Half past three was heard booming from some clock tower on the twelfth
day of June, 1913, when Mr. King, the Liberal representative from
Somerset, was given the floor in the House of Commons. Mr. King
proceeded to make a sensation.
He demanded that McKinnon Wood, the House Secretary for Scotland,
reveal to the House the secrets of the strange case of Armgaard Karl
Graves, German spy.
A brief word of explanation may be necessary. Supposed to be serving
a political sentence in a Scotch prison, I had amazed the English
press and people by publicly announcing my presence in New York City.
Mr. King asked if I was still undergoing imprisonment for espionage;
if not, when and why I was released and whether I had been or would be
deported at the end of my term of imprisonment as an undesirable
alien.

Sku: germanwar

While making some researches in the evolution of women’s rights, I was
impressed by the fact that no one had ever, as far as I could discover,
attempted to give a succinct account of the matter for English-speaking
nations. Indeed, I do not believe that any writer in any country has
essayed such a task except Laboulaye; and his _Recherches sur la
Condition Civile et Politique des Femmes_, published in 1843, leaves
much to be desired to one who is interested in the subject to-day.
I have, therefore, made an effort to fill a lack. This purpose has been
strengthened as I have reflected on the great amount of confused
information which is absorbed by those who have no time to make
investigations for themselves. Accordingly, in order to present an
accurate historical review, I have cited my authorities for all
statements regarding which any question could be raised.

Sku: womenrightshistory

William the Second, German Emperor and King of Prussia, Burgrave of
Nuernberg, Margrave of Brandenburg, Landgrave of Hessen and Thuringia,
Prince of Orange, Knight of the Garter and Field-Marshal of Great
Britain, etc., was born in Berlin on January 27, 1859, and ascended
the throne on June 15, 1888. He is, therefore, fifty-four years old
in the present year of his Jubilee, 1913, and his reign–happily yet
unfinished–has extended over a quarter of a century.
The Englishman who would understand the Emperor and his time must
imagine a country with a monarchy, a government, and a people–in
short, a political system–almost entirely different from his own. In
Germany, paradoxical though it may sound to English ears, there
is neither a government nor a people. The word “government” occurs
only once in the Imperial Constitution, the Magna Charta of modern
Germans, which in 1870 settled the relations between the Emperor and
what the Englishman calls the “people,” and then only in an
unimportant context joined to the word “federal.”
In Germany, instead of “the people” the Englishman speaks

Sku: williamgermany

This the patriarchal gentleman in the Hotel Metropole whispered to
me about a month after the Germans had captured Brussels. They
had taken away his responsibilities as President of the Belgian
Red Cross, so that now he had naught to do but to sit upon the
lobby divan, of which he covered much, being of extensive girth.
But no more extensive than his heart, from which radiated a genial
glow of benevolence to all–all except the invaders, the sight or
mention of whom put harshness in his face and anger in his voice.
“Scabbard-rattler!” he mumbled derisively, as an officer
approached. “Clicks his spurs to get attention! Wants you to look
at him. Don’t you do it. I never do.” He closed his eyes tightly, as if
in sleep.
Oftentimes he did not need to feign his slumber. But sinking slowly
down into unconsciousness his native gentleness would return
and a smile would rest upon his lips; I doubt not that in his dreams
the Green-Gray troops of Despotism were ridden down by the Blue
and Red Republicans of France.

Sku: clawsgerman

THE LINE
Form a line!
Get in line!
From the time that I enlisted
And since Jerry armististed
I’ve been standing, kidding, cussing,
I’ve been waiting, fuming, fussing,
In a line.
I have stood in line in mud and slime and sleet,
With the dirty water oozing from my feet,
I have soaked and slid and slipped,
While my tacky slicker dripped,
And I wondered what they’d hand me out to eat.

Sku: iwastherewiththeyanks1

France, when she undertook the creation of a Bourbon empire beyond the
seas, was the first nation of Europe. Her population was larger than
that of Spain, and three times that of England. Her army in the days
of Louis Quatorze, numbering nearly a half-million in all ranks, was
larger than that of Rome at the height of the imperial power. No
nation since the fall of Roman supremacy had possessed such resources
for conquering and colonizing new lands. By the middle of the
seventeenth century Spain had ceased to be a dangerous rival; Germany
and Italy were at the time little more than geographical expressions,
while England was in the throes of the Puritan Revolution.

Sku: crusadersofnewfrance

My first experience of country life in France, about thirty years ago,
was in a fine old chateau standing high in pretty, undulating, wooded
country close to the forest of Villers-Cotterets, and overlooking the
great plains of the Oise–big green fields stretching away to the
sky-line, broken occasionally by little clumps of wood, with steeples
rising out of the green, marking the villages and hamlets which, at
intervals, are scattered over the plains, and in the distance the blue
line of the forest. The chateau was a long, perfectly simple, white
stone building. When I first saw it, one bright November afternoon, I
said to my husband as we drove up, “What a charming old wooden house!”
which remark so astonished him that he could hardly explain that it
was all stone, and that no big houses (nor small, either) in France
were built of wood. I, having been born in a large white wooden house
in America, couldn’t understand why he was so horrified at my
ignorance of French architecture.

Sku: chateauandcountry1

We good Americans – I say it without presumption
- are too apt to think that France is Paris, just as we
are accused of being too apt to think that Paris is the
celestial city. This is by no means the case, fortunately
for those persons who take an interest in modern
Gaul, and yet are still left vaguely unsatisfied by that
epitome of civilization which stretches from the Arc
de Triomphe to the Gymnase theatre. It had already
been intimated to the author of these light pages that
there are many good things in the _doux pays de France_
of which you get no hint in a walk between those
ornaments of the capital; but the truth had been revealed
only in quick-flashing glimpses, and he was
conscious of a desire to look it well in the face.

Sku: alittletourinfrance1

Powerful story in a 110 page novel that you can print out & enjoy. Only $1!

Marie Gessler, known as Marie Chaumontel, Jeanne d’Avrechy, the Countess
d’Aurillac, was German. Her father, who served through the
Franco-Prussian War, was a German spy. It was from her mother she
learned to speak French sufficiently well to satisfy even an Academician
and, among Parisians, to pass as one. Both her parents were dead. Before
they departed, knowing they could leave their daughter nothing save
their debts, they had had her trained as a nurse. But when they were
gone, Marie in the Berlin hospitals played politics, intrigued,
indiscriminately misused the appealing, violet eyes. There was a
scandal; several scandals. At the age of twenty-five she was dismissed
from the Municipal Hospital, and as now–save for the violet eyes–she
was without resources, as a _compagnon de voyage_ with a German doctor
she travelled to Monte Carlo. There she abandoned the doctor for Henri
Ravignac, a captain in the French Aviation Corps, who, when his leave
ended, escorted her to Paris.

110 pages of goodness!

Sku: somewhereinfrance1