Dimming of the Day

59 Austrian legation. ‘The occurrence,’ said The Times weightily, ‘is likely to assist admirably those persons on both sides of the frontier whose desire, to judge by the utterances of a certain section of the Austro-Hungarian and Servian press, seems to be to prevent the tranquillization of public opinion in either country.’ Which seems to be taking things rather lightly. The crucial question was the extent of official Serbian involvement with the assassin. It appeared probable that there was no top-level involvement though members of the Serbian armed forces had helped the assassins with their training and had helped them get into the country. It was all helping to strengthen the “war party” in Austria-Hungary (the Hungarian end of the dual monarchy being much less keen on war). Austria was preparing the ultimatum for Serbia (hampered by the fact that a large part of the Austrian army had gone off on the traditional “harvest leave”. Some historians suggest that France and Britain were unreasonably nonchalant about the prospects of war (and The Times certainly was); but two recent Balkan wars had been contained so why should this be any different? The answer to that for the moment was that Germany was supportive of any move by Austria to go to war against Serbia. Germany calculated that Russia would not get involved on Serbia’s behalf, and that England most certainly would not want to get into the action. There was a report from St Petersburg that an ‘unknown woman’ had fatally stabbed Rasputin (described by The Times as a ‘peasant fakir’). The news had been exaggerated: Rasputin had indeed been stabbed but he would recover. The Eton v Harrow match turned round with Harrow out for 146 in their second innings (R.A.C.Foster, later wounded when a Lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade, but who lived until 1916, taking four for 16) and Eton making 233-6, The Times singling out C.J.Hambro as a potential great batsman. Charles Hambro (of the banking family), though appearing in many minor matches for everyone from the Eton Ramblers to the Butterflies, never, in fact, played first-class cricket. He turned out for the Household Brigade against the Public Schools in August 1916 just before being sent out to the Western Front with the Coldstream Guards where he won the Military Cross. His last recorded game was for the Bank of England Governor’s XI against the Bank of England in 1931. There was an active day at Coalville where Worcestershire scored 223 (Frank Chester 93) and Leicestershire 174-3 of which Harry Whitehead made 103. Derbyshire made 431-8 against Lancashire (no Parkin this time). The Times saw the team selection for Gentlemen v Players at Lord’s as more important than the result of the game at the Oval. There Hobbs made 156 and Percy Jeeves took four for 41, ‘No bowler of today,’ said The Times , ‘achieves such speed with so little effort as Jeeves’ and it thought that he would very likely be successful in Australia. It was not to be: he was to die in action in 1916, though his surname was immortalised by P.G.Wodehouse. July 1914