches of a German soldier. Soon after this, the RMS Lusitania is sunk by Captain von Neigle (Nigel De Brulier), who ultimately is driven mad with remorse. After the United States declares war, the Allied generals turn the Kaiser over to Albert I of Belgium. Incarcerated, the Kaiser faces his jailer, Marcas the blacksmith.
What actually happened to the Kaiser after he lost?
Wikipedia section on Wilhelm’s abdication and exile:
Wilhelm was at the Imperial Army headquarters in Spa, Belgium, when the uprisings in Berlin and other centres took him by surprise in late 1918. Mutiny among the ranks of his beloved Kaiserliche Marine, the imperial navy, profoundly shocked him. After the outbreak of the German Revolution, Wilhelm could not make up his mind whether or not to abdicate. Up to that point, he accepted that he would likely have to give up the imperial crown, but still hoped to retain the Prussian kingship. However, this was impossible under the imperial constitution. While Wilhelm thought he ruled as emperor in a personal union with Prussia, the constitution actually tied the imperial crown to the Prussian crown, meaning that Wilhelm could not renounce one crown without renouncing the other.
…..
Wilhelm consented to the abdication only after Ludendorff’s replacement, General Wilhelm Groener, had informed him that the officers and men of the army would march back in good order under Paul von Hindenburg’s command, but would certainly not fight for Wilhelm’s throne on the home front. The monarchy’s last and strongest support had been broken, and finally even Hindenburg, himself a lifelong royalist, was obliged, with some embarrassment, to advise the Emperor to give up the crown.58
…..
On 10 November, Wilhelm crossed the border by train and went into exile in the Netherlands, which had remained neutral throughout the war.61 Upon the conclusion of the Treaty of Versailles in early 1919, Article 227 expressly provided for the prosecution of Wilhelm “for a supreme offence against international morality and the sanctity of treaties”, but the Dutch government refused to extradite him, despite appeals from the Allies. King George V wrote that he looked on his cousin as “the greatest criminal in history”, but opposed Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s proposal to “hang the Kaiser”. President Woodrow Wilson of the United States opposed extradition, arguing that prosecuting Wilhelm would destabilize international order and lose the peace.62
Anyway, he stayed in exile in the Netherlands for the rest of his life, and he died in 1941, at age 82.
GUILT-TRIPPING CUSTOMERS WITH THE WAR
Pay your phone bill on time, dammit! Do you want us to lose the war?!
Don’t buy cheap gas! Do you want us to lose the war?!
WORK OR ELSE
Evidently this was a proclamation by the governor of New York — hey men, between ages 18 to 50 — don’t be slackers! OR WE’LL FINE YOU.
I assume the idle rich were not targeted by this. But it was a great way to deal with hobos.
And don’t be thinking you’ll be getting a soft job:
I’m not sure what these supposed soft jobs with the Department of Agriculture were. Inspections?
MISSED IT BY THIIIIIS MUCH
And finally, an ad that missed its proper publication date by a few weeks:
Memorial Day was at the end of May back in 1918 just as it was in 2018. Not sure if they had submitted the ad much earlier, but it didn’t get placed in the newspaper until much later… of if some idiot walked it in on Memorial Day itself, not understanding how these things work.
That’s all from this week’s newspaper!
