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| "Flock" of WW I era airplanes |
Fine and barely melting.
Worked a little on Pa's gas invention. Stayed for public affairs club and we had a short session. Decided to have our picture in The Hesperian [yearbook]. Home and Walt and I monkeyed around all afternoon. Read paper, got lessons, took bath, and to bed.
Still fighting in Europe. The Eastern armys are not progressing very much either way. In the West Germany is pushing Russia back. German warships have been cleared from the seas, but she has been very daring and has done considerable damage with her submarines. She also made a raid on the English coast, bombarding a few towns. Today I see a squad of 41 British and French flying machines has made a raid on German bases "etc". It must be great to see a flock of war aeroplanes like that sailing through the air.
Germany has declared a blockade on English ports which goes into effect tonight. On the other hand England has determined to put her whole fighting strength to work and blocked Germany and squelch them. She has only been using 1/3 of her resources so far.
Feb. 18, 1915
Warm and rather slushy.
Home and sat up until 11:30 writing a debate
Wikipedia description: For the first few months of the war, U-boat anticommerce actions observed the "prize rules" of the time, which governed the treatment of enemy civilian ships and their occupants. On 20 October 1914, SM U-17 sank the first merchant ship, the SS Glitra, off Norway.[8] Surface commerce raiders were proving to be ineffective, and on 4 February 1915, the Kaiser assented to the declaration of a war zone in the waters around the British Isles. This was cited as a retaliation for British minefields and shipping blockades. Under the instructions given to U-boat captains, they could sink merchant ships, even potentially neutral ones, without warning.
In February 1915, a submarine U-6 (Lepsius) was rammed and both periscopes were destroyed off Beachy Head by the collier SS Thordis commanded by Captain John Bell RNR after firing a torpedo.[9] On 7 May 1915, SM U-20 sank the liner RMS Lusitania. The sinking claimed 1,198 lives, 128 of them American civilians, and the attack of this unarmed civilian ship deeply shocked the Allies. According to the ship's manifest, Lusitania was carrying military cargo, though none of this information was relayed to the citizens of Britain and the United States who thought that the ship contained no ammunition or military weaponry whatsoever and it was an act of brutal murder. Munitions that it carried were thousands of crates full of ammunition for rifles, 3-inch artillery shells, and also various other standard ammunition used by infantry. The sinking of the Lusitania was widely used as propaganda against the German Empire and caused greater support for the war effort. A widespread reaction in the U.S was not seen until the attack on the ferry SS Sussex which carried many citizens of the United States of America.
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