A century

"[It] is a vast military centre and militarily defended city in every sense of the laws of war, written or unwritten, as applicable to aerial warfare. We have no wish to destroy indiscriminately or to injure or kill women and children, or other non-combatants"

Israel Spokesperson? Hamas spokesperson?

No, German Zeppelin commander in World War I, called Mathy, talking about London. This is a man who commanded a raid that killed 109 civilians exclusively by dropping small incendiary bombs on Russell Square, through Clerkenwell and on into Hoxton - densely populated civilian areas all. On Portpool Lane a high explosive bomb killed four children and injured six adults.

A night earlier, another Zeppelin had bombed its way along the Kingsland Road from 10,000'. No military targets were in view.

Mathy claimed the British had posted an anti-aircraft gun under Saint Paul's, trying to use a historic monument as a shield. The British deny this. Sounding familiar?

In fact, if you travel on the C2 bus, you pass Regent's Park barracks, and then, onwards a little, less than two hundred yards i.e. missing distance) is a Church and an Infants school. Is the British government cowardly hiding it's military installations in civilian areas? or doesn't that matter, they'll be bombed anyway.

From the comments...

It may be a half remembered anecdote - and thus embellished beyond recognition - but i seem to remember reading that the Glasgow ILPers who were part of the 1922 Parliamentary intake - Maxton, Wheatley, Kirkwood, Stephen etc - did more than chide themselves because they were convinced in later years that it was their votes that swung the leadership contest MacDonald's way against Clynes in '22.

If what they felt was true, then they contributed far more to Labour in Government then MacDonald ever thought imaginable.

Quoth the Ingrate in t'comments.

Yes, interestingly, reading about MacDonald for a talk I gave somewhere (Ramsay MacDonald: Bastard - was the title, for obvious reasons) I discovered that he came to power as the left-wing candidate. In 1914 he resigned the Labour leadership in order to oppose World War I. He was villified throughout, to the extent that John Bull magazine publicly revealled his bastardy.

In 1917, at a meeting in Leeds, MacDonald moved a resolution calling for the establishment of Workers' & Soldiers councils in the UK - MacDonald was calling for Soviets! Indeed, in his biography, Lloyd George called MacDonald "the British Kerensky."* Without a doubt, had Red Clydeside and the revolts of 1919 gone anywhere, MacDonald, would have come to head up a revolutionary government as a part of the left.

So, that's a moustacheod Scottish MP, who opposed a war coming to the forefront of the British left, only to cause mayhem by his tendency to renegadism. Where have I heard that one before?

Update Tsk! I forgot my own footnote.

*Intriguingly Alexander Kerensky, according to Wikipedia, is himself buried in Putney Vale cemetary, apparently, no Russian orthodox cemetaries in the US (where he died) would have him, blaming him for the Russian revolution.