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New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 April-September, 1915 — Edition Insights

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Authors: Various Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2005 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: World War, 1914-1918 Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

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Words 118,678

Reading time 516 min

Text sections 15

The source record for New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 April-September, 1915 — Edition Insights measures this digital text at 118,678 words, 8 hr 36 min estimated reading time, and 15 detected text sections.

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This volume of the New York Times Current History compiles primary documents, speeches, and reports from the first months of 1915, including Germany's war zone decree, Russian Duma speeches, and accounts of Zeppelin raids, offering a contemporary journalistic perspective on the European War.

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THE EUROPEAN WAR, VOLUME II

April, 1915-September, 1915

New York The New York Times Company

NUMBER I. APRIL, 1915.

GERMANY'S WAR ZONE AND NEUTRAL FLAGS 1 The German Decree and Interchange of Notes

GERMANY'S SUBMARINE WAR (With Map) 20

GERMAN PEOPLE NOT BLINDED 22 By Karl Lamprecht

REVEILLE 24 By John Galsworthy

CAN GERMANY BE STARVED OUT? 25 An Answer by Sixteen German Specialists

HOCH DER KAISER (Poem) 28 By George Davies

THE SUBMARINE OF 1578 29

THE TORPEDO (Poem) 30 By Katherine D.M. Simons, Jr.

"GOD PUNISH ENGLAND, BROTHER" 31 A New Hymn of Germany's Gospel of Hatred

THE GREAT HOUR (Poem) 32 By Hermann Sudermann

THE PEACE OF THE WORLD 33 By H.G. Wells

ZEPPELIN RAIDS ON LONDON (With Map) 46 By the Naval Correspondent of The London Times

JULIUS CAESAR ON THE AISNE 48

SIR JOHN FRENCH'S OWN STORY (With Map) 49 Continuing the Famous Dispatches of the British Commander

THE CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS 60 By Emile Verhaeren

MUSIC OF WAR 61 By Rudyard Kipling

AMERICA AND A NEW WORLD STATE 63 By Norman Angell

SIR CHRISTOPHER CRADOCK (Poem) 84 By John E. Dolson

BATTLE OF THE SUEZ CANAL (With Map) 85 First-hand Account of the Turkish Invasion

A FULL-FLEDGED SOCIALIST STATE 89 By J. Laurence Laughlin

LETTERS FROM WIVES 92

NO PREMATURE PEACE FOR RUSSIA 93 Proceedings at Opening of the Duma, Feb. 9

TO THE VICTOR BELONG THE SPOILS (Poem) 96 By Madeleine Lucette Ryley

LESSONS OF THE WAR TO MARCH NINTH 97 By Charles W. Eliot

BELGIUM'S KING AND QUEEN 100 By Paul Hervieu

THE EUROPEAN WAR AS SEEN BY CARTOONISTS 101

THE CHANCES OF PEACE AND THE PROBLEM OF POLAND (With Map) 123 By J. Ellis Barker

THE REDEMPTION OF EUROPE (Poem) 128 By Alfred Noyes

GERMANY WILL END THE WAR 129 By Maximilian Harden

LOUVAIN'S NEW STREETS 133

THE STATE OF HOLLAND 134 By Hendrik Willem van Loon

HUNGARY AFTER THE WAR (With Map) 137 By a Correspondent of The London Times

THE WATCHERS OF THE TROAD (Poem) 139 By Harry Lyman Koopman

THE UNION OF CENTRAL EUROPE 140 By Franz von Liszt

TWO POOR LITTLE BELGIAN FLEDGLINGS 143 By Pierre Loti

WHAT THE GERMANS DESIRE 144 By Gustaf Sioesteen

ADDRESS TO KING ALBERT OF BELGIUM 147 By Emile Verhaeren

FORESHADOWING A NEW PHASE OF WAR 148 By Lloyd George, British Chancellor of the Exchequer

BRITAIN'S UNSHEATHED SWORD 153 By H.H. Asquith, England's Prime Minister

SWEDEN'S SCANDINAVIAN LEADERSHIP (With Map) 160 By a Swedish Political Expert

FROM ENGLAND (Poem) 164 By Maurice Hewlett

WAR CORRESPONDENCE 165

THE DRAGON'S TEETH (Poem) 181 By Caroline Duer

THE GREATEST OF CAMPAIGNS (With Map) 182 The French Official Account

BY THE NORTH SEA (Poem) 185 By W.L. Courtney

WHEN MARTHE CHENAL SANG THE "MARSEILLAISE" 187 By Wythe Williams

A WAR OF COMMERCE TO FOLLOW 189 By Sir William Ramsay

BELGIUM (Poem) 192 By Edith Wharton

DESIRED PEACE TERMS FOR EUROPE 193 By Proponents for the Allies and for Germany

THE BRITISH VOLUNTEERS (Poem) 195 By Katherine D.M. Simons, Jr.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE WAR 196

