Dimming of the Day

65 The question of the demands made on Serbia by Austria-Hungary was becoming larger: the dual monarchy was reported to believe that it had the support of Germany and indeed England, while it expected Russia to hold back. The Frankfurter Zeitung is quoted as saying that no attempt should be made to secure from public opinion a blank power of attorney in support of the Vienna government, especially as the wisdom of Viennese policy is by no means above suspicion. Nowhere was there unconditional enthusiasm. The conference on Ireland at Buckingham Palace had opened with a speech by the King. The stock market in London was beginning to get nervous and falling at bad news from Central Europe. At Headingley Yorkshire were pulling the game round: after a first-innings deficit of 86 they made 286 in their second innings. Alonzo Drake made 80 but there was controversy when he hit a return catch to Iremonger who tried to take the catch and throw the ball up in celebration, only for the umpire to decide that it had not been held long enough, and the game only continued after protests by the Nottinghamshire players and barracking from the crowd. J.W.H.T.Douglas made 118 (‘very slowly, as usual’) and then took four for 30 against Somerset. The Times gave MCC matches (certainly those played at Lord’s) as much attention as county games and on this occasion the club beat the Royal Artillery by six wickets, though there was resistance from Mr R.H.Allen who made 112 and Captain W.W.Jelf, 77. Both carried on playing for the RA after the war. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Wilfrid Jelf had played six games for Leicestershire in 1911: he managed only six runs in six innings and did not bowl. In the Daily Express the Caillaux trial got rather more front-page room than the King’s conference. Furthermore an American anarchist (a young woman) had gone on hunger strike and was to be tempted with chocolate, a technique apparently successful with wayward girls. J.W.H.T.Douglas was described as ‘the Essex batting machine’. The listed fixtures include a number of club matches (this on a Wednesday). On 23 July, 130,000 workers were idle in St Petersburg. The central European situation was not worth mentioning today, though an editorial in The Times about Poincare’s visit to Russia said it ‘should operate as a salutary warning to the ‘war parties’ in all the great countries against the danger of playing with fire.’ The Caillaux trial continued in Paris with dramatic interventions in all directions, straying into politics and allegations of secret documents found on the body of the late editor. France was transfixed (and to judge by the length of the reports in The Times and the other papers so was Britain). July 1914