Dimming of the Day

69 July 1914 apparently nowhere to go. A general meeting of members had been called. The Daily Express claimed that while county matches drew crowds of 500, 5,000 people were going to watch Worcester City FC in the Birmingham League. On 28 July, with what at this distance seems considerable complacency, The Times suggested that ‘the European situation is perceptibly less threatening than it was yesterday.’ Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, had said in Parliament that, The moment that this dispute ceases to be one between Austria- Hungary and Servia and involves another Great Power, it can but end in the greatest catastrophe that has ever befallen the continent of Europe at one blow. The Times , even more complacently, felt that such a warning issued by a British foreign minister in the British parliament would bring Europe to its senses. It was, it reported, the cause of some relief in Paris. Later, though, it reported the air of crisis in Paris, with the foreign ministry staff all still at their posts and anti-war demonstrators (put down by The Times as ‘syndicalists’) in the streets. The Times still believed, though, that Germany and France were ‘sincerely working for peace’ and that Austria-Hungary could be restrained. In many ways Ireland still looked a more precipitate danger, with shooting having started between troops and nationalists the day before. It quoted the New York Evening Post , which appeared to look forward to a European war on the basis that it would leave the world open to American domination (which turned out to be the case, as faithfully recorded at the end of 1066 and All That ). The Daily Express carried a substantial article by Lieutenant-Colonel Alsager Pollock, There are some people who fondly imagine that if a general war should break out in Europe this country might remain neutral. Such a delusion can seriously be indulged in by the insane. Arthur William Alsager Pollock, aged 61, was to take his battalion to France and be gassed at Loos in 1915, though he subsequently returned to HQ. It seems slightly odd for a serving soldier to express such a forthright opinion. Still, however, the paper’s main leader was about Ireland. Still there were more things in France to get excited about. M Caillaux had somehow got hold of a copy of the will of M Calmette, the deceased editor. This may or may not have been relevant in scenes more and more reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland as M Bernstein, the playwright, also made a dramatic intervention. On the Stock Exchange there was a slight rally late in the day but shares had been ‘very depressed’. The cricket page in The Times began with an article about the question