Germany's War Zone and Neutral Flags

The German Decree and Interchange of Notes Answering American Protests to Germany and Britain

_BERLIN, Feb. 4, (by wireless to Sayville, L.I.)--The German Admiralty today issued the following communication:_

The waters around Great Britain and Ireland, including the whole English Channel, are declared a war zone on and after Feb. 18, 1915.

Every enemy merchant ship found in this war zone will be destroyed, even if it is impossible to avert dangers which threaten the crew and passengers.

Also neutral ships in the war zone are in danger, as in consequence of the misuse of neutral flags ordered by the British Government on Jan. 31, and in view of the hazards of naval warfare, it cannot always be avoided that attacks meant for enemy ships endanger neutral ships.

Shipping northward, around the Shetland Islands, in the eastern basin of the North Sea, and a strip of at least thirty nautical miles in breadth along the Dutch coast, is endangered in the same way.

AMERICAN NOTE TO GERMANY.

_The Secretary of State has instructed Ambassador Gerard at Berlin to present to the German Government a note to the following effect:_

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This volume of the New York Times Current History, dated April 1915, collects official decrees, diplomatic notes, parliamentary speeches, and war correspondence from the first year of the European War. Unlike a retrospective history, it presents documents as they appeared to contemporary readers: Germany's declaration of a war zone around Britain, Russian Foreign Minister Sazanof's address to the Duma denying German allegations of pogroms, and Sir John French's own account of the fighting. The catalog subject "World War, 1914-1918" accurately describes the content, but the excerpts reveal a narrower focus on the spring of 1915, with an emphasis on legal justifications, propaganda rebuttals, and national morale rather than battlefield tactics.

Official Declarations and Diplomatic Exchanges

The opening pages reproduce the German Admiralty's February 4, 1915, communication declaring the waters around Great Britain and Ireland a war zone, effective February 18. The text states that "every enemy merchant ship found in this war zone will be destroyed," a policy that directly provoked neutral protests, particularly from the United States. The volume includes the subsequent interchange of notes between Germany and America, framing the submarine campaign as a legal and diplomatic issue. This section demonstrates how the magazine served as a primary-source repository for official statements, allowing readers to examine the precise wording of decrees and responses without editorial filtering.

Parliamentary Rhetoric and National Narratives

Russian Foreign Minister Sazanof's speech to the Duma, excerpted at length, illustrates how belligerent governments used parliamentary platforms to shape public opinion. Sazanof denies German claims that Russia began the war, citing "irrefutable documents" and accusing Germany of spreading "malevolent inventions" about Jewish pogroms. He asserts that the greatest devastation in Poland is the work of German and Austrian forces. The speech also references the "Orange Book" as proof of German treachery toward the Ottoman Empire. These passages reveal the rhetorical strategies of 1915: appeals to legal evidence, counter-accusations of propaganda, and efforts to maintain good relations with neutral powers like the United States.

War Correspondence and Human Dimensions

Beyond official documents, the volume includes correspondence and descriptive pieces such as "Letters From Wives" and "When Marthe Chenal Sang the 'Marseillaise.'" These shorter items offer glimpses into civilian experiences and morale. The table of contents lists titles like "Two Poor Little Belgian Fledglings" and "The Watchers of the Troad," suggesting a mix of sentimental and classical framing. While the excerpts do not include the full text of these pieces, their presence indicates that the magazine aimed to balance policy analysis with human-interest stories, reflecting the war's emotional impact on home fronts and occupied territories.

Readers approaching this volume should treat it as a curated archive of wartime journalism rather than a unified narrative. The juxtaposition of German decrees, Russian speeches, and British reports allows comparison of how each nation presented its case to the world. Because the excerpts are incomplete, inferences about the magazine's overall editorial stance should be drawn cautiously. The value lies in the raw material: primary documents that capture the language and arguments of 1915, before later interpretations solidified.

Leafing through that old New York Times Current History volume, I kept pausing on the civilian voices—the quiet, bewildered letters from border towns. It brought back a gentler ache I first felt reading Crawford's Defeat: A Tale of the Frontier in 1812 — Themes and Context. Both hold that strange intimacy of ordinary lives overtaken by distant decisions, the maps changed before anyone can pack a trunk